Of course they do - it's highlights of actual events edited to fit in a an approximate 45 minute time slot.
Good point.:)
But you know what I mean, really; it's like 35 minutes of drama, or so, then... time's running out, time for someone to step in with a neat wrap-up solution that just conveniently fits into 10-minutes worth of drama and doesn't leave any lasting plot points that might have an effect on future episodes.
It's always too neat and convenient.
And, even ignoring that, the structure makes ST:TNG seem very formulaic, although some of the stories are quite good.
It'd be interesting if they had enough raw footage to re-edit Babylon 5 into the original intended 5-year storyline. (Although I strongly doubt they could have Sinclair in all the episodes, as was originally intended.)
They could redo the CGI as well; keep it essentially the same, but improve the quality, particularly some of the early stuff.
That having been said, my appetite for scifi, especially scifi that requires regular viewing, isn't what it used to be, if it ever was.
I rather liked that as opposed to STNG, things actually lasted more than one episode. Like somethin bad would happen to a character, but would be better by next episode.
OMG, yeah. I bought series 4 of ST:TNG, and whilst it was definitely worth the money in terms of entertainment, the formulaic nature of the episodes *really* starts to grate if you watch them in a relatively short period of time.
They *always* wrap things up neatly in the last 6-7 minutes, about half the time in a contrived ST "pseudo-science" solution, and the effects rarely carry over to the next episode.
Of course, there were exceptions, but the fact they were exceptions rather than the rule really proves my point.
I am unemployed. $50k is damned fucking lot of money.
Yes. And a launch party would be extremely "fucking" expensive; like it or not, $50k wouldn't buy you a particularly noteworthy launch party when you consider that its purpose is normally to get media attention. I mean, you'd probably have to spend that much on gifts for all the freeloading celebrity scum just to get them to turn up.
When I said "$50k is *not* a lot of money", I'd have assumed it was damned obvious what the context was. For example, would you say "$50k is a damned fucking lot of money" if it was the entire budget for a manned mission to Mars?
Why don't you send me $50k. Hell I'll take $25k.
Why should we?
Who in the Mozilla organisation is paying graft to the NYT? Why not take the $250k and split it up among the people who contributed code?
Because the campaign was to raise money for an NYT ad, and get publicity for Mozilla.
Guess what? They aren't giving money to the NYT out of the goodness of their hearts. They're doing it to buy an advertisement. Can you understand that? They expect something in return. This is what Microsoft do too.
Of course, you're welcome to disagree with whether this would be worth the money spent. That would be a more productive discussion than saying that $50k is a lot of money, out of context, and not even considering *why* the Mozilla org is giving the money to the NYT.
A well-hyped $50K 1.0 launch party would be a better way to generate press and motivate people to switch to the browser.
$50K is *not* a lot of money. I know people who would consider spending close to that on a wedding; you underestimate how much a decently lavish celeb-filled bullshit fest will cost to put on.
Yeah, that's what this means: "My pads are just a little low is all." Sorry if it's still not clear.
No, my response was a clarification of my reply to your *original* message, not your subsequent response.
IF (what you originally said was true) THEN { this is what my opinion is}
But my father was [..] my rotors.
You're providing this information now, but my original response was to what you said in the original message. Frankly, you made it sound like you were driving around with potentially lethal brakes.
Let's put it another way. If anyone told me they were regularly driving whilst drunk and had no intention of stopping, what I said would probably be considered reasonable by most people.
You want to make what I said sound bad in the light of information you *later* provided. You want to have your cake and eat it.
What I said was a response to what *you* originally said, not the extra info you tacked on afterwards.
IF (information false) THEN { this part doesn't apply}
Making sense? No apology needed, then. Why the fuck would anyone be driving around with their brake cables dragging on the ground anyway?!
Christ dude, switch to decaf. My pads are just a little low is all. Someday soon if I don't replace them it might damage the rotors. Jump to conclusions much?
No. You said "I'm sure a professional mechanic would think I'm exactly the same kind of lunatic if he were to have a look at the brakes on my van".
That makes it sound damn like your brakes were dangerous and you knew it. Now, right or wrong, I came to that conclusion on the basis of what you said.
How about apologies for wishing me to die, rather than being sanctimonious instead?
No apology. If someone was driving around with dangerously defective brakes, I'd much rather they got them fixed ASAP, as I said already. Or, of course, that they stopped driving.
If they still don't give a damn that they're driving in a vehicle likely to endanger everyone's life, I'd rather they suffered the consequences of losing control than an innocent third party.
As I said, if this isn't the situation you are in; well, it certainly came across that way.
Re:Somone get these ppl some free software!
on
Given Up to Spyware?
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· Score: 1
Opera didn't have the goodwill of millions of IT geeks behind it. Firefox is far more prominent, IE's most serious rival, and has the "free" entry point with the "option" to pay.
It wasn't Flashget, and I strongly doubt it was anything that had been installed with my permission. I tend to be picky about things like that (although I'm not infallible).
Thus, it was almost certainly spyware by any definition of the word.
Knowingly faulty brakes == Drink Driver
on
Given Up to Spyware?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
But to put it in perspective - I'm sure a professional mechanic would think I'm exactly the same kind of lunatic if he were to have a look at the brakes on my van. I know there's a problem, and I haven't made it a priority to fix it.
You know there's a problem with your brakes, and you choose to ignore it?
This is *worse* than the people who have zombified PCs spewing spam, and don't care; it's on a par with drink-driving.
It wouldn't be a problem if you were the only person at risk from such dangerous behaviour. Heck, some people might suggest it was a good way of cleaning up the gene pool. Unfortunately, like the drink-driver, you aren't alone on the road.
Do us all a favour, and get your brakes fixed, or at least have the grace to wrap your van (and yourself) round a lamppost on some unused road in the middle of nowhere.
(Okay, I'm aware that this probably sounds sanctimonious- my apologies for not phrasing it better).
Simpler than you imagine (but less palatable)
on
Given Up to Spyware?
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· Score: 1
But we see Valve's solution as a cure that's worse than the disease of piracy.
Your assumptions are flawed; hence Valve's solution is *not* worse than the disease of piracy.... for Valve.
Now, I don't play that many computer games, and I don't know the ins and outs of the situation. However, I *can* guess that if Valve has "gone to the dark side" (*your* words and insight), then there is no reason they should care about the end-user, except when it prevents them making money.
Seeing the situation as you would like it to be (everyone's system integrity is important), rather than the way it is (Valve are out to make money), causes many things to appear more complex than they are.
Valve are out to make money. Valve's "steam" system increases their overall profit. End of story for Valve, unless users' displeasure leads to more profit lost than gained.
Re:Somone get these ppl some free software!
on
Given Up to Spyware?
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· Score: 1
simple, sell them firefox for $50
I don't know how tongue-in-cheek this was meant to be, but it's actually a good suggestion.
Some clueless types (a superset of the PHB group) *want* the reassurance of paying so software, so... fuck it. Figure out some way of letting them pay.
Preferably so that someone who deserves it gets the money (e.g. can I buy a "commercial" looking "added value" distro from the FSF), but at any rate, that's not the main issue.
And if they later start whining, tell them *they* wanted to pay, and move on. They can either learn or not; it's not your choice, and shouldn't be your problem.
Spybot and AdAware don't cover everything. I had problems with IE windows popping up every so often, even when I wasn't using IE at all; Spybot and AdAware repeatedly failed to catch it. (They might have caught it now, but I wouldn't hold my breath).
I ended up using Linux to access the web, but let's be honest; whilst Linux *doesn't* contain the blatant stupidities that make Windows so insecure (at least pre-SP2), I'm still relying partly on the fact that its small market-share makes it less prone to attacks.
I've no doubts that if Linux was more popular and I was using it as I am now, I'd still be prone to quite a few directed cracks. In short, Linux is an improvement, but it's not the cure.
No, I don't mean "initialisation". Although I might have meant "initialism", which was what the article you linked to was talking about.
I don't pretend to be an expert in the use of the English language, but I read enough decent material in newspapers etc., and I've *never* come across the expression "initialism".
I would assume that "acronym" has, as the article hints, mutated into something that covers "sound words" like NATO, as well as "letter words" such as HTML.
You know, if you're going to nit-pick my use of English, you could as least get your own use of words right. "Initialisation" indeed...
Possibly. I was going to say 'period', but I didn't know if the terminology applied there.
I believe the resn the period is left out of IBM now is because it is no longer an acronym.
BT in the UK did that too. But regardless, the tendency these days is to display acronyms without the dots. How many people write 'U.K.' or 'U.S.' nowadays?
It's notable that the New York Times still use dots when they say the "U.S.". They use dots for IBM and HP, but in the same article omit them for AST and the term "PC".
Possibly offtopic, but isn't it quaint that the entire article refers to them as...
"I.B.M."
Does *anyone* put the ellipses(?) in acronyms nowadays? I remember this being more common when I was a kid at primary school (4-11) in the early-mid 80s, but even then it must have been dying out.
Now you just see it and it looks.... old-fashioned.
But the assistant could still pocket the $11 and give the customer a penny back. I don't see how $10.99 is really any different than $11 in the respect you mentioned.
Hey, I'm just quoting the explanation I heard. It might be wrong, but I've heard it many times.
Anyway, there is still the problem of keeping a supply of pennies outside the till.
Marketing corrected something that engineers got wrong
You may have had a valid point if they had done this consistently. They did not, and still do not.
Precision should be more important to engineers rather than considering 1024 bytes to be close enough to call it a kilobyte.
If this argument had been used when these terms first came into use, it would have been entirely valid. I probably would have supported the kibi-, mibi- etc naming system myself.
However, the "1024" meaning was what became standard, and anyone who knew enough about computers for it to matter *knew* this.
There was no confusion. It was precise.
No, by definition the kilo prefix means 1000. It's not a nitpick. It's vagueness on the part of computer manufacturers.
It wasn't vague. It was a precise (if inaccurate according to the accepted meaning) definition.
It became imprecise when marketing started using two different meanings for the same word.
> but the 2^10-based system makes a hell of
>a lot more sense in a computer-based context.
Only in RAM. And only because RAM is addressed using a binary system. Hard disks are not. [..] A base 2 system makes no sense for these.
The base 2 system makes sense for hard disks if it is the system used for RAM. You say that precision should be important. I consider using two different definitions of the same word (kilobyte etc) to be extremely poor in that respect.
Should we have to consider whether the data is being stored on disk or in memory when we quote its size in kilobytes?
As I said above, marketing corrected *nothing* that engineers "got wrong", because they freely use two different meanings of the word "kilobyte".
If they were really concerned about "precision", they'd either standardise their definitions, or use kilobytes or kibibytes where "appropriate". (If you consider base-2 to be "inappropriate" for HDDs; I don't, but that's more a matter of taste).
In fact, if they were really concerned about "precision", they wouldn't have abruptly started using a new defintion of "kilobyte", because the accepted meaning *was* precise (1024 bytes. Always.)
>If the computer manufacturers are so damn
>keen on the "correct" use of kilo, why the hell >aren't they selling memory by the kibibyte >, or quoting the capacity in "true" kilo-bytes?
I have no idea.
Seriously? We can make a pretty good guess. Was it a good and noble crusade to ensure the classically "correct" definition of "kilo-" was used that moved them into quoting HDD sizes in decimal megabytes?
Or was it a marketing ploy to make their HDDs appear bigger?
Well, assuming it was the latter (and, let's get real here, it *was* a marketing ploy), it's a fair bet that there are sound marketing reasons that they haven't started using decimal kilobytes for memory; ditto that for the lack of use of kibibyte etc.
Considering they always seem to be quoting MBs and GBs rather than Megabytes and GigaBytes, I doubt anyone would bat an eyelid if they quoted MiB and GiB instead.
I'm not convinced; plus, what would they say on TV?
"Dell Dimension with 256 mibibytes of memory" (run 'Intel Inside' animation)
"Mummy, what the fuck's a mibibyte?"
And I really don't know why they don't claim that machines come with 536MB rather than 512MB.
Marketing almost certainly has a good reason.
Which isn't the point anyway. The point is that there was a "standardised", precise definition of kilobyte that might (rightly) have annoyed the purists, but was nevertheless *precise*.
Marketing did not "correct" anything, because they freely use both the old and new definitions together. In short, what they did was worse than either sticking with the old definition or "etymologically correct, although not the standard that *everyone* knows" definition.
In short, they were marketing, and they did marketing's job of messing everything up to sell more crap, without correcting anything.
This worked when google groups was Dejanews (and it still does): X-No-archive: yes
. Of course any replies by other people are still archived I belive.
Do I trust everyone to respect the archive header? No (even if only by mistake). I suspect that the number of publicly-accessible Usenet archives will grow, and keeping track of them will be a PITA.
Because of this, the IEC has proposed the term Kibibyte (KiB), Mebibyte (MiB) (and so on) to refer to the power of 2 system, but this doesn't appear to be catching on.
Because everyone damn well knew what "kilobyte", "megabyte" and so on were supposed to mean, and the only reason the meanings "changed" was because some fuck in marketing saw a good excuse to inflate quoted hard drive capacity.
Do you seriously think we'd be having this conversation if that hadn't happened? Yeah, you can nit-pick that kilo et al should only apply to powers of 10 (or 1000), but the 2^10-based system makes a hell of a lot more sense in a computer-based context. Since it was created with kilo meaning 2^10x, and so on, it would have been better to stick to this.
If the computer manufacturers are so damn keen on the "correct" use of kilo, why the hell aren't they selling memory by the kibibyte, or quoting the capacity in "true" kilo-bytes?
Simple. No-one knows, or cares, what the fuck a "kibibyte" is meant to be, and since memory has to come in something approaching powers of 2, to quote it in true kilo-bytes would (a) Sound *stupid*, and (b) Confuse people who wondered what those weird non-standard sticks of memory were, and buy the competitor's brand instead.
So; the manufacturers use whichever definition suits *them* best, and really, only pedants care about kibibytes.
Well, I'll tell you what smart guy. You report back here once you win a court case defending a Usenet post. Hell, once anybody wins a court case, then I'll believe you. Until then, you're just talking out of your ass.
Your flawed assumption (or assertion) is that because it hasn't been challenged in court (probably because it isn't worth anyone's time and money) that it is legal.
One serious problem is the implicit permissions given when posting to Usenet. As has been stated elsewhere, copyright *does* automatically apply in many countries- US included- nowadays, regardless of whether it is *practically* enforcable by someone without vast legal funds.
IANAL, but I would assume that if you posted to Usenet and attempted to sue another Usenet site for copying your post you would be laughed out of court, because the nature of Usenet implies that your post will be copied and hang around for a while. The question is how far that implicit permission goes. When I posted stuff to Usenet 10 years ago, I did not know that it would be archived and made available for search.
More importantly, if someone took this information and started manipulating it into a full-blown commercial service (this is more hypothetical), I doubt the "fair usage" (or whatever legal term applies) of my original post would stretch that far.
Even if it was not practical to take this sort of thing to court, that does not imply that it would be legal.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they do - it's highlights of actual events edited to fit in a an approximate 45 minute time slot.
:)
Good point.
But you know what I mean, really; it's like 35 minutes of drama, or so, then... time's running out, time for someone to step in with a neat wrap-up solution that just conveniently fits into 10-minutes worth of drama and doesn't leave any lasting plot points that might have an effect on future episodes.
It's always too neat and convenient.
And, even ignoring that, the structure makes ST:TNG seem very formulaic, although some of the stories are quite good.
It'd be interesting if they had enough raw footage to re-edit Babylon 5 into the original intended 5-year storyline. (Although I strongly doubt they could have Sinclair in all the episodes, as was originally intended.)
They could redo the CGI as well; keep it essentially the same, but improve the quality, particularly some of the early stuff.
That having been said, my appetite for scifi, especially scifi that requires regular viewing, isn't what it used to be, if it ever was.
I rather liked that as opposed to STNG, things actually lasted more than one episode. Like somethin bad would happen to a character, but would be better by next episode.
OMG, yeah. I bought series 4 of ST:TNG, and whilst it was definitely worth the money in terms of entertainment, the formulaic nature of the episodes *really* starts to grate if you watch them in a relatively short period of time.
They *always* wrap things up neatly in the last 6-7 minutes, about half the time in a contrived ST "pseudo-science" solution, and the effects rarely carry over to the next episode.
Of course, there were exceptions, but the fact they were exceptions rather than the rule really proves my point.
I am unemployed. $50k is damned fucking lot of money.
Yes. And a launch party would be extremely "fucking" expensive; like it or not, $50k wouldn't buy you a particularly noteworthy launch party when you consider that its purpose is normally to get media attention. I mean, you'd probably have to spend that much on gifts for all the freeloading celebrity scum just to get them to turn up.
When I said "$50k is *not* a lot of money", I'd have assumed it was damned obvious what the context was. For example, would you say "$50k is a damned fucking lot of money" if it was the entire budget for a manned mission to Mars?
Why don't you send me $50k. Hell I'll take $25k.
Why should we?
Who in the Mozilla organisation is paying graft to the NYT? Why not take the $250k and split it up among the people who contributed code?
Because the campaign was to raise money for an NYT ad, and get publicity for Mozilla.
Guess what? They aren't giving money to the NYT out of the goodness of their hearts. They're doing it to buy an advertisement. Can you understand that? They expect something in return. This is what Microsoft do too.
Of course, you're welcome to disagree with whether this would be worth the money spent. That would be a more productive discussion than saying that $50k is a lot of money, out of context, and not even considering *why* the Mozilla org is giving the money to the NYT.
A well-hyped $50K 1.0 launch party would be a better way to generate press and motivate people to switch to the browser.
$50K is *not* a lot of money. I know people who would consider spending close to that on a wedding; you underestimate how much a decently lavish celeb-filled bullshit fest will cost to put on.
The Magic Clue-Ball(tm) tells me the New York Times is a newspaper, not a TV station. That means no moving video.
I used to take LSD before I read my newspaper. That way I got colourful *animated* banner ads, just like on the web.
Then I remembered that it was so fucking annoying on the web that I removed Flash. Can't do that with LSD.
I had a damn leprechaun trying to sell me mobile phones all afternoon. When I closed the paper, he kept popping up elsewhere.
Kids, don't *ever* do LSD whilst reading the papers (unless it's one of Rupert Murdoch's).
Yeah, that's what this means: "My pads are just a little low is all." Sorry if it's still not clear.
No, my response was a clarification of my reply to your *original* message, not your subsequent response.
IF (what you originally said was true) THEN { this is what my opinion is}
But my father was [..] my rotors.
You're providing this information now, but my original response was to what you said in the original message. Frankly, you made it sound like you were driving around with potentially lethal brakes.
Let's put it another way. If anyone told me they were regularly driving whilst drunk and had no intention of stopping, what I said would probably be considered reasonable by most people.
You want to make what I said sound bad in the light of information you *later* provided. You want to have your cake and eat it.
What I said was a response to what *you* originally said, not the extra info you tacked on afterwards.
IF (information false) THEN { this part doesn't apply}
Making sense? No apology needed, then. Why the fuck would anyone be driving around with their brake cables dragging on the ground anyway?!
Christ dude, switch to decaf. My pads are just a little low is all. Someday soon if I don't replace them it might damage the rotors. Jump to conclusions much?
No. You said "I'm sure a professional mechanic would think I'm exactly the same kind of lunatic if he were to have a look at the brakes on my van".
That makes it sound damn like your brakes were dangerous and you knew it. Now, right or wrong, I came to that conclusion on the basis of what you said.
How about apologies for wishing me to die, rather than being sanctimonious instead?
No apology. If someone was driving around with dangerously defective brakes, I'd much rather they got them fixed ASAP, as I said already. Or, of course, that they stopped driving.
If they still don't give a damn that they're driving in a vehicle likely to endanger everyone's life, I'd rather they suffered the consequences of losing control than an innocent third party.
As I said, if this isn't the situation you are in; well, it certainly came across that way.
Opera didn't have the goodwill of millions of IT geeks behind it. Firefox is far more prominent, IE's most serious rival, and has the "free" entry point with the "option" to pay.
It wasn't Flashget, and I strongly doubt it was anything that had been installed with my permission. I tend to be picky about things like that (although I'm not infallible).
Thus, it was almost certainly spyware by any definition of the word.
But to put it in perspective - I'm sure a professional mechanic would think I'm exactly the same kind of lunatic if he were to have a look at the brakes on my van. I know there's a problem, and I haven't made it a priority to fix it.
You know there's a problem with your brakes, and you choose to ignore it?
This is *worse* than the people who have zombified PCs spewing spam, and don't care; it's on a par with drink-driving.
It wouldn't be a problem if you were the only person at risk from such dangerous behaviour. Heck, some people might suggest it was a good way of cleaning up the gene pool. Unfortunately, like the drink-driver, you aren't alone on the road.
Do us all a favour, and get your brakes fixed, or at least have the grace to wrap your van (and yourself) round a lamppost on some unused road in the middle of nowhere.
(Okay, I'm aware that this probably sounds sanctimonious- my apologies for not phrasing it better).
But we see Valve's solution as a cure that's worse than the disease of piracy.
Your assumptions are flawed; hence Valve's solution is *not* worse than the disease of piracy.... for Valve.
Now, I don't play that many computer games, and I don't know the ins and outs of the situation. However, I *can* guess that if Valve has "gone to the dark side" (*your* words and insight), then there is no reason they should care about the end-user, except when it prevents them making money.
Seeing the situation as you would like it to be (everyone's system integrity is important), rather than the way it is (Valve are out to make money), causes many things to appear more complex than they are.
Valve are out to make money. Valve's "steam" system increases their overall profit. End of story for Valve, unless users' displeasure leads to more profit lost than gained.
simple, sell them firefox for $50
I don't know how tongue-in-cheek this was meant to be, but it's actually a good suggestion.
Some clueless types (a superset of the PHB group) *want* the reassurance of paying so software, so... fuck it. Figure out some way of letting them pay.
Preferably so that someone who deserves it gets the money (e.g. can I buy a "commercial" looking "added value" distro from the FSF), but at any rate, that's not the main issue.
And if they later start whining, tell them *they* wanted to pay, and move on. They can either learn or not; it's not your choice, and shouldn't be your problem.
Spybot and AdAware don't cover everything. I had problems with IE windows popping up every so often, even when I wasn't using IE at all; Spybot and AdAware repeatedly failed to catch it. (They might have caught it now, but I wouldn't hold my breath).
I ended up using Linux to access the web, but let's be honest; whilst Linux *doesn't* contain the blatant stupidities that make Windows so insecure (at least pre-SP2), I'm still relying partly on the fact that its small market-share makes it less prone to attacks.
I've no doubts that if Linux was more popular and I was using it as I am now, I'd still be prone to quite a few directed cracks. In short, Linux is an improvement, but it's not the cure.
By Acronym do you mean initialisation?
No, I don't mean "initialisation". Although I might have meant "initialism", which was what the article you linked to was talking about.
I don't pretend to be an expert in the use of the English language, but I read enough decent material in newspapers etc., and I've *never* come across the expression "initialism".
I would assume that "acronym" has, as the article hints, mutated into something that covers "sound words" like NATO, as well as "letter words" such as HTML.
You know, if you're going to nit-pick my use of English, you could as least get your own use of words right. "Initialisation" indeed...
By 'ellipses' do you mean 'periods'?
Possibly. I was going to say 'period', but I didn't know if the terminology applied there.
I believe the resn the period is left out of IBM now is because it is no longer an acronym.
BT in the UK did that too. But regardless, the tendency these days is to display acronyms without the dots. How many people write 'U.K.' or 'U.S.' nowadays?
It's notable that the New York Times still use dots when they say the "U.S.". They use dots for IBM and HP, but in the same article omit them for AST and the term "PC".
Possibly offtopic, but isn't it quaint that the entire article refers to them as...
"I.B.M."
Does *anyone* put the ellipses(?) in acronyms nowadays? I remember this being more common when I was a kid at primary school (4-11) in the early-mid 80s, but even then it must have been dying out.
Now you just see it and it looks.... old-fashioned.
Wow, it must be a tactic from very long ago.. before sales tax even!
Apparently, it was in the days of all-mechanical tills. I don't know if sales tax would have been in force in the countries doing this at that time.
But the assistant could still pocket the $11 and give the customer a penny back. I don't see how $10.99 is really any different than $11 in the respect you mentioned.
Hey, I'm just quoting the explanation I heard. It might be wrong, but I've heard it many times.
Anyway, there is still the problem of keeping a supply of pennies outside the till.
I'm more inclined to criticise RAM manufacturers for getting it wrong for marketting purposes all those years ago, and sticking with a flawed system.
Was the nomenclature invented by RAM manufacturers in the first place?
Marketing corrected something that engineers got wrong
You may have had a valid point if they had done this consistently. They did not, and still do not.
Precision should be more important to engineers rather than considering 1024 bytes to be close enough to call it a kilobyte.
If this argument had been used when these terms first came into use, it would have been entirely valid. I probably would have supported the kibi-, mibi- etc naming system myself.
However, the "1024" meaning was what became standard, and anyone who knew enough about computers for it to matter *knew* this.
There was no confusion. It was precise.
No, by definition the kilo prefix means 1000. It's not a nitpick. It's vagueness on the part of computer manufacturers.
It wasn't vague. It was a precise (if inaccurate according to the accepted meaning) definition.
It became imprecise when marketing started using two different meanings for the same word.
> but the 2^10-based system makes a hell of
>a lot more sense in a computer-based context.
Only in RAM. And only because RAM is addressed using a binary system. Hard disks are not. [..] A base 2 system makes no sense for these.
The base 2 system makes sense for hard disks if it is the system used for RAM. You say that precision should be important. I consider using two different definitions of the same word (kilobyte etc) to be extremely poor in that respect.
Should we have to consider whether the data is being stored on disk or in memory when we quote its size in kilobytes?
As I said above, marketing corrected *nothing* that engineers "got wrong", because they freely use two different meanings of the word "kilobyte".
If they were really concerned about "precision", they'd either standardise their definitions, or use kilobytes or kibibytes where "appropriate". (If you consider base-2 to be "inappropriate" for HDDs; I don't, but that's more a matter of taste).
In fact, if they were really concerned about "precision", they wouldn't have abruptly started using a new defintion of "kilobyte", because the accepted meaning *was* precise (1024 bytes. Always.)
>If the computer manufacturers are so damn
>keen on the "correct" use of kilo, why the hell
>aren't they selling memory by the kibibyte
>, or quoting the capacity in "true" kilo-bytes?
I have no idea.
Seriously? We can make a pretty good guess. Was it a good and noble crusade to ensure the classically "correct" definition of "kilo-" was used that moved them into quoting HDD sizes in decimal megabytes?
Or was it a marketing ploy to make their HDDs appear bigger?
Well, assuming it was the latter (and, let's get real here, it *was* a marketing ploy), it's a fair bet that there are sound marketing reasons that they haven't started using decimal kilobytes for memory; ditto that for the lack of use of kibibyte etc.
Considering they always seem to be quoting MBs and GBs rather than Megabytes and GigaBytes, I doubt anyone would bat an eyelid if they quoted MiB and GiB instead.
I'm not convinced; plus, what would they say on TV?
"Dell Dimension with 256 mibibytes of memory" (run 'Intel Inside' animation)
"Mummy, what the fuck's a mibibyte?"
And I really don't know why they don't claim that machines come with 536MB rather than 512MB.
Marketing almost certainly has a good reason.
Which isn't the point anyway. The point is that there was a "standardised", precise definition of kilobyte that might (rightly) have annoyed the purists, but was nevertheless *precise*.
Marketing did not "correct" anything, because they freely use both the old and new definitions together. In short, what they did was worse than either sticking with the old definition or "etymologically correct, although not the standard that *everyone* knows" definition.
In short, they were marketing, and they did marketing's job of messing everything up to sell more crap, without correcting anything.
It's the same kind of low cunning behind "$10.99"... really only effective if not everyone does it.
That was a tactic from the old days to force the assistant to open the till (and give the person their change), thus (IIRC) registering the sale.
Otherwise, the assistant could simply pocket the $11.00 he/she was given.
I don't think I've ever parsed $10.99 as being any different from $10.95 or $11.00.
This worked when google groups was Dejanews (and it still does): X-No-archive: yes . Of course any replies by other people are still archived I belive.
Do I trust everyone to respect the archive header? No (even if only by mistake). I suspect that the number of publicly-accessible Usenet archives will grow, and keeping track of them will be a PITA.
And as to your second point.... *exactly*.
Because of this, the IEC has proposed the term Kibibyte (KiB), Mebibyte (MiB) (and so on) to refer to the power of 2 system, but this doesn't appear to be catching on.
Because everyone damn well knew what "kilobyte", "megabyte" and so on were supposed to mean, and the only reason the meanings "changed" was because some fuck in marketing saw a good excuse to inflate quoted hard drive capacity.
Do you seriously think we'd be having this conversation if that hadn't happened? Yeah, you can nit-pick that kilo et al should only apply to powers of 10 (or 1000), but the 2^10-based system makes a hell of a lot more sense in a computer-based context. Since it was created with kilo meaning 2^10x, and so on, it would have been better to stick to this.
If the computer manufacturers are so damn keen on the "correct" use of kilo, why the hell aren't they selling memory by the kibibyte, or quoting the capacity in "true" kilo-bytes?
Simple. No-one knows, or cares, what the fuck a "kibibyte" is meant to be, and since memory has to come in something approaching powers of 2, to quote it in true kilo-bytes would (a) Sound *stupid*, and (b) Confuse people who wondered what those weird non-standard sticks of memory were, and buy the competitor's brand instead.
So; the manufacturers use whichever definition suits *them* best, and really, only pedants care about kibibytes.
Well, I'll tell you what smart guy. You report back here once you win a court case defending a Usenet post. Hell, once anybody wins a court case, then I'll believe you. Until then, you're just talking out of your ass.
Your flawed assumption (or assertion) is that because it hasn't been challenged in court (probably because it isn't worth anyone's time and money) that it is legal.
One serious problem is the implicit permissions given when posting to Usenet. As has been stated elsewhere, copyright *does* automatically apply in many countries- US included- nowadays, regardless of whether it is *practically* enforcable by someone without vast legal funds.
IANAL, but I would assume that if you posted to Usenet and attempted to sue another Usenet site for copying your post you would be laughed out of court, because the nature of Usenet implies that your post will be copied and hang around for a while. The question is how far that implicit permission goes. When I posted stuff to Usenet 10 years ago, I did not know that it would be archived and made available for search.
More importantly, if someone took this information and started manipulating it into a full-blown commercial service (this is more hypothetical), I doubt the "fair usage" (or whatever legal term applies) of my original post would stretch that far.
Even if it was not practical to take this sort of thing to court, that does not imply that it would be legal.