The correct aphorism, which you have doubtlessly heard a few times in your life, goes “one bad apple spoils the barrel.” The reason? Because when an apple over-ripens and spoils, it produces ethylene, which acts as a ripening agent and causes the other apples in the container to go bad as well.

So when you try to defend a group by referencing the “bad apples” analogy, you are in fact supporting the argument that the organization is rotten.

Now how about “Jack of all trades, master of none?” Usually used disparagingly toward somebody who has many skills, but is not outstanding in any specific one, its traditional usage is less so. A Jack-of-all-trades would be a generalist rather than a specialist, sometimes called a polymath or a “Renaissance man.” Leonardo da Vinci and a number of ancient Greek philosophers come to mind. Would you disparage any of the classical great minds, a great many of which dabbled in many areas instead of focusing on a single field? I doubt it.

The “master of none” part seems to be a more recent addition to the adage, and other, longer versions of the saying exist.

“Jack of all trades, master of none,
Oftimes better than a master of one”

Wikipedia has a list of interesting variants from other languages, as well as a bit on the history of the phrase.

I’m not as knowledgeable of the history of “curiosity killed the cat,” but a well-known retort to it is “and satisfaction brought it back.” It seems that it could originate from a play performed by The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a group including William Shakespeare, where the phrase “care’ll kill a Cat” appears. (“Care” being defined as “worry” or “sorrow” in this context.) It shows up again in Much Ado About Nothing.

Surprisingly, the person who answered 1,000 would be correct.

Historically, there were 1,024 bytes in a kilobyte. That created a problem, though. The Latin-derived kilo, mega and giga prefixes refer to base-ten numbers, which means using them for binary denominations would conflict with the SI/metric system. So in 1999 the International Electrotechnical Commission defined the kilobyte and its siblings as being base ten, introducing a new system for binary units.

Enter the kibibyte.

A kibibyte (abbreviated as KiB) is 1,024 bytes. The equivalent to a megabyte (10⁶) is the mebibyte (2²⁰) and the gigabyte (10⁹) is the gibibyte (2³⁰).

What does this mean for you? Nothing, probably. Unless you’re doing some programming work where specificity is very important, or dealing with very large amounts of data, measuring data in base ten is perfectly sensible. Hard disk manufacturers have been doing it for years, and some operating systems now even use base ten units. Apple has done it since Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), though I think Microsoft may still use base two while labeling the numbers incorrectly. Most Linux distributions use base two, though they usually label the values with the proper suffix.

Anyway, it’s certainly interesting. It reminds me of another bit of numerical confusion. Network speeds are usually measured and advertised in megabits per second, as bytes aren’t really relevant to the “tubes,” and its not uncommon for sub-byte chunks of data to be sent down the line. Meanwhile, a lot of software displays the speed of downloads in megabytes per second instead. This creates confusing situations occasionally. (Convention is to use a lower-case “m” for megabits and a capital one for megabytes.)

A “learning curve” is a visual device used to illustrate the average rate of learning for a skill or tool. Essentially, it is a line chart that shows the learner’s level of proficiency and how it changes over time.

Take a look at the two following charts. The first one illustrates a steep learning curve, while the second shows a more gradual slope. If you take a look at the labels on the axes, you’ll note that the steep curve shows the “knowledge” unit is increasing at a faster rate. That means something with a steep learning curve is easier than something with a gradual slope. Make sense?

I know I’ve been guilty of misusing this term in the past, but have been making an effort to avoid it more recently. It’s a good thing to word around when you’re writing, as using it in the correct context is likely to do nothing but cause confusion at this point. (At least, for general audiences. Depending on your niche, your readers might understand.)