Re: Sizes and notation
Andrei Popescu wrote:
> Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > max@hyre.net writes:
> > > The confusion between 1000 and 1024 has been solved. Take a
> > > look at
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix#IEC_standard_prefixes
> > > It's a really, REALLY good idea to adopt this.
> >
> > No. They're simply too insufferably ugly.
Yeah, well...ever see the AIM, MSN, even some IRC types having a
conversation?
now *that's* ugly. It's become more and more ever-increasingly
difficult to express in writing, what one would convey through "speech'
- (moore's law hath overfloweth into many areas of culture)....and it
ain't pretty. <sigh> The world has gotten itself into one big great
*hurry*.
If using only the symbols (ki mi gi etc.), it almost appears that a
letter has been dropped/lost, inadvertantly, by whomever has written
it. (read on).
> > In the vast majority of cases it's quite clear from context which
is
> > meant.
> >
> > Disk-Drive advertisements are one notable case where things are
> > confusing, but really, you shouldn't be adjusting your language to
suit
> > marketing!
> >
> > -Miles
>
> We are talking about numbers here! Context is IMO not enough. I sure
> hope that standard gets widely adopted. For me, this has (almost)
> nothing to do with marketing. You just can't use the same symbol for
> different things. It's like having the same symbol for miles and
> kilometers!
>
> Andrei
Unfortunately, it's already a runaway train...
The problem is that we're literally swimming in a sea of *acronym
stew!*
Type in the term/keywords like 'define:IDE', 'define:SMB' into a
googler...(these aren't even good examples, but hopefully will
suffice).
The FOSF has been using the IEEE 1541-2002(?) standard for quite some
time now (AFAICT - in it's literature) -- But, in the real world, from
what I've seen, and within the *same* industries; it's the marketing
and advert bozos who are the ones that resist in defiance. It's not
entirely their fault, since 'context' matters. I think 'we' (FOS)
community can *push* much harder on the HDD manufacturers, by
constantly using the *full names* (kibi, mebi, gibi), _not_just_ the
the symbols (ki, mi, gi).
I've only been noticing a slipshod/piecemeal version being used anyway
(GiB, MiB, KiB); that's only used to represent 'B'ytes....how does one
correctly represent [kilo, mega, giga] BITS ? It doesn't seem outlined
in the IEEE standard, but I'm likely overlooking something. (I touched
upon a few of these thoughts in my last post, to date, in that previous
thread)
Also - someone (perhaps a Jeweler :-)) mentioned 'K' = Karat, in the
other long thread, though the wikipedia article claims the SI version
of 'K' = Kelvin, and 'B' = Bel (deciBel, dB)....Then we have the
m=milli SI to contend with also.
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