中国网站品牌栏目（频道）
Reader question:
What does this quote – She said: “I’m aging in dog years” – mean? What’s “dog years” about?
My comments:
It means she’s growing old fast.
“Dog year” is a term used to describe the lifespan of a dog. It’s a folksy term. One human year is said to be worth seven dog years. That is to say, if a dog is 10 years old, then he’s a pretty old dog – in human terms, he’d be compatible to old man of seventy years old, i.e. approaching the grave because the average lifespan of people even in the most developed countries is less than 80 years.
If the speaker above is 20 years old, she’d be 140 years in dog years, which is as old as you can (perhaps not) imagine.
One human year being equal to seven dog years, by the way, is just a generally accepted rough estimation. It’s nothing scientific because obviously the lifespan of a dog varies from breed to breed. And so don’t take it seriously. Therefore, when someone says they’re aging in dog years, what they’re really saying is often nothing more than “Wow, how time flies”. Reserve a particularly large quantity of salt (doubt) for women especially. When such words come out of the mouth of a woman, ignore them. Women are fond of saying they’re getting old fast not because it’s true but because they’re just fond of saying it, as though they were the only ones who live every day in mortal fear of death. It’s not true – men age, too, but are perhaps too chicken to admit it (^_^).
Alright, I’m not getting deeper into that argument. Here’s a media report on the 10th anniversary of Windows under the headline “Windows 98 Turns 70 In Dog Years” (That simply means it’s getting old and obsolete):
Windows 98 Turns 70 In Dog Years
(Techtalk.pcpitstop.com, April 03, 2008)
This year marks the 10th anniversary of windows 98. Because of this and the fact that Vista is getting so much press, albeit negative, we decided to do an actual comparison using Windows 98, Windows XP, and Windows Vista, just to get a true idea of how far technology has progressed. The results might be surprising to some of you and were certainly an eye-opener for me.
To keep things as fair as possible, the hardware was exactly the same for all three operating systems. The system was somewhat of a compromise in order to satisfy all the requirements of operating systems separated by 10 years. I’ve listed the hardware below. Because memory suggestions always gets a lot of comment from those that think more is always better, and others that think anything over 256 MB is wasted, I used what I consider the minimum amount necessary for anything that resembles computing. I know there are some that question whether Windows 98 will function with that amount but although I’ve heard stories; I’ve never met anyone whose 98 system would not operate with 512 MB of memory….
Just surfing the Internet seemed too much sometimes for Windows 98 and its accompanying IE 5. Finding a connection and opening programs are things I expect to happen instantly. This was not the case with Windows 98. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to a person who considers himself an over clocker but it looks like speed is dependant completely on hardware. I just expected there to be a bigger difference between Windows 98 and Windows XP.
Vista, what can I say? It’s pitiful. Blame it on the need for more memory. Blame it on the background apps. Blame it on whatever suits your fancy. It doesn’t perform in benchmarks any better than it performs in ease of use.
As for Windows 98, what the heck not bad for 10 year old technology, after all that’s 70 in dog years.
本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。
About the author:
Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.
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