TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Ask HN: The iPod Mile and other non-SI units...

1 pointsby craig552ukover 12 years ago
In discussing a data import we're working on, the unit "items-per-hour" started creeping into office conversation.<p>This set us off down the path of talking about non-SI units for things, swimming pools of this, bus-lengths of that.<p>Then I remembered a similar conversation from a previous workplace where we invented the "iPod Mile" as a measure of storage capacity.<p>Assuming an iPod with 10GB storage being about 10cm long (this was a while ago), one meter of iPods laid out end-to-end would have 100GB of storage. Given that a mile is about 1600 meters: 1 iPm ~= 160TB<p>It served little purpose other than for our own amusement, though it did creep in to the occasional spec sheet (you've gotta stay sane somehow).<p>So, my question to you:<p>What non-SI units do you find creeping into your day-to-day lives?

no comments

no comments