this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
114 points (96.0% liked)

Android

17621 readers
151 users here now

The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!

Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.

🔗Universal Link: [email protected]


💡Content Philosophy:

Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.


Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: [email protected]

For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: [email protected]

💬Matrix Chat

💬Telegram channels / chats

📰Our communities below


Rules

  1. Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.

  2. No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to [email protected].

  3. Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to [email protected].

  4. No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.

  5. No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.

  6. No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.

  7. No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.

  8. No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.

  9. No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!

  10. No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.

Quick Links

Our Communities

Lemmy App List

Chat and More


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from [email protected]

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I agree with you. A long time ago, those of us "in the know" techies could parse the difference like it was a native language. When talking anything but computers, it was always the SI of 1000. When talking about computers, it was always 1024.

I think the masses were confused and the SI purists felt their SI prefixes were being corrupted. So they made a distinction/standard between binary numbering system prefixes and decimal numbering system prefixes.

I hate it. Feels wrong because I'm old and set in my ways. People like me are confused because we still use the old nomenclature, and when someone else uses the old nomenclature (when talking about computers), it's ambiguous to us because we don't know which numbering system they are using (e.g., binary as opposed to decimal). I still have to ask and half say binary and half say decimal.

I suppose if they're teaching it in high school and college it'll become native soon enough, if it hasn't already with the next generations.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When talking about computers, it was always 1024.

No. Hard drive sizes are always given with decimal prefixes. Always have been.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I wasn't talking about HDD sizes, but I know the person to which I was replying was talking about HDD's specifically. I shou,d have clarified I was talking in more general terms (CPU RAM, NVM sizes, etc.)

I remember being miffed about the advertising of the HDD sizes. So I think you are correct there. Wish I could go back to the mid 80's and do some research on my old HDDs and floppies. I honestly just can't remember, so thank you.

I hate the new prefixes, not just because they aren't the older nomenclature, but because they feel ridiculous to speak out loud. If a less silly sounding prefix was chosen, I probably wouldn't be tainted about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When talking about computers, it was always 1024.

The problem is that each time you go up another unit, the binary and decimal units diverge further.

It rarely mattered much when you're talking about the difference between kibibytes and kilobytes. In the 1980s, with the size of memory and storage available, the difference was minor, so using the decimal unit was a pretty good approximation for most things. But as we deal with larger amounts of data, the error becomes more-significant.

Decimal unit Binary unit Divergence
kilobyte (kB) kibiyte (kiB) 2.4%
megabyte (MB) mebibyte (MiB) 4.9%
gigabyte (GB) gibibyte (GiB) 7.4%
terabyte (TB) tebibyte (TiB) 10.0%
petabyte (PB) pebibyte (PiB) 12.6%
exabyte (EB) exbibyte (EiB) 15.3%
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is exactly right. Divergence was small when sizes were small. Good point.