This basically blows the Google calculator away • Hacker News Board

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#21

Post by mynameishere » Wed, Aug 08, 2007, 7:26 PM UTC

If you can't tell me how many pints are in a cubic acre, then you can't tell me anything:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pints+per++cubic+ac...

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#22

Post by gojomo » Wed, Aug 08, 2007, 7:29 PM UTC

kalid wrote: post #13

gojomo wrote: post #6

Nice site, though it doesn't work on some of the bandwidth calculations I often do via Google calculator. (eg: "(1TB / 100Mbps) in days") For the curious, there's a GPL project, 'qalculate', which could be used as the basis for similar calculator services.

Thanks -- you can actually do the calculation above like this: http://instacalc.com/?d=&c=KDFUQi8xTUIpIHNlY29uZHMgaW4gZ... I'm not tracking the implicit unit conversion (1TB/ 100 Mbps)... yet :)

Your answer doesn't match Google's, so I think your reformulation is wrong.

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#23

Post by npk » Wed, Aug 08, 2007, 7:44 PM UTC

Cool.

1) You need more units! Especially physical units, erg, joule, etc.

2) The interface is too slow on my mac camino browser.

3) Play a little with Frink. In terms of calculations, frink is awesome. However, the plotting and the shared aspect of instacalc is very cool... perhaps you can merge the two?

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#24

Post by weber » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 1:39 AM UTC

if you become a millionaire with this calculator i will cut my wrists :)

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#25

Post by DougBTX » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 2:31 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #22

kalid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks -- you can actually do the calculation above like this: http://instacalc.com/?d=&c=KDFUQi8xTUIpIHNlY29uZHMgaW4gZ... I'm not tracking the implicit unit conversion (1TB/ 100 Mbps)... yet :)

Your answer doesn't match Google's, so I think your reformulation is wrong.

It seems like it isn't case sensitive, so can't tell the difference between 1MB and 1Mb (1MB = 8Mb)

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#26

Post by kalid » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 2:50 AM UTC

mynameishere wrote: post #21

If you can't tell me how many pints are in a cubic acre, then you can't tell me anything: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pints+per++cubic+ac...

http://instacalc.com/?d=&c=MSBwaW50IGluIGN1YmljIGNtfDEgc...

1 pint in cubic cm, sure. Cubic meters, no problem. Cubic knots, even cubic rods, anything you want.

But cubic acres? Now that's just getting crazy. Acres measure area, so not exactly sure what a "cubic acre" would be. I suppose it could be a cube with 1 acre each side, but man, that's pushing it :).

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#27

Post by kalid » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 5:59 AM UTC

weber wrote: post #24

if you become a millionaire with this calculator i will cut my wrists :)

Ah, c'mon, it provides some value right? What did you do when you saw this? http://milliondollarhomepage.com/ =)

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#28

Post by kalid » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 6:02 AM UTC

DougBTX wrote: post #25

gojomo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answer doesn't match Google's, so I think your reformulation is wrong.

It seems like it isn't case sensitive, so can't tell the difference between 1MB and 1Mb (1MB = 8Mb)

Yeah, I decided to make it case insensitive to avoid confusion. It seems most non-techies aren't aware of the GB vs gb distinction (and not to mention the uber-geeks who insist on gibi and kibi and all that :) )

If you want gigabits, you can explicitly write "gbit":

http://instacalc.com/?d=&c=MSBnYiBpbiBtYml0fDEgZ2IgaW4gb...

Thanks again for all the feedback guys!

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#29

Post by kalid » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 9:37 AM UTC

npk wrote: post #23

Cool. 1) You need more units! Especially physical units, erg, joule, etc. 2) The interface is too slow on my mac camino browser. 3) Play a little with Frink. In terms of calculations, frink is awesome. However, the plotting and the shared aspect of instacalc is very cool... perhaps you can merge the two?

Awesome, thanks for the feedback :)

Re: This basically blows the Google calculator away

#30

Post by kalid » Thu, Aug 09, 2007, 11:55 PM UTC

hugh wrote: post #20

Very nice. But it doesn't have one of my favourite google calculator features: built-in physical constants -- things like "speed of light", "electron mass", "permittivity of free space", "planck's constant" and so forth. I realize I'm in a bit of a niche here, but that's a very useful feature for me.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll consider adding them in. Ideally I'd like to make a plugin system where people can enter and share their crazy formulae & constants.