Re: Configure.help editorial policy

Dominik Mierzejewski
2001-12-27T11:26:23Z

On Thursday, 27 December 2001, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> On December 27, 2001 12:34 am, Dominik Mierzejewski wrote:
> > Although I thought there was an agreement that decimal kilobyte is kB,
> > and binary kilobyte is KiB, decimal megabyte is MB, binary megabyte is MB
> > and so on, wasn't there?
>
> Not in my book. As far as I'm concerned, somebody who tells me that one KB
> of memory or disk is 1,000 bytes is a liar. When a disk manufacturer chooses
> to interpret KB in such a way as to make their disk seem bigger, I just say
> to myself "ok, they lied, that's what they do, they're in business and they
> don't care". Now could we just ignore the self-serving doublespeak
> promulgated by greedy manufacturers, and continue using KB please?
>
> Kilo, as in memory -> 1024
> Kilo, as in distance or weight -> 1,000
>
> Difficult?
>
> /me wonders when the kibblebytes thread is going to end

/me wonders when people will learn to read more carefully
(no offense intended) :-)

If you look at my post more closely, you'll see I used `kB' (that's small
k and capital B) for decimal kilobyte. I would never suggest using `KB'
(that's capital K and capital B) for it. I do agree that `KB' is traditionally
used for binary kilobytes, but what about MB, GB and so on? These _are_
ambiguous. I am in favour of using Ki, Mi and Gi for binary quantities.

--
"The Universe doesn't give you any points for doing things that are easy."
-- Sheridan to Garibaldi in Babylon 5:"The Geometry of Shadows"
Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski <rathann(at)we.are.one.pl>