Notes on measurement, unit systems, and the practical realities of working across metric and imperial units. Short, focused articles on topics that come up in real conversion work.
A small conversion error in engineering, medicine, or aviation can have outsized consequences. How historical unit confusion has caused real-world failures, and what to do about it.
15 January 2026 · 8 min read
The errors people make most often: confusing MB with MiB, treating Fahrenheit as a pure scale conversion, and using approximate factors when exact ones are available.
15 January 2026 · 6 min read
Which countries still use customary units, which have switched to metric, and how international commerce reconciles the two. A tour of measurement reality in 2026.
15 January 2026 · 10 min read
Why "1 GB" means 1,000,000,000 bytes to a marketing department and 1,073,741,824 bytes to an operating system — and why this has not been resolved after 25 years.
15 January 2026 · 7 min read
How many decimal places should a result have? It depends on the input precision and end use. A practical guide with worked examples.
15 January 2026 · 6 min read
Additional articles are in preparation covering the following topics:
To suggest a topic, use the contact page.