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Yak shaving is a term coined by Carlin Vieri at the MIT AI Lab and occurs when someone (prototypically a graduate student), spends time on a stupid small task that appears to be a waste of time, but that connects, through a long, arcane chain of causality to the person's larger life goals (prototypically, a thesis).

It was made famous in an email sent to the AI Lab's GSB (Girl Scout Benefit or Graduate Student Beer) mailing list by Jeremey Brown in Februrary, 2000. See http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb2000-02-11.html

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	Yak shaving is a term coined by Carlin Vieri at the MIT AI Lab and occurs when someone (prototypically a graduate student), spends time on a stupid small task that appears to be a waste of time, but it connects, through a long, arcane chain of causality to the person's larger life goals (prototypically, a thesis).		Yak shaving is a term coined by Carlin Vieri at the MIT AI Lab and occurs when someone (prototypically a graduate student), spends time on a stupid small task that appears to be a waste of time, but that connects, through a long, arcane chain of causality to the person's larger life goals (prototypically, a thesis).

	It was made famous in an email sent to the AI Lab's GSB (Girl Scout Benefit or Graduate Student Beer) mailing list by Jeremey Brown in Februrary, 2000. See http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb2000-02-11.html		It was made famous in an email sent to the AI Lab's GSB (Girl Scout Benefit or Graduate Student Beer) mailing list by Jeremey Brown in Februrary, 2000. See http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gsb2000-02-11.html