A) you can change the ringtone
B) apparently lots of people don't do any research before shelling out $600 for a phone... the guy who initiated the battery lawsuit, for instance
It might actually be worse with paper checks, because if they detect the error soon enough they may just stop payment. Many (most?) banks will hit you with a fee for depositing a check that does not clear.
I imagine peering and termination have something to do with it -- voice calls and SMS might eventually travel to another network and incur a termination fee. But internet data doesn't work quite the same way (there are peering issues, but I think those contracts are limited more by transmission rate than data transfer).
I kindly invite you to read your link. One definition is "million", yes, but another is "great" - a usage that predates scientific usage. Now check out the definition of megabyte: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/megabyte -- what does THAT fucking mean? 10^20 bytes (among other things, like all words).
That's almost exactly how many employees IBM has. Coincidence? Seriously though, I agree... I literally meant that the argument was hurt, not destroyed.
Then why don't people want to preserve the original meanings of mega="great" and giga="giant"? That is the usage with the most usage history. One could argue that it creates an ambiguity -- is a megawatt a million watts, or just a great number of watts? Of course this is silly, because context tells you which meaning you give to the prefix - watts are a SI unit and therefore you use SI prefixes. Now tell me, is the byte an SI unit? No, it's neither an SI base unit, a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI, nor is it derived from a base unit (at least not in a way I can tell, genius theorists, feel free to correct me). It's a COMPUTING unit. So lets use computing prefixes (which happen to be the same as SI prefixes... we won't be the first to co-opt the original phrases). Of course, this argument is hurt by the fact that IEEE has adopted the mebi prefix... but I'm going to pretend this discussion is taking place in 1998.
:) My point was why change what works? It seems that megabytes were used to mean 2^20 years before SI was ratified. I doubt cent is short for centidollar, although cent and centi are obviously related in that they both derive from Latin for hundred. I'm sure I'll eventually come around to these heinous sounding "mebi" and "gibi" prefixes, but I'm not going without a fight. And neither, apparently, are the vast majority of the population.
Yeah, but we left it alone because it was a convention - the decision did not hinge on when the error was discovered. Likewise, computer data has a long-held convention but for some reason people want this one changed.
But it would be (and still is) the majority usage in the computer data context. Context is important - mega originally meant "great", giga "giant". A megaphone is not a million phones. So it's kind of silly to impose one definition on the prefix. Yes, in science SI prefixes are used for measurements of physical properties. But data isn't really a physical property, and megabytes is more of a count than a measurement. For an example of the difference, people don't say that they have a megadollar or a gigaduck (not normal people). It's not completely crazy for data to have it's own prefixes. Yes, we could use mebi to mean 2^20, but megabyte already does. I'd like to see the pedantic community start discussing things in mebimeters and gibiwatts before they start trying to change the computer community's standard meanings.
I'm not sure the phrase "technically correct" is so cut-and-dried here. If all the technical people who invented computers defined megabyte to mean 2^20, then it's technically correct. I agree that there's an issue, but it never would have been an issue before HD marketers. Nobody ever complained that their 1 GB memory module was really 1.07 billion bytes. I've yet to see any indication that the computer industry has adopted this silly gibibyte terminology. Even google thinks they are both the same (2^30) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=1+gi gabyte+in+gibibytes&btnG=Search
Actually, the "if you don't like it, don't work for them" attitude is likely to REDUCE the number of employers who require this because it makes it hard for them to attract employees. They would then have to raise their salaries to entice people, and ultimately may decide it's not worth the extra cost.
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Well, except saying "everything is fine" is the complete opposite of FUD.
So how many patents does Apple hold? I'll wait while you look it up before asserting that they have a "metric fuckton".
you can always do it in safari.
A) you can change the ringtone B) apparently lots of people don't do any research before shelling out $600 for a phone... the guy who initiated the battery lawsuit, for instance
Have you adjusted your withholding so that there aren't any refunds to garnish?
It might actually be worse with paper checks, because if they detect the error soon enough they may just stop payment. Many (most?) banks will hit you with a fee for depositing a check that does not clear.
Um, I don't know about your bank, but mine pays me a little something called interest, not the other way around.
I imagine peering and termination have something to do with it -- voice calls and SMS might eventually travel to another network and incur a termination fee. But internet data doesn't work quite the same way (there are peering issues, but I think those contracts are limited more by transmission rate than data transfer).
I like your ideas. You should put them on a website and call it "God Cube".
Possibly with regard to NICs but definitely not in reference to memory applications.
Not really, if that were true, a gigabyte would be 2^9 bytes, not 2^30.
I kindly invite you to read your link. One definition is "million", yes, but another is "great" - a usage that predates scientific usage. Now check out the definition of megabyte: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/megabyte -- what does THAT fucking mean? 10^20 bytes (among other things, like all words).
That's almost exactly how many employees IBM has. Coincidence? Seriously though, I agree... I literally meant that the argument was hurt, not destroyed.
Then why don't people want to preserve the original meanings of mega="great" and giga="giant"? That is the usage with the most usage history. One could argue that it creates an ambiguity -- is a megawatt a million watts, or just a great number of watts? Of course this is silly, because context tells you which meaning you give to the prefix - watts are a SI unit and therefore you use SI prefixes. Now tell me, is the byte an SI unit? No, it's neither an SI base unit, a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI, nor is it derived from a base unit (at least not in a way I can tell, genius theorists, feel free to correct me). It's a COMPUTING unit. So lets use computing prefixes (which happen to be the same as SI prefixes... we won't be the first to co-opt the original phrases). Of course, this argument is hurt by the fact that IEEE has adopted the mebi prefix... but I'm going to pretend this discussion is taking place in 1998.
:) My point was why change what works? It seems that megabytes were used to mean 2^20 years before SI was ratified. I doubt cent is short for centidollar, although cent and centi are obviously related in that they both derive from Latin for hundred. I'm sure I'll eventually come around to these heinous sounding "mebi" and "gibi" prefixes, but I'm not going without a fight. And neither, apparently, are the vast majority of the population.
Yeah, but we left it alone because it was a convention - the decision did not hinge on when the error was discovered. Likewise, computer data has a long-held convention but for some reason people want this one changed.
But it would be (and still is) the majority usage in the computer data context. Context is important - mega originally meant "great", giga "giant". A megaphone is not a million phones. So it's kind of silly to impose one definition on the prefix. Yes, in science SI prefixes are used for measurements of physical properties. But data isn't really a physical property, and megabytes is more of a count than a measurement. For an example of the difference, people don't say that they have a megadollar or a gigaduck (not normal people). It's not completely crazy for data to have it's own prefixes. Yes, we could use mebi to mean 2^20, but megabyte already does. I'd like to see the pedantic community start discussing things in mebimeters and gibiwatts before they start trying to change the computer community's standard meanings.
Mega also actually means 2^20. I'm sick of this SI tyranny... units want to be free!
I'm not sure the phrase "technically correct" is so cut-and-dried here. If all the technical people who invented computers defined megabyte to mean 2^20, then it's technically correct. I agree that there's an issue, but it never would have been an issue before HD marketers. Nobody ever complained that their 1 GB memory module was really 1.07 billion bytes. I've yet to see any indication that the computer industry has adopted this silly gibibyte terminology. Even google thinks they are both the same (2^30) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=1+gi gabyte+in+gibibytes&btnG=Search
But if everyone who does the screening has been screened, who screened the first screener? Your head asplode!
Actually, the "if you don't like it, don't work for them" attitude is likely to REDUCE the number of employers who require this because it makes it hard for them to attract employees. They would then have to raise their salaries to entice people, and ultimately may decide it's not worth the extra cost.
Seriously, soon the packaging will be like: 1TB drive *
* 7 bit bytes
Simple, never use megabytes to mean 10^6. There's no good reason to. Ever. If you want to talk about a million bytes, just say a million bytes.
Not much, with you?
That's why he asked. And his questions were answered. Sounds reasonable to me.