A tech conversation…
When you’re a consultant, you once in a while get to overhear (alright, I’m constantly eavesdropping) some interesting conversations that amuses you. Today’s one: a technical one.
Scenario: a woman is about to place an order on a computer and a guy comes by to give her advice:
But make sure not to order from that place, since they can only offer you 1 GB RAM memory per default.
1 GB?! But that sucks! I’ve seen ads in the paper for PCs with a 100 GB!
Ehhh… Uncomfortable silence
That’s hard drive size. I’m talking about memory here.
Oh…
Among the people I know who barely know anything about computers, it's not rare to mix up 'memory' and 'hard drive'. To them, the hard drive is a memory. The actual component we usually call memory is completely irrelevant to the way they experience and understand a computer.
It's complicated stuff, k 😉
Technically, the hard drive is non-volatile memory. Of course it's not made up of transistors but hey… it's memory.
What's the point here? That she mixed up RAM and harddrive capacity?
Hmm… I know this uncomfortable feeling… It usually comes if my boss says something technical. It's like in Dilbert. 😉
Rado,
Well, yeah… But let's not go there right now. 🙂
Love,
Yes, that's the point. With people working with IT, i think it's fair to expect them to make the distinction. If, for no other reason, out of the context that it's a vast difference between 1 GB and 100 GB.
Chris,
Yes, Dilbert seems to be more of a documentary. 🙂