Re: Intent to package: "birthday" [OT]
Hamish Moffatt wrote:
>
> On Sun, Mar 14, 1999 at 07:56:14PM -0600, David Starner wrote:
> > wrong as claming 1 kilobyte to 1000 bytes. Maybe it would be nicer that
>
> Now you've got me started on a pet topic of mine. Can you tell me why
> the meaning of the SI prefixes changes automatically when we talk about
> binary? Suddenly, kilo is not 10^3, but 2^10; mega is 2^20, not 10^6?
> Makes no sense to me.
Because the whole reason for the decimal prefixes is for convenience.
But it's not convenient to do things in multiples of 10 for binary
stuff. Things come in collections of 2 for binary stuff. By coincidence,
1024 roughly equals 10^3. So kilo was used to stand for 1024. It was
easier than making up new prefixes, and close enough for government
work.
--
David Starner - OSU student - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
If you want a real optimist, look up Ray Bradbury. Guy's nuts.
He actually likes people. -David Brin
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