Methodology

How we turn questions into defensible time estimates.

Draft — describes how the site currently works. Awaiting the owner’s review (and legal review where applicable) before launch.

Formulas, not guesses

Every number comes from a deterministic calculator whose formula is shown with the result. AI may help work out which calculator fits a question, but it never produces numbers.

Labels

CALCULATED: straight from your inputs.
ESTIMATED: relies on a default or an assumption you can change.
SOURCE-BASED: uses a cited reference value.
HYPOTHETICAL: a thought experiment that deliberately ignores real-world limits.

Units

Unit conversions use exact defined factors (for example 1 US gallon = 3.785411784 litres; 1 GiB = 2³⁰ bytes).

Reference data

Reference values carry a citation and an access date. If live data (such as a route distance) isn’t available, we ask you for the number instead of making one up.

Ranges and limits

Where physics or behaviour makes a single figure misleading, such as battery charging above 80%, we show a range or a minimum.

Testing

Each calculator has automated tests for normal, zero, negative, missing and impossible inputs.