Re: CHAT: browsers

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> 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 ;)) .
I think you're being overly hard on Windows there. A well-kept Windows
XP installation isn't all that crashable.

>>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.
I think to classify as a browser, it has to come with its own rendering
engine. Otherwise it's merely a browsing interface.

>>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 :)) .
Then you misunderstood me. If BloggsBrowse was 1.45 MB, but if you could
remove the options dialog it would be 1.37 MB, and SmithBrowse was 1.2
MB, and suchlike they would largely fit.

>>Even still, I betcha you meant kibibytes.
>
>
> If "kibi" is the stupid-sounding never-used prefix that's supposed to mean
> 1024, then yes.
I use it. I'm not a great fan of ambiguity or misuse of prefixes, remember?

>>I doubt even that with all the linkage and suchlike.
>
> I knew Windows was unefficient, but that bad?
We're talking about fifty kilobits here. That's about six bytes. Give it
some credit!

>>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.
Well, maybe it was in the latex-for-conlangers list, and I can't
convince either Mozilla or Yahoo! Groups to search with whole word only,
so a search for 'Mo' gives me anything with, say, 'more' or 'movie',
which is incredibly useless.

>>(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
If there's one US spelling I can't stand (and there is), it's 'liter'. I
always read it as 'lighter'.

> 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.
Yeah, I am well aware of the fact that you can measure things in either
litres or grams without regard to whether they're solid or liquid. I'm
just wondering if fluid ounzes are used to measure fluids (by
convention) or if it's just a name.

>>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.
Yeah, and the French always obey the Acadamie Franczais?

> 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.
Well, it's defined at <http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=molar>,* which
is American, so if it is a quirk, it's a quirk of English. (It's called
an adjective, but I don't know what part of speech you'd call a
measurement.) And most of one lesson and bits and pieces of some others
were devoted to getting the difference between molar, M, mole, and mol
right. I never understood why you'd bother having 'mol' when you could
just as well have 'mole'.

*And at
<http://www.macnet.mq.edu.au:8008/anonymous3864438891+2/-/macshowrecord/1/2>
(I hope; if not <http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au>, search for
'molar', it's the second one. An incredibly apalling interface) which is
less ambiguous in its Chemistry definition, but it's Australian, so it
doesn't count.

>>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.
Tell that to the new generation of IM-ing, SMS-ing writers. They don't
have capitalisation unless the phone they're using defaults to it for
the first character entered (like mine).

>  (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 :)) .
I have nothing against capitalisation, but each letter is only in the
alphabet once, so it should only have one meaning. (No-one say anything
about the one-to-one rules of some languages or I'll hit you with a stick!)

Tristan.

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