3 ms·
Less sophisticated, but recently I realized that just plain remembering certain numbers like "average hours per month" (~730) or "seconds per day" (86400) is re
by heipei 6y ago
Less sophisticated, but recently I realized that just plain remembering certain numbers like "average hours per month" (~730) or "seconds per day" (86400) is really helpful to make very quick estimates. A customer wants a quota of 100k queries a day? That averages out to a little more than one query per second assuming equal distribution.
- kolanos 6y agoEdit: I stand corrected. 365.25 / 12 * 24 = 730.5 Technically it is 731 if you round up.
- mitjam 6y ago365 * 2 = 730 :)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pdonis 6y agoThere aren't exactly 365 days in a year.
- _1100 6y agoWe understand nothing “exactly” in this universe, but this is a thread about estimation hacks so maybe cool it on the fun fact witch hunt.? Idk just a thought.
- pdonis 6y ago> We understand nothing “exactly” in this universe Apparently a lot of "we" don't, since a number of people were saying they did the "exact" calculation that kolanos did but got a different answer. > so maybe cool it on the fun fact witch hunt.? The "witch hunt" seems to me to be on the part of the people who downvoted a perfectly correct and legitimate post, and those who responded to it with a claimed "exact" calculation that was wrong.
- g_sch 6y agoI did this exact calculation and it comes out to 730, exactly like GP said.
- PureParadigm 6y agoNo, that evaluates to 730. It's the same as 365*2=730.
- pdonis 6y agoThe number of days per year is not exactly 365.
- pdonis 6y agoSince you're getting downvotes and several others have posted disagreeing, I'm posting to agree with 730.5. I also get 365.25 * 2 = 730.5. I have no idea why other people are saying this somehow comes out to exactly 730. > Technically it is 731 if you round up. Actually, since 365.25 is a bit high (if it were exact we would all still be on the Julian calendar), I would round down to 730 since the multiplication gives a little less than 730.5. But that's still not the same as saying the multiplication gives exactly 730, as others are saying.
- saagarjha 6y agoI find it hilarious that so many people are so worked up on the rounding on the third significant figure of a number in the comments section of an article about "back of the envelope estimation hacks".
- kqr 6y agoOther useful numbers: Days in a year: 365.2425 (exactly, under Gregorian calendar) Days in a month: 30.44 (approximation, a twelveth of the above)