Yea I don't understand the issue here. SI is pretty clear, and this post explain...

reaperducer · 2026-02-04T10:03:50 1770199430

because they are old

I keep using "K" for kilobyte because it makes the children angry since they lack the ability to judge meaning from context.

nixpulvis · 2026-02-04T14:15:21 1770214521

You sly dog.

ZoomZoomZoom · 2026-02-04T02:54:12 1770173652

...old lazy and wrong! Capital K is for Kelvin.

schiffern · 2026-02-04T03:16:05 1770174965

>Capital K is for Kelvin.

It 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-...

fc417fc802 · 2026-02-04T04:06:57 1770178017

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.

schiffern · 2026-02-04T19:32:36 1770233556

I often see it with "kB" too, so the proposed (ugly) hack doesn't really solve the problem.

I think the author had it just right. There's a lot of inertia, but the traditional way can cause confusion.

xigoi · 2026-02-04T22:09:36 1770242976

This only works with kilobytes, not megabytes and gigabytes.

ZoomZoomZoom · 2026-02-04T09:47:41 1770198461

I was pretty sure I'd be corrected in some manner, being two of the aforementioned three. Thanks.