{"id": "card_n_a84694b9ae04", "kind": "note", "title": "Powers of two — the binary ladder", "body": "The numbers a machine counts by, sealed: 2^10 = 1024 (the binary 'kilo'), 2^16 = 65,536\n(a 16-bit word's range), 2^30 = 1,073,741,824 (one GiB): https://narrowhighway.com/s/19df661045aef6fa486083cfbff5ea7c5df1c30ef59dd3d1683a849b789b6d5a . Every memory size, color\ndepth, and address space is a rung on this ladder — the reason a 'kilobyte' is 1024 and a 4 GB\nstick is really 2^32 bytes. The quartz watch (2^15) and the gibibyte (2^30) are the same ladder,\none in time and one in space.", "source": {"label": "Concordance assay — 2026-07-09", "url": "https://narrowhighway.com/s/f8a7bbf4b8b3da9cadedda1d5228d6aa1683c60a1d79c3655c4eae419119276c", "ref": "quartz", "authority_tier": "engine_derived"}, "shelf": "science", "box": "quartz", "bands": ["powers of two", "1024", "65536", "gibibyte", "binary", "kilobyte", "computing"], "connections": [], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-07-10T01:49:27.180353+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-10T01:49:27.180353+00:00", "visibility": "public", "lifecycle_stage": "public", "volatility": "permanent", "surface": "secular", "metrics": {"paperclips_count": 0, "helpful_count": 0, "not_helpful_count": 0, "cite_count": 0, "walks_through_count": 0, "flagged_count": 0}, "source_hash": "335ef10ff309a8e9324784a0ae6991d4e440a0bd9ea01f5813043c5917cbcae9"}