Zzot!

More and more, I’m seeing the Ki, Mi, etc. set of unit prefixes used, but with little mention of any sort of uniform interpretation of them.

The question, if you don’t know, is about what these prefixes mean. In the computer world, the prefixes traditionally represented the sequence of values for (2¹⁰)ⁿ, where n is greater than zero, so 1 kB was (2¹⁰)¹ → 1,024 bytes, 1 MB was (20¹⁰)² → 1,048,576 bytes, and so on. This is a problem because the SI defines those prefixes as the sequence of values for (10³)ⁿ, so 1 kg is (10³)¹ → 1,024 grams and 1 Mg → 1,000 kg → 1,000,000 grams.

So, how do Ki, Mi, etc. fit into all of this? IEEE-SA approved proposal P1541 as a trial-use standard for the duration of two years. Sure, the end of that two year period is in a couple of weeks, but if the convention is catching on, likely something more will come of it. You can order 1541-2002 IEEE Standard for Prefixes for Binary Multiples from IEEE, and there’s a bunch of other links to who else is formally adopting it here

So, when someone talks about MiB or GiB of storage, they aren’t just totally making up terms.¹ Now, to remember that the correct capitalization of 1,024 bytes is 1 KiB, even though 1000 bytes is 1 kB.

1. although they might be a standards wonk [↩]

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Here’s an updated one that renders as intended on more platforms. I’ve tested Mac OS X and Windows, and for the moment I’m hoping for the best on Linux (no linux machine handy right this minute).

Install or Download.

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…was quite good. It wasn’t quite as smooth as a pumpkin pie can be, but whether that is due to the inherent qualities of the source material or because of a cookware malfunction or failing to properly “beat the tar out of” the batter is an open question. I didn’t make the crust, though — its pair is sitting in the freezer right now begging me to make another pie, so…

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…think of it as the best Pumpkin Pie you ever made.” We were given an assignment for Thanksgiving Dinner this year — dessert.¹ Of course, the best way to judge a pie isn’t usually to watch it laying on the counter cooling, but it looks (and smells) pretty good. Oh drat, I didn’t tell Lins to get some cream — fresh whipped cream on a homemade pie, what could go wrong?

Update: My tools are clipping that URL, and I’m too tired to fix them right now. If you can’t wait, copy the link, add “.html” the end, and there you go.

Update 2: I can’t say that I really understand why the regexp in question was matching that specific URL, but I think I’ve stopped it from matching the wrong stuff without making it match less of the right stuff.

1. As an advocate of great ice cream, and by great I naturally mean homemade from fresh ingredients, this is hardly virgin territory for me. [↩]

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I eventually got tired of waiting for the Firefox extension I had been using for this to be updated, so I did it myself. I haven’t found the need to tweak this since I rolled it a week or two ago, so hopefully it is stable-ish.

Install or Download.

Firefox | Permalink | 1 Comment

So, I’m sort of half-watching The Late Late Show tonight and the host de jour is showing some videos that he and his friends made when he was “pre teen” and into professional wrestling. It is a stark reminder that my idea of what’s funny just doesn’t match with everyone else’s — embarrassing video from some host’s life only reminds me of embarrassing moments from my own life that I’d rather forget. While there are many adjectives I might use to describe television that reminds me of such things, “entertaining” and “humorous” are not among them.

But, what do I know — most sketch comedy makes me nauseous.

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I’ve been teaching myself Cocoa lately and was wrestling with this class for a while — it didn’t seem to draw itself correctly when I hosted it myself (I’m building my own layout, but I wanted its header to be themed correctly). Here’s the most important part of the solution:

- (BOOL) isFlipped
{
    return YES;
}

Even once I found references to flipped coordinates on mamasam, I’d forgotten about an intervening view between the NSTableHeaderCell and where I flipped, so naturally it didn’t work. Once you flip the right view’s coordinates, the cell starts behaving predictably — there’s nothing special in my -[HeaderView drawRect:].

Code | Permalink | 1 Comment

So, the site actually has the little clumps of links inserted now, complete with a single such clump of links (dated a couple days ago). They’re not available in feed form yet — I haven’t really decided how. It seems like just throwing them in the regular feeds with real posts would be bad in some way that I haven’t yet figured out how to articulate. More to come..?

Site Info | Permalink | No Comments

I’m playing around with the idea of a linkblog (among other things), so stuff might be semi-working for a while.

Site Info | Permalink | No Comments

I just wanted to say that Erwin is a fine, upstanding person, in spite of any claims I might have made to the contrary. Or might continue to make. On an ongoing basis. In IMs I send directly to him.

No, really.

Raves | Permalink | 1 Comment