Editing 394: Kilobyte

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
−
This comic pokes fun at the confusion over the definition of a kilobyte. Historically, 1024 bytes was called a kilobyte for convenience purposes (same with megabyte and gigabyte); this usage was frowned upon by both the {{w|International Bureau of Weights and Measures}} and the {{w|Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers}}, but both let it slide as they had more important things to deal with. Later, hard drive manufacturers realized they could save money by selling hard drives marketed X amount of gigabytes and declare that they meant it as a literal 1,000,000,000 bytes (a 7% difference). Despite its iffy origins, the official definition now states that 1 kilobyte is 1000 bytes, however some continue to use the older meaning referring to 1024. The first row of the table is simply mocking this discrepancy.
+
This comic takes advantage of the confusion over the definition of a kilobyte. Some interpret the prefix literally, meaning a kilobyte is 1000 bytes. Others, however, define it as 2<sup>10</sup>, or 1024, bytes because it is computationally easier to deal with.
  
−
The second row is Randall's interpretation on how {{w|Stan Kelly-Bootle}} would approach this problem. Kelly-Bootle is known for writing ''The Computer Contradictionary'', which satirizes the jargon and language of the computer industry. Kelly-Bootle was likely motivated to write this work after working for several years at IBM, a company infamous for its excessive use of acronyms in the work place. Averaging the two definitions together to get 1012 bytes is simply a humorous approach that Kelly-Bootle would likely have taken ("''Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.''" — Stan Kelly-Bootle). The serendipitous fact that the initials of Kelly-Bootle's name are "KB," the same letters used to abbreviate the word "kilobyte," adds a layer of plausibility to the joke. This is the first of Randall's many humorous [[:category:Compromise|compromises]].
+
The first row of the table is simply mocking this discrepancy.
  
−
The {{w|Imaginary number|imaginary}} kilobyte simply plays on the fact that complex analysis is required in quantum computing in relation to quantum mechanics. The imaginary number is represented as ''i'' and has a value of the square root of -1. This is a pun on the fact that KiB is used for the "binary kilobyte" (occasionally "{{w|Binary prefix|kibibyte}}"), which is standardized at 1024 bytes.
+
The second row is Randall's interpretation on how {{w|Stan Kelly-Bootle}} would approach this problem. Kelly-Bootle is known for writing ''The Computer Contradictionary'' which satirizes the jargon and language of the computer industry. Kelly-Bootle was likely motivated to write this work after working for several years at IBM, a company infamous for its excessive use of acronyms in the work place. Averaging the two definitions together to get 1012 bytes is simply a humorous approach that Kelly-Bootle would likely have taken ("''Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration.''" — Stan Kelly-Bootle). The serendipitous fact that the initials of Kelly-Bootle's name are "KB," the same letters used to abbreviate the word "kilobyte," adds a layer of plausibility to the joke.
  
−
The Intel kilobyte mocks the Pentium floating point unit that, in 1994, became notorious for having a {{w|Pentium FDIV bug|major flaw}} in its {{w|Floating-point arithmetic|floating point}} division algorithm that gave slightly erroneous results.
+
The {{w|Imaginary number|imaginary}} kilobyte simply plays on the fact that complex analysis is required in quantum computing in relation to quantum mechanics. The imaginary number is represented as ''i'' and has a value of the square root of -1. This is a pun on the fact that KiB is used for the "binary kilobyte" (occasionally "{{w|Binary prefix|kibibyte}}") which is standardized at 1024 bytes.
  
−
The smaller, drivemaker's kilobyte mocks a business model for handling higher prices that keeps prices constant but reduces quantity, also known as {{w|Shrinkflation}}. The food industry has been notorious for decreasing quantity of food and keeping prices the same instead of increasing prices and keeping quantity the same. Randall is suggesting that if the computer industry tried to do this with hard drives, it could have humorous results such as smaller number of bytes in a kilobyte. In reality, hard drive capacity is specified in 10<sup>3</sup> byte (kB) units, while the content you put on it (programs, etc.) is specified in 2<sup>10</sup> (KiB) units. Formatting the drive, i.e. making it usable for storage, further decreases the available space. Thus a 250 GB drive might be reported to have a capacity of only 232 GB (really GiB) by the operating system. This discrepancy increases with increasing drive size. The trend humorously suggested in the comic, however, would make the drivemaker's kilobyte 1024 bytes in 1979, 1000 bytes in 1985, {{#expr:8940-4*{{#time:Y}}}} bytes in {{#time:Y}}, and 0 bytes in 2235!
+
The Intel kilobyte mocks the Pentium floating point unit which, in 1994, was notorious for having a {{w|Pentium FDIV bug|major flaw}} in its floating point division algorithm that gave slightly erroneous results. (For the non-computer folk, a floating point number is a real number like 4.0 or -13.387.)
  
−
The baker's kilobyte is a play on the {{w|Dozen#Baker's dozen|baker's dozen}}, which is 13 instead of 12. A baker's byte with 9 bits to the byte would result in a total of 9216 bits in a 1024 byte kilobyte. Converting this into "normal" bytes (with 8 bits), we divide 9216 bits by 8 bits per byte to get 1152 8-bit bytes to the baker's kilobyte.
+
The smaller, drivemaker's kilobyte mocks a business model for handling higher prices that keeps prices constant but reduces quantity. The food industry has been notorious for decreasing quantity of food and keeping prices the same instead of increasing prices and keeping quantity the same. Randall is suggesting that if the computer industry tried to do this with hard drives, it could have humorous results such as smaller number of bytes in a kilobyte. In reality, hard drive capacity is specified in 10<sup>3</sup> byte (kB) units, while the content you put on it (programs etc.) is specified in 2<sup>10</sup> (kiB) units. Formatting the drive, i.e. making it usable for storage, further decreases the available space. Thus a 250 GB drive might be reported to have a capacity of only 232 GB (really GiB) by the operating system. This discrepancy increases with increasing drive size; however the trend humorously suggested in the comic, where real storage per advertised storage decreases linearly with time, would cause the drivemaker's kilobyte to become zero in the year 2235!
  
−
In the title text, [[Randall]] mentions the definition {{w|kibibyte}}, which is defined more precisely. The binary prefix kibi means 1024, a portmanteau of the words kilo and binary. But he doesn't like the word because it sounds like the dog food {{w|Kibbles 'n Bits}}.
+
The baker's kilobyte is a play on the {{w|Dozen#Baking|baker's dozen}}, which is 13 instead of 12. A baker's byte with 9 bits to the byte would result in a total of 9216 bits in a 1024 byte kilobyte. Converting this into "normal" bytes (with 8 bits), we divide 9216 bits by 8 bits per byte to get 1152 8-bit bytes to the baker's kilobyte.
 +
 
 +
At the title text [[Randall]] mentions the definition {{w|kibibyte}}, which is defined more precisely. The binary prefix kibi means 1024, a portmanteau of the words kilo and binary. But he doesn't like the word because it sounds like the dog food {{w|Kibbles 'n Bits}}.
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
−
 
 
:There's been a lot of confusion over 1024 vs 1000,
 
:There's been a lot of confusion over 1024 vs 1000,
 
:kbyte vs kbit, and the capitalization for each.
 
:kbyte vs kbit, and the capitalization for each.
Line 67: Line 68:
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
−
 
−
[[Category:Binary]]
 
 
[[Category:Charts]]
 
[[Category:Charts]]
−
[[Category:Compromise]]
+
[[Category:Computers]]

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)

Templates used on this page:

Retrieved from "https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/394:_Kilobyte"