For American numbers

[Erik Max Francis]

Peter Hansen wrote:

> I'll be one of the last holdouts, too...  it's really not
> so hard to work in powers of two if you try...

The difficulty isn't with working in powers of 1024, it's that the terms 
are used inconsistently even within the computing industry.  Memory is 
measured in kibibytes, but disk space is measured in kilobytes. 
Something as basic as "1 meg" has different numeric meanings depending 
on whether you're talking about memory or disk space or metered 
bandwidth usage.  And a 1.44 MB isn't 1000^2 bytes or 1024^2 bytes, but 
rather 1024*1000 bytes!

-- 
Erik Max Francis && max at alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
   The decree is the Sultan's; the mountains are ours.
   -- Dadaloglu