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cornonthecobra | 26 days ago

The meaning of kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc. are unambiguous: SI prefixes defined as powers of 10, not 2. 1 TB is 10*12 bytes, not 2*40 bytes.

The misuse of those prefixes as powers of 1024, while useful as shorthand for computer memory where binary addressing means, is still exactly that: a misuse of SI prefixes.

There's now a separate set of base-2 prefixes to solve this, and people need to update their language accordingly.

discuss

order

wat10000|26 days ago

Just because an official body gives a single definition doesn't mean it's unambiguous. Real communication isn't bound by official bodies. When I say my computer has 16GB of RAM, that does not mean exactly 16 billion bytes.

I need to update my language accordingly? No thanks. I'll keep saying what I say and nothing will happen.

breezykoi|26 days ago

Real communication isn't bound by official bodies, but it also doesn't work by everyone "just saying what they say" and hoping for the best...

NetMageSCW|26 days ago

The use of kilo for 1024 in computers precedes the formalization of kilo as an SI prefix. SI should have used a different prefix instead /s

yencabulator|25 days ago

Kilo (chili-/chilo-/*kʰehliyoi) is an Ancient Greek/Proto-Hellenic word literally translated as "one thousand". The word can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European, which means it's as old as any language we're aware of, though Proto-Hellenic is when the meaning was fixed to 1000.