Etymology

Orac was the artificial intelligence supercomputer which formed part of the crew of Liberator in the 1970's BBC si-fi series Blakes' 7. Famously irascible, Orac was terse, short-tempered, and frequently unhelpful, but too valuable and useful to get rid of. Many developers of the ORAC code might suggest that this is not an entirely inaccurate description of our beloved algorithm...