I do networking research, and the 2^x/10^z question comes up all the time--this is because bandwidth is usually expressed in powers of 10, and file size is usually expressed in powers of 2. This would be fine if people said "100 10^6 b Ethernet", but they don't, they say "100 Mb Ethernet".
As a result, we get a lot of headaches. A good paper or talk distinguishes between 2s and 10s, or better yet normalizes everything to the same base. A bad presentation doesn't distinguish anything, leaving you to figure out which units they're using where.
The proposed names are unpleasant, but we could just consider them placeholders until we come up with something better. We definitely need some sort of word here.
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I do networking research, and the 2^x/10^z question comes up all the time--this is because bandwidth is usually expressed in powers of 10, and file size is usually expressed in powers of 2. This would be fine if people said "100 10^6 b Ethernet", but they don't, they say "100 Mb Ethernet".
As a result, we get a lot of headaches. A good paper or talk distinguishes between 2s and 10s, or better yet normalizes everything to the same base. A bad presentation doesn't distinguish anything, leaving you to figure out which units they're using where.
The proposed names are unpleasant, but we could just consider them placeholders until we come up with something better. We definitely need some sort of word here.
It's the ISO reference model--ISO stands for International Standards Organization. Still, there's obviously room for confusion.