I often find myself explaining the same things in real life and online, so I recently started writing technical blog posts.

This one is about why it was a mistake to call 1024 bytes a kilobyte. It’s about a 20min read so thank you very much in advance if you find the time to read it.

Feedback is very much welcome. Thank you.

  • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I genuinely don’t understand your disdain for using base 2 on something that calculates in base 2. Do you know how counting works in binary? Every byte is made up of 8 bits, and goes from 0000 0000 to 1111 1111, or 0-15. When converted to larger scales, 1024 bytes is a clean mathematical derivation in base 2, 1000 is a fractional number. Your pedantry seems to hinge on the use of the prefix right? I think 1024 is a better representation of kilo- in base 2, because a kilo- can be directly translated up to exabytes and down to nybbles while “1000” in base 2 is extremely difficult. The point of metric is specifically to facilitate easy measuring, right? So measuring in the units that the computer uses makes perfect sense. It’s like me saying that a kilogram should be measured in base 60, because that was the original number system.

    • psud@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      TLDR: the problem isn’t using base 2 multipliers. The problem is doing so then saying it’s a base 10 number

      In 1998 when the problem was solved it wasn’t a big deal, but now the difference between a gigabyte and a gibibyte is large enough to cause problems

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Using kilo- in base 2 for something that calculates in base 2 simply makes sense to me. However, like I said to OP, ultimately this debate amounts to rage bait for nerds. All I ask is that I’m not pedantically corrected if the conversation isn’t directly related to kibi- vs kilo-

    • wischi@programming.devOP
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      11 months ago

      Did you read the post? The problem I have is redefining the kilo because of a mathematical fluke.

      You certainly can write a mass in base 60 and kg, there is nothing wrong about that, but calling 3600 gramm a “kilogram” because you think it’s convenient that 3600 (60^2) is “close to” 1000 so you just call it a kilogram, because that’s exactly what’s happening with binary and 1024.

      If you find the time you should read the post and if not at least the section “(Un)lucky coincidence”.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I started reading it, but the disdain towards measuring in base 2 turned me off. Ultimately though this is all nerd rage bait. I’m annoyed that kilobytes aren’t measured as 1024 anymore, but it’s also not a big deal because we still have standardized units in base 2. Those alternative units are also fun to say, which immediately removes any annoyance as soon as I say gibibyte. All I ask is that I’m not pedantically corrected if the discussion is about something else involving amounts of data.

        I do think there is a problem with marketing, because even the most know-nothing users are primed to know that a kilobyte is measured differently from a kilogram, so people feel a little screwed when their drive reads 931GiB instead of 1TB.

        • bigredgiraffe@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Yeah I’m with you, I read most of it but I just don’t know where the disdain comes from. At most scales of infrastructure anymore you can use them interchangeably because the difference is immaterial in practical applications.

          Like if I am going to provision 2TB I don’t really care if it’s 2000 or 2048GB, I’ll be resizing it when it gets to 1800 either way, and if I needed to actually store 2TB I would create a 3TB volume, storage is cheap and my time calculating the difference is not.

          Wait until you learn about how different fields use different precision levels of pi.

          • wewbull
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            11 months ago

            It’s not 2000 Vs 2048. It’s 1,862 Vs 2048

            The GB get smaller too.