I was putting a 10MB file up on our website the other day and I wanted to know how long it would take someone on a dialup connection to download it. So I did a Google search and was rather bemused by the result:

I think it's the lowercase 'k'. Use KB for Kilobytes.

shadowman:

I think it's the lowercase 'k'. Use KB for Kilobytes.

It's not kilobytes, though, it's kilobits.  Should he use "kb"?

shadowman:

I think it's the lowercase 'k'. Use KB for Kilobytes.

Better yet, use kb for kilobits.

Edit: Drat, he beat me to it.

I find this one more amusing:

(10 megabytes) over (56 kelvin) = 187 245.714 Bytes / K

Garbage in, garbage out, I suppose.

I think this is the query the OP was looking for.

Entertaining result ...

10MB over 56kb/sec will probably get what you want.

Sgt. Zim:

Entertaining result ...

10MB over 56kb/sec will probably get what you want.

Damned phones and damned edit timeouts. 

Well I wasn't actually planning to use Google Calculator at all. I intended it to be a text search.

 But yes, I could have worded it better.

I wanted to know what kind of speed I'd expect a 10 mb file at 3 teaspoons a second.

10mb * 3tsp/sec

 The answer, not surprisingly, is 0.0147867648 watts

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=10mb+*+3tsp%2Fsec

Of course, that's wrong, I should have divided the whole thing

(10 mb) over (3 (tsp / sec)) = 67 628 045.1 m^-4 kg s^-1

 

And capitalize "mb":
(10 MB) over (3 * (tsp / sec)) = 7.0913145 × 10¹¹ s Bytes / m³

[jerkface]
Actually, you're all still wrong.

It would be 56000 bits per second, not 56Kb (57344 bits) because they marketed the modems the same way they market hard disks (e.g., 80gig HDD = ~74GB).  Giving us (10 MB) over (56 000 (bits per second)) = 24.9660952 minutes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilobit

Kilobits are commonly used to express digital communication speeds, e.g. a 56 kbit/s PSTN or 512 kbit/s broadband Internet connection. In the context of telecommunication transmission speeds, the decimal definition 1 kbit = 1,000 bit is used uniformly.

And don't get me started on the whole FCC power maximum limiting transmission speeds to 53K... although K56flex solved that or something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/56_kbit/s
[/jerkface]

webzter:

I wanted to know what kind of speed I'd expect a 10 mb file at 3 teaspoons a second.

10mb * 3tsp/sec

 The answer, not surprisingly, is 0.0147867648 watts

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=10mb+*+3tsp%2Fsec

Haha, awesome :D. I find it quite funny that it allows inconsistant units...

I've always been interested by this: http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&hs=ap9&q=tan+%2890+degrees%29&btnG=Search
tan(90 degrees) = 1.63317787 × 10^16

Erm... Tan of 90 degrees is undefined.

webzter:

I wanted to know what kind of speed I'd expect a 10 mb file at 3 teaspoons a second.

10mb * 3tsp/sec

 The answer, not surprisingly, is 0.0147867648 watts

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=10mb+*+3tsp%2Fsec

While I found this hilarious, lowercase mb is millibars in Google-speak.

joe.edwards@imaginuity.com:

While I found this hilarious, lowercase mb is millibars in Google-speak.

Hmm, it's been awhile since I took any science courses... what was the conversion from millibars to teaspoons again? 

Hmmm. I get: 

search string: 10MB over 56 kbps

result: (10 megabytes) over (56 kbps) = 24.3809524 minutes

 

Seems to work great to me.  Even expressed it in minutes rather than a large number of seconds.

Pap:

Actually, you're all still wrong.

It would be 56000 bits per second, not 56Kb (57344 bits) because they marketed the modems the same way they market hard disks (e.g., 80gig HDD = ~74GB).  Giving us (10 MB) over (56 000 (bits per second)) = 24.9660952 minutes.

Oh, come on.  That's just semantics, like calling someone out who (for the purposes of estimation) rounded off a megabyte to 1000 KB instead of 1024.  It's far easier to say "56k" than "56,000 bits."  But I'm sure that you were just nitpicking :P

joe.edwards@imaginuity.com:

shadowman:

I think it's the lowercase 'k'. Use KB for Kilobytes.

Better yet, use kb for kilobits.

Edit: Drat, he beat me to it.

 LOL!  I win the retard award today...



 

rbowes:

joe.edwards@imaginuity.com:

While I found this hilarious, lowercase mb is millibars in Google-speak.

Hmm, it's been awhile since I took any science courses... what was the conversion from millibars to teaspoons again? 

Three cups to the left of your breath times the volume of sugar present in the bowl.

rbowes:

joe.edwards@imaginuity.com:

While I found this hilarious, lowercase mb is millibars in Google-speak.

Hmm, it's been awhile since I took any science courses... what was the conversion from millibars to teaspoons again? 

Here's the formula.

UpNDown:

Hmmm. I get: 

search string: 10MB over 56 kbps

result: (10 megabytes) over (56 kbps) = 24.3809524 minutes

 Seems to work great to me.  Even expressed it in minutes rather than a large number of seconds.

Glad someone in here pointed out the correct abbreviation. It's kbps, people! Not kbit/s, kb, etc. Last time I had a dial-up modem, it even had "kbps" printed on it. And you wonder why it didn't know what you were asking about. Take a look at miles per gallon. Have you ever seen it represented as m/g? No, it's MPG. How about speed.. ever seen m/h? No again.. it's MPH. The slash indicates arithmetic to a computer.

AbbydonKrafts:

UpNDown:

Hmmm. I get:

search string: 10MB over 56 kbps

result: (10 megabytes) over (56 kbps) = 24.3809524 minutes

Seems to work great to me. Even expressed it in minutes rather than a large number of seconds.

Glad someone in here pointed out the correct abbreviation. It's kbps, people! Not kbit/s, kb, etc. Last time I had a dial-up modem, it even had "kbps" printed on it. And you wonder why it didn't know what you were asking about. Take a look at miles per gallon. Have you ever seen it represented as m/g? No, it's MPG. How about speed.. ever seen m/h? No again.. it's MPH. The slash indicates arithmetic to a computer.

 That may very well be, but if you're doing math by hand and you want the labels to agree with the math, it makes more sense to say kb/s or b/s.

 
For example:

12,000 b / (2400 b/s) =  5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s

 

shadowman:

That may very well be, but if you're doing math by hand and you want the labels to agree with the math, it makes more sense to say kb/s or b/s.

For example:

12,000 b / (2400 b/s) =  5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

AbbydonKrafts:

UpNDown:

Hmmm. I get: 

search string: 10MB over 56 kbps

result: (10 megabytes) over (56 kbps) = 24.3809524 minutes

 Seems to work great to me.  Even expressed it in minutes rather than a large number of seconds.

Glad someone in here pointed out the correct abbreviation. It's kbps, people! Not kbit/s, kb, etc. Last time I had a dial-up modem, it even had "kbps" printed on it. And you wonder why it didn't know what you were asking about. Take a look at miles per gallon. Have you ever seen it represented as m/g? No, it's MPG. How about speed.. ever seen m/h? No again.. it's MPH. The slash indicates arithmetic to a computer.

No, actually, those are all functionally equivalent, and the slash is 100% correct for what we want.  

(10 MB) over (56 (kilobits / s)) = 24.3809524 minutes

So the cause of the OP's [Worse Than] Failure was the missing "per second" ("ps" or "/s"), since he wanted the result as a time.

My physics prof from high school used to take points off your answer if you got the value correct but didn't include the unit(s). So saying "42" wasn't good enough, you had to write "42m/s". Google Calc illustrates why: the answer is useless to all without all the units!

AbbydonKrafts:

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

Fine. Does this help?

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 b / (2400 b/s) = 5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s;

AbbydonKrafts:

Glad someone in here pointed out the correct abbreviation. It's kbps, people! Not kbit/s, kb, etc.

  Where did you pull that out of?  There's nothing more "correct" about "kbps" as opposed to "kb/s".  What on earth do you think the 'p' means?  It means "per", which means "divided by".

AbbydonKrafts:

Last time I had a dial-up modem, it even had "kbps" printed on it.

  Who died and made your modem king of the world?  If I want to know how to write something, I look it up in a dictionary or encyclopedia, not on the side of any random piece of electronic equipment.

AbbydonKrafts:

And you wonder why it didn't know what you were asking about. Take a look at miles per gallon. Have you ever seen it represented as m/g? No, it's MPG. How about speed.. ever seen m/h? No again.. it's MPH.

  Just because you haven't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist; never mistake your own ignorance for an insight into necessity.  I've seen an awful lot of speeds referred to as "km/h".  Did you even try entering "10MB over 56 kb/s" as a search string?  Google's perfectly happy with it.  It's only you who thinks they know better.

AbbydonKrafts:

The slash indicates arithmetic to a computer.

  Actually, it indicates division, not just "arithmetic in general".  And that makes it a completely correct symbol to use when you are DIVIDING kilobits by seconds.   

  The real WTF is posting authoritative-sounding statements on a subject you know nothing about.

 

 

AbbydonKrafts:

shadowman:

That may very well be, but if you're doing math by hand and you want the labels to agree with the math, it makes more sense to say kb/s or b/s.

For example:

12,000 b / (2400 b/s) = 5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

 Well, the labels also include arithmetic.  Bits per second =  bits divided by seconds = bits / seconds.

joe.edwards@imaginuity.com:

webzter:

I wanted to know what kind of speed I'd expect a 10 mb file at 3 teaspoons a second.

10mb * 3tsp/sec

 The answer, not surprisingly, is 0.0147867648 watts

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=10mb+*+3tsp%2Fsec

While I found this hilarious, lowercase mb is millibars in Google-speak.

Hence the wattage! a pressure * a volume (teaspoons) yealds an amount of energy. Divide that by a time, and you get power. Imagine the physics exam question:

"A leaky pressure tank, held at 10mb above the surrounding air looses 3 teaspoons of liquid every second. How much power is being lost through this leakage?"

That said, 10mb (1/100 of 'normal' air pressure) is the pressure at a depth of 100mm (of water). 

Saladin:

Oh, come on.  That's just semantics, like calling someone out who (for the purposes of estimation) rounded off a megabyte to 1000 KB instead of 1024.  It's far easier to say "56k" than "56,000 bits."  But I'm sure that you were just nitpicking :P

To be fair, kilo (and mega, etc) were being used as power of 10 prefixes in science before us computing types tried to repurpose them as power of 2 prefixes; hence the existence of kibi, etc. (Not that you'll ever catch me using them, of course...) 

I wouldn't mind using a subscript like this kilo₂byte, but kibi?! who the hell came out with that name? >:(

</rant>
 

AbbydonKrafts:

shadowman:

That may very well be, but if you're doing math by hand and you want the labels to agree with the math, it makes more sense to say kb/s or b/s.

For example:

12,000 b / (2400 b/s) = 5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

 

The thing is that, it kind of is.

s is a variable representing  the length of one meter, and since it's undefined (atleast numericly) it's part of the answear.

Thus the slash in 5/4 is the same slash as in m/s 

The Real WTF is someone who calls himself a programmer doesn't understand the concept of basic dimensional arithmetic.*

 * Assuming that every who posts around these parts considers himself to be a programmer.

RayS:

AbbydonKrafts:

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

Fine. Does this help?

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 b / (2400 b/s) = 5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s;

You fool!  You can't use those operators on strings!

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 * atoi(b.c_str()) / (2400 * atoi(b.c_str())/atoi(s.c_str()))  = Integer Divide By Zero

 Happy to help.
 

bstorer:

RayS:

AbbydonKrafts:

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

Fine. Does this help?

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 b / (2400 b/s) = 5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s;

You fool!  You can't use those operators on strings!

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 * atoi(b.c_str()) / (2400 * atoi(b.c_str())/atoi(s.c_str()))  = Integer Divide By Zero

 Happy to help.
 

 

Yes you can.   my $score = "1" + "$score"; 

IDK wrote: "s is a variable representing  the length of one meter, and since it's undefined (atleast numericly) it's part of the answear."

 Ehm... A meter is defined as the distance travelled by light in absolute vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second,

and a second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.

Hope this clears things up :-p

tster:

bstorer:

RayS:

AbbydonKrafts:

Even that looks more confusing as you have both arithmetic and labels using a slash. It makes me think "s" is variable for something.

Fine. Does this help?

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 b / (2400 b/s) = 5 [b / (b/s)] = 5 s;

You fool!  You can't use those operators on strings!

string s = "seconds";
string b = "bytes";
12,000 * atoi(b.c_str()) / (2400 * atoi(b.c_str())/atoi(s.c_str()))  = Integer Divide By Zero

 Happy to help.
 

 

Yes you can.   my $score = "1" + "$score"; 

That's '+', but the original only uses '*' and '/'. 

Daniel15:

Erm... Tan of 90 degrees is undefined.

 IIRC, the tan function is asymptotic.  Perhaps you've found the value of infinity...or the value of NaN.

FrostCat:

Daniel15:

Erm... Tan of 90 degrees is undefined.

 IIRC, the tan function is asymptotic.  Perhaps you've found the value of infinity...or the value of NaN.

Yeah, 90 degress (pi / 2 radians) is an asymptote.

For the tan of 90 to exist, you'd need a triangle with two 90 degree angles (an open box?) :D

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=55+teaspoons+per+second&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=4.92892161+*+10%5E-6+m%5E3&btnG=Search

 Amusing I will say - especially for the unsuspecting people who wonder where the extra units are coming from

 

Maybe to torture people I'll start measuring data rates in teaspoons, cups, jugs, etc per second
 

robbak:

Imagine the physics exam question:

"A leaky pressure tank, held at 10mb above the surrounding air looses 3 teaspoons of liquid every second. How much power is being lost through this leakage?"

That said, 10mb (1/100 of 'normal' air pressure) is the pressure at a depth of 100mm (of water). 

I would take points off the physics teacher for spelling "loses" wrong.  You don't "loose" something, you "lose" it.

DigitalXeron:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=55+teaspoons+per+second&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=4.92892161+*+10%5E-6+m%5E3&btnG=Search

 Amusing I will say - especially for the unsuspecting people who wonder where the extra units are coming from

 

Maybe to torture people I'll start measuring data rates in teaspoons, cups, jugs, etc per second

I measure fuel economy in square millimeters all the time.