People cannot be trusted to use "megabyte" as a word.
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Wait is that an actual standardized prefix? Is it supposed to be a kibi…byte? What's the next step up called?
@yosh @whitequark Yep! The ISO and IEC jointly standardized 2^10 prefixes kibi (ki-), mebi (Mi-), gibi (Gi-), and so forth.
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@yosh @whitequark Yep! The ISO and IEC jointly standardized 2^10 prefixes kibi (ki-), mebi (Mi-), gibi (Gi-), and so forth.
@yosh @whitequark Basically, the existing SI prefixes should only ever be used for powers of 1000, never for 1024. The new(ish) IEC prefixes should be used for powers of 1024 instead.
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@xgranade the appreviations would also presumably be KeB, MeB, and GeB, which are even more fun to pronounce
@clarfonthey @xgranade and eV is short for electronvolt, so I see MeB and think "what is a mega electronbyte?"
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@clarfonthey @xgranade and eV is short for electronvolt, so I see MeB and think "what is a mega electronbyte?"
@nivex @clarfonthey MeeV
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@clarfonthey @nivex "mebinits per electron-volt" is a valid (if implausible) derived unit.
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People cannot be trusted to use "megabyte" as a word. Too many people use it to refer to 1024 and not to the correct SI meaning of "mega."
This can be solved by introducing "kidi," "medi," "gidi," and so forth meaning "kilo (decimal)," "mega (decimal)" and so forth. These new prefixes are completely synonymous with kilo, mega, giga, and so forth, but have the advantage that sloppy developers from the 80s haven't misused them yet.
@xgranade skibidibyte
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@xgranade we should also introduce kikibytes, memebytes and gigibytes for "i have no idea, it says MB, so must be somewhere in that order" bytes
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@yosh @whitequark Basically, the existing SI prefixes should only ever be used for powers of 1000, never for 1024. The new(ish) IEC prefixes should be used for powers of 1024 instead.
This knowledge is going to make me so annoying lmao. thank you haha ^^
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Anyway, @whitequark has the right of it. Use SI unit prefixes to mean SI unit multipliers, period. "kilo-" means "1000," period. "kibi" means "1024," period.
✧✦Catherine✦✧ (@whitequark@treehouse.systems)
the SI people are right and everybody doing it otherwise is wrong; you should never use the "K", "M", etc unit prefixes to mean factor of 1024. sure, with small enough sizes you can usually ignore it. but scale it up and you quickly run into trouble
Treehouse Mastodon (social.treehouse.systems)
Maybe I should state this as a serious proposal, taking @clarfonthey's suggestion for an alternate infix.
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The SI unit prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, and so forth refer exclusively to powers of 1,000 = 10³, while the ISO/IEC binary unit prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, and so forth refer exclusively to powers of 1,024 = 2¹⁰. In cases where historical confusions exist between SI and ISO/IEC prefixes, "kide," "mede-," "gide-" and so forth may be used as synonyms to emphasize SI decimal prefixes.
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This knowledge is going to make me so annoying lmao. thank you haha ^^
@yosh @whitequark Oh, it is a truly wonderful thing to be annoying about. It's pedantry, but it matters more and more all the time.
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Maybe I should state this as a serious proposal, taking @clarfonthey's suggestion for an alternate infix.
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The SI unit prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, and so forth refer exclusively to powers of 1,000 = 10³, while the ISO/IEC binary unit prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, and so forth refer exclusively to powers of 1,024 = 2¹⁰. In cases where historical confusions exist between SI and ISO/IEC prefixes, "kide," "mede-," "gide-" and so forth may be used as synonyms to emphasize SI decimal prefixes.
SI Decimal measures of length thus always recognize the goddess demeter
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Maybe I should state this as a serious proposal, taking @clarfonthey's suggestion for an alternate infix.
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The SI unit prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, and so forth refer exclusively to powers of 1,000 = 10³, while the ISO/IEC binary unit prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, and so forth refer exclusively to powers of 1,024 = 2¹⁰. In cases where historical confusions exist between SI and ISO/IEC prefixes, "kide," "mede-," "gide-" and so forth may be used as synonyms to emphasize SI decimal prefixes.
In cases where no such confusion exists, SI unit prefixes must always be preferred to synonyms that emphasize decimal bases. This nomenclature is not intended, and should not be used, to replace or supplant any SI standards. Synonyms for SI decimal unit prefixes must only be used when historical confusions exist due to improper use of SI nomenclature.
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In cases where no such confusion exists, SI unit prefixes must always be preferred to synonyms that emphasize decimal bases. This nomenclature is not intended, and should not be used, to replace or supplant any SI standards. Synonyms for SI decimal unit prefixes must only be used when historical confusions exist due to improper use of SI nomenclature.
As in, hard drive manufacturer promotional material should advertise storage volume in gidebytes and tedebytes for truth in advertising
I like this proposal
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As in, hard drive manufacturer promotional material should advertise storage volume in gidebytes and tedebytes for truth in advertising
I like this proposal
@trochee Like, in the ideal world, the binary prefixes would be used widely enough that only historical documents and hard drive packaging still uses the decimal prefixes, but as long as people throw around "mega" to mean 2^20...
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@nelaquetan @virtulis @xgranade Kikibytes (kB) have more 1s than 0s; boubabytes (bB) have more 0s than 1s.
To avoid confusion surrounding bytes with equal counts of ones and zeros, the standard byte is defined to be a nonet, rather than the legacy octet.
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People cannot be trusted to use "megabyte" as a word. Too many people use it to refer to 1024 and not to the correct SI meaning of "mega."
This can be solved by introducing "kidi," "medi," "gidi," and so forth meaning "kilo (decimal)," "mega (decimal)" and so forth. These new prefixes are completely synonymous with kilo, mega, giga, and so forth, but have the advantage that sloppy developers from the 80s haven't misused them yet.
@xgranade TIL "mebibyte" is a thing
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People cannot be trusted to use "megabyte" as a word. Too many people use it to refer to 1024 and not to the correct SI meaning of "mega."
This can be solved by introducing "kidi," "medi," "gidi," and so forth meaning "kilo (decimal)," "mega (decimal)" and so forth. These new prefixes are completely synonymous with kilo, mega, giga, and so forth, but have the advantage that sloppy developers from the 80s haven't misused them yet.
I was entirely unconvinced by KiB as a unit, but I enjoy writing MiB and GiB as if they're serious terms.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
