Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB in Configure.help.

Timothy Covell
2001-12-22T05:57:32Z

On Friday 21 December 2001 23:29, Ryan Cumming wrote:
> On December 21, 2001 18:11, Timothy Covell wrote:
> > As concerns the use of Traditional Units being weird, I would say that
> > the motivation made a lot of since. The units were based on commonly
> > available natural units of measure, eg.
> >
> > one inch = 1 thumb = 1 pouce
> > one foot = size of a foot = 1 pied
>
> Oh, and things like having 0 degrees being the temperature of -frozen
> water- isn't really that natural... no, we'd be much better off using
> averagish sizes of human body parts as a reference.

Well, certainly makes more sense when you consider how hard
it is to make ice at intellectual centers like Alexandria and Cordoba.
I suppose that if you lived in Iceland, then you'd have a ready
reference. ;-)

>
> > Also, as is very appropriate to this discussion, the English Units
> > made use of powers of two and three. Eg.
> >
> > 1 inch, 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch
>
> Oh, that's right, only users of the Imperial system can use these
> new-fangled "fractions". If only someone would invent a 1/4 centimeter, the
> metric system would be a viable replacement!

Ha. The point is that it's easy to halve and quarter something while it's
much harder to one tenth something.

>
> How about this: Seeing there is no commonly used unit smaller than an inch,
> people had to resort to using fractions of an inch to describe sizes. It
> works in metric too, but people just don't, because there are a wider range
> of metric units.
>
> > 3 feet equals a yard.
> >
> > So, the English units were more attuned to nature. The only thing
> > natural about base ten is that the majority of us have 10 fingers and
> > 10 toes.
>
> Yes, and three is a magical number decreed by God himself. You do have a
> good point, though, the Imperial system fits in quite well with our
> base-two-but-sometimes-three number system.
>

I don't recall that God ever made any special mention of three, but he
did mention seven.

> > Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
> > divisions: Eg.
>
> Brilliant. The system with the smallest units wins. Let me introduce you to
> the yocto-centigrade, where the boiling point is 10^26 degrees. Combined
> with the revolutionary new "decimal point", you can obtain never before
> seen precision in describing temperatures!

My point is that HUMANS cannot accurately measure temperature, so it
makes more sense to use a fuzzier system. Unless you are an android
with a 555 timer chip embedded in brain, you are a "fuzzy" thinker on
things which are continuous in nature.

But then again, I suppose that we should legislate exact frequencies
of light so that no one can make any mistake as concerns what is
yellow and what is lemon-chiffon. And if your eyes are test and
are found to be out of spec, you'll be subjected to psychotherapy
sessions because you obviously have personnal issues which
are preventing you from seeing colour properly. ;-)

Look, just so that you all understand, I'm pro metrics. I'm just
saying that they were not all totally crazy. It's not like before
1790 all the people who had ever lived were morons. Indeed,
after further reading, I found that Jefferson rejected the French
version of the Metric system because he though that their
measurements were not accurate enough (and less accurate
than many Greek and Egyptian mathematicians had made
millenia before.)

>
> -Ryan
> -
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--
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.