because they are old
replyI keep using "K" for kilobyte because it makes the children angry since they lack the ability to judge meaning from context.
You sly dog.
reply...old lazy and wrong! Capital K is for Kelvin.
reply>Capital K is for Kelvin.
replyIt should be "kelvin" here. ;)
Unit names are always lower-case[1] (watt, joule, newton, pascal, hertz), except at the start of a sentence. When referring to the scientists the names are capitalized of course, and the unit symbols are also capitalized (W, J, N, Pa, Hz).
[1] SI Brochure, Section 5.3 "Unit Names" https://www.bipm.org/documents/20126/41483022/SI-Brochure-9-...
Thus there's no ambiguity. kB is power of 10 and KB is clearly not kelvin bytes therefore it's power of two. Doesn't quite fit the SI worldview but I don't see that as a problem.
replyI often see it with "kB" too, so the proposed (ugly) hack doesn't really solve the problem.
replyI think the author had it just right. There's a lot of inertia, but the traditional way can cause confusion.
This only works with kilobytes, not megabytes and gigabytes.
replyI was pretty sure I'd be corrected in some manner, being two of the aforementioned three. Thanks.
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