this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
1427 points (99.7% liked)

Technology

59235 readers
2958 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Except that’s like dividing by zero. A millibit is undefined. A bit is the smallest indivisible unit of digital information.

But capitalization is important to distinguish between b for bit and B for Byte.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, that's like dividing by 1,000.

Anyway, computer scientists split the bit back in 1969, which is how we're able to make smaller and smaller computers: the bits are all smaller, so we can pack more into a single potato chip.

[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

Lol thanks for the chuckle

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

Information entropy is measured in bits, and the bits are almost always fractional.

[–] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Good catch but not quite. bps is a rate so it is allowed to be an abstract expression.

How many chickens per hour cross the road?

And more importantly, why.

[–] poopsmith@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

If you had really slow Internet, like smoke signals or semaphores across a nation, you could characterize it as millibit:

1 bit over 1000 seconds = 1 millibit/s.

But yeah, it's basically meaningless in today's age for Internet speeds.