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Time for a fresh start
THE start of a new year seems the perfect time to make a fresh start. That is
precisely what I am doing. As you read this, I have abandoned my PC, my Net connection, my
bookmarks, my FTP, my Web site, my TV, my phone, even my faithful microwave, to rough it
on Rottnest sans technology.
A fresh start is needed. A week without relying on Microsoft and wondering what Windows 98
has done with my settings. Seven days without hearing the mind-numbing "Barmy
Army" chant on TV.
The first act in this fresh start is to come clean and eat some humble pie . . . alright,
grovel. Last week I wrote tongue-in-cheek about the Y2K bug not hitting until 2048 because
K was K as in kilobytes and therefore meant 1024 and not 1000.
A reader e-mailed me before the ink had dried on his newspaper. Quite correctly he pointed
out that Y2K (with a big K) meant 2048, but Y2k (with a little k) was the right way to
address the 2000 problem.
"I would interpret Y2k to mean Year 2000, because 'k' is the suffix for the SI
(Systeme International d'Unites) multiple of 1000, as used in scientific and mathematical
fields and is where kilogram (1000 grams) comes from," he wrote. "However, note
that it is a lowercase 'k'. In computing fields the 'kilo-' prefix means 1024 because this
makes more sense in base 2 environment. Usually this 'kilo-' prefix is displayed as
capital 'K'.
"Mind you, this is a whimsical difference probably caused by aesthetics or my
programmers being confused because higher powers of 10 (mega, giga, tera, peta) use
capital letters in their suffixes (M, G, T, P respectively). Smaller multiple like hecto,
deca, milli use lowercase letters (h, da, m, respectively)."
"I suggest that if we use Y2k instead of Y2K there can be no confusion."
I would just like to say thanks a million . . . but I am not sure of the correct suffix
and its use. And I would like to add that the reader was a Mac user and almost certainly
immune from either Y2k or Y2K problems.
Grovel number two refers to a column earlier in December where I said I could not find
official UK press releases by Prime Minister Tony Blair. This led to a churlish casting of
aspersions on the UK's right to be called a democracy.
A reader promptly told me how misguided I was and pointed out that the UK has just as open
a Web-based press release system as the White House in the US and Prime Minister John
Howard here. You will find the Number 10
Downing Street site a lot more refreshing than the bureaucratically-inclined Central
Office of Information.
Grovels three and four concern the iMac and AOL which I harangued, also in December. My Windows PC on
its normal Net connection would not play a particular Macromedia Flash site for me no
matter how many times I installed the plug-in.
It worked first time on the little iMac at work, though. Then it worked at home through a
trial AOL connection, using the Big Brother-like ISP's proprietary browser.
Now I am off to play solitaire . . . with real cards.
All articles Copyright: © West Australian Newspapers |
