Shaving Yaktoseconds

An amalgam of "yak shaving" and "shaving yoctoseconds". This line is commonly mistranscribed as "shaving yoctoseconds".

"Yoctoseconds" - Second smallest unit of time, above the Planck time.

"Yak shaving" - A term often used by programmers to mean a chain of useless activity that is prerequisite to a desired task. Can also mean intentional non-essential procrastination.

References:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/34775/correct-definition-of-the-term-yak-shaving

The line in the show could be interpreted as the team toiling away at even the most miniscule and seemingly-useless tasks to achieve tiny speed improvements.

"We're about shaving yaktoseconds off latency for every layer in the stack." -Gilfoyle

Added by derek9458 over 9 years ago