In reply to a post by tide:

Oddly enough I did know that. But it doesn't matter how many zeros you place on the end, its only what everybody else has been saying and its no exception to the "It's always been" dogma which I ma battling against.

It has to change, because files are bigger now, the measurement has to catch up. Like I said nobody measures a house in mm (not that they ever did) but one doesn't.

When I was doing chemistry in school I found the "mole" a pretty meaningless thing but I didn't campaign to change it into something entirely different.

Might be prudent that when kids are learning about numbers in school and their relationships that just as you are told there are 2.5(ish)CM in an inch and 12 inches or 30(ish) CM in a foot, you should also be told what bits and bytes are, what they measure, and roughly how to calculate the relationship between them. Other concepts like kilo-, mega-, giga- should be too. Kilo shouldn't be particularly alien.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Ask a techie for more info on this. That's what techies are for.

Ah, but before very long there will be no techies... who do we ask then?

Not having ordered carpet for a few years I don't know. But I have an invoice in front of me for vinyl floor covering for my kitchen. The size: 3600 x 7450.

What does this have to do with the necessity of maintaining the status quo of broadband speed advertising?! This very sector must reinvent if to survive.

In reply to a post by tide:

Technology will see off limits to fibre optics, as we understand it more, you know this. But you'll also know, if you had been following the thread properly instead of digressing, that this is all about the consumer/domestic market and advertising to families.

Families have music collections, videos and documents.. all in the MB and GB range, this is what they know and what they are comfortable with.

Precisely why then advertising needs to change for this sector.

So should car milometers change to cubic litres of space? Stop talking codlings and realise that your answer to your problem is more confusing to the consumers than the current situation.

In the building trade, most things are measured in mm, so yes some would

Common usage defines what is used for whichever purpose and to deviate from this would cause even more confusion

For data transfer, it just so happens it's Mb or Mbit as in Mbit/s / megabit per second

In reply to a post by tide:

But, this analogy is not best suited to the argument

You brought it up... wriggling again.

More confirmation.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Do you fancy giving up on this and coming down the pub for an two pi radians of clock hand. Maybe we can sink a few twentyfourths of a case of beer!

You're showing your age.

Perhaps a flaggon or two after the sun dial is lit upon it's western half?

Without being rude but when did you go to school, nobody teaches the difference between Imperial (British) and Metric measurements. Children, in fact myself, were/are taught in millimetres only. On a serious note that is, of course conversion for maths exams may require this trickery, but in the real world - as I keep trying to push you people into - people do not do maths and expect not to have to.

Why should they, times change and computing has evolved from Bits. Too bad if you don't like it.

In reply to a post by tide:

I see you just picked up on wood for this, well I will not deny wood is measured in mm - at a professional level (comparable to the knowledge of your own in this argument), but a house to a normal person certainly is not, see the parallel.

A house is never described in mm, no average person will be interested in the measurement. It will be in feet or metres which you describe your house.

But don't you see...at the basic, standardised level, the house or whatever is measured in that unit. If in general use people use a different unit then that's fine. a) It doesn't change the basic unit used and b) people can convert fairly easily (or should be able to) if they feel the need.