Hang Out and Post

[Revenge]

Can computers even have that much stored memory? Like, regular every-day computers?

[Captain Awesome Pants]

Perhaps? Somewhere there is bound to be a computer with more memory than you thought possible.

[Revenge]

Well to be able to play Batman properly I have to set it at the lowest resolution possible and shut down absolutely everything else in my computer. That's 8GB for a really good game. But 25 for some musical performance? Not saying it's bad, but wow.

 

Okay, rant over.

[̊ ˉˉ ̊]

my brother has a netbook. that netbook has a 160GB hard drive. It's still obscene, but still possible.

 

haha, they actually released 400GB of stuff before. that's insane.

[livvy]

All this computer talk is going directly over my head. Anyone care to explain?

[Captain Awesome Pants]

I'm just as confused as you are. @_@

 

Don't worry, you're not alone.

 

Actually, you are, because I lied. I do understand it. Sorry.

[Revenge]

Well, I'm gonna hit the hay. Gotta try to sleep this pain off. Tomorrow, kays?

[livvy]

Meh. Oh well. I tend to make friends who understand computers. So I'm used to being slightly lost. :P

 

Alright, talk to ya tomorrow, Revenge!

 

EDIT: Mrrf. This headache is really bugging me. I think I'm gonna go for a while. Or lurk or something.

[antiaircraft]

1) Headaches suck. <_<

 

2) I'll try to answer any computer questions fielded, but I'll probably confuse everybody. :P

[livvy]

1. Agreed.

 

2. Meaning you'd definitely confuse me. Computer-type stuff goes right over my head. To borrow Will's diagram:

<---- words

O <--- my head

[antiaircraft]

:laughingsmiley: Best. Diagram. Ever! :laughingsmiley:

 

Maybe we should explain computer stuff in terms of diagrams like that?

[livvy]

Will used it a long time ago to diagram his confusion when I made an exceedingly random post. I thought it applied quite nicely.

 

And yes, that would be extremely helpful. :P

[antiaircraft]

Well, presently the discussion is concerning storage space on a computer. I'm not sure how to put that in diagram form, but think of cramming stuff into a box. :P

[livvy]

Okay! I have great experience with cramming stuff into boxes. :graduated:

 

But now I want a diagram for it. *thinks*

 

|stuff...stu|

|ff...stuff...| <------- Diagram of storage space

|stuff.stuff|

 

Eh, it's a little rough. :P

[antiaircraft]

Well, that pretty much explains it. :P There's a limit to how much can be crammed into said box, and the discussion is concerning something that exceeds that limit.

 

I have no idea what that something is though...

[livvy]

So GB represents the size of the stuff being crammed into said box, or how much space is in said box?

 

And it's a music video. I picked that much up.

 

Actually, you'd probably be pretty amused by one of Laura's posts on the previous page.

[antiaircraft]

I did read that page, and yes, I found that amusing. :P I didn't quite catch on to the music video thing though...

 

And you're pretty much right about GB, although I'm going to be all technical here and recommend the use of GiB to avoid confusion. My diagram-augmented explanation follows.

 

Computers store information in terms of 0 and 1. So an individual 0 or 1 is known as a bit.

 

* <----- bit

 

A sequence of 0s and 1s can be used to express information. For example, a single character (like a or 1) is usually represented by a series of 8 bits. This is known as a byte.

 

******** <----- byte

 

Why 8? Because computers think in powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.) - their number system only has the two digits 0 and 1 after all.

 

Now, most chunks of information we store on computers are a lot larger than 1 byte. So we use the prefixes conveniently provided by our standard units system to describe larger quantities of information. For example, a kilobyte (kB) is 1000 bytes.

 

******** X1,000 <----- kilobyte (kB)

 

There's a 'but' here: remember that computers think in powers of 2. 1000 is not a power of 2! So computers don't actually use kilobytes. The closest thing to a kilobyte that a computer will use is a chunk of 1,024 bytes (2^10 bytes) - this is known as a kibibyte (KiB). Well technically it's a kilobinary byte, but that's typing out way too many bytes. :P

 

******** X1,024 <----- kibibyte (KiB)

 

And from there, it just goes up the scale. A megabyte (MB) is 1,000,000 bytes (or 1,000 kilobytes). A mebibyte (MiB) is 1,048,576 bytes (2^20 bytes, or 1,024 kibibytes).

 

******** X1,000,000 <----- megabyte (MB)

******** X1,048,576 <----- mebibyte (MiB)

 

A gigabyte (GB) is 1,000,000,000 bytes (or 1,000 megabytes). A gibibyte (GiB) is 1,073,741,824 bytes (2^30 bytes, or 1,024 mebibytes).

 

******** X1,000,000,000 <----- gigabyte (GB)

******** X1,073,741,824 <----- gibibyte (GiB)

 

And so on, and so forth.

 

Practically, the difference between kB & KiB, MB & MiB, or GB & GiB isn't large enough to worry about. But there's really no reason to use kB, MB or GB, so it's generally best to stick with the technically correct KiB, MiB and GiB to avoid confusion.

[livvy]

The diagrams! They make sense! The naming system makes sense too. Nice and metric. :graduated:

[Shane for Wax]

it is time for me to go sleepies now. Lots of booze... but now I'm getting blood in my alcohol system :(

 

1000th post! :D

[livvy]

That sounds bad.

 

And yay! You're half of an FM! Though you're already a staffer so it doesn't really matter. :)

[antiaircraft]

Congratulations on point five FM-ness Kat! :P

 

The following link is to an alternative explanation of storage unit sizes:

http://xkcd.com/394/

[livvy]

Ahaha, xkcd! I love xkcd! And now I understand the joke behind that. :graduated:

[Ruto]

I love xkcd too! :D This one is one of my favorites.

 

This one too

[livvy]

Aww, the top one is sweet! Odd, but sweet.

 

And I imagine the other one could actually work. XP

 

Morgan, tell me to go to sleep! It's 4 AM here. Ah need sleep. @_@

[Ruto]

Yeah, I like romance on occasions, like relationships mixed in with action and humor, but not romance all the time.

 

Go to sleep, livvy! Because it's only 3 AM here and I'm going to bed. @_@