These initialisms, abbreviations and acronyms are getting out of hand.

These are the people who in real life say “Jan” instead of “January.”

At least that can usually be understood from context. Acronyms and initialisms usually cannot unless you already know them.

Sounds like most conversations I had with cybersecurity people until I learned about NIST 800s, FIPS, CNSS, STIGs, etc.

This wouldn't make me blink.. Jan, Feb.. but if someone just said Mar for March I'd blink twice.

How about Thu for Thursday?

Apr for April :P

And Jun for June?

I literally just had a PM tell me "we will talk about that 'tom'". It left me confused for a few seconds. Is it really that hard to use a couple more syllables?

Prime Minister of what country?

Kinda reminding me of when you're autocompleting commands in a shell prompt.

“My name is not Tom”

Apache Tomcat, a casual acquaintance of the local tomboy.

And K instead of OK

And “OK” instead of “I understand, thank you.”

Still, “k” is infinitely better than a thumbs up.

Hmm, how so? A thumbs up is more bytes, and thus more poignant.

No, I'm talking specifically about case of reducing two letters to one.

OK is oll korrect

okay

typical hacker news bullshit.

people forget that many acronyms are context sensitive and/or audience sensitive. they just assume everyone across the world has the same shared life experience that they do.

Specifically the use of military jargon to describe consumer software

Many small time make big time

"CONUS" is short for "CONtinental United States"

Where is this term popular? I have never, ever heard this term before.

It's a US military term; I've never heard it outside of a military context, but it's super common within a military context.

It shows up a lot outside of military contexts when flat rate shipping is involved - it's usually CONUS-only.

For me(GP) it was this. Some of desk toys and electronics I'd considered were like that.

It is used in satellite communications as well to describe those beams that cover the continental US.

It’s popular with people who work for the USG. United States Government.

Sounds like it could be a USAF term

Wait, now we have another initialism :P

United States Air Force, where initialisms enjoy a great deal of popularity

US domestic shipping?

As distinct from OCONUS. https://veteran.com/military-acronyms/

Interesting to not see POTUS there.

Or TOTOPOTUS! https://twitter.com/MarkDStrauss/status/1590026071059013633

It stands for Contiguous or Coterminous United States

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States

Is Alaska considered continental in this jargon ?

No. CONUS stands for Contiguous or Coterminous United States. Alaska is outside CONUS or OCONUS.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States

Thank you

CONUS (can't help but giggle) supposedly stands for Continental United States, as I learnt from a sibling comment here. First time I'm hearing that acronym.

Target is a supermarket chain in USA. I assume Bestbuy is also something like that.

In my browser (Firefox on Android) if I type "tar" it auto-suggests completing the url to "target.com". Useless to me because I'm nowhere close to USA and there's no Target in my country.

Speaking of which, maybe they should have a separate list of autocompletable sites based on the user's location. However, I'm not sure of the privacy implications of that.

Continental US, I guess? Not sure why “continental” matters.

Excludes Hawaii, and Alaska (+ all other non state islands/territories)

Continental includes Alaska, as it's on the same continent, but contiguous does not.

I mean, _you'd think_, but: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/CONUS#Usage_notes

Except in Nebraska.

Good thing this acronym distingui- oh.

So that would be CONUS instead of CONUS?

Never heard L48 though. Yet.

i think they meant they're not sure why that would make a difference

So you’re saying the bug doesn’t happen for Hawaiian iPhone users somehow?

Me either, but guessing: Contiguous United States

Most interesting comment on cone snails that I ever heard. Couldn't parse it either. Others said it means continental United States.

Would be quite the story if shitty adware causes crashes.

It’s “Continental United States”.