[Starlink] [Rpm] the grinch meets cloudflare's christmas present

[David Fernández]

When a user refers to "gigs" it can be also talking about the monthly
data cap volume in the cell phone or mobile subscription.

A user is mainly not aware of what can be done with the "gigs". You
understand what you get when you get minutes of phone calls or a
certain number of SMS, but "gigs" are consumed in a way the user
mostly does not understand. Sometimes it is translated to a volume of
WhatsApp messages, pictures, videos (in a certain resolution, DVD
quality, for example), so people understand a bit what they are paying
for.

Language is ambiguous. Data rate in bit/s is referred as communication
channel capacity by Shannon, not to speed, but speed in km/h is an
analogy for information "running" in bit/s that people maybe
understand better.

Then, there is the people that ask you how much a file "weights" to
refer to the amount of bytes it has, as if information has a kind of
inertial mass.

There is the technical language and then the non-technical people
language. Two worlds apart, sometimes.

Regards,

David

> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2023 19:11:28 -0800
> From: "Dick Roy" <dickroy at alum.mit.edu>
> To: "'Dave Collier-Brown'" <dave.collier-Brown at indexexchange.com>
> Cc: <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] [Rpm] the grinch meets cloudflare's christmas
> 	present
> Message-ID: <15EBCC5BF2474AAB82C050259229B5FB at SRA6>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
>
>
>
>   _____
>
> From: Starlink [mailto:starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net] On Behalf Of
> Dave Collier-Brown via Starlink
> Sent: Wednesday, January 4, 2023 6:48 PM
> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] [Rpm] the grinch meets cloudflare's christmas
> present
>
>
>
> I think using "speed" for "the inverse of delay" is pretty normal English,
> if technically erroneous when speaking nerd or physicist.
>
> [RR] I’ve not heard of that usage before.  The units aren’t commensurate
> either.
>
> Using it for volume? Arguably more like fraudulent...
>
> [RR] I don’t think that was Bob’s intent.  I think “load volume” was meant
> to be a metaphor for “number of bits/bytes” being transported (“by the
> semi”).
>
> That said, aren’t users these days educated on “gigs” which they intuitively
> understand to be Gigabits per second (or Gbps)?  Oddly enough, that is an
> expression of “data/information/communication rate” in the appropriate units
> with the nominal technically correct meaning.
>
> RR
>
> --dave
>