> I just kept reparsing and trying to error correct that sentence over and over until it finally sunk in that yes, they are saying Matlab is actually the name of a place in Bangladesh.

I'm Bengali, and I looked up the spelling of the name. It looks like it's spelled মতলব, which means it's pronounced more like "Motlobe" (the second "o" is halfway between "lob" and "lobe"). It means "plan" or "project", which I'm guessing refers to some attempt at creating a township at some point (or being named after a place that was).

For reasons, Bengali words are often transliterated in the Sanskrit form, which means that the spelling doesn't really always represent their actual pronunciation. (This is why people often have a harder time pronouncing my name when they see it spelled out in English, because the final syllable is transliterated according to Sanskrit, but pronounced differently. It's sort of like -ough as a suffix in English.)

And I can imagine a small techie tourism trade for people who want to say, "Yeah. I've been to Matlab. For two weeks, I breathed it, ate in it, and slept in it."

I saw the same sentence and immediately thought it was funny (because Matlab with bad data produces poor results). I'm sure that the reporter has no idea there's a software product by that name and so including the fact that this city has good data didn't seem odd at all.

More interesting, I believe it is the Arabic word (متطلب) which means Requirement, or possibly Farsi مطلب which means Subject or Question.

https://translate.google.com/#ar/en/%D9%85%D8%AA%D8%B7%D9%84...

https://translate.google.com/#fa/en/%D9%85%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A8

Conversationally it's used more like Meaning. https://translate.google.com/#hi/en/%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4...

In Farsi, it is used similarly, as in Subject Matter/Topic.

In Urdu, matlab can mean intent or purpose, probably derived from Farsi.

I came back just to say the same! It is fascinating.

And Matlab has access to good data.

Well of course it does, it's a lab!