This may interest those who produce/analyze data and metadata
concerning information itself. It was prompted by Maarten Sneep's
suggestion that "photon" be added to UDUnits (like "molecule" was).
I support that suggestion.
A few months ago Jeff Lee and I worked to improve CF-compliance of
Level 1 and 2 data for NASA's forthcoming ICESat2 mission.
These products archive some measurement rates in terms of Bytes
and related units, which were not in UDUnits at the time.
After some back and forth, Steve Emmerson of Unidata kindly added
added support for "octet" and "byte" in UDUnits 2.2.16, released
in June 2014 (same release that introduced "molecule").
Both "byte" and "octet" are convertible with "bit":
zender@roulee:~$ udunits2
You have: kilobytes
You want: bytes
1 kilobytes = 1000 bytes
x/bytes = 1000*(x/kilobytes)
You have: bytes
You want: bits
1 bytes = 8 bits
x/bits = 8*(x/bytes)
With these additions, instruments can archive data acquisition and
transmission rates, storage capacities, etc. with commonsense,
UDUnits-compatible units. We can annotate algorithm and storage
performance. Now UDUnits has "molecule" and "byte". They (Steve)
are receptive to well-justified proposals, so do not feel daunted
in transmitting to them the suggestion for "photon".
Charlie
--
Charlie Zender, Earth System Sci. & Computer Sci.
University of California, Irvine 949-891-2429 )'(
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