5 ms·

Also a frequent WA user. I use it for things I could calculate, but are much faster to just ask in plain text. How much that cloud instance really costs $0.

by mike_d 5y ago

Also a frequent WA user. I use it for things I could calculate, but are much faster to just ask in plain text. How much that cloud instance really costs $0.03/hr * 1 month Bandwidth calculations for hosting providers 10 TB per month in Mbps

vinodkd 5y ago
or frink [1], which started off as a tool like the others mentiond here, but is now a full fledged units-based programming language. See some examples of them here [2] 1: https://frinklang.org/ https://frinklang.org/ 2: https://frinklang.org/#SampleCalculations https://frinklang.org/#SampleCalculations Its been on HN before.
maneesh 5y ago
I use Google for those pretty often.
- mejutoco 5y ago
  I do the same for basic calculations. I was surprised things like 9:00 EST in CET don‘t work in google search, but do in WA.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - einarvollset 5y ago
    Works for me: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=9%3A00%20EST%20in%20CET https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=9%3A00%20EST%20in%20CE...
    - mejutoco 5y ago
      You are absolutely right. I misremembered. Using GMT does indeed work only on WA: 9:00 GMT-7 in CET https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=9%3A00+GMT-7+in+CET https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=9%3... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%3A00+GMT-7+in+CET https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%3A00+GMT-7+in+CET
      - saalaa 5y ago
        Google handles GMT and UTC but doesn't handle offsets from there and, frankly, it's understandable and I wouldn't bother either. What it does handle though is countries and their DST settings: > 9:00 UTC in Thailand
  - kgermino 5y ago
    Ohh does WA respect time zones in searches? A regular complaint I have with google is (simplified example) converting EDT to MST. Google will “helpfully” correct me and convert EDT to MDT instead, which is explicitly not what I asked for. It’s stupid (I can usually figure it out on my own) but that would be a huge win for me.
Laremere 5y ago
Yeah, it's great for these types of things. It also has a bunch of values built in, so you can do things like: (day length of jupiter) * 80
5- 5y ago
you might want to try units(1). https://www.gnu.org/software/units/units.html https://www.gnu.org/software/units/units.html the input language is less flexible than wolframalpha/google, but i quickly got used to it. it's nice to have something local and reliable. you can also define custom units. i prefer using it in terse mode: $ units -t 0.03$/hr*1month 21.914532 US$ $ units -t 10TB/month Mbps 30.421214
- Siira 5y ago
  Julia is also excellent for working with units (Units.jl, IIRC).
  - ChrisRackauckas 5y ago
    Unitful.jl
- avmich 5y ago
  For calculator problems like that, I use J: */ 0.03 24 30 21.6 1e6 %~ (10e12 * 8) % */ 30 24 3600 30.8642 Usually requires some massaging, but still takes seconds.
  - kragen 5y ago
    While APL dialects are very nice for this sort of thing, they generally don't understand units of measure or know about physical constants; you have to put those into them yourself. Here are some of my recent units(1) queries: 141 pounds force 30 mm # in joules 1160/4 log(3)/3/(log(2)/2) # how much more efficient is one-hot ternary than one-hot binary? 5V 7 μs / 7.3 A .0117% half avogadro mol / 1.251e9 years / (potassium+chlorine)g # how radioactive is lite salt? 3.27$/gallon # in $/liter sqrt(2 2000 electronvolt/electronmass) 18.8 foot pounds force # in joules 163$/(7.9 g/cc * 1500 mm 3000 mm 3.2 mm) # cold rolled steel price is higher than steel sold by weight m3/4 / 15 cfh 2 pi sqrt(200 um / gravity)
- every 5y ago
  Units advises there are 118.20896 smoots per furlong..
Keyframe 5y ago
You also might want to try google search. They display calculations for these particular queries and quite a few more.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Google is also often wrong. For example, my computer is set to US English, as is my profile. Yet somehow it still gets confused on decimals and commas (they are switched in my current country’s locale).
  - telchar 5y ago
    Also, if you use the Firefox search bar only the first 20 chars are sent to google, so longer calculations are truncated before they're calculated and wrong answers come back with no warning. Not a Google problem per se but a risk of using Google to calculate still.
franga2000 5y ago
Same here, the way it seamlessly wrangles even the most ridiculous combinations of units is insanely useful. Just yesterday I used it to calculate power consumption for a house by timing one of those spinning wheel meter things. Something like "(10 rot / 46 s) / (375 rot / kW*h)" and it gave me straight answer in watts. I definitely could've worked that out by hand, but it would've taken a minute or a few, mostly on unit conversions. With WA, I can just think in variable relationships and not worry about units at all. Don't get me wrong, it often returns complete garbage, see all the memes of Siri passing non-math questions to it. It's annoying to figure out or explain to someone because the syntax is very loose and you just kind of need to get a feel for it, but once you do, it's really powerful.

by mike_d 5y ago

vinodkd 5y ago

or frink [1], which started off as a tool like the others mentiond here, but is now a full fledged units-based programming language. See some examples of them here [2] 1: https://frinklang.org/ https://frinklang.org/ 2: https://frinklang.org/#SampleCalculations https://frinklang.org/#SampleCalculations Its been on HN before.

maneesh 5y ago

I use Google for those pretty often.

mejutoco 5y ago
I do the same for basic calculations. I was surprised things like 9:00 EST in CET don‘t work in google search, but do in WA.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- einarvollset 5y ago
  Works for me: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=9%3A00%20EST%20in%20CET https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=9%3A00%20EST%20in%20CE...
  - mejutoco 5y ago
    You are absolutely right. I misremembered. Using GMT does indeed work only on WA: 9:00 GMT-7 in CET https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=9%3A00+GMT-7+in+CET https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=9%3... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%3A00+GMT-7+in+CET https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=9%3A00+GMT-7+in+CET
    - saalaa 5y ago
      Google handles GMT and UTC but doesn't handle offsets from there and, frankly, it's understandable and I wouldn't bother either. What it does handle though is countries and their DST settings: > 9:00 UTC in Thailand
- kgermino 5y ago
  Ohh does WA respect time zones in searches? A regular complaint I have with google is (simplified example) converting EDT to MST. Google will “helpfully” correct me and convert EDT to MDT instead, which is explicitly not what I asked for. It’s stupid (I can usually figure it out on my own) but that would be a huge win for me.

Laremere 5y ago

Yeah, it's great for these types of things. It also has a bunch of values built in, so you can do things like: (day length of jupiter) * 80

5- 5y ago

you might want to try units(1). https://www.gnu.org/software/units/units.html https://www.gnu.org/software/units/units.html the input language is less flexible than wolframalpha/google, but i quickly got used to it. it's nice to have something local and reliable. you can also define custom units. i prefer using it in terse mode: $ units -t 0.03$/hr*1month 21.914532 US$ $ units -t 10TB/month Mbps 30.421214

Siira 5y ago
Julia is also excellent for working with units (Units.jl, IIRC).
- ChrisRackauckas 5y ago
  Unitful.jl
avmich 5y ago
For calculator problems like that, I use J: */ 0.03 24 30 21.6 1e6 %~ (10e12 * 8) % */ 30 24 3600 30.8642 Usually requires some massaging, but still takes seconds.
- kragen 5y ago
  While APL dialects are very nice for this sort of thing, they generally don't understand units of measure or know about physical constants; you have to put those into them yourself. Here are some of my recent units(1) queries: 141 pounds force 30 mm # in joules 1160/4 log(3)/3/(log(2)/2) # how much more efficient is one-hot ternary than one-hot binary? 5V 7 μs / 7.3 A .0117% half avogadro mol / 1.251e9 years / (potassium+chlorine)g # how radioactive is lite salt? 3.27$/gallon # in $/liter sqrt(2 2000 electronvolt/electronmass) 18.8 foot pounds force # in joules 163$/(7.9 g/cc * 1500 mm 3000 mm 3.2 mm) # cold rolled steel price is higher than steel sold by weight m3/4 / 15 cfh 2 pi sqrt(200 um / gravity)
every 5y ago
Units advises there are 118.20896 smoots per furlong..

Keyframe 5y ago

You also might want to try google search. They display calculations for these particular queries and quite a few more.

withinboredom 5y ago
Google is also often wrong. For example, my computer is set to US English, as is my profile. Yet somehow it still gets confused on decimals and commas (they are switched in my current country’s locale).
- telchar 5y ago
  Also, if you use the Firefox search bar only the first 20 chars are sent to google, so longer calculations are truncated before they're calculated and wrong answers come back with no warning. Not a Google problem per se but a risk of using Google to calculate still.

franga2000 5y ago

Same here, the way it seamlessly wrangles even the most ridiculous combinations of units is insanely useful. Just yesterday I used it to calculate power consumption for a house by timing one of those spinning wheel meter things. Something like "(10 rot / 46 s) / (375 rot / kW*h)" and it gave me straight answer in watts. I definitely could've worked that out by hand, but it would've taken a minute or a few, mostly on unit conversions. With WA, I can just think in variable relationships and not worry about units at all. Don't get me wrong, it often returns complete garbage, see all the memes of Siri passing non-math questions to it. It's annoying to figure out or explain to someone because the syntax is very loose and you just kind of need to get a feel for it, but once you do, it's really powerful.