There are fairly valid reasons to use the "official" IEEE 1541 prefixes.
Since a gigabyte can be taken to mean either 2^30 bytes (real people) or 10^3 bytes (HDD manufacturers) this leads to a fairly substantial error, especially when one considers volume sizes today.
Sure one can contend that using plain bytes, or even bits, eliminates this problem but most folks (myself included) have trouble comprehending extremely large/long numbers, at least at a glance.
Yes, because we all know that Communism worked out so well. You only need to look at the surviving centrally planned economies to know that a free market is definitely the wrong way to go.
(There are Florence's in Florida, Georgia, California and for all I know every state in the Union.)
I'm happy that slashdot continues to have some sort of respect for the intellect of the reader. I'm pretty sure that everybody here made the mental connection to Italy, and if they didn't, they should be reading Geography 101 instead of slashdot. Espicially with the "Google Translate" link. And the original document in Italian.
Crafications such as 'London, England' are only necessary when it is likely that the reader could be confused. Hence there is no need to write 'Beijing, China', for example
The "dumbing down" of American media isn't really apparent until you compare similar publications from the US to their closest British counterparts. Compare Newsweek or Time Magazine to The Economist or The New York Times to The Guardian. And this isn't just my opinion, it has been validated in studies of the matter.
Trust me, they contribute to the OSS community simply by using the software. It's not like some French admin just downloaded the disc images off SourceForge. They are paying for support from somewhere. And wider use is always good. And if one of they key arguments for using OSS is that it is cheaper, is it a good idea to lessen this benefit by demanding money from new users?
No, it's to get the little kiddies really, really confused. You think that an under ten year old will understand why he has to play around with two different systems?
One could argue that someone with a nucular device is[...]
Did you just say "nucular"? No such word exists in the English language. The correct word in 'nuclear' and for help with the pronunciation, see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nuclear
Choose Location* Finland Choose Category* Web Site Queries Your Email Address* [omitted] Subject* Factual error Message* You have a factual error on your Profile page [http://www.sco.com/company/profile.html]. It says "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers." but according to a recent court decision [http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070810 165237718], you don't.
Thank You,
Matias Korhonen
And I got the same "You will be hearing from us soon." reply. Scary...
OTOH, you typed a 3K chars message as first post. Why I have the distinct feeling you already had it ready somewhere, to copy and paste it at the first chance, when anything gentooish reached front page?
I think not. From Wikipedia (paraphrased to some extent): During the six Apollo surface excursions, 2,415 samples weighing 382 kg (842 lb) were collected. The three Luna spacecraft returned with an additional 326 g (0.66 lb) of samples. Over 90 lunar meteorites have been found on Earth as of late 2006, comprising over 30 kg of material. NASA says that almost 295 kg (650 lb) of the original 382 kg (842 lb) of samples are still in pristine condition in the vault at Johnson Space Center.
One should note that moon rocks are some of the most valuable materials on Earth, far more expensive than gold or platinum (obviously due to their rarity...)
I can also report that 300 pounds is equal to about 2721 field mice (depending on species) or 0.0183269644 elephants (using African elephants).
Also, a kangaroo length can vary greatly depending on which kangaroo species is used and thus is is a rather useless unit of measurement. Also I failed to find any figures for the lengths of kangaroos using google.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, to quote Wikipedia (all hail the omniscience of it.):
In Jewish and Christian tradition, the first day of the seven day week is Sunday.There are fairly valid reasons to use the "official" IEEE 1541 prefixes.
Since a gigabyte can be taken to mean either 2^30 bytes (real people) or 10^3 bytes (HDD manufacturers) this leads to a fairly substantial error, especially when one considers volume sizes today.
Sure one can contend that using plain bytes, or even bits, eliminates this problem but most folks (myself included) have trouble comprehending extremely large/long numbers, at least at a glance.
Humans have clearly evolved to be omnivorous. Several things point to this conclusion:
There is no medical reason to stop eating meat. Having a balanced diet is an entirely different matter.
And on that note, All Hail Bacon!
Are the tasty animals eating people or are the people eating the animals?
While I agree with most of what you have to say, In fact I agree with everything except one little point.
The "Print this page" is useful when it redirects you to a stripped version of the page. One without menus, adverts and background colours.
As you do for many other things. Hospitals, ambulances, crime investigation, roads, schools, universities, the police, the military etc.
Yes, it might actually constitute news.
/.
And thus, of course, would not be featured on
Yes, and we're also talking about the same agency that forgot that there is a difference between metres and feet.
Ads? The interwebs have ads?
Yes, because we all know that Communism worked out so well. You only need to look at the surviving centrally planned economies to know that a free market is definitely the wrong way to go.
You preview the thing five times yet just as you hit the 'Submit' button you notice that you've written 'Crafications' instead of 'Clarifications'
I'm happy that slashdot continues to have some sort of respect for the intellect of the reader. I'm pretty sure that everybody here made the mental connection to Italy, and if they didn't, they should be reading Geography 101 instead of slashdot. Espicially with the "Google Translate" link. And the original document in Italian.
Crafications such as 'London, England' are only necessary when it is likely that the reader could be confused. Hence there is no need to write 'Beijing, China', for example
The "dumbing down" of American media isn't really apparent until you compare similar publications from the US to their closest British counterparts. Compare Newsweek or Time Magazine to The Economist or The New York Times to The Guardian. And this isn't just my opinion, it has been validated in studies of the matter.
So we've gone from landing on the moon to crashing into it? Truly the mark of progress...
Not to get pedantic but TLORT? What would that stand for? The Lord Of Rings The?
Thus proving my point...
If you want people to agree with you slashdot is definitely the wrong place to ask. People who post comments on
Trust me, they contribute to the OSS community simply by using the software. It's not like some French admin just downloaded the disc images off SourceForge. They are paying for support from somewhere. And wider use is always good. And if one of they key arguments for using OSS is that it is cheaper, is it a good idea to lessen this benefit by demanding money from new users?
No, it's to get the little kiddies really, really confused. You think that an under ten year old will understand why he has to play around with two different systems?
Did you just say "nucular"? No such word exists in the English language. The correct word in 'nuclear' and for help with the pronunciation, see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nuclear
This is what I wrote to them:
0 165237718], you don't.
Choose Location* Finland
Choose Category* Web Site Queries
Your Email Address* [omitted]
Subject* Factual error
Message* You have a factual error on your Profile page [http://www.sco.com/company/profile.html]. It says "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to Unix-based system software providers." but according to a recent court decision [http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007081
Thank You, Matias Korhonen
And I got the same "You will be hearing from us soon." reply. Scary...
Maybe he had had it ready from all the way back from 2003: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=294221
Or then he just coldly plagiarised it...
"Better"? Hardly.
Frankly it sucks.
I think not. From Wikipedia (paraphrased to some extent): During the six Apollo surface excursions, 2,415 samples weighing 382 kg (842 lb) were collected. The three Luna spacecraft returned with an additional 326 g (0.66 lb) of samples. Over 90 lunar meteorites have been found on Earth as of late 2006, comprising over 30 kg of material. NASA says that almost 295 kg (650 lb) of the original 382 kg (842 lb) of samples are still in pristine condition in the vault at Johnson Space Center.
One should note that moon rocks are some of the most valuable materials on Earth, far more expensive than gold or platinum (obviously due to their rarity...)
More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rocks
This might be offtopic but could we get a separate Open Source section on /.?
It seems that everything related to OSS is filed under Linux these days...
I can also report that 300 pounds is equal to about 2721 field mice (depending on species) or 0.0183269644 elephants (using African elephants).
Also, a kangaroo length can vary greatly depending on which kangaroo species is used and thus is is a rather useless unit of measurement. Also I failed to find any figures for the lengths of kangaroos using google.