[0157988944]

Obviously it would be better for the drive manufacturers to just report their base-2 GiB on the package but it's now become that GB = 1000, GiB = 1024, so they are reporting the right numbers. Would it be more user friendly for them to keep counting the same way but use the GiB unit? Perhaps... at some point it's going to have to change though

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

No, it doesn't. It was a way for hard drive manufacturers to artificially inflate the size of their product. That was the only logic that was ever involved in the base 10 numbers.

That is a huge load of crap.

You obviously still haven't understood metric prefixes. You chose instead to bemoan the grand HDD manufacturer conspiracy when it fact it's entirely irrelevant why HD manufacturers are doing what they do. Fact is there's a standard saying metric prefixes like mega, giga, etc. stand for base 10 prefixes. Apple is changing their OS to adhere to that standard. Rightly so. The resistance against this is about as sensible as resisting the metric system. Sure, bad habits are hard to break, but whining about having to make the effort is pathetic.

What makes sense is that when I send a file to my Windows and Linux and Unix and Mac OS X (pre SL)-using friends, I don't see a completely different file size from everybody else.

Talk about an inflated problem. For small files the difference is negligible. For very large data clusters where you might actually need to worry about exact file sizes the people in charge are either educated or can be expected to read up on the problem. Everybody else will just continue to burn 100 KB word files to 700 MB CDs.

The largest group however will be those people who now come home with their brand new 750 GB disk and will are happy to see that their OS sees the same 750 GB they bought.

If you want to complain, complain to the software developers who still aren't complying with the IEC 60027-2 standard ten years after its inception.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

The conspiracy where hard drive manufacturers were the only ones who said 1 KB = 1000 bytes and every operating system on earth besides Snow Leopard says 1 KB = 1024 bytes? I'm pretty sure that's a historical fact, and no, I don't recall anybody disputing it. (Some people were saying it shouldn't be so, but I think it's pretty indisputable that it is so.)

All CPU and bus clock frequencies, as well as (IIRC) all storage interfaces and network interface speed ratings are base 10.

In fact, today, software interface design and RAM are the ONLY two areas where "kilo-", "mega-", and "tera-" are commonly NOT used in their standard meanings.
Edit: Oh, and CD-Rs - the 700MB claimed are really 700 MiB. DVD-Rs, on the other hand, are sold with base-10 labeling.


Reading up on history, it's a lot more confused than you'd like it to be:

Timeline of binary prefixes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Binary prefix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



(I found that pretty fascinating, because I too used to think it was a marketing gimmick used by HD manufacturers - though I figured out a while ago that had to be complete bollocks because it works to *nobody's* competitive advantage.)

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Simon 

That is a huge load of crap.

You obviously still haven't understood metric prefixes. You chose instead to bemoan the grand HDD manufacturer conspiracy... whining about having to make the effort is pathetic.

Could you quit with the constant personal attacks in almost every thread? I don't know what's going on, but it's really starting to grate on my nerves.

[P]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Icons ?

I don't have icons for this feature in my Notes. Maybe that's a custom install for your company.

Custom install by me...

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lo...ry/inbox-asst/

Except I modified that hint a bit as well.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Could you quit with the constant personal attacks in almost every thread? I don't know what's going on, but it's really starting to grate on my nerves.

Sorry to hear, but I stand by every word there. As Erik already pointed out, what Chuckit wrote above was frankly put crap. And I explained why too. It's not the first time we've been having the discussion about metric prefixes either.

[besson3c]

I read the same thing without such a strong ideological reaction, Simon. It might be best to ease up a little?

[Simon]

Umm, how about we get back to SL?

[OreoCookie]

How about we talk more about Snow Leopard and less about decimal places?

[P]

Originally Posted by Brien 

Do SSDs measure in 10's or 2's? If they measure in 2's this might end up being a PITA.

They have it both ways. The size is a binary number, but a certain chunk is always used for the magic behind the scenes when blocks are reassigned on the fly (because flash can only be deleted by lines, but written by blocks). They use the difference to hide this fact. At least in some cases, 64 000 000 000 bytes are visible on a drive that really has 64 GiB.

[P]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Umm, how about we get back to SL?

Since I promised to stop debating this in that other thread, yes please.

But I have to add my favorite argument again: The sector size on harddrives and floppies is 512 bytes. Always has been. If harddrive manufacturers had really intended to use decimal prefixes all the time, they would have set it to 500 bytes. That 512 bytes size is the only reason why OSes report file sizes with binary prefixes anyway.

[Jasoco]

I'm sure Base-10 usage in OS file sizes will become normal over time. Just like removing floppy drives and legacy ports, or creating computers with cases that weren't overly beige and bland.

[besson3c]

What makes you so sure, Jasoco?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Jasoco 

I'm sure Base-10 usage in OS file sizes will become normal over time. Just like removing floppy drives and legacy ports, or creating computers with cases that weren't overly beige and bland.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What makes you so sure, Jasoco?

Actually, I'm almost surprised that it took Apple so long.

A base10 system is much easier to explain and understand by non-tech savvy users than base2.

-t

[Jasoco]

It's Apple. They've shown time and time again that they will lead and the others will eventually follow. Whether it takes a year or a few years.

I would not be the least surprised if Windows 8 implemented Base-10 HD sizes, at least as an option. And if it showed up in Linux at some point. (If it's not already there)

[besson3c]

How often does Microsoft cave to Apple's standards? Sure they steal features and ideas that didn't exist prior, but Internet Explorer alone is enough proof that Microsoft is not really interested in following standards.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

but Internet Explorer alone is enough proof that Microsoft is not really interested in following standards.

Uhm,

IE is the BEST example that M$ eventually follows.

Did you never notice how much more compliant IE got over the years ?
IE 8.0's compliance is downright scary...

-t

[besson3c]

It has gotten better, sure, but it still has a long ways to go. It still uses ActiveX to embed content, doesn't support useful CSS tags such as border-radius, does font embedding differently, a whole swatch of Javascript different which often warrants using a toolkit to negotiate these hurdles, doesn't support many HTML tags (and has many of their own), etc.

The only reason they have improved IE is because they've been having their asses handed to them by Mozilla and perhaps feeling pressure from enough developers interested in moving forward, but otherwise I wouldn't give them too much praise. IE is still IE, a non W3C compliant browser, and a complete and utter pain in the ass to develop for.

[chabig]

When was the last time anyone conversed with a friend about the size of a file? It's the content, stupid!

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by chabig 

It's the content, stupid!

But what if he content IS stupid ? Can I then talk about size of stupid ?

Oh, wait

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

"Tha'ss about eight inches of stupid in my inbox, dude."

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

IE is the BEST example that M$ eventually follows.

I thought it was important to emphasize "eventually."

The only reason Microsoft is eventually following web standards is because Firefox has a reasonable amount of marketshare that they can no longer just ignore the W3C.

Otherwise Microsoft would continue to do what they always do, embrace and extend.

[Simon]

I cannot understand why Apple's decision to adhere to an international standard should follow any decision MS might have taken.

Demanding OS X display file sizes the way Windows does because "that's what people are used to" is like asking for "Macintosh HD" to be renamed to C:.

[P]

It's been called "Local Disk (C:)" for the last decade and a half or so. The unit letter is there as (C:) or whatever, but other than the fact that the drives are sorted in that order, I doubt most even notice it. Id Apple decided to rename the HD "Local Disk (/)", I think I could live with that too.

There is a difference between official standard and common usage. One fine example is the use of historical non-systematic units in certain parts of the world, including that country that Apple is headquartered in, and two more (Burma and Liberia, if you're curious). Even excluding metric vs. imperial units, we have a number of things that are not according to standard. If Apple were to comply with standards in the same way that they have now complied with the decimal megabyte definition, they would force a 24 hour time format, dates written YYYY-MM-DD, paper sizes defaulting to A4 on every new document, font sizes reported in millimeters or inches...yet they don't, because people expect something else. Expectations matter.

[Eug]

dates written YYYY-MM-DD

That would be much, much better.

Because of the stupid mixed up US conventions, I never know if 04-08-2009 is April 8, 2009 or August 4, 2009.

2009-04-08 can have only one meaning, and that is April 8. I would also much prefer a 24 hour format for standard use. It's pretty hard to mix up 19h00 for 7 am.

[Spheric Harlot]

The screwed-up date format with the month in front is SUCH a drag.

Just yesterday I had to search through a whole bunch of ancient documents to cross-reference a warranty claim dated 11-02-2008.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Eug 

That would be much, much better.

Because of the stupid mixed up US conventions, I never know if 04-08-2009 is April 8, 2009 or August 4, 2009.

2009-04-08 can have only one meaning, and that is April 8. I would also much prefer a 24 hour format for standard use. It's pretty hard to mix up 19h00 for 7 am.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The screwed-up date format with the month in front is SUCH a drag.

Just yesterday I had to search through a whole bunch of ancient documents to cross-reference a warranty claim dated 11-02-2008.

Well, it doesn't have to be hard, if people would just use the right punctuation.

It should be

04/11/09 (MM/DD/YY)

and

11.04.09 (DD.MM.YY)

Kill the stupid dash (-), which makes up for a lot of the ambiguity.

-t

[besson3c]

So why did Apple change their gamma setting to what MS uses after all of these years?

[Big Mac]

To bolster SL's feature list, for one.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Well, it doesn't have to be hard, if people would just use the right punctuation.

It should be

04/11/09 (MM/DD/YY)

and

11.04.09 (DD.MM.YY)

Kill the stupid dash (-), which makes up for a lot of the ambiguity.

Huh? 11/02/2008 gets used all the time to mean February 11, 2008.

The ambiguity exists because of the misguided ordering, not because of the punctuation.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Huh? 11/02/2008 gets used all the time to mean February 11, 2008.

The ambiguity exists because of the misguided ordering, not because of the punctuation.

I know, that's why I'm saying, stop using the "/" in both ways. That's what makes things so tedious.

If there was a clear definition that "/" would mean MM first, and "." DD first, there wouldn't be an issue.

-t

[Eug]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I know, that's why I'm saying, stop using the "/" in both ways. That's what makes things so tedious.

If there was a clear definition that "/" would mean MM first, and "." DD first, there wouldn't be an issue.

Basically, you're saying, if there wasn't that issue, it wouldn't be an issue.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Basically, you're saying, if there wasn't that issue, it wouldn't be an issue.

No, you're not paying attention.

I was quoting Spheric, who said that the leading MM is the source of the issue.
I disagree. It's that there's no convention in the separating characters. They don't give a clear clue to what the leading numbers indicate, MM or DD.

-t

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Well, it doesn't have to be hard, if people would just use the right punctuation.

It should be

04/11/09 (MM/DD/YY)

and

11.04.09 (DD.MM.YY)

Kill the stupid dash (-), which makes up for a lot of the ambiguity.

-t

The dash is irrelevant.

You're stacking German (04.08.09) against English (04/08/09 OR 08/04/09 depending on the continent).

Whether there are hyphens or slashes is not relevant. Even with hyphens, the same issue arises.

The problem is not lack of convention in punctuation, it's lack of convention in the ordering.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The dash is irrelevant.

I disagree. The dash is apparently used both in the UK (DD-MM-YY) as well as sometimes in the US (MM-DD-YY).

It seems like you don't get that I'm PROPOSING something, not trying to explain.

Jeez, let the "." (or "-" if you absolutely must) denote that the first number is DD, and let the "/" denote the first number is MM.

Sh!t, and don't tell me how this breaks with current usage. I know that.

-t

[CharlesS]

Just so you know, a lot of file systems can't store slash '/' characters in filenames, because it's the path separator (HFS+ being, of course, an exception to this).

[Jasoco]

In Mac OS X, the only character you can't have in a filename is a colon. ( : ) Even though in OS 9 and before the colon was the delimeter, in OS X it gets swapped with a slash. But for backwards compatibility, OS X automatically swaps / and : making it so the character you can't use is a colon so you can still use a /. Though this gets confusing when viewing paths with slashes, and I've seen poorly programmed installers that made folders with slashes in their name instead of placing a folder inside a folder. (i.e. "FolderA/FolderB" instead of "FolderA" containing "FolderB")

Also, Month/Day/Year. It's the superior American way. 12/21/1979 is my birthday, and will never change. Ever.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Jasoco 

In Mac OS X, the only character you can't have in a filename is a colon. ( : )

Uh, yeah, that's why I said HFS+ was an exception. However, a lot of other file systems do, so trying to insist that a date always use the slash character won't work too well if you have to put a date in a filename, and then want to send that file to a Linux user, for example. It's not very portable.

Heck, it's not even a good idea to use slashes in filenames in OS X, because even then the files are going to show up differently in Cocoa and in the Terminal.

[Jasoco]

Windows has a whole slew of characters you can't use.

And I like using slashes because slashes are useful in titles. Heck, even iPhoto stores originals in folders that have slashes if the Event also has a slash in its title. As opposed to iTunes which replaces everything that's not a number or letter with an underscore. I hate that. The Finder can display a ?, why can't iTunes respec-- oh, I get it. It's catering to Windows. Since Windows can't use those characters. Fine. Whatever.

[P]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The problem is not lack of convention in punctuation, it's lack of convention in the ordering.

Agree.

After attempting to find some sort of method to the madness, I came to the conclusion that the only thing that works is writing years with four digits and months with letters and let everyone write them in any order they like.

[Hawkeye_a]

Finally picked up my copy after work and just installed it.....

Initial impression.... 'this looks like the same thing i had an hour ago.'

I Like:
-Snappy (boot, app load times, genie effect is smoother, menus render faster, windows open faster, etc..)
-got 11+ GBs back...yay !!!

I do not like:
-The 'new dock'. what possessed Apple to implement a totally different set of guidelines for the Dock menus? i mean do they really have to have dark backgrounds ? why this inconsistency ? makes the whole desktop seem like it doent fit together.
-Stacks.... just make their popups like mini versions of the finder window(back button, icon size slider, scroll bar) and for heaven's sake get rid of that friggon vista-style blur effect that gets applied to the background of a dock menu. get rid of the new 'inverted theme'
-Grid View.... keep the size of the grid view the same while navigating, change the icon sizes accordingly.
-Grid View.... more options please. (background color, icon sizes)
-The Dock... fix the inconsistency between what the dock looks like when its on the bottom vs the sides.

I really wish they would have spent more time on enhancing the UI, as this new dock seems un-Apple (as far as consistent UIs and polish)

Overall:
After using it for the last 2 hours.... it's hard to complain for something as cheep as chips. getting those 11 GBs back and a more responsive system was worth the price.

Cheers

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye_a 

-got 11+ GBs back...yay !!!

Remember, Snow Leopard uses 1000000000 bytes for GB.

With the previous Leopard, it was 1073741824 bytes.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by P 

Agree.

After attempting to find some sort of method to the madness, I came to the conclusion that the only thing that works is writing years with four digits and months with letters and let everyone write them in any order they like.

Yep, I've completely given up on the 10/11/12 way of writing dates. For me, it's Oct. 11 2012. It's only four characters longer and it's unambiguous.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Yep, I've completely given up on the 10/11/12 way of writing dates. For me, it's Oct. 11 2012. It's only four characters longer and it's unambiguous.

I also use 2012-10-11. Nobody I've dealt with has ever been confused by that, even in the good ol' US of A, and it's not restricted to the English language either.

[0157988944]

It's interesting that 2012-10-11 doesn't get read as November 10, 2012, but 10-11-2012 can and does.

[mackandproud]

What's the bottom lline: can I actually store more data, or is the amount of data I store simply calculated differently? I'm getting confused by my own question.

Originally Posted by Eug 

Remember, Snow Leopard uses 1000000000 bytes for GB.

With the previous Leopard, it was 1073741824 bytes.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by mackandproud 

What's the bottom lline: can I actually store more data, or is the amount of data I store simply calculated differently? I'm getting confused by my own question.

Yes, Snow Leopard frees up some space — but it also makes it look like you have even more by counting it differently.

As an actual example, you might had had 27 GB free before upgrading and now it says you have 32 GB free. That's actually the same amount of space that the old way of counting would have called 30 GB, which is more than you had before, but not as big a difference as it looks like.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I also use 2012-10-11. Nobody I've dealt with has ever been confused by that, even in the good ol' US of A, and it's not restricted to the English language either.

That's actually a proper standard that was defined already quite a while ago. I know YYYY-MM-DD is a very popular way to write dates in Sweden and several other European and Asian countries, but there's also ISO 8601 that clearly defines this style. IIRC the date part of UTC is also reported in this format. Anyway, if somebody were ever confused by writing the date this way, he or she might want to take a look at ISO 8601.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by mackandproud 

What's the bottom lline: can I actually store more data, or is the amount of data I store simply calculated differently? I'm getting confused by my own question.

What Eug wanted to point out is that of those 11GB reported as being saved by SL "only" 10.2GB were actually saved.

The remainder (~0.8 GB) is the result of Apple changing from base-2 to base-10 notation per international standards.

Bottom line: SL does save significant amounts of space but if you want to compare numbers you have to be aware that Leopard and SL report capacities in a different way and adjust one figure to make the two directly comparable.

[Jasoco]

I just wish there were one standard. But I also wish there were one country with one culture just to make things simple. But that ain't gonna happen. Ever.