1024 (2^10) is ~10^3 (I know switching bases!) vs say 10 (10^1), so two orders of magnitude larger in general. A gig 10^9 would be many orders of magnitude. An order of magnitude is generally a jump to the next power of 10. So 10 (10^1) is an order of magnitude larger than 1 (10^0) as 100 (10^2) is to 10 (10^1), and so on. People frequently misuse the term when speaking in technical terms. When the average person uses it to denote a big jump, I let it go - usually ;) If you stick with base 2 I guess you could say many orders of magnitude (2^32 = 4,294,967,296 vs 2^8 = 256, or 24 orders of magnitude?).

But you could use Base-1024, in which case the term is used correctly. It's all relative ;)

Why? The common base is 10, and "orders of magnitude" is normally based on 10X between orders here. Ten fingers, decimal system, etc. Don't bring up metric vs. Imperial ;)

I work at an engineering firm, and that's how most engineers understand it.