Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Why is the 1 TB Hard Drive only 930 GB?


Recently, I was thinking about getting an external hard drive and I saw one on sale at staple. It was a 1 TB portable HD; I wanted to buy it, but before that I want to make sure f its spec and that is why I was online looking for some basic review or thought on it. Then I came upon one of the comment and it talked about how he/she got rip off because his TB HD was in fact and 930 GB. Then I was thinking to myself, I wonder how many people don’t know that? So here I am talking about it:

When you buy a TB HD, they did not rip you off. There are in fact Tera (1,000,000,000,000) PHYSICAL Bytes. That is important because computer think in binary(0 and 1), that is only two values and if they want to calculate with bigger number, they add another digit in front of it(once again, a 0 or 1) just like how we add another digit in front when we hit 9. In that way, we calculated as 10^X and computers as binary is 2^X. If you don't see it yet, there is not integer (whole number, no decimals) value of X for 2^X will produce 1000. The closest is 2^10, which is 1024, then the computer calculated the amount of TB by dividing 1024(instead of 1000 because of how data are store in computer) and so it end up with ~930 GB in total. The one who sold it to you did not lie, but they did omit the most important information.

So sad, i never thought anime would bring such sadness



Yesterday, I was rewatching that one episode in aria season one for like the fifth time. It was the episode where she visits the old bridge and as she crossed it, something happen. Near the end of the episode, I started wondering, does the city I live in has this kind of history too. I live in Toronto, so I know that once upon a time pioneers lived here. What did they see in this new land? What did they want from it? Do they have any hope of what it will become? As I look back at the city now, I find it quite interesting that so much changed in hundred something years. However, this also kind of depress me as I realize that one day I will die and the world will just move on and become something else.

Then I watched an episode in the origination where Akari went to help on the gondola ferry (traghetto). Looking at that episode makes me realize how the animation for Alicia has changed quite a bit, but more importantly the series gotten a little bit more depressing. The kind of depression I feel from it is closer to growing up, understanding things and realising the reality upon us. We as audience know that Akari will pass the exam, but however how does she feel at that moment? We don’t normally see you as main character in a show, with so many possibilities and so much way we can fail, it is quit depressing. All things has an end, eventually she will take the exam and become a prima and like in arietta.

This is where it reminds me of something else, back when I was in kindergarten, it was possible to succeed and get perfect, but as we grow up, perfection seems closer and closer to impossible. Everything seem to become less define as they were, there are no longer any “right answer”, just answer that could be right.

Then the episode ends and the ending song came, this ending song was quit depressing and in a way feel lonely for me. I have just finished watching Sankarea, in the anime; the heroin dies and became a zombie. However, even then reality hit quit hard. Even as a zombie, she is not immortal and will undergo decay. This is make me thing how she is not different from a normal human by any means, she will eventually decay and die and so will we. We are technically decaying right now, every moment of our life. Knowing that, it become painfully obvious that nothing in this world is eternal, everything will eventually decay and disappeared. Then looking at the scale of thing, it become quite obvious that I will die before any of that will happen and even then, the world will go on. Thinking about how I will die, how that I will eventually be forgotten.

This makes me constantly thing of something, about my state of mind after I died. I will just disappear, wouldn't even thing and will never think then I become nothing and decay and world move on and I will know nothing of it. In fact, everything will one day disappear and become just void. This just make my heart feel so hollow, a feeling of emptiness that really hurt. This is when I know why people turn to religion, to fill that emptiness and to gain relive from thinking about all of that. Knowing that there is hope in afterlife allows them to pass on peacefully. Some other people will try to achieve something, so that they will be immortalize in the memories of the people who remember him.

This is exactly what made me write this page of stuff which I will use to start my blog.