On Thu, September 30, 2010 11:32 pm, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>    Thanks Chris for your kind answer.
>
>    You see I'm not a current geek. I'm a declared newbie who thinks of
> SSD as Social Security Disability.

Ah.  Yeah, acronym re-use is a problem.  The big joke when I was working
in certain Engineering circles was "oh, you belong to the UAA."  Someone
would ask "UAA?"  Answer: "Use All Acronyms."

Unfortunately, acronyms eventually "become the thing" rather than standing
for a thing.  For instance, I used to work in a place that had a "RADAR
department" -- as in everyone in that department worked on RADARs.  So one
day someone I know went to every person in the department and asked (who
knew what it meant): "So what does RADAR stand for?"  Out of everyone in
the department, only the last engineer that was asked knew the answer. 
[It stands for "RAdio Detection And Ranging".]

The vocabulary in tech circles is almost always confusing, IMHO.  And
unfortunately each niche seems to have it's own vocabulary that goes with
it.

   -- Chris

--

Chris Knadle
[email protected]

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