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Re: Using standardized SI prefixes



On Tuesday 12 June 2007 15:46, Magnus Holmgren wrote:
> On Tuesday 12 June 2007 14:57, Darren Salt wrote:
> > I demand that Josselin Mouette may or may not have written...
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > When I use a computer program, I don't want to wonder whether it uses
> > > precise units or approximate ones. A computer is a damn stupid machine
> > > and it will never know whether I need precision. Which is why it should
> > > *always* do things the precise way.
> >
> > Agreed. Use 1024 rather than the imprecise and misleading 1000...
>
> Come now, there is no inherent difference in *precision* between 1000 and
> 1024, or K/k and Ki. 

Sorry, semantically (or linguistically or something) "kibibyte", "mebibyte" 
and the others are more precise because they mean exactly one thing, 
whereas "kilobyte", "megabyte" etc. *can* (currently) mean either of two 
things unless explicitly or implicitly disambiguated.

-- 
Magnus Holmgren        holmgren@lysator.liu.se
                       (No Cc of list mail needed, thanks)

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