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I think it’s also the SI standards pedants who can’t imagine a kilogram might be a different context than a kilobyte.
by TheCleric 2y ago
I think it’s also the SI standards pedants who can’t imagine a kilogram might be a different context than a kilobyte.
- croes 2y agoQuick, how many gibibyte are 1234567890 byte?
- ffsm8 2y agoQuick, how many blocks will 4096 bytes use on my storage device? The argument is that the base10 interval makes no sense with computers, because they're physically base2. You can't really have 10 without wasting 2, and that's why it made sense to use 1024 instead of 1000. Personally I feel the pushback against gibi/mibi/kibi overblown. It's ultimately better to be coherent everywhere and always specify everything with decimals/rounded over random context dependent decisions. But still, the original argument for 1024 made sense too.
- hn_go_brrrrr 2y ago> Quick, how many blocks will 4096 bytes use on my storage device? 1 or 8, depending.
- akira2501 2y agoAre we doing our own ECC or are we relying on the controller to do it? If the controller is doing it, how big is that block actually?
- croes 2y agoHow many blocks do 1234567890 bytes use? Unless you have some well known powers of 2 you have to calculate anyway. To be able to convert easily from byte to gibibyte, mebibyte, gibibyte, etc. is a bigger benefit. Just moving the decimal sperator to convert the units is big advantage of the metric system.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- steve1977 2y agoThe civilized world is also using kilometers for example. Kilo has its roots in Greek and literally means thousand.
- bobmcnamara 2y agoTwo kinds of countries out there. Those that use metric and those that have gone to the moon.
- makeitdouble 2y agoNASA might be the agency who most bitterly regrets not having paid more attention to units and gone metric earlier.
- steve1977 2y agoI get your point, but let's not forget where most of the US rocket technology is coming from.
- bobmcnamara 2y agoTwo time world war champs!!!
- robxorb 2y agoMaybe they'd have gone more times, more safely, or more quickly if they hadn't been befuddled by having to deal constantly with archaic and nonsensical imperial units?
- bobmcnamara 2y agoMaybe, or maybe they would have struggled with the same challenges we saw Tupolev struggling with to produce the TU-4. Practically, physical objects need built. If you're not doing it yourself you've got to work within the limits of your suppliers or push them.
- pizza 2y agoLet's compromise and go with kibigrams