How many KB's are in a GB??



  • @Crispy Duck said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:


    Same here.  I also refuse to pronounce SQL as sequel.

    An ex-colleague of mine pronounced it 'squirrel'.  He had an elaborate backstory for this, where data values were considered 'nuts' and the squirrel code would go out foraging for the nuts and bring it back for you...

    I still have to consciously stop myself from saying 'squirrel' when talking to the suits...

     

    I had one that did that, too. But I thought Squirrel was actually some JDBC thing, and as he did a lot of Java stuff I just assumed he was talking about that. 



  • @dlikhten said:

    Notice how ISPs give you numbers in BITS for internet speed because in bits things seem bigger. Not to mention that they add up/down. 56k modems, thats 7kilobytes speed, thats 4 down 3 up or 5/2, most people didn't realize that the numbers were right in front of them.

    The real scam is that network traffic is quoted in theoretical channel coding maximums, not the actual performance of the device. It is impossible to get more than 46kbit/sec from any analog modem over the telephone network - that 56k figure is for two modems connected back-to-back with a crossover widget. In practice you're lucky if you get more than 40. Those 100Mbit/sec network cards? Actual throughput of the chip on the cheap ones is about 40Mbit/sec (realtek, I'm looking at your junk), and even the good ones only manage about 80. Gigabit cards are even worse.



  • @dlikhten said:

    p>Notice how ISPs give you numbers in BITS for internet speed because in bits things seem bigger. Not to mention that they add up/down. 56k modems, thats 7kilobytes speed, thats 4 down 3 up or 5/2, most people didn't realize that the numbers were right in front of them.
     

    And the real WTF is that kilobit is 1000 bits, so the speed is even less than you expect. Although [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V.92]reliable sources[/url] suggest it's not divided between downstream and upstream.



  • @merreborn said:


    That's a common error.  People fail to differentiate between RAM and hard drive space.  There's not much call for being a dick about it.  If you're really that much of a misanthrope, at least be smart about it: sell the customer more than they need, and enjoy the extra commission.

    It's perfectly understandable since from the point of view of the end-user, RAM is cache, not memory.  It serves to speed up the computer by caching data, not actually store more data in a permanent "memory".  The terminology is confusing here; it's too programmer-oriented.



  • @stevie.f said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:


    Same here.  I also refuse to pronounce SQL as sequel.

    I think SEQUEL was the original language that was developed, but isn't used anymore. IBM seems familiar here, possibly them that developed it? 

    SQL is the language today, a different entity. So I'm in agreement with you, keep on saying SQL!

    Actually, AFAIK, Quel was an original query language, but it didn't use the tuple algebra that we're used to.  It used something called tuple calculus.  Then IBM came out with Sequel (Simple English QUEry Language).  I believe the Quel company sued IBM because their name implied that they were the "next" Quel i.e. the sequel to quel.  I don't know where the acronym SQL came about in all of this.

    By the way, this is all being remembered off the top of my head from my advanced database class back in college, so if anyone knows differently, it wouldn't surprise me.  I really don't feel like looking it up on wikipedia. 

    I pronounce the language as "sequel" and most of the products (sequel server, PL-sequel) the same way.  MySQL, however, is My S Q L to me. 
     



  • My personal favorite pronunciation of "GIF" is [ɡaɪf] - starting with a hard "G" (that is, a voiced "K" - taking a moment here to point out how "hard" and "soft" are completely backwards for the letter G - the "J" sound sounds a lot harder than the other sound which is disctinct to the letter "G") and rhyming with "wife" - used by Jick of The Kingdom of Loathing.



  • @Crispy Duck said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:


    Same here.  I also refuse to pronounce SQL as sequel.

    An ex-colleague of mine pronounced it 'squirrel'.  He had an elaborate backstory for this, where data values were considered 'nuts' and the squirrel code would go out foraging for the nuts and bring it back for you...

    I still have to consciously stop myself from saying 'squirrel' when talking to the suits...

    In school, we used to call it Squeal, because that's usually want we wanted to do after working with for a few hours.



  • @ShadowWolf said:

    @Crispy Duck said:

    @Cap'n Steve said:


    Same here.  I also refuse to pronounce SQL as sequel.

    An ex-colleague of mine pronounced it 'squirrel'.  He had an elaborate backstory for this, where data values were considered 'nuts' and the squirrel code would go out foraging for the nuts and bring it back for you...

    I still have to consciously stop myself from saying 'squirrel' when talking to the suits...

    In school, we used to call it Squeal, because that's usually want we wanted to do after working with for a few hours.

    I pronounce SQL Squelch :-P



  • @emurphy said:

    As I've said before, there's no way to actually say "gibibyte" without sounding like a fuckin' tool.

     

    Agreed. What I don't understand is why they didn't simply go with something like "binary megabyte," "binary gigabyte," etc.: bMB, bGB, and so on. Much nicer to read and pronounce. Did anyone give even a moment's thought to how "mebibyte" would sound when said out loud, before making it a standard?



  • They should just standardize on the MaB-- Marketing Megabyte. It's as big as you want it to be!


    And don't forget, "Choosy programmers choose GIF!"



  • @VGR said:

    Agreed. What I don't understand is why they didn't simply go with something like "binary megabyte," "binary gigabyte," etc.: bMB, bGB, and so on. Much nicer to read and pronounce. Did anyone give even a moment's thought to how "mebibyte" would sound when said out loud, before making it a standard?

    Your suggestion is very close to the actual standard. The full prefixes are "Kilobinary", "Megabinary", "Gigabinary" and so forth. These could then be contracted to Kibi, Mebi, Gibi (smile) and so forth.

    While putting the word "binary" first was an option, how would one contract "Binary Kilobyte"? Is "biKi", "biMe" and "biGi" any less stupid? The would also be much less useful, as they demote the designating letter (K, M or G) to the third letter. 


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @robbak said:

    While putting the word "binary" first was an option, how would one contract "Binary Kilobyte"? Is "biKi", "biMe" and "biGi" any less stupid? The would also be much less useful, as they demote the designating letter (K, M or G) to the third letter. 

    .. to make them sound even sillier, the third one you mention is reminiscent of the Gibb brothers. "Which one's Morris?"



  • @dlikhten said:

    Not to mention that they add up/down. 56k modems, thats 7kilobytes speed, thats 4 down 3 up or 5/2, most people didn't realize that the numbers were right in front of them.



    In a perfect world your modem would connect at 56000/33600 (v.90; I think v.92 can do 56000/42000 or something). Back when I had dialup I lived on the end of 5km of phone cable and connecting anything faster than 33600 would cause it to drop out fairly quickly. But with my 33k modem (and, later, using the magic AT strings to limit my 56k modem to 33k) it was a stable 33600 connection.

    But in real life all kinds of things brings the speed down. (In a perfect world we'd all be using fibre to the premesis, but I digress)

    I was first person I knew to get the "uncapped" "8mbit" ADSL connection. On my line I could get 8032kbps (I had moved to a 2km line) but others could acheive much less. It was still better than the previous 1.5mbit imposed on us by Telstra (Wholesale). I've had ADSL from about 10 different companies since 2001



  • Actually, no modem could ever achieve 56kbps, because that would violate some standards - they were limited to 53,3kbps.



  • @ender said:

    Actually, no modem could ever achieve 56kbps, because that would violate some standards - they were limited to 53,3kbps.

    And they can't achieve more than 46 because that's all the bandwidth that the telephone exchange uses to relay the signal (to the nearest V.90 speed, I forget the exact figure). And you never even get that because of the noise floor.



  • @asuffield said:

    @ender said:

    Actually, no modem could ever achieve 56kbps, because that would violate some standards - they were limited to 53,3kbps.

    And they can't achieve more than 46 because that's all the bandwidth that the telephone exchange uses to relay the signal (to the nearest V.90 speed, I forget the exact figure). And you never even get that because of the noise floor.

    Well, when I was on dial-up, it regularly connected at 50,6 kb/s, so it depends.



  • @Spectre said:

    Well, when I was on dial-up, it regularly connected at 50,6 kb/s, so it depends.
    I think there's a difference between Europe and US in how they transmit the audio that causes this difference.

    Also, why does this stupid forum always start on the first page when I follow the link in "Topic Reply" e-mail?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ender said:

     

    Also, why does this stupid forum always start on the first page when I follow the link in "Topic Reply" e-mail?

    Because your default view is 'Flat View.'

    'Threaded View' takes you to the message the email was for. 



  • @seaturnip said:

    @merreborn said:

    That's a common error.  People fail to differentiate between RAM and hard drive space.  There's not much call for being a dick about it.  If you're really that much of a misanthrope, at least be smart about it: sell the customer more than they need, and enjoy the extra commission.

    It's perfectly understandable since from the point of view of the end-user, RAM is cache, not memory.  It serves to speed up the computer by caching data, not actually store more data in a permanent "memory".  The terminology is confusing here; it's too programmer-oriented.

    <verbal diarrhea> 

    I agree... There is so much storagE:

    1) L1 cache -- nobody commercializes this because only techies know what this means and users will be like WTF? 64 kilobytes?

    2) L2 cache -- important too

    3) L3 cache -- some comps have that

    4) RAM

    5) HDD

    To the user 1-3 is all the CPU, i dont know/care what it is... just give me more cores and more mhz.

    To the user 4 is almost in the same category as 1-3... Whats RAM annyways? Just 3 little letters, probably stands for rusty-ass-mumbojumbo

    5 is what they see as memory... Memory to them is like memory to a person---what the computer remembers, for ever and ever, unless the hard drive explodes (computer-altzimers)

     

     


    Remember we are selling computers to people who probably don't understand the first thing about them. Computers are so "metaphysical" and counter-intuitive. The smaller the computer, the better it is (less time for electrons to travel) vs something physical where size is important (I don't want to drive in a 2-inch car or live in a foot-high house). Because of this these numbers are just made up, miss-communicated, and hey, remember Pentium 4s with their high MHz and only 8kb of L1 cache? 99.9% of people did not know about that and if you told them they would probably look at you like you just walked out of a rocket from mars.

     People need something to measure things by, MHz on a cpu, or gigabytes (whatever the heck they are) they don't know/care how many bytes are in a kilobyte/etc... its close enough for them
     

    </verbal diarrhea>



  • Whats RAM annyways? Just 3 little letters, probably stands for rusty-ass-mumbojumbo

    I'd like to play some jazz trumpet for Your Honor.

    *boo doot doo doot doo dooooooo dooot*



  • @sootzoo said:

    Whats RAM annyways? Just 3 little letters, probably stands for rusty-ass-mumbojumbo

    I'd like to play some jazz trumpet for Your Honor.

    boo doot doo doot doo dooooooo dooot

    Good or bad? You must be missing the sarcasm tags... 



  • @dlikhten said:

    @sootzoo said:

    Whats RAM annyways? Just 3 little letters, probably stands for rusty-ass-mumbojumbo

    I'd like to play some jazz trumpet for Your Honor.

    boo doot doo doot doo dooooooo dooot

    Good or bad? You must be missing the sarcasm tags... 

    2,000 yards, Buffalo Bills! 



  • I really appreciate the inane pronunciations of some of the terms we use.  I once volunteered for a man who named his adopted stray dog "SCSI."
    ...kinda feel sorry for the dog though.



  • @Critter said:

    @emurphy said:

    As I've said before, there's no way to actually say "gibibyte" without sounding like a fuckin' tool.

    True, which is why I usually call them "gibs", e.g. "That machine has a gib of RAM and 500 gibs of disc."  It's analogous to shortening gigabytes to "gigs".

     

     

    I used to like enabling "ludicrous gibs mode" in "Rise of the Triad." 



  • squall? 

    the meaning of the word doesn't have to associate with computers in any way., it is word association via the acronym, though it isn't a true acronym



  • @curiousmrb said:

    squall? 

    the meaning of the word doesn't have to associate with computers in any way., it is word association via the acronym, though it isn't a true acronym

    So let me get this straight:

    You ...

    1) created an account

    2) resurrected a thread

    3) didn't quote who you were responding to ...

     

    ... so you could grace us with that?

    I don't have the words to describe this event. 



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @curiousmrb said:

    squall? 

    the meaning of the word doesn't have to associate with computers in any way., it is word association via the acronym, though it isn't a true acronym

    So let me get this straight:

    You ...

    1) created an account

    2) resurrected a thread

    3) didn't quote who you were responding to ...

     

    ... so you could grace us with that?

    I don't have the words to describe this event. 

     

    Wow, WTF, it isn't even on the front page like these random resurrections usually are....



  • Actually, I see no reason to pronounce KiB or the like as "kibibyte". It sounds ridiculous, and more importantly, it's a non-issue. The real issue is the ambiguity because sometimes KB != KB. Pronounce both *iB and *B as "kilobyte" if you like, but pronunciation is no reason not to use *iB in writing.

    Campaign for KiB as "kilobyte"!



  • @shadowman said:

    dlikhten:

    One of the problems users face is that they are not used to dealing in powers of 2, instead they round. However most users don't even know that so they assume the rounded numbers ARE the correct numbers. I just never knew that someone start a form of mis-information about it.

     

     

    Well it's not just that -- there are some cases where the rounded numbers are what they actually mean.  DVD capacity, for example, is listed as 4.7 GB, and is roughly equal to 4,700,000,000 bytes of storage (not 4.7 * 2^30, which is over 5 billion).  This can get you in trouble if you mouse over a directory to get it's size in windows and it reads 4.6 GB -- this will actually translate to the larger number, and wont fit on a DVD.

    To further confuse things, they technically are supposed to use kB, MB, GB for the decimal versions, and kiB (kibibyte), MiB (mebibyte), GiB (Gibibyte) for the binary versions.  But nobody actually seems to do this.

    The entire -bibyte stuff was unknown to me, until I checked some stuff in the Wikipedia and found "kibibyte". I thought it was some kind of vandalism, but lo and behold, it was a weird kind of standard nazism that's trying to move the "real" standard to "the other definition". Dudes, this gives support to deceitful practices by HDD manufacturers!

    And plus, you'll never hear me use these things in everyday speak, as it sounds like "Kirby-bytes" and people might think I'm talking about some game for the Wii ;)

    The standards "definition" tries to cover the ambiguity up by saying that data transfer and storage uses the 1000-base, while other uses go 1024-base... except everything computer-related is based on powers of 2. RAM's base-2, files are actually stored from RAM, so it makes complete sense that secondary storage should also abide by 1024-base. And for data transfers, while kiloBAUDs were using 1000-base, most if not all datarates measured by kiloBITs are base-1024. Example: my 1Mbit/s ADSL stats show that I have 1024kbit/s downstream, 128 kbit/s upstream. See?



  • Enough with the gibs and the kibbles n bits. Campaign to get GiB pronounced as "Giggitybyte"



    Therefore:

    KiB becomes Killitybyte.

    MiB becomes Meggitybyte.

    TiB becomes Territybyte.



    Heh. Heh. Alllll Riiiiight.






  • @morbiuswilters said:

    ... Funny shit....

     

    Yeah, no kidding, serial thread bumping is getting annoying.



  • @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    ... Funny shit....

     

    Yeah, no kidding, serial thread bumping is getting annoying.

    Serial complaining sure isn't!

    Seriously though, did you get my private message about your cookie?



  • @Cap'n Steve said:

    @MasterPlanSoftware said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    ... Funny shit....

     

    Yeah, no kidding, serial thread bumping is getting annoying.

    Serial complaining sure isn't!

    Seriously though, did you get my private message about your cookie?

     

    I think hes not really a user, i think hes a random complaint/spelling nazi generator.



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @curiousmrb said:

    squall? 

    the meaning of the word doesn't have to associate with computers in any way., it is word association via the acronym, though it isn't a true acronym

    So let me get this straight:

    You ...

    1) created an account

    2) resurrected a thread

    3) didn't quote who you were responding to ...

     

    ... so you could grace us with that?

    I don't have the words to describe this event. 

     That's about the size of it, yes. And I just did so again. Every once in a while I get bored and totally, randomly hunt around for something to poke my nose into. I believe you know it as trolling ;) But I actually created the account because I like to be signed up for any site that I visit freqeuntly -no matter how often i forget to log in-, for any reason; in this instance learning things I do not yet know. The grammar nazi thing is just a bad habit of mine. Hope that clarifies things for you cap'n


Log in to reply