• Hamartiogonic
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    1 year ago

    Similarly large volumes of water should be given in kl, Ml, Gl etc. instead of m^3. Which one is bigger 2500000 m^3 or 790000 m^3? Count the zeros if you want and then tell me if using appropriate prefixes would have made it easier to tell the difference.

    • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If you see an IBC of water, do you see 1m³ or a thousand individual liters?

      There’s nothing wrong with describing things the way that you experience them. It makes sense to use which ever units express the idea most simply.

      • Hamartiogonic
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        1 year ago

        Well I guess an IBC is a bit of an exception if it really does contain 1 kl, although there are also 0.8 and 1,2 kl containers. If you prefer to think of those in terms of cubic meters, then that’s perfectly fine.

        It’s just that when you’re buying a reactor, comparing two ponds or reading about annual and monthly production of different companies you bump into these crazy numbers with mostly zeroes. That’s not convenient at all. Even though it could look cool, you don’t see computer people talking about SSDs in terms of individual bytes. You know, prefixes exist too, so why not use them.

    • hedgehog@ttrpg.network
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      1 year ago

      If you used scientific notation or commas (or periods, depending on region) to format those numbers for human consumption, that would also make it easier.