• Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    Wouldn’t this make the units temperature-dependent?

    Landauer limit is one kTln2 per bit of information, so at 300K about 3 zeptojoule per bit.
    Dividing by c² we get 32 micro-quectogram per bit, so 32 yoctogram per terabit. 256 yoctogram per terabyte.
    The Author wants half a septillion terabytes, 0.5•10²⁴ terabytes, half a yotta-terabyte.
    That makes 128 grams.

    Since I don’t know what on earth “a cup of flour” is, I can’t judge if the comic character proposes a reasonable conversion, but 0.1kg seems like a reasonable amount to use in cooking.

    For baking I would rather have my units temperature dependent than density dependent (I can compact my flour or work with water or nuts, all having different densities, but my room temperature will always be roughly 300).
    I endorse einstein-landauer units.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      184 grams is a touch high for “a cup of flour”, but I’m not gonna check your math, and the comic probably wanted to use “close enough” round-ish numbers. The weight of a cup of flour is usually somewhere between 120g and 145g, going by the conversions used by major baking recipe publishers like King Arthur, Cooks Illustrated, Washington Post, New York Times, etc.

      • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        I fear their apartment is at -50°C and this is a cry for help.

        At least I am relieved to know that even acclaimed authors native to the cup-measurement system don’t know what “a cup of flour is”.

        I’ll be off baking my pannenkoek with 150g of flour then.

      • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        I figured it out. Typed the ln2 into my text and then forgot it in the calculator.
        Great, I’ma redo alll my numbers then rq

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Grams are a measure of mass or weight. I assume we’re talking about measuring this flour here on planet earth, within the effects of its gravitational field lol

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            2 days ago

            At what elevation and where in Earth? 🤔 Again, only being this technical because that’s the tone. Not being pedantic.

            • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              8 hours ago

              This is a great second argument for using weight not volume for measurements.
              Measuring mass is of course not viable, but measuring weight in a consistent location means all the ratios end up correct. While ratios between volume and weight measured substances change (and flour probably compacts differently).
              That is why one should always use a scale to measure their fluids, and why metric is superior where 375ml of water or milk are 375g (convert the recipe ahead of time at a reference location), making this trivially easy.

              If you wish to then correct the total mass of your dish, you can simply compare the weight and volume of water to work out the mass to weight ratio and correct accordingly.

            • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              The variance involved in converting cups of flour to grams is much greater than any gravitational variances caused by elevation or location. So that’s sort of irrelevant here.

              • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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                2 days ago

                Oh, I disagree, on goofy technical posts like this is exactly the place to worry about it. The comic is about asking for an amount of bytes of flour and you’re upset I’m making a joke about mass and weight being different?