Obvious But They Really Oughta Know Better

Okay, this post shows a little more about what I do at work. Last time, I described a conversation about satellites, hinting that I work on communication systems, which happens to be the case. This time, I'll again reveal a little more, describing part of an article I read at work. This shows that as part of my job I need to understand some fairly esoteric issues with regard to technology.

In an article on the SSWUG website, Ben Taylor wrote about virtual machines. Click here for the article. In this technology context, "virtual" means "acts like something else." For example, in the movie The Matrix , the characters had to make the choice to stay or leave the "virtual" world that had been created by the bad guys. But Mr. Taylor used the same word in its more common meaning in the same sentence as its technology meaning, when another word could have been used, which would have been much clearer.

August 17, 2011
Here is the sentence: “With the ability to use a virtually free host operating system such as Linux, the licensing costs for virtual machines has fallen.”

Mr. Taylor could have used "essentially" or "almost" or one of several other words to get his meaning across. Linux can be downloaded for exactly free for those who know what they are doing. There are other costs, such as maintenance, etc., which I think is what he means be "virtually." But of all people, in all contexts, you would think he would have chosen just about any word besides "virtually." I mean, the title of the article is "Are You Virtual?" But perhaps this is either an intended pun, in which case I've just wasted my time on this post, or this is futher proof that the human brain cannot be stopped when it comes to the activation web.

What do you think?