Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 08:44:41 -0500 From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com> To: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: time for another upgrade? Message-ID: <199905151407.JAA01597@hostigos.otherwhen.com> In-Reply-To: <373D3065.EE7677B4@newsguy.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 15 May 99, at 17:29, Daniel C. Sobral wrote:
> Mike Avery wrote:
> > > >1024^3 > 86400*10^8
> > Hmmm - should that be 1024^3 or 1000^3? I suspect it depends on
> > who you talk to. The difference is between 1,073,741,824 and
> > 1,000,000,000,000. Not a big difference - around 7%.
>
> It doesn't depend on anything. It is 1024^3, and everybody who says
> otherwise is plain wrong. This is not a matter of opinion.
Whether k, m, or g is based on a power of 1,000 or 1,024 often
depends on what is being measured, and who is doing the measuring.
And it isn't always consistent.
Money is ALWAYS decimal because people normally use a decimal
system. A gigabuck is 1,000,000,000 dollars. A megabuck is
1,000,000 dollars.
Memory is ALWAYS binary, because current computers are binary
systems, so a gigabyte is 1,073,741,824 bytes, a megabyte is
1,048,576 bytes.
Disk systems are problematical. Vendors prefer to specify their size
in decimal numbers, as it makes their size appear larger. Users
prefer to see sizes based on binary numbers, as it reflects memory
sizes more closely.... important to people who care about virtual
memory. However, the actual size difference isn't that great.
Communications speeds seem to usually be expressed in decimal
numbers. When you get a 9.6kbps modem, that's 9,600 bits per
second. A 56k line is 56,000 bits per second.
So, when someone says, "we transferred 960gb", what does he
mean? In general, the number is going to be based on disk size. And
will most likely be a decimal giga, not a binary giga.
All in all, there's not much that's not open for debate, for good or
ill.
Mike
======================================================================
Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com
(409)-842-2942 (work)
ICQ: 16241692
* Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other way *
A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day:
Efficiency is a highly developed form of laziness.
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199905151407.JAA01597>