Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 30th Jan 2013 00:38 UTC
Marco Arment: "Everyone should play by the same rules. A proposal: storage capacities referenced or implied in the names or advertisements for personal computers, tablets, and smartphones should not exceed the amount of space available for end-user installation of third-party applications and data, after enough software has been installed to enable all commonly advertised functionality. With today's OSes, iPads could advertise capacities no larger than 12, 28, 60, and 124 GB and the Surface Pros could be named 23 and 83 GB." Wholly agreed. When I buy a box of 100 staples, I expect it to contain ~100 staples - not 50 because the other 50 are holding the box together.
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RE: Let's also standardize on binary units.
by HappyGod on Wed 30th Jan 2013 04:45
in reply to "Let's also standardize on binary units."
Member since:2005-10-19
GiB, not GB, when you're talking about 1073741824 bytes.
That way, all confusion is avoided.
That way, all confusion is avoided.
The "xiB" nomenclature was invented by HDD manufacturers just so they could lie about their capacities.
When I studied, 1GB meant 1073741824 bytes.
And it still does: https://www.google.com/search?q=1GB+in+bytes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&...
RE[2]: Let's also standardize on binary units.
by ssokolow on Wed 30th Jan 2013 05:39
in reply to "RE: Let's also standardize on binary units."
Member since:2010-01-21
The "xiB" nomenclature was invented by HDD manufacturers just so they could lie about their capacities.
I don't know what input any hard drive manufacturers who had members in these organizations might have had might have had, but the binary prefixes (kibi/gibi/tebi/etc.) were developed by the IEC with support from the IEEE and CIPM (International Committee for Weights and Measures) due to concerns that the old "everybody knows kilo- means 1024 in the context of computers" attitude was proving problematic as computers became a more and more generally-used tool.
It's actually meant to SOLVE the problem you're complaining about... though more in the context of standards, research, and business. (People in related but different fields both saying 5GB but meaning different things)
When I studied, 1GB meant 1073741824 bytes.
...because people in computer science decided "Ehh... 1000? 1024? Close enough. Use the SI prefixes."
Personally, I think it'd make more sense to complain about wood measurements like 2x4 referring to the size they're cut before the wood is dried out.
And it still does: https://www.google.com/search?q=1GB+in+bytes&ie=utf-8&oe=u...
Just because Google Calculator is still non-compliant with a definition standards bodies agreed on over a decade ago doesn't mean that should continue to be the case.
GiB is unambiguous. GB will become unambiguous when we stop abusing it to refer to powers of 1024.
Complain to the hard drive manufacturers (Good. Ditch GB) or to Microsoft (Not something I want. Keep GiB.) to get them to agree on a set of units.
Here's the NIST page on the topic:
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
Edited 2013-01-30 05:42 UTC
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GiB, not GB, when you're talking about 1073741824 bytes.
That way, all confusion is avoided.