not much throughput

[Scott Bennett]

     On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:52:11 -0500 grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> They are and have long been used interchangeably.
>
>People futzing up their interchangeables causes spacecraft to
>disappear instead of landing properly on say, Mars :)

     Bogus, and quoted out of context.  There is, and should be, no difference
between "k" and "K".
     Mars Climate Orbiter was lost through mixing up English units with SI
units, not through use of lower or upper case letters.  The difference between
"m" and "M" arrises merely because "milli" and "mega" both begin with the
same letter.  "Micro" also begins with the same letter, so the (lower case)
Greek letter "mu" is used to differentiate that prefix from the other two.
If it were not for all three prefixes beginning with the same letter, there
would be no difference in meaning between the upper and lower case forms,
nor would there likely be any need to resort to a letter from another alphabet.
>
>> the contrived distinction between prefixes like "K" and "Ki" is
>> bad revisionism.
>
>Rather, it is international standards bodies all coming together
>and saying, hey we need to clear this up once and for all. That is
>a good thing. Thus we now have: ISO/IEC IEC 80000-13:2008. Change
>happens, be it or be left behind in a pile of bullshit, the smell
>of which is surely unambiguous :)
>
     I disagree.  When the prefixes meant powers of 10 for decimal digits
and powers of 2 for bytes there was no confusion.  Now there frequently is,
as is exemplified by the instant thread.  Sometimes "standards" are
promulgated for marketing reasons with utter abandon, or even deceptive
intent, for clarity in communication (e.g., by the disk drive manufacturers).
In marketing, ambiguity is a "feature", not a "bug". ;-)


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good  *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army."                                               *
*    -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790         *
**********************************************************************