[2008 mar 24]
Some things that have changed for no particularly good reason:

  • Bottom-posting is passé. Top-posting is now trendy. You see this in email (where it's annoying, but what can you do) and in blogs (where I can't decide if it's annoying or not, but my RSS reader makes it irrelevant anyway).

  • The "accepted" pronunciation of Linux has changed, apparently a couple times. I find it kind of amusing that people argue over this (especially given that neither of the "accepted" pronunciations is particularly close to the way Linus pronounces it). But it is kind of fun to go prowling through old Linux FAQs:

    • from 1993 Aug 23:
      `li' is pronounced with a short (ee) sound: compare prInt, mInImal etc.
    • from 1994 Jul 13:
      When speaking English I pronounce it Lie-nucks (u as in bucket) --- this is an anglicised pronunciation based on the analogy with Linus' name, which in English is usually pronounced Lie-nus (u as in put).
      ...
      I think I can safely say that the pronunciation Linnucks (short i as in pit, short u as in bucket) is wrong in English, as it is not the original Swedish pronunciation, not a sensible direct anglicisation of it, and not based on the anglicised version of Linus' name.
      (When I started using Linux, in 1995 or so, this was how all the geeks pronounced it.)

    • from 1998 Dec 6:
      Linus pronounces Linux approximately as Leenus, where the "ee" is pronounced as in "feet," but rather shorter ...
      (At some point - in the late 90s maybe (?) - the geeks decided to switch over to the short i ("Linnucks") these days.)
Tags: geeks