Subunitary information



  • Apparently, a millibit is a legit measure of information quantity nowadays:

    [url=http://www.convertunits.com/from/millibit/to/megabit]http://www.convertunits.com/from/millibit/to/megabit[/url]

    Seems like they didn't hear about that whole IEC powers-of-two bi- prefix and all, yet.



  • Note also the auxilliary unit of 100 millibits, the LOLCAT.



  • A millibit can be a legitimate unit: if you have a transfer speed of 500 mb/s it would take 2 seconds to transfer one bit of information.

    That being said what they have there is just wrong: 1 Mb = 1,048,576,000 mb? Does that mean that 1 Mb = 1,048,576 b = 1024 * 1024 b? No, bits are always decimal.



  • I often find the maybebit to be a useful unit.

    "What's our connection speed?" "Oh, it's around 500 maybebits per second".



  • I find it useful knowledge that

    1 megabit equals 1048576000.0002749 millibits or 1048576000000274900 picobits



  •  @SlyEcho said:

    A millibit can be a legitimate unit

    Just like Write Only memory.

    I'd love to see a hardware implementation  of a milibit: only by having at least 1000 of them you could add up with certainty to a '0' or to a 1'.

     



  • I thought milli was not 1000 of something, but 1/1000 of something... ala millimeter...

    So wouldn't a millibit be 1/1000 of a bit?



  • @RaspenJho said:

    I thought milli was not 1000 of something, but 1/1000 of something... ala millimeter...

    So wouldn't a millibit be 1/1000 of a bit?

    Exactly, what made you think that we were talking about a 1000- multiple?

    Even in my example, I mentioned that you'd need a 1000 of them to make one bit, if they were available as hardware.
    Adding a "millibit" to such an array would just increase the chances that what you read is correct.



  • The more you explore this in convertunits.com, the funnier it gets.

    Apparently, what we've happily referred to as 'kilobytes,' 'gigabytes,' and 'megabytes' all these years are in SI-speak properly called 'kibibytes,' 'gibibytes,' and 'mebibytes.' Resisting the obvious humour of those names for a moment, the abbreviations are KiB, GiB, and MiB.

    I have to admit, MiB does look cooler than dull old MB. Especially if you're wearing the fedora and shades to match.

    I can only assume that the 'bi' part refers to the 'binary' nature of the factoring, so it does follow a logic, even though the results do sound unfortunately like boxes of pet treats.

    And I guess quantum computists will prefer the unit 'mebibytes?' Or perhaps not …


  • Garbage Person

    @Cad Delworth said:

    Apparently, what we've happily referred to as 'kilobytes,' 'gigabytes,' and 'megabytes' all these years are in SI-speak properly called 'kibibytes,' 'gibibytes,' and 'mebibytes.' Resisting the obvious humour of those names for a moment, the abbreviations are KiB, GiB, and MiB.
    The Linuxkids have been all about their MiB for quite some time now. Everyone, except apparently you, has learned to just smile and nod.



  • @Cad Delworth said:

    I can only assume that the 'bi' part refers to the 'binary' nature of the factoring, so it does follow a logic, even though the results do sound unfortunately like boxes of pet treats.

     

    You know how they count kittens in Japanese?

    Ippiki, nihiki, sambiki, yombiki....go ahead, read it out loud.

    I am not making this up.


Log in to reply