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The author decidedly has expert syndrome -- they deny both the history and rational behind memory units nomenclature. Memory measurements evolved utilizing bin
by waffletower 8mo ago
The author decidedly has expert syndrome -- they deny both the history and rational behind memory units nomenclature. Memory measurements evolved utilizing binary organizational patterns used in computing architectures. While a proud French pedant might agree with the decimal normalization of memory units discussed, it aligns more closely to the metric system, and it may have benefits for laypeople, it fails to account for how memory is partitioned in historic and modern computing.
- crazygringo 8mo agoWhat are you talking about? The article literally fully explains the rationale, as well as the history. It's not "denying" anything. Seems entirely reasonable and balanced to me.
- waffletower 8mo agoThey are definitely denying the importance of 2-fold partitioning in computing architectures. VM_PAGE_SIZE is not defined with the value of '10000' for good reason (in many operating systems it is set to '16384').
- senfiaj 8mo agoThat's why I said "usually acceptable depending on the context". In spoken language I also don't like the awkward and unusual pronunciation of "kibi". But I'll still prefer to write in KiB, especially if I document something. Also If you open major Linux distro task managers, you'll be surprised to see that they often show in decimal units when "i" is missing from the prefix. Many utilities often avoid the confusing prefixes "KB", "MB"... and use "KiB", "MiB"...
- crazygringo 8mo agoNo they're not? They very specifically address it. Why do you keep insisting the author is denying something when the author clearly acknowledges every single thing you're complaining about?
- waffletower 8mo agoDenying the importance of...
- crazygringo 8mo agoWhich they're not...
- waffletower 8mo agoby coming to the conclusion they did, they are
- crazygringo 8mo agoSo not denying. You just disagree is all. So please don't mischaracterize articles in the future simply because you disagree with their conclusions. That's misrepresentation, and essentially straight-up lying.
- waffletower 8mo agoI deny your understanding of my use of the word deny :D
- nixpulvis 8mo agoYea I don't understand the issue here. SI is pretty clear, and this post explains the other standard a little bit. It's really not all that crazy of a situation. What bothers me is when some applications call KiB KB, because they are old or lazy.
- ZoomZoomZoom 8mo ago...old lazy and wrong! Capital K is for Kelvin.
- schiffern 8mo ago>Capital K is for Kelvin. It should be "kelvin" here. ;) Unit names are always lower-case[1] (watt, joule, newton, pascal, hertz), except at the start of a sentence. When referring to the scientists the names are capitalized of course, and the unit symbols are also capitalized (W, J, N, Pa, Hz). [1] SI Brochure, Section 5.3 "Unit Names" https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9-EN.pdf https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9-...
- fc417fc802 8mo agoThus there's no ambiguity. kB is power of 10 and KB is clearly not kelvin bytes therefore it's power of two. Doesn't quite fit the SI worldview but I don't see that as a problem.
- 8mo ago
- ozozozd 8mo agoIt’s not them denying it, it’s the LLM that generated this slop. All they had to say was that the KiB et. al. were introduced in 1998, and the adoption has been slow. And not “but a kilobyte can be 1000,” as if it’s an effort issue.
- kevin_thibedeau 8mo agoThey are managed by different standards organizations. One doesn't like the other encroaching on its turf. "kilo" has only one official meaning as a base-10 scalar.
- dietr1ch 8mo agoI don't think of base 10 being meaningful in binary computers. Indexing 1k needs 10 bits regardless if you wanted 1000 or 1024, and the base 10 leaves some awkward holes. In my mind base 10 only became relevant when disk drive manufacturers came up with disks with "weird" disk sizes (maybe they needed to reserve some space for internals, or it's just that the disk platters didn't like powers of two) and realised that a base 10 system gave them better looking marketing numbers. Who wants a 2.9TB drive when you can get a 3TB* drive for the same price?
- userbinator 8mo agoAt the TB level, the difference is closer to 10%. Three binary terabytes i.e. 3 * 2^40 is 3298534883328, or 298534883328 more bytes than 3 decimal terabytes. The latter is 298.5 decimal gigabytes, or 278 binary gigabytes. Indeed, early hard drives had slightly more than even the binary size --- the famous 10MB IBM disk, for example, had 10653696 bytes, which was 167936 bytes more than 10MB --- more than an entire 160KB floppy's worth of data.
- thfuran 8mo ago>I don't think of base 10 being meaningful in binary computers. Okay, but what do you mean by “10”?
- Syzygies 8mo agoHe probably uses Phillips head screws.
- highhedgehog 8mo agowait, what is wrong with that?
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- tim333 8mo agoDunno but there are two similar but slightly different cross head screw designs https://www.pbswisstools.com/en/news/detail/phillips-and-pozidriv-cross-head-screws-explained-in-simple-terms https://www.pbswisstools.com/en/news/detail/phillips-and-poz...
- fuzzfactor 8mo agoPatents at work. Before the patent on Phillips screws & tools expired, Pozidriv was launched which was different enough to be capable of a bit more torque. Phillips was for mass-production, Posidriv for mass-production with a little more torque. Lots of people who wanted that still waited until the Pozidriv patent expired before considering it. The screws themselves are marked on the head with little ticks so you can tell the difference, but not necessarily the screwdrivers :\ It's good to have the right tool for the job, HP instruments used Posidriv in a number of places.
- duncangh 8mo agothe type of screw head really doesn't make a difference when I'm hammering them into the wall, I've found xD
- foobarbecue 8mo ago*rationale
- waffletower 8mo agoThanks, noticed after edit disappeared
- philipswood 8mo agoYes, tomato's ARE actually a fruit. But really!? I'll keep calling it in nice round powers of two, thank you very much.
- simondotau 8mo agoEven more weirdly, pumpkins are berries. But that’s a botanical definition. In the kitchen they (and tomatoes) are classified as vegetables.
- KellyCriterion 8mo agoSame with cucumbers and a lot more "plants" :-)
- assimpleaspossi 8mo agoYes. Tomatoes are a fruit because the science says so. That non-scientific people call it something else does not change facts.
- TonyStr 8mo agoDepends if you're using the botanical definition or the (more common) culinary definition[0]. I would argue fruit and fruit are two words, one created semasiologically and the other created onomasiologically. Had we chosen a different pronunciation for one of those words, there would be no confusion about what fruits are. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit#Botanical_vs._culinary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit#Botanical_vs._culinary
- D-Machine 8mo agoYup. Though rather than say "fruit and fruit" are two words, or focusing on "definitions" (which tend to morph over time anyway), I think the more straightforward and typical approach is to just recognize that the same word can have different meanings in different contexts. This is such a basic and universal part of language, it is a mystery to me why something so transparently clueless as "actually, tomato is a fruit" persists.
- jibal 8mo agoNone of your criticisms--which start with an absurd and meaningless ad hominem--apply to the actual content of the article. Elsewhere you write > They are definitely denying the importance of 2-fold partitioning in computing architectures. No, they definitely aren't. There are no words in the article that deny anything at all.
- PeterStuer 8mo agoI do agree up to a point as I still need to double take when I see MiB, but that said, I also do agree keeping SI unit prefixes standardized has great advantages. So the "sane" options would be either not using SI for digital, or, what was chosen, change the colloquial prefixes in the digital world. The former would have been easier in the short term.