[giantrobot]

The bigger problem is for non-technical users "cryptography" and "cryptocurrency" now sound interchangeable. So now you can't have a conversation about cryptography without explaining how it's distinct from the concept of cryptocurrency and that you're not talking about Bitcoin.

While most people aren't talking to their non-technical friends and family about cryptography too often, the co-opting of "crypto" is problematic for companies. They now have to explain to lay people why a new phone isn't pumping out Bitcoin when it was advertised as having strong cryptography. It's going to also be super problematic when politicians start talking about "crypto" regulation and we're having to fight battles over the legality of cryptography again. I don't think my old RSA-as-one-liner still fits.

[AnthonyMouse]

The worst part is that there is already another word for cryptocurrency. Blockchain. It has the same number of syllables as "crypto" and isn't ambiguous.

The cynic in me says they did it on purpose, because it's widely agreed by non-morons that cryptography is good and important and people wanted to associate their controversial shitcoins with that good and important thing.

[q-big]

> The worst part is that there is already another word for cryptocurrency. Blockchain.

There do exist cryptocurrencies that are not based on a blockchain. For example, Iota is based on a tangle, which the creators of Iota claim is better suited for their intended IoT applications than a blockchain.

Or more centralized cryptocurrencies, for example eCash, which was invented 1983 by David Chaum:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash

[AnthonyMouse]

"Centralized cryptocurrency" already has its own word. Banking.

Banking would be better if it worked like eCash, but it would still not be a problem to not have a single word that encompasses both this and Bitcoin, since they are actually two different things.

[Grimm1]

I talk about encryption which cuts the confusion nicely even if it isn't a perfect replacement but I find lay people don't care about the general field of cryptography they care about privacy and from that, encryption. I've been able to get a few people onto signal for instance by going that route.

[blueflow]

People will also deny that Wine is an emulator, and people will also claim that whatever tinc does is not an VPN because it doesnt hide your IP when watching porn. My coworker denied DOS is an operating system because it doesn't have virtual memory and paging.

all nonsense ... People generally aren't good with subtle differences, i guess. I've given up explaining it to people.

[tryauuum]

This made me question my belief that DOS is an operating system. If it cannot run programs with (fake) parallelism and doesn't have virtual memory...

[zaat]

Well, if it isn't operating system, than what is it exactly?

[hdjjhhvvhga]

A good base to develop an RTOS[0] for example with RTKernel[1] on some hardware.

[0] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Embedded_Systems/Common_RTOS/D...

[1] http://www.on-time.com/rtkernel-dos.htm

[giantrobot]

A runtime library.

[capableweb]

> People will also deny that Wine is an emulator

Of course they will, it's even in the name!

Wine Is Not an Emulator

[blueflow]

Assuming you are not being sarcastic:

Wine is imitating the windows libary interface. It literally is an emulator: "To strive to equal or excel, especially through imitation".

Wine devs had to to the renaming because people incorrectly read it as "it runs in a virtual machine" for no reason.

[zaat]

Well, the project's website clearly isn't with agreement with you.

> Wine (originally an acronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator")

https://www.winehq.org/about

[blueflow]

[deleted: sick of arguing as explained in grandparent]

[zaat]

I know the old version from memory, but there is nothing in there that say it was ever short for windows emulator. It is quite clear from the history that it was named not emulator since day 1, to emphasize that it doesn't have true emulation layer that will make it slow.

[10000truths]

So... it's a WinAPI emulator?