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by kragen 913 days ago
because 'computer' has a meaning now that it didn't have 65 years ago, and people are continuously getting confused by thinking that 'analog computers' are computers, as they understand the term 'computers', which they aren't; they're a different thing that happens to have the same name due to a historical accident of how the advent of the algorithm happened

this is sort of like how biologists try to convince people to stop calling jellyfish 'jellyfish' and starfish 'starfish' because they aren't fish. the difference is that it's unlikely that someone will get confused about what a jellyfish is because they have so much information about jellyfish already

my quest to get people to call cellphones 'hand computers' is motivated by the same values but is probably much more doomed