Re: CHAT: browsers

En réponse à Tristan <kesuari@...>:

>
> VMWare is a virtual computer, not a Windows system. You can run Linux,
> FreeBSD, DOS, OPENSTEP, OS/2, Windows and many others under it.
>
OK. Still, I find it quite useless under Windows, since it must then inherit
the instability of Windows itself ;)) .

>
> True, but I still don't think it counts.
>
Well, it depends if you consider that the DLLs are part of the program or of
its environment.

>
> What do you mean by 'largely fit in a floppy'? I understand that
> phrase
> to mean that most of the browsers (taken as individuals), all the
> relevant bits perhaps, could fit on the floppy.
>
That's what it meant. XANA for instance is 386KB. 32bit Web Browser is 373KB.
Web Browser Lite is 167KB. Tiff Tools Web Browser is 160KB. You can already put
those four in a single floppy and still have place :)) .

>
> Even still, I betcha you meant kibibytes.
If "kibi" is the stupid-sounding never-used prefix that's supposed to mean
1024, then yes.

 And you could be right about
> that, but you were trying to describe a browser as incredibly small,
> so
> it was possible. (Talking of a 60 Gb hard drive, on the other hand, is
> unambiguous.)
>
Yes indeed. :)

>
> I doubt even that with all the linkage and suchlike.
>
I knew Windows was unefficient, but that bad?

>
> You have. In fact, I think most of the times I've seen you write about
> bytes you've used 'o'.
>
Show me an example. I've done a quick browser at the archives and the last time
I've found myself using 'o' for "byte" was in 2001 (exactly in March 2001, when
I first proposed to provide webspace for anyone who wanted it). The post is
here:
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0103A&L=conlang&P=R4357
The only messages appearing later where I used Ko and Mo are messages whose
subject was about those very abbreviations (and I was not the one who had
caused that discussion ;)) ), so they don't count.

>
> I'm still not a fan of ambiguity in measurements. It almost defeats
> the
> purpose of them.
>
Yep, but the ambiguity stays extremely rare, rarer than in normal speech anyway.

> (And at this point, if you'll pardon my digression, I'll digress. In
> Australia, icecream is labelled in litre and honey in grams. Icecream
> is
> a solid object and honey is a liquid. In America, do you use fluid
> ounzes for icecream and solid ounzes for honey? My parents can't
> remember what happened in Australia before the convesion.)
>
I know that in Europe Icecream is indeed counted in liters too. It is argued
that icecream is not "really" a solid (it's true that at ambient temperature
it's rather liquid ;)) ) and when it's packed it's still in liquid form. Also,
liters are measures of volume (synonymous with cubic decimeters), so they can
be used with solids as well as liquids (and gases). The fact that they are used
normally only with fluids is due only to habit, not to the deep meaning of the
liter. As for honey, it's indeed normally sold in grams, but that's because
it's packed most often in glass jars, which are normally weighted rather than
measured for volume. Here again, it's a matter of habit. And since the gram is
a measure of weight, you can measure whatever you want with grams, including
liquids.

>
> Again, context mostly sorts it out, at least for consumers.
True enough. The problem here is that there's an official distinction, while I
don't think there are official texts about the right use of abbreviations in
the computer world.

 Obviously
> there are times when you'll need to get it right, but I don't think
> anyone's going to assume a bridge has a maximum clearence of 3 molar
> (a
> measurement of dilution (moles per litre or something like that),
I thought it was referring to teeth! ;))))

 has
> the symbol of M, reminds me of our year 11 chemistry exam, one of the
> multi-choice questions being 'what is the symbol for megamolar?', the
> options being mM, Mm, MM and mm). Oh, and that's another nastiness.
> Mega-, milli-, metre and molar shouldn't all have the same symbol,
> even
> if they're distinguished by position and by capitalisation, as long as
> there are symbols like mol that are three (lower-case) letters long.
I didn't know about the molar, and yet I've followed one of the most complete
course in Chemistry there is in France. I guess it must be a quirk of the
Australian education. The standard measure of concentration around here stays
the mole per litre: mol/L or mol.L-1.

>
> I don't think it matters whether or not people pay attention, it's
> still
> nasty making capitalisation the only difference in meaning.
Why? Unless your particular form of Latin alphabet doesn't have capitalisation,
I don't see the problem. Capitals and small letters are different enough.

 (And no,
> I'm
> no more happy with Polish vs polish than I am with MM vs mm.)
>
I'll never understand what people have against capitalisation. I don't like all-
capital text, but apart from that I like capitals. They are the spice on the
meat :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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