SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the How-many-slugs-to-the-stone? dept.
AnonTechie writes:
"I have the following requests to members of this new forum:
1) Please use SI Units wherever possible. Alternative comparative units such as swimming pools, size of Florida, cars, libraries of congress, etc are also welcome ...
2) Please cover tech/science related stories from around the world. Please do not make this a US only website !!
Cheers and best wishes,
AnonTechie"
[ED Note: We as a community welcome submissions from around the world, as befits our international userbase. The Editorial team in particular is looking closely at including voices from outside the U.S. as we continue to grow. As for the units question in particular, stories will certainly arrive with a variety of units depending on the origin of the submission. We encourage, though do not require, submitters to include conversions where appropriate for clarity out of courtesy to your fellow readers. Though we try to use a light touch when making edits to story submissions, Editors may add these from time to time as well, should clarity demand and time permit.
Soylentils, does the current ad-hoc approach meet your needs, or do you favor a more formal approach from your news discussion site?]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Monday February 24 2014, @04:51AM
The submission form for a story could parse any reference
to units, SI or otherwise, and convert them to SI (otherwise)
form. This would place virtually no burden on the server. It
could all be done client-side with JavaScript, or upon
submission which only happens once per story and would thus
place very little burden on the server. Perl is great at manipulating
text. So. If some European submits a story about something
being -40 C, the script transforms it into -40 C (-40 F).
A developer bangs out a script in a few hours or uses an
existing conversion package. That few hours of work turns Soylent
into a nice little metric teaching tool going forward. Every
story that has units comes with conversion, imparting a sense
for the new units. That's just how most Americans got a sense
for liters--via 2 liter soda bottles.
Also, if the story submitter doesn't use units, the preview
could have a little flag next to the number. You still have to allow
dimensionless numbers for some purposes; but a reminder won't
hurt.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by Appalbarry on Monday February 24 2014, @05:22AM
Now THIS is a worthy project for some clever coder! Automated conversion and presentation! Love it! (And was about to suggest it...)
(Score: 1) by sar on Monday February 24 2014, @08:46PM
Looking forward to read for example about Amiga 2000 C (3632 F) computer...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday February 24 2014, @09:54PM
Well, the correct temperature unit is °C anyway (the degree sign is mandatory). I don't think there was ever an Amiga 2000 °C, so the problem won't appear when using the units correctly (of course one could also use the dedicated Unicode character ℃ ... and I just notice that SN doesn't seem to support …)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Monday February 24 2014, @09:43AM
I support this.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!