Tuesday 25 October 2011
Monday 26 September 2011
First class
Phew! Nerves are receding and information is settling gradually into my brain. It's amazing how many things I'd thought I knew, but in fact I only had some superficial knowledge about. I realise that I use terms whose meanings I don't totally possess. So, this first class has brought awareness about this and focus on a smaller picture. Learning about bits and bytes and terabytes. I've never heard of terabytes, I must say. I've got this definition from TechTargetInc. :
"A terabyte (TB) is a measure of computer storage capacity that is 2 to the 40th power or approximately a trillion bytes (that is, a thousand gigabytes). The prefix tera is derived from the Greek word for monster."
And also an exabyte:
"An exabyte (EB) is a large unit of computer data storage, two to the sixtieth power bytes. The prefix exa means one billion billion, or one quintillion, which is a decimal term. Two to the sixtieth power is actually 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes in decimal, or somewhat over a quintillion (or ten to the eighteenth power) bytes. It is common to say that an exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes. In decimal terms, an exabyte is a billion gigabytes.
An exabyte of storage could contain 50,000 years' worth of DVD-quality video." (from the same source TechTargetInc)
Another important thing, just to think of is the levels of data representation: bits, bytes, formats, files, documents. I work with them everyday, but I don't think of what they really mean. It was interesting to be reminded of the binary system; to think in zeros and ones and still to be able to represent anything one wants. I like the translation from the decimal system to the binary one and viceversa.
And then jump from the small picture to a bigger one, to von Neumann's architecture.
Now, trying to translate this into the existential world; the load of information we live in and the significance for our daily life. I will leave this for the next few days. At the moment, I'm overloaded.....
"A terabyte (TB) is a measure of computer storage capacity that is 2 to the 40th power or approximately a trillion bytes (that is, a thousand gigabytes). The prefix tera is derived from the Greek word for monster."
And also an exabyte:
"An exabyte (EB) is a large unit of computer data storage, two to the sixtieth power bytes. The prefix exa means one billion billion, or one quintillion, which is a decimal term. Two to the sixtieth power is actually 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes in decimal, or somewhat over a quintillion (or ten to the eighteenth power) bytes. It is common to say that an exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes. In decimal terms, an exabyte is a billion gigabytes.
An exabyte of storage could contain 50,000 years' worth of DVD-quality video." (from the same source TechTargetInc)
Another important thing, just to think of is the levels of data representation: bits, bytes, formats, files, documents. I work with them everyday, but I don't think of what they really mean. It was interesting to be reminded of the binary system; to think in zeros and ones and still to be able to represent anything one wants. I like the translation from the decimal system to the binary one and viceversa.
And then jump from the small picture to a bigger one, to von Neumann's architecture.
Now, trying to translate this into the existential world; the load of information we live in and the significance for our daily life. I will leave this for the next few days. At the moment, I'm overloaded.....
Sunday 25 September 2011
Welcome to my first blog post!
Yes, my first time blogging and wonder how I can add a description under my blog title. This blog is intended to build on my thoughts of connecting existentialism to technology, especially information technologies. It's very exciting thinking that I could share ideas with lots of people, hopefully...
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