You know you're an SF reader

[ksmith]

...when you read a post in another newsgroup entitled "jump drive help" and you wonder if they need assistance figuring out the physics for their spacecraft.

Comments

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

"flash" refers to a specific type of microcircuitry used for storing data, and it's not the only type of storage used in the plug-in/pull out USB drives, there are some drives that use tiny hard drives. "jump" refers, rather whimsically, to the face that one plugs the drive into a USB port, gets the data load, pulls in out, and plugs it into the USB port of a different computer, jumping between or among machines.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're quite right. But just like "coke" (at least down here) refers to any kind of carbonated soda/pop/soft drink, "flash" has come to mean, for a lot of folks, those little hard drives you carry in your pockets and stick in USB ports.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

But, but, but... the "thumb drives," the "pen drives" (I actually have one that's part of a pen barrel, alas, the pen part no longer works properly, but the memory part does), etc., are mostly flash (to get more technical, I think they use EEPROM -- Extended Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory--yeah, probably that goes beyond most people's interest level, the "flash" IIRC involves UV light or some such for what used to be known as "bulk erasing"). The miniaturized hard drives (a business invented and started by IBM and then sold off to I think Hitachi...) are somewhat bulkier, they don't fit into pens, or on keychains or lanyards, and are larger than e.g. "thumb"-sized.

There are terminology issues... and the last I heard, Coca-Cola and Pepsi still sent out people to defend their trademarks and legally enforce them, lest they lose them out to publicsloppyspiek the way Bayer lost Aspirin as a trademark.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Yes. Doesn't change the fact that people still call them flash drives. They're just little flash drives.

And Coke is up a creek if they think they're ever going to get people to stop calling all soft drinks 'cokes'. :-) It covers a fairly huge region.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether someone gets hauled into court to be made an example of... Coke doesn't have to do it to everyone, just randomly selected establishment owners (ASCAP/BMI does the same thing about music, it will e.g. send someone into an area who will pick three restaurants/bars to go into and check for licensing for music they're playing. If they haven't paid the fees, it can get extremely expensive for them. One fellow sued saying that his establishment was in effect being singled out for abuse because the other same type of establishments nearby didn't get investigated and sued. He lost the legal battle on the subject, along with losing the case about not having the license for playing music under ASCAP/BMI protection.

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Possibly the worst example of me being overly geek was the day I was at a supermarket checkout stand seeing a Woman's Day or Family Circle with one of the cover articles noted as "Seven Ways to Do Windows." Guess what I initially thought....

"Oh, look, they're telling their readers about the Windows Operating System." Er, no, it dawned on me after a minute or so, "Duh, they're talking about see-through glass installations in houses and things like curtains, blind, shades, etc.!"

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about private citizens. Coke can *try* to sue me for calling "Dr. Pepper" a Coke, but I doubt there's a court in the land that would A. take the case, B. not end up laughing Coke out of said court.