4 ms·

Rather than teaching a separate utility, I would recommend qalc which has unit conversions built in :) $ qalc -t 100km/h / 0.956s to gee 2.9629132 gees

Rather than teaching a separate utility, I would recommend qalc which has unit conversions built in :) $ qalc -t 100km/h / 0.956s to gee 2.9629132 gees (where -t is for terse mode; by default it expands unit abbreviations and adds parentheses so you see whether it did what you wanted) The reason I recommend it is because it does so much more, I really love this utility since discovering it about a year ago. Example of using time notation combined with uncertainty and unit conversion: > (18:41 - 09:00+/-00:30) hours * 250 W to kWh (((1121 / 60) - (9±0.5)) * hour) * (250 * watt) = approx. (2.4208333±0.125) kW*h

chungy 3y ago
The irony of advocating against a "separate utility", and then promoting a separate utility...
- lucgommans 3y ago
  You never use a calculator?
  - chungy 3y ago
    I use calculators plenty, but I neither have that one installed nor use it. On my PC, I use either grpn or units. More often, I pull out my HP 48G+.
    - lucgommans 3y ago
      GRPN for anyone else who doesn't know it: http://lashwhip.com/grpn.html http://lashwhip.com/grpn.html What I meant to say is that, if one uses a featureful calculator like qalc, then you get unit conversion included without needing two separate utilities. Of course, if you've used a(n obscure) calculator for decades then it may be easier to learn to use a separate unit convertor instead
      - chungy 3y ago
        I wouldn't exactly call the HP "obscure", but it does support unit calculations too. And "units" is more than plenty when I want infix operations.
      - mrb 3y ago
        In my usage, GNU units appears to be more featureful than qalc. For example I noticed that qalc lacks many definitions that I often use, such as energy density (eg. "gasoline"), mass density (eg. "golddensity"), energy units (eg. "therm"), astronomy (eg. "earthradius", "solarmass"), etc. And GNU units works just fine as a calculator. So, from my viewpoint, qalc is the "separate utility" that I don't need ;-)
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

chungy 3y ago

The irony of advocating against a "separate utility", and then promoting a separate utility...

lucgommans 3y ago
You never use a calculator?
- chungy 3y ago
  I use calculators plenty, but I neither have that one installed nor use it. On my PC, I use either grpn or units. More often, I pull out my HP 48G+.
  - lucgommans 3y ago
    GRPN for anyone else who doesn't know it: http://lashwhip.com/grpn.html http://lashwhip.com/grpn.html What I meant to say is that, if one uses a featureful calculator like qalc, then you get unit conversion included without needing two separate utilities. Of course, if you've used a(n obscure) calculator for decades then it may be easier to learn to use a separate unit convertor instead
    - chungy 3y ago
      I wouldn't exactly call the HP "obscure", but it does support unit calculations too. And "units" is more than plenty when I want infix operations.
    - mrb 3y ago
      In my usage, GNU units appears to be more featureful than qalc. For example I noticed that qalc lacks many definitions that I often use, such as energy density (eg. "gasoline"), mass density (eg. "golddensity"), energy units (eg. "therm"), astronomy (eg. "earthradius", "solarmass"), etc. And GNU units works just fine as a calculator. So, from my viewpoint, qalc is the "separate utility" that I don't need ;-)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]