Because Obviously I'm Lying

[tendomentis]

When I worked in retail, I tried explaining the "scam" (thought I didn't use that word) that HD manufacturers run by using base-10 to calculate a "gigabyte". The customer got pissed and stormed out threatening to sue us for being an accomplice to fraud.

I think the way the OP explained it to the n00b-customer was probably the safest. His explanation wasn't untrue, just incomplete, and given the way the customer was acting, the complete truth wouldn't have made any difference.

[IT Grunt]

His explanation wasn't untrue, just incomplete, and given the way the customer was acting, the complete truth wouldn't have made any difference.

No doubts there. That SC's arrogance shield was completely impenetrable to truthon torpedoes.

[mariamousie1]

So people who are Japanese automatically know everything there is to know about technology? Wow, I wish I was Japanese. Must be darn useful.

[Lehk]

Where do people get the idea that the "lost space" of a drive is somthing do do with the partition table or filesystem(s)? The partition table is tiny since it's still the anchient DOS partition table type and most filesystems take trivial amounts of space....

EDIT: I really wish OS developers would stop using kibi,mibi and gibibytes, why not switch to a sane system like kilo,mega and giga?
The "gigabytes" counted in base-2 are infact gibibytes, counted like that for no actual reason other then it's the tradition, another looming monster from people who measure with imperial

it makes sense because it's the option with the fewest consequences.

data in RAM is measured in KiB.MiB and GiB and those scales are the most natural for the CPU to work with. by using base 10 they would be converting every time you transitioned from memory to or from disk and could cause big trouble if you forgot to do so. if a program checked and saw that a file it uses is 200 KB and reserved in memory 200KiB, then wrote the file correctly, every time the file was accessed it would be a bit bigger.

if the error was on the other side the data would get cut off and either have a write error or worse, silently fail to write all the data the program needed to write, or even worse than that, it could crap all over the disk (not in a normal modern OS but other systems written closer to the hardware could have this happen)

[Zell]

GOD this is why I wouldn't wanna work at a hardware store. People just wouldn't get it.

The Operating System uses some of that space for it, but the main reason why you cannot have the full capacity of a drive is due to the conversion of bits. When we say 320gb, we're saying it in 1024 bytes each. When it is formatted, the sectors are changed into specific amounts. Usually that amount does not equal 320gb and is much less.

[solemnwarning]

it makes sense because it's the option with the fewest consequences.

data in RAM is measured in KiB.MiB and GiB and those scales are the most natural for the CPU to work with. by using base 10 they would be converting every time you transitioned from memory to or from disk and could cause big trouble if you forgot to do so. if a program checked and saw that a file it uses is 200 KB and reserved in memory 200KiB, then wrote the file correctly, every time the file was accessed it would be a bit bigger.

if the error was on the other side the data would get cut off and either have a write error or worse, silently fail to write all the data the program needed to write, or even worse than that, it could crap all over the disk (not in a normal modern OS but other systems written closer to the hardware could have this happen)

Memory isn't measured in KiB or MiB, it's in BYTES, I can call malloc(1000) for a kilobyte or malloc(1024) for a kibibyte

Pretty much everything is measured internally as bytes (or even bits), memory chunks, files, disks, streams, you name it, KiB/MiB is just made up for the user, a program checks how big somthing is and gets the number of bytes, not K,M or anything like that

For referance:
malloc()

I code in C and have minimal kernel development experience :P

[blas]

That was amusing.

There's a brewery where my parents live. It is honest to God the nastiest beer I have ever tasted in my life. If anyone is curious they can PM me and I'll gladly share, I just don't want to give too much away on here..

Anywho, the owners try to advertise that it's "German" beer. As in, the closest you'll get to German beer without it being brewed in Germany.

Fancy my father, who waited forever until we moved here, to visit the brewery and see how it was made and sample it. He said to the tour guide "This isn't German beer. I'm German, and this beer is WEAK!"

Weirdly enough, he still drinks it religiously because it's dirt cheap beer. It has several flavors, but my God, it's DISGUSTING. And if that's what real German beer is supposed to taste like, I don't want to be a proud German anymore. YISH!

[cinema guy]

So people who are Japanese automatically know everything there is to know about technology? Wow, I wish I was Japanese. Must be darn useful.

Me too. Except I don't speak Japaese, would that be a problem?

[Rapscallion]

another looming monster from people who measure with imperial

Ah, Imperial vs Metric. I once heard the view opined that metric is for people who can't add up. Personally, I like to be able to work in both.

Rapscallion

[ArenaBoy]

I speak Japanese, would that make me knowledgeable in technology?

I happen to be French; should I go around and drink wine and talk in a snotty voice and know every trick to romance?

[Bliss]

Zell: You're confusing the difference between bits and bytes, and the difference of 1000 based magnitudes and 1024 based magnitudes.

Solemn: really for a programmer you SHOULD know that the computer uses a binary system which leads naturally to increments over a base 2 system. Pst btw if you still insist it's all meassured in "bytes" (btw do you realize there is a current acoord on what a byte is, but it's not writen in stone? did you know other older platforms used larger and smaller divisions for a byte before we reached an acoord that a byte is equivalent to 8 bits? and that for some obscure areas bytes are still differently sized to 8bits?) Anyhow, tell me why do you batantly ignore the fact that for example HDDs are formated using divisions in a base 2 numbering, like for example 512 Byte sized sectors?

Do you also pretend to ignore that whethever you ask 1 Byte or 1000 Bytes of ram with malloc, the ram is still MANUFACTURED, addressed, and used in a base 2 numerical system?

[solemnwarning]

I realise that it is manufacutred in capcities in base-2 and addressed by the hardware, but programs see bytes when allocating files/etc, there's no reason for them to output the sizes to user as KiB/MiB and GiB, then claim it's KB/MB and GB.

[Bliss]

The trouble is that the distinction between KB/MB/GB and KiB/Mib/GiB has been in active use not for too long, and if i've seen only a few technicians handle it, I wouldn't ever expect an end user to understand the difference, heck I am sometimes amazed some people do know MB is more than KB.... but some years of help desk left me jaded for life like that, dont mind me there

[Talonetc]

C: You don't understand, I know technology because I am Japanese.

Yes and all black people are professional rappers, all Jewish people are bankers, and all Germans are yodeling Nazis. Retarded...

[JustADude]

Yes and all black people are professional wrappers

Rappers, no 'W'. I don't think there's a stereotype of blacks being in the gift-preparation industry.