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Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

insect.sh

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Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#151

Post by gvkv »

Well done!

Plain and easy to understand interface and excellent use of colour and space. Two suggestions:

1. While I doubt it'll be used very much, consider adding calories for completeness if nothing else:

  1000 kcal -> joules
or

  1000 Cal -> joules
You might also throw in cal for just for fun[1]!

2. Change Variables to Constants. I think this is more in keeping with standard jargon.

[1]: cal is based on the gram while Cal or kcal is based on the kilogram.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#152

Post by eps »

Hello71 wrote: post #139

I'm a little confused as to how this improves on GNU units, which seems to support far more: $ cat .units period(len) units=[m;s] 2pi*sqrt(len/gravity) ; (period/2pi)^2 * gravity $ units 2980 units, 109 prefixes, 97 nonlinear units You have: period(20cm) You want: Definition: 0.89729351 s You have: period(20cm) You want: ms * 897.29351 / 0.0011144625 You have: period(2ft) You want: ms * 1566.5419 / 0.00063834872 You…

> I don't get it.

Oh, common.

Someone wrote something that's similar to X. If you are so well versed in GNU tools, you surely old enough to know that this happens all the time, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. People like scratching the proverbal itch and creating stuff. What's there to "not get" and what's the point in feigning a surprise and implying OP's ignorance along the way?

If you want to mention that X exists, just say that -"There's X, which is similar. Have you seen it?"

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#153

Post by sharkdp »

gvkv wrote: post #151

Well done! Plain and easy to understand interface and excellent use of colour and space. Two suggestions: 1. While I doubt it'll be used very much, consider adding calories for completeness if nothing else: 1000 kcal -> joules or 1000 Cal -> joules You might also throw in cal for just for fun[1]! 2. Change Variables to Constants . I think this is more in keeping with standard jargon. [1]: cal is based on the gram whi…

Thank you for the feedback!

1. Yes, I'll definitely add calories, good suggestion.

2. Yes, that's probably a good idea. I should distinguish constants and (user-defined) variables.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#154

Post by johtso »

franciscop wrote: post #50

Sorry to be the party stopper for a really awesome tool, just wanted to let you know that you have a dead butterfly as a logo: http://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead-butterflies/

But the butterfly in the logo is pictured side-on..

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#156

Post by 6502nerdface »

eps wrote: post #131

If it could deduce density from the material name, it'd useful for volume-to-mass conversions., e.g. 1 cup of butter -> g Not sure if it's quite scientific though... :)

Wolfram Alpha can do this:

  (density of gold) * (average volume of human)

  -> 1282 kg
And if you do:

  (density of gold) * (average volume of human) * (price of gold)
It will even show you a plot of the time series of its value since the early 20th century.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#157

Post by schiffern »

boramalper wrote: post #100

Kudos! I would love to see two more things: 1. Propagation of uncertainty.[1] I often yearned for a calculator that automatically propagated uncertainties for me while writing my (high-school) lab reports. I think it would be life-saver functionality for many students at the very least. 2. True high-precision. I don't know how Insect works under the hood (so maybe you are already doing it this way) but instead of usi…

Frink is a "napkin math" language that supports units, uncertainty propagation (keeping track of middle/lower/upper), and exact rational numbers. Named after Professor Frink from The Simpsons, of course. Also it has an insanely comprehensive file of units and constants (derived from GNU units and greatly expanded), so it includes handy things like earthmass, stefanboltzmann, etc.

http://frinklang.org

https://frinklang.org/frinkdata/units.txt

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#158

Post by mkl »

johtso wrote: post #154
franciscop wrote: post #50

Sorry to be the party stopper for a really awesome tool, just wanted to let you know that you have a dead butterfly as a logo: http://emilydamstra.com/news/please-enough-dead-butterflies/

But the butterfly in the logo is pictured side-on..

The wing is still in the wrong position. The tip shouldn't be the farthest forward bit.

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#159

Post by eggy »

I have been using Frink for over 7 years. Aside from a calculator with a gazillion units, Frink lets you program in a less verbose Java for other tasks. Graphics are easy too. I write small apps for calculations I often need at work with GUIs and input prompts. What makes Insect different? Can you program apps in it?

Re: Show HN: Insect – a high-precision scientific calculator with physical units

#160

Post by delhanty »

Hello71 wrote: post #139

I'm a little confused as to how this improves on GNU units, which seems to support far more: $ cat .units period(len) units=[m;s] 2pi*sqrt(len/gravity) ; (period/2pi)^2 * gravity $ units 2980 units, 109 prefixes, 97 nonlinear units You have: period(20cm) You want: Definition: 0.89729351 s You have: period(20cm) You want: ms * 897.29351 / 0.0011144625 You have: period(2ft) You want: ms * 1566.5419 / 0.00063834872 You…

There are two differences from GNU Units that I can see straightaway from the GitHub repo:

1. It's written in PureScript.

2. It's MIT licensed. (Actually I had to search the repo to find this - it would be nice if it had a LICENSE file at the top-level that GitHub could pick up.)

Anyway, IMO monocultures suck and competition is good. Kudos to the OP!

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