this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Yay, happy hail Satan day everyone. I remember when Intel chickened out and rounded up their 666 megahertz pentium 3 processors to report as being 667 megahertz. Absolute cowards, no wonder China is kicking their ass.
Iirc it's a thing for hotels to not have a room number 13.
And that there is no version 9: no windows 9 no iPhone 9 etc. I think it’s s unlucky number somewhere in Asia
iirc the no windows 9 thing was actually because a lot of software ran a compatibility check like:
This worked for software written for newer windows like xp but still allowing a legacy mode on older windows versions like 95 and 98. Problem was this also put that same software running on windows 9 into legacy mode. So they called it windows 10 to sidestep the compatibility issues.
It's great to see to what lengths Microsoft goes to keep backwards compatibility. Compared to how a minor glibc update broke Linux apps without much warning. Without supporting legacy workflows I don't think Microsoft would've had the market share they have today.
I believe that's apocryphal... Some people came up with that theory on twitter, but AFAIK it's not been confirmed. It only matters in some edge cases of an edge case.
And let's be real, if backwards compatibility really mattered, they could have made the API return "Nine" or "IX" or whatever and used "9" everywhere else in the UI, marketing, packaging, whatever.
The real reason is probably the simplest and stupidest: Microsoft's marketing department got impatient and went for the big round number because 10>9. Also why NVIDIA went 9xx->10xx->20xx... bigger number = better, it's really that mind-numbingly stupid.
In Japan it is number 4 because sound like their word for death (something among those lines)
which is kinda stupid because they have two words for 4 (shi and yon) and only shi sounds like death.
Well, what superstition isn't stupid?
If it's anything like Korean (and it probably is), it's specific when you can use each version of the word so it's not like you could simply swap shi for yon