We should use imperial units since they're more natural/intuitive/(insert rationalization here):
1 InchByte = 2.54 bytes = approximately pi bits (Edit: oops, it's about 20 bits. I divided where I should have multiplied.)
1 FootByte = 30.5 bytes
1 YardByte = 91.4 bytes
1 RodByte = 503 bytes
1 MileByte = 160,934 bytes
1 AUByte = 14.7 terabytes
1 LightYearByte = 841 petabytes
So 1 megabyte is almost exactly 2^15 footbytes. (1MB = 6.2 milebytes = 10,941 yardbytes = 32,786 footbytes)
Fun fact I learned while doing these calculations: There are 63,239 AUs in one light-year and 63,360 inches in one mile. So if you want to get a better idea of interstellar distances, imagine everything scaled down. E.G. if Earth was 1 inch from the Sun then Alpha Centauri would be 4 miles away.
That doesn't make any sense. You need to be using imperial volumes.
1 tablespoonbyte is approximately 36 bits (I just counted, with couscous, the universal measure), which makes a pintbyte is 1152 bytes- about a kilobyte, but also the number of pixels across on my screen.
It also gives us a gallonbyte - just shy of 10 kilobytes at 9216 bytes. That's even more convenient, because it's square root is 96.
Of course, having a hogsheadbyte at 442368- well, I think even you will find it difficult to argue the usefulness of finally being able to use a multiple of 442368.
Finally, we've got the tunbyte: 2322432. Nobody will ever need more than about 28% of a tunbyte of memory, so you see it scales out at just the most convenient point for us here.
Using measurements appropriate to the thing you're measuring makes far more sense than trying to standardize everything into some cludgy unuseful system just so it's "standard".
FWIW, if you're basing things on imperial, you would more likely base your measurements on useful measurements that come up frequently in the domain you're measuring - file sizes etc.
For instance, you'd probably have some unit of measurement that pretty much equates to an average mp3 file of a song - say 3MB. Call it an mp3byte... etc
Then you could say "Yeah this file upload is 10mp3bytes", and people would know what you're talking about.
Maybe it's my physics background, but I never understood the "base 2 is more logical" argument. The only time I care about file sizes is "how many files can I fit on this {DVD,external drive,iPhone}?"
It's so much easier to translate GB to MB by multiplying by 1000 and vice versa.
Yeah I never really felt comfortable with this base 10 thing. Maybe because I believe base 2 representation is the way to express what it actually is.
On the other hand base 2 should've been confusing average Joe for a long time now and the operating systems that want themselves to be average Joe understandable.
> On the other hand base 2 should've been confusing average Joe for a long time now
Base 2 became not just confusing but seemingly 'fraudulent' when it comes to buying terabyte sized storage media. A user would expect to get 1TiB but is actually getting 1TB.
Am I the only computer geek who thinks that base 10 is more logical and consistent? If a byte (1B) is considered a unit, then 1KB should be 1000B, 1MB=1000^2B, 1GB=1000^3B, 1TB=1000^4B and so on?
Also, the labels are fairly clear; I don't see too much of a problem for smart people to unlearn a bad habit. How many people here think that a kilometer is 1024 meters?
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This is like the half metrication of the UK. You end up with 2 systems, and twice as much confusion.
Base 2 is far more logical and useful IMHO :/
Wouldn't it be so much simpler if humans had evolved to have 16 fingers instead of 10...
We should use imperial units since they're more natural/intuitive/(insert rationalization here):
1 InchByte = 2.54 bytes = approximately pi bits (Edit: oops, it's about 20 bits. I divided where I should have multiplied.)
1 FootByte = 30.5 bytes
1 YardByte = 91.4 bytes
1 RodByte = 503 bytes
1 MileByte = 160,934 bytes
1 AUByte = 14.7 terabytes
1 LightYearByte = 841 petabytes
So 1 megabyte is almost exactly 2^15 footbytes. (1MB = 6.2 milebytes = 10,941 yardbytes = 32,786 footbytes)
Fun fact I learned while doing these calculations: There are 63,239 AUs in one light-year and 63,360 inches in one mile. So if you want to get a better idea of interstellar distances, imagine everything scaled down. E.G. if Earth was 1 inch from the Sun then Alpha Centauri would be 4 miles away.
That doesn't make any sense. You need to be using imperial volumes.
1 tablespoonbyte is approximately 36 bits (I just counted, with couscous, the universal measure), which makes a pintbyte is 1152 bytes- about a kilobyte, but also the number of pixels across on my screen.
It also gives us a gallonbyte - just shy of 10 kilobytes at 9216 bytes. That's even more convenient, because it's square root is 96.
Of course, having a hogsheadbyte at 442368- well, I think even you will find it difficult to argue the usefulness of finally being able to use a multiple of 442368.
Finally, we've got the tunbyte: 2322432. Nobody will ever need more than about 28% of a tunbyte of memory, so you see it scales out at just the most convenient point for us here.
Using measurements appropriate to the thing you're measuring makes far more sense than trying to standardize everything into some cludgy unuseful system just so it's "standard".
FWIW, if you're basing things on imperial, you would more likely base your measurements on useful measurements that come up frequently in the domain you're measuring - file sizes etc.
For instance, you'd probably have some unit of measurement that pretty much equates to an average mp3 file of a song - say 3MB. Call it an mp3byte... etc
Then you could say "Yeah this file upload is 10mp3bytes", and people would know what you're talking about.
Maybe it's my physics background, but I never understood the "base 2 is more logical" argument. The only time I care about file sizes is "how many files can I fit on this {DVD,external drive,iPhone}?"
It's so much easier to translate GB to MB by multiplying by 1000 and vice versa.
Easier if you think in base 10 I guess. Computers, and many programmers, don't though.
Exactly. After you have been programming for a while, numbers like 256 or 1024 appear as perfectly round numbers.
Yeah I never really felt comfortable with this base 10 thing. Maybe because I believe base 2 representation is the way to express what it actually is.
On the other hand base 2 should've been confusing average Joe for a long time now and the operating systems that want themselves to be average Joe understandable.
> On the other hand base 2 should've been confusing average Joe for a long time now
Base 2 became not just confusing but seemingly 'fraudulent' when it comes to buying terabyte sized storage media. A user would expect to get 1TiB but is actually getting 1TB.
That is quite a bit of a difference.Am I the only computer geek who thinks that base 10 is more logical and consistent? If a byte (1B) is considered a unit, then 1KB should be 1000B, 1MB=1000^2B, 1GB=1000^3B, 1TB=1000^4B and so on?
Also, the labels are fairly clear; I don't see too much of a problem for smart people to unlearn a bad habit. How many people here think that a kilometer is 1024 meters?