Metric vs. Binary, pointless rant

Hey, did you guys every notice that kilo means 1000?

As in

A kilometer
A kilogram
A kiloliter (although nobody uses that unit since that would be a ****load of soda)

That's metric.

Why does kilobyte mean 1024?

Answer: it doesn't.

Mega and giga are also metric for a million and billion. Tera is also metric. Not powers of 1024.

Kibi, mebi, gibi, and tebi are binary. As in, powers of 1024. Ever notice that when you get a 2GB flash drive, Windows says it's not 2GB? It says it's 1.8. That's because it's using GIBIBYTES, not GIGABYTES. If you right click, it will say it's around 8 billion bytes, or 8 gigabytes.

Hard drives are sold in the metric term to make you think like you're getting more bytes. You're not. A terabyte drive is quite a few gigabytes less than a tebibyte.

The correct definition of megabyte is 1 million bytes. However, Windows uses that term for 1024^2 because mebibytes "SOUNDS WEIRD".

THAT'S NUTS

WHO WOULD WANT TO SAY KIBI, MEBI, GIBI, TEBI, BECAUSE KILO, MEGA, GIGA, AND TERA ARE SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH COOLER TO SAY

LET'S SCREW THE RIGHT WAY AND CALL IT THAT, ANYWAYS

Now, the entire world is blind and confused. Way to go, Micro$oft

This post has been edited by RetroXYZ on Aug 24 2009, 01:25 PM

u mad

i mad

lol he mad

to be fair, "gibibyte" does make you sound like a ****

Wouldn't it be Decimal vs. Binary.

Powers of 10 vs. Powers of 2.

that's why this topic is in the CCC

Metric units versus binary units

yeh i'm not really sure i understand this topic but ok

i'll try reading it another 500 times

never mind

This post has been edited by RetroXYZ on Aug 24 2009, 01:09 PM

i think it means like

kilo mega and giga are metric
kibi mebi and gibi are binary

or i read it wrong

>:(

:I

i'm sorry but
>implying it's microsoft's fault

Oh, my filters.

This topic conjures a very detailed image in my mind of a happy soup dragon family sitting around a table drinking delicious green soup that the mother soup dragon has made for dinner.

you know it would be apple's fault before microsoft's right?

apple was the first company to make PC's, Microsoft only did software

hell Microsoft still only does software, the best computer they ever made was a 360 and it's a piece of ****

that's pretty funny since 1000 is not more than 1024 and this wouldn't like

make any sense

if they sold them in gygasbytes or whatever somebody would ask what the **** a gygasbyte was, and be told 1024, and then they would know that is more than 1000


Here's an idea: you could do better.