On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 08:11:23PM -0400, Ivan Jager wrote: > On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Ben Finney wrote: > >The problem is that *many* cases are incorrect; we can't say that > >*all* of them are. That uncertainty is not amenable to a mindless text > >substitution without judgement of each case. The solution can only be > >for humans to find those cases where the units presented do not match > >the quantities, and to file bugs against those packages asking for the > >mistake to be corrected. > > The other solution can be for humans to find those few (if any) packages > that say MB when they mean 1,000,000 and fix only those. Then we'd have a > consistent system conforming to the standards most CS people expect. > > How many packages can you name that measure bytes in powers of 10? Are > there any? People tell me I am making an argument from ignorance, and that
I think Ben's point is that we don't know. You seem to claim that binary units (ie powers of 2) are natural everywhere related to computers, but I disagree. It's natural for memory and structures like it, but not for bitstream quantities like network traffic. Hard disks are different again; I don't know that there is any particular reason for them to have 2^n byte sectors (and at the hardware level perhaps they don't). CD-ROMs have 2304 byte raw sectors. Most NAND FLASH chips have 2062 byte blocks, which even throws the memory device argument out the window. Hamish -- Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
