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

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

[Per Jessen]

On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:43:40 -0600, Bob Glamm wrote:

>On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 03:48:22PM +0000, Mike Jagdis wrote:
[snip]
>> Go look up "SI binary prefix" and "SI prefix" on Google. You might
>> not _like_ the binary prefixes (I don't either) but they're what's
>> been standardized and they're unambiguous. It does no good to claim
>> that it's enough that *you* know what you mean. This isn't Alice in
>> Wonderland (you can look that reference up in your spare time :-) ).
>
>SI standards have been around for years.  Yet many mechanical
>engineers in the US still use English units.  Convention and
>economics dictate that they do so; any change in this field is quite
>slow.

Did the US ever go metric ? Europe (minus the UK of course) did, and rarely
looked back. AFAIK (please correct me), the US never went metric. Don't they
still use Fahrenheit and all that weird stuff ?
Oh, and btw - those non-metric units are not "English units", but "Imperial units", 
if you want to picky :-) 

>
>Somehow I expect that the same convention and economics factors will
>also dominate the argument over prefixes for bits of information
>in this field for years to come as well.

That I agree with - although I suspect manufacturers increasing will go for
the IEC standards - I used to work for StorageTek where an argument just like
this went on about 2 years ago - the IEC side won. Generally the hardware
people were all for IEC, and the software side less so.


rgds,
Per Jessen, Zurich

regards,
Per Jessen, Zurich
http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console.

Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ...  I'm afraid I can't do that."

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

[Timothy Covell]

On Friday 21 December 2001 13:55, Per Jessen wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:43:40 -0600, Bob Glamm wrote:
> >On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 03:48:22PM +0000, Mike Jagdis wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> >> Go look up "SI binary prefix" and "SI prefix" on Google. You might
> >> not _like_ the binary prefixes (I don't either) but they're what's
> >> been standardized and they're unambiguous. It does no good to claim
> >> that it's enough that *you* know what you mean. This isn't Alice in
> >> Wonderland (you can look that reference up in your spare time :-) ).
> >
> >SI standards have been around for years.  Yet many mechanical
> >engineers in the US still use English units.  Convention and
> >economics dictate that they do so; any change in this field is quite
> >slow.
>
> Did the US ever go metric ? Europe (minus the UK of course) did, and rarely
> looked back. AFAIK (please correct me), the US never went metric. Don't
> they still use Fahrenheit and all that weird stuff ?
> Oh, and btw - those non-metric units are not "English units", but "Imperial
> units", if you want to picky :-)
>

No, the US never went metric.  That's why $200M Mars probes crash on
entry due to some idiot using English units as opposed to the NASA standard
of Metrics.  The funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson, an American President,
suggested the Metric system to the French while he was ambassador there.


> >Somehow I expect that the same convention and economics factors will
> >also dominate the argument over prefixes for bits of information
> >in this field for years to come as well.
>
> That I agree with - although I suspect manufacturers increasing will go for
> the IEC standards - I used to work for StorageTek where an argument just
> like this went on about 2 years ago - the IEC side won. Generally the
> hardware people were all for IEC, and the software side less so.
>
>
> rgds,
> Per Jessen, Zurich
>
> regards,
> Per Jessen, Zurich
> http://www.enidan.com - home of the J1 serial console.
>
> Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ...  I'm afraid I can't do that."
>
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

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

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <200112220152.fBM1qJSr022347@svr3.applink.net>
By author:    Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@ashavan.org>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> No, the US never went metric.  That's why $200M Mars probes crash on
> entry due to some idiot using English units as opposed to the NASA standard
> of Metrics.  The funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson, an American President,
> suggested the Metric system to the French while he was ambassador there.
> 

Ewhat?!

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt	<amsp@zytor.com>

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

[Timothy Covell]

On Friday 21 December 2001 22:32, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Followup to:  <200112220152.fBM1qJSr022347@svr3.applink.net>
> By author:    Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@ashavan.org>
> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> > No, the US never went metric.  That's why $200M Mars probes crash on
> > entry due to some idiot using English units as opposed to the NASA
> > standard of Metrics.  The funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson, an
> > American President, suggested the Metric system to the French while he
> > was ambassador there.
>
> Ewhat?!
>
> 	-hpa

I'm assuming that you're questioning Jefferson's role.   Here are a couple of
quotations which show that Jefferson's idea predated the official 
implemenation.    I can do more digging if need be.

1791 - "Jefferson Report." Thomas Jefferson described England's weight and 
measures standards to Congress "on the supposition that the present measures 
are to be retained," and also outlined a decimal system of weights and 
measures of Jefferson's conception.

And:

As the scientists were experimenting in their laboratories, practical 
tradesmen were making themselves permanent standards. In 1793, during 
Napoleon's time, the French government adopted a new system of standards 
called the metric system, based on what they called the metre.


-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

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

[Alan Cox]

> > of Metrics.  The funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson, an American President,
> > suggested the Metric system to the French while he was ambassador there.
>
>> Ewhat?!

Must be a new disney movie...

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

[Timothy Covell]

On Saturday 22 December 2001 01:57, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > of Metrics.  The funny thing is that Thomas Jefferson, an American
> > > President, suggested the Metric system to the French while he was
> > > ambassador there.
> >>
> >> Ewhat?!
>
> Must be a new disney movie...

OK.  I guess that this seems like an "Al Gore Invented the Internet" thing
except that the system that he proposed was of his own invention (if not
the idea of basing it on ten.) 

The facts are that a number of people in the scientific community had talked 
about these things off and on for centuries.  Thomas Jefferson is the first 
recorded government official known to have made an official recommendation 
for its use (again of his own derivation.)  Alas, the US government was not 
feeling _that_ brave yet, so they decided on an slightly altered system of 
Imperial units.   

As well all know, the French were fealing quite pissed off at everything
that had ever existed prior to 1789.  In 1791, a very much living Louis XVI 
summoned a commision to study changing the system of weights and measures.  
It was during the Reign of Terror that they started making Guillotines based 
on their newly fangled metre.   Now, did Louis die of a new fangled 
Guillotine?  My French history fails me here.


This thread has become  horribly off-topic.....


-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

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

[Derek Fawcus]

On Sat, Dec 22, 2001 at 12:22:54PM -0600, Timothy Covell wrote:
> 
> Alas, the US government was not feeling _that_ brave yet, so they decided
> on an slightly altered system of Imperial units.   

You mean having the wrong number of fluid ounces in a pint was intentional?

DF

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

[Timothy Covell]

On Friday 21 December 2001 13:55, Per Jessen wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 11:43:40 -0600, Bob Glamm wrote:
> >On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 03:48:22PM +0000, Mike Jagdis wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
[snip]
> looked back. AFAIK (please correct me), the US never went metric. Don't
> they still use Fahrenheit and all that weird stuff ?
> Oh, and btw - those non-metric units are not "English units", but "Imperial
> units", if you want to picky :-)


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 

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

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.

Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
divisions: Eg.

10-20 is downright frigid
20-30 degrees is Freezing!
30-40 is very cold
40-50 is cold
50-60 is blustery
60-70 is brisk
70-80 is confortable
80-90 is warm
90-100 is very hot
100+ is Texas in summertime, WAY too hot !!!  ;-)


Finally, for those in Switzerland:

1. Why is it CH when only 30% speak French

2.  The French think that "octante" for 80 and "nanante" for 90
is downright goofy.


-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

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

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <200112220214.fBM2EsSr022402@svr3.applink.net>
By author:    Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@ashavan.org>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> 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.
> 

And all of us count that way.  Oh yes, the English unit is *so*
attuned to nature... this is why we have different measures for dry
volume, wet volume... avoirdupois versus troy weight... oh yes, energy
is measures in BTUs and power in horsepower... what is the conversion
factor between them (it has the dimension of time?)

> Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
> divisions: Eg.

Bullsh*t.  They seem more natural to you because you're more used to
them.  Anyone who hasn't grown up on the system think that Fahrenheit
is the ultimate in lunacy.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt	<amsp@zytor.com>

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

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

On 21 Dec 2001, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> > Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
> > divisions: Eg.
>
> Bullsh*t.  They seem more natural to you because you're more used to
> them.  Anyone who hasn't grown up on the system think that Fahrenheit
> is the ultimate in lunacy.

Fahrenheit units were developed by a different process than Celsius, but
they are both "natural". The Celsius scale is 0 = freezing point of
water and 100 = boiling point of water. The Fahrenheit scale was
developed less precisely -- 0 is approximately the freezing point of
human blood, IIRC, and 100 is approximately body temperature (Fahrenheit
may have had a fever :)).
--
znmeb@borasky-research.net
http://www.meta-trading-coach.com

How do you get an elephant out of a theatre?
You can't; it's in their blood!

Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB in Configure=2Ehelp=2E?=

[Eric W. Biederman]

"M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@aracnet.com> writes:

> On 21 Dec 2001, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> 
> > > Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
> > > divisions: Eg.
> >
> > Bullsh*t.  They seem more natural to you because you're more used to
> > them.  Anyone who hasn't grown up on the system think that Fahrenheit
> > is the ultimate in lunacy.
> 
> Fahrenheit units were developed by a different process than Celsius, but
> they are both "natural". The Celsius scale is 0 = freezing point of
> water and 100 = boiling point of water. The Fahrenheit scale was
> developed less precisely -- 0 is approximately the freezing point of
> human blood, IIRC, and 100 is approximately body temperature (Fahrenheit
> may have had a fever :)).

32 Fahrenheit is the freezing point of water.
32 + 180 is the boiling point of water.
To avoid negatives an extra 32 degrees were added.
And we measure it in degrees because the designer of Fahrenheit was
thinking about how angles were measured when he designed the system.

Now measuring Celsius is in degrees is the cute one.

As for other topics in this thread.
12 is a nicer base than 10 simply because it has more factors.

And the US officially is on the metric system.  However usage for
common things hasn't changed over.  And no one has had the guts to
have a flag day, and kick out.

As for all of the mebibyte versus megabyte stuff.  While change is
awkward it seems much more comfortable to me if we change the expanded
for first.  And then put in the abbreviations.  Otherwise everyone
will think megabyte and write MiB, which helps little.

Thinking a megabyte is 1000000 bytes and a mebibyte is 1048576 bytes
is almost sane.  Of course the only way to be really clear would be to
have another term for a decimal megabyte, and just drop the old term
with it's nasty baggage.  Since we don't have that the problem will
continue on.  But having two terms at least lets us be precise.

Eric

Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB =?iso-8859-1?q?in Configure=2Ehelp=2E?=

[J.A. Magallon]

On 20011222 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>Followup to:  <200112220214.fBM2EsSr022402@svr3.applink.net>
>By author:    Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@ashavan.org>
>In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>> 
>> 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.
>> 
>
>And all of us count that way.  Oh yes, the English unit is *so*
>attuned to nature... this is why we have different measures for dry
>volume, wet volume... avoirdupois versus troy weight... oh yes, energy
>is measures in BTUs and power in horsepower... what is the conversion
>factor between them (it has the dimension of time?)
>

And different length for sea and land 'miles'. Very natural...

-- 
J.A. Magallon                           #  Let the source be with you...        
mailto:jamagallon@able.es
Mandrake Linux release 8.2 (Cooker) for i586
Linux werewolf 2.4.17-beo #1 SMP Fri Dec 21 21:39:36 CET 2001 i686

Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB =?iso-8859-1?q?in Configure=2Ehelp=2E?=

[Dr. Kelsey Hudson]

On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> And different length for sea and land 'miles'. Very natural...

nautical miles are defined as 1852 meters, the exact length of one second 
of longitude at the equator :)

 Kelsey Hudson                                           khudson@ctica.com 
 Software Engineer
 Compendium Technologies, Inc                               (619) 725-0771
---------------------------------------------------------------------------     

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

[H. Peter Anvin]

Dr. Kelsey Hudson wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> 
>>And different length for sea and land 'miles'. Very natural...
>>
> 
> nautical miles are defined as 1852 meters, the exact length of one second 
> of longitude at the equator :)
> 


YM "minute" HTH.


FWIW, from the units database:

nauticalmile            1852 m   # Supposed to be one minute of latitude at
                                 # the equator.  That value is about 1855 m.
                                 # Early estimates of the earth's
circumference
                                 # were a bit off.  The value of 1852 m was
                                 # made the international standard in 1929.
                                 # The US did not accept this value until
                                 # 1954.  The UK switched in 1970.


Of course, the number 21600 is also such a nice round number.

	-hpa

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

[Dr. Kelsey Hudson]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> YM "minute" HTH.

you're right... I did mean minute ;P

> FWIW, from the units database:
> 
> nauticalmile            1852 m   # Supposed to be one minute of latitude at
>                                  # the equator.  That value is about 1855 m.
>                                  # Early estimates of the earth's
> circumference
>                                  # were a bit off.  The value of 1852 m was
>                                  # made the international standard in 1929.
>                                  # The US did not accept this value until
>                                  # 1954.  The UK switched in 1970.

true, it is off, but for all intents and purposes 1852 is close enough :)

 Kelsey Hudson                                           khudson@ctica.com 
 Software Engineer
 Compendium Technologies, Inc                               (619) 725-0771
---------------------------------------------------------------------------     

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

[Timothy Covell]

On Tuesday 08 January 2002 15:24, Dr. Kelsey Hudson wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Dec 2001, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> > And different length for sea and land 'miles'. Very natural...
>
> nautical miles are defined as 1852 meters, the exact length of one second
> of longitude at the equator :)
>
>  Kelsey Hudson                                           khudson@ctica.com
>  Software Engineer
>  Compendium Technologies, Inc                               (619) 725-0771
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------


And, of course, the etymology of the word "knots" refers to the fact
that before modern spedometers and GPS tools, ships would gauge
their speed by letting a rope freely drag out of the stern of the ship
and would measure the number of equally spaced "knots" in the rope
that had rolled off the ship during the period of one hour.

-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

Re: Changing KB, MB, and GB to KiB, MiB, and GiB =?iso-8859-1?q?in Configure=2Ehelp=2E?=

[Timothy Covell]

On Saturday 22 December 2001 09:56, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> On 20011222 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> >Followup to:  <200112220214.fBM2EsSr022402@svr3.applink.net>
> >By author:    Timothy Covell <timothy.covell@ashavan.org>
> >In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> >
> >> 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.
> >
> >And all of us count that way.  Oh yes, the English unit is *so*
> >attuned to nature... this is why we have different measures for dry
> >volume, wet volume... avoirdupois versus troy weight... oh yes, energy
> >is measures in BTUs and power in horsepower... what is the conversion
> >factor between them (it has the dimension of time?)
>
> And different length for sea and land 'miles'. Very natural...

The land "mile" is based on a very logical thing too (at least at the
time).   Mile is the anglicised "mille" which is French/Latin for
1000.  And mille refers to the distance traveled after _1000_ paces 
of a Roman army regiment. 

-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

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

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

[Timothy Covell]

On Friday 21 December 2001 23:29, Ryan Cumming wrote:
> 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.

Well, certainly makes more sense when you consider how hard
it is to make ice at intellectual centers like Alexandria and Cordoba.
I suppose that if you lived in Iceland, then you'd have a ready
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!

Ha.  The point is that it's easy to halve and quarter something while it's
much harder to one tenth something.  

>
> 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.
>

I don't recall that God ever made any special mention of three, but he
did mention seven.

> > 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!

My point is that HUMANS cannot accurately measure temperature, so it
makes more sense to use a fuzzier system.   Unless you are an android
with a 555 timer chip embedded in brain, you are a "fuzzy" thinker on
things which are continuous in nature.

But then again, I suppose that we should legislate exact frequencies
of light so that no one can make any mistake as concerns what is
yellow and what is lemon-chiffon.  And if your eyes are test and
are found to be out of spec, you'll be subjected to psychotherapy
sessions because you obviously have personnal issues which
are preventing you from seeing colour properly. ;-)

Look, just so that you all understand, I'm pro metrics.  I'm just
saying that they were not all totally crazy.   It's not like before
1790 all the people who had ever lived were morons.   Indeed,
after further reading, I found that Jefferson rejected the French
version of the Metric system because he though that their
measurements were not accurate enough (and less accurate
than many Greek and Egyptian mathematicians had made
millenia before.)

>
> -Ryan
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

-- 
timothy.covell@ashavan.org.

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

[Vojtech Pavlik]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 09:29:00PM -0800, Ryan Cumming wrote:

> > 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.

Actually, you're not far from the truth here. The best system (makes for
least numbers of weights you need to make for weighing, etc, etc) is
base e (2.7182...), which is best approximated by base two sometimes
three ...

-- 
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs

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

[Pekka Pietikäinen]

On Fri, Dec 21, 2001 at 08:11:11PM -0600, Timothy Covell wrote:
> 
> Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
> divisions: Eg.
> 
> 10-20 is downright frigid
> 20-30 degrees is Freezing!
> 30-40 is very cold
> 40-50 is cold
> 50-60 is blustery
> 60-70 is brisk
> 70-80 is confortable
> 80-90 is warm
> 90-100 is very hot
> 100+ is Texas in summertime, WAY too hot !!!  ;-)
> 
Blah, Celsius is obviously more natural:

-50	Ok, this is what I'd call _REALLY_ cold
-40	With proper gear it's survivable but not much fun
-30	Time to put on a fur hat
-20	Long underwear is a good idea
-15	Nice winter day
-10	Slightly warm winter day
-5	Nice warm winter day
0	Slippery as hell outside, beware!
5	Cool summer day
10	Slightly cool summer day
15	Nice summer day
20	Very nice summer day
30	Better apply some sunscreen/take some water with you when going outside
40	With sunblock & lots of water it's survivable but not much fun
50	WAY too hot!!!
-- 
Pekka Pietikainen

temperatures

[rpjday]

How different people see temperatures (in Fahrenheit):

   65 Hawaiians declare a two-blanket night
   60 Californians put on sweaters (if they can find one)
   50 Miami residents turn on the heat
   45 Vermont residents go to outdoor concerts
   40 You can see your breath
      Californians shiver uncontrollably
      Minnesotans go swimming
   35 Italian cars don't start
   32 Water freezes
   30 You plan your vacation to Australia
   25 Ohio water freezes
      Californians weep pitiably
      Minnesotans eat ice cream
      Canadians go swimming
   20 Politicians begin to talk about the homeless
      New York City water freezes
      Miami residents plan vacation further South
   15 French cars don't start
      Cat insists on sleeping in your bed with you
   10 You need jumper cables to get the car going
    5 American cars don't start
    0 Alaskans put on T-shirts
  -10 German cars don't start
      Eyes freeze shut when you blink 
  -15 You can cut your breath and use it to build an igloo
      Arkansans stick tongue on metal objects
      Miami residents cease to exist
  -20 Cat insists on sleeping in pajamas with you
      Politicians actually do something about the homeless
      Minnesotans shovel snow off roof
      Japanese cars don't start
  -25 Too cold to think
      You need jumper cables to get the driver going
  -30 You plan a two week hot bath
      Swedish cars don't start
  -40 Californians disappear
      Minnesotans button top button
      Canadians put on sweaters
      Your car helps you plan your trip South
  -50 Congressional hot air freezes
      Alaskans close the bathroom window
  -80 Hell freezes over
      Polar bears move South
      Viking Fans order hot cocoa at the game
  -90 Lawyers put their hands in their own pockets



rday, ex-patriate canadian

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

[Jonathan Amery]

In article <a0133l$2ln$1@cesium.transmeta.com> you write:
>And all of us count that way.  Oh yes, the English unit is *so*
>attuned to nature... this is why we have different measures for dry
>volume, wet volume... avoirdupois versus troy weight... 
>oh yes, energy
>is measures in BTUs and power in horsepower... what is the conversion
>factor between them (it has the dimension of time?)

 I think you've just answered your previous question - there are more
than one because its generally more convenient.  If you're using
horsepower for power then you should probably be using
horsepower-hours rather than BTUs (which are an admittedly silly
unit for most things).

You have: horsepower hours
You want: btu
        * 2544.4336
        / 0.00039301478

>> Finally, Farhenheit units are smaller so that they make more convenient
>> divisions: Eg.
>Bullsh*t.  They seem more natural to you because you're more used to
>them.  Anyone who hasn't grown up on the system think that Fahrenheit
>is the ultimate in lunacy.

 Centigrade/Celcius have little to recomend them either - Kelvin is
the way forward, or Rankine.

 Jonathan.