[Info-vax] [OT] Abbreviations, was: Re: Desperately Seeking OpenVMS ecosystem

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Saturday, 7 December 2013 14:08:33 UTC, VAXm... at SendSpamHere.ORG  wrote:
> In article <l7v7ht$g5f$1 at news.albasani.net>, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> writes:
> 
> >VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote 2013-12-07 13:29:
> 
> >> In article <l7v0nk$3e8$1 at dont-email.me>, Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
> 
> >>> On 2013-12-07, Jan-Erik Soderholm <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
> 
> >>>>
> 
> >>>> When the context at hand is "electronic presentations", *no* IT
> 
> >>>> professional today would missunderstand what PPT stands for!
> 
> >>>>
> 
> >>>
> 
> >>> Agreed. As a example, I know at least three definitions for "RMS" and
> 
> >>> each would be clear in a discussion because of the context it would be
> 
> >>> used in without having to spell it out.
> 
> >>
> 
> >> Mention of RMS in the context of comp.os.vms stands a better chance of being
> 
> >> understood to be Record Management Services than as Root Mean Squared, Risk
> 
> >> Management Solutions, Richard Matthew Stallman, Railway Mail Service or the
> 
> >> Ramstein Air Base.  I'm sure there are those reading here that have used or
> 
> >> have seen RMS in these other contexts but they would most likely read Record
> 
> >> Management Services.
> 
> >>
> 
> >> PPT: Parts per Thousand|Trillion, Precipitate?  Primitive Pythagorean Triple,
> 
> >> Perl Power Tools, Personal Property Tax or Putnam Premier (Income) Trust.  I
> 
> >> would have thought of one of the aforementioned; not PowerPuke which I would
> 
> >> have assumed abbreviated as PP.
> 
> >>
> 
> >
> 
> >Does anyone of those mentioned have anything with presentation file
> 
> >formats to do? No, in the context at hand, PPT was perfectly clear
> 
> >to anyone not sticking to his childish view of anything none-VMS.
> 
> >Grow up...
> 
> 
> 
> Only if somebody was following along in the thread.  Richard, who I know is
> 
> a user of that M$ Gaming Console Virus Collection product and thus, should 
> 
> have known better than I being he's one who employs it, didn't know!  It's
> 
> not childish to dispute that that pseudo-TLA was outside of the context of
> 
> c.o.v. (that's comp.os.vms).
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
> 
> 
> 
> Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.

When even one of the UK's leading accident investigation lawyers (one of the 
good guys, not one of the ambulance chasers) knows what PowerPoint is, when his 
accident report into an aircraft incident that unnecessarily killed 14 people 
talks about
"a PowerPoint culture [...] that glosses over hard questions and 
detailed evidence, and sacrifices safety to incompetence, sloppiness, 
complacency and cynicism" [1],
for anyone allegedly knowledgeable in serious IT to claim to not know what PPT 
implies (in this context) is, at best, surprising.

Today is, by coincidence, the day that the UK's national air traffic control 
centre at Swanwick was unable to switch from night mode (lightly loaded) to day 
mode (lots of capacity needed, but today, not delivered), apparently because of a "telephone system failure". I wonder what that really means. But that failure 
is another discussion for another time.

Any chance we can put Powerpoint aside and get back to the future of reliable 
systems and software (where VMS has historically been a really rather useful 
option, and Powerpoint has been a massive and sometimes high risk distraction)?

Thanks.

[1] Charles Haddon-Cave QC, probably best known for his inquiry into the crash of Nimrod XV230, but also former Chairman of the RAeES Law Group, involved in 
proceedings following the Kegworth air crash, and also the Marchioness and 
Herald of Free Enterprise marine incidents (and various others). His 
organisational and cultural learnings from the Nimrod inquiry and others (with 
brief mention of Powerpoint) were presented in a one hour session at a recent conference marking the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster:

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Speeches/ch-c-speech-piper25-190613.pdf

There is more on "Powerpoint culture" in the ~500 pages (plus references) 
of Haddon-Cave's original Nimrod inquiry report.