Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB in Configure.help.

[Ryan Cumming]

On December 21, 2001 18:11, Timothy Covell wrote:
> As concerns the use of Traditional Units being weird, I would say that the
> motivation made a lot of since.   The units were based on commonly
> available natural units of measure, eg.
>
> one inch = 1 thumb = 1 pouce
> one foot  = size of a foot = 1 pied
Oh, and things like having 0 degrees being the temperature of -frozen water- 
isn't really that natural... no, we'd be much better off using averagish 
sizes of human body parts as a reference.

> Also, as is very appropriate to this discussion, the English Units
> made use of powers of two and three. Eg.
>
> 1 inch, 1/2 inch, 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch
Oh, that's right, only users of the Imperial system can use these new-fangled 
"fractions". If only someone would invent a 1/4 centimeter, the metric system 
would be a viable replacement!

How about this: Seeing there is no commonly used unit smaller than an inch, 
people had to resort to using fractions of an inch to describe sizes. It 
works in metric too, but people just don't, because there are a wider range 
of metric units.

> 3 feet equals a yard.
>
> So, the English units were more attuned to nature.  The only thing
> natural about base ten is that the majority of us have 10 fingers and
> 10 toes.
Yes, and three is a magical number decreed by God himself. You do have a good 
point, though, the Imperial system fits in quite well with our 
base-two-but-sometimes-three number system.

> Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
> divisions: Eg.
Brilliant. The system with the smallest units wins. Let me introduce you to 
the yocto-centigrade, where the boiling point is 10^26 degrees. Combined with 
the revolutionary new "decimal point", you can obtain never before seen 
precision in describing temperatures! 

-Ryan