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Redmoon Calculators
Writing, making, worldbuilding

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Guides to the math behind the tools — readability formulas, pricing your work, sizing a build, and planning a game world.

RSS feed 124 articles · page 4 of 7
· 8 min read

How to size a PC power supply without over- or under-buying

Why headroom above your calculated draw matters for GPU transient spikes, where PSU efficiency actually peaks, and a worked component-by-component wattage example.

#pc-building#hardware#tech#psu
· 8 min read

What your 3D printer actually costs in electricity (including standby)

Why idle/standby draw quietly adds up over a month, the power difference between FDM and resin printing plus UV cure stations, and worked monthly and annual cost examples.

#3d-printing#maker#energy#tech
· 8 min read

How long will a portable power station actually last?

Why usable capacity is well below rated capacity, how solar panel wattage determines recharge time, and the startup-surge caveat that catches out compressor devices like fridges.

#solar#energy#tech#preparedness
· 7 min read

RAID capacity explained: why your NAS shows less space than the drives promise

A breakdown of the TB-versus-TiB unit gap, how RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, and 10 each trade usable capacity for fault tolerance, and why RAID protects against a dead drive but not against deleted files, ransomware, or a house fire.

#tech#nas#storage#raid
· 6 min read

How much alcohol to buy for a wedding (without over-ordering)

How to translate guest count, event length, and drinking pace into exact cases of beer, bottles of wine, and bottles of liquor — using the same 12oz beer, 5oz wine pour, and 1.5oz liquor pour math a caterer would use.

#events#wedding#planning#entertaining
· 6 min read

How much food to order for a party: a per-person breakdown

Real per-person ounce figures for protein, starch, vegetables, and salad at a sit-down or buffet meal, and pieces-per-person-per-hour math for a cocktail party — with worked examples for both.

#events#catering#planning#entertaining
· 6 min read

How to set your freelance rate (the math most freelancers skip)

Why billable utilization is usually only 50 to 70 percent, why a tax reserve has to be grossed up rather than added on top, and how to turn an annual income target into a defensible hourly and day rate.

#freelance#business#pricing#finance
· 8 min read

The Raygor Readability Graph: grading text by letter count instead of syllables

Raygor works like the Fry graph but swaps syllable counting for a simpler question: how many words are long? Here is why that trade matters, how the graph is plotted, and when to prefer it.

#readability#raygor#formulas#editing
· 8 min read

Why your writing feels choppy: measuring cohesion and transitions

Flow is not a mystery — it comes from transition words, paragraph linkage, and pronoun reference. How a cohesion analyzer measures each one, and what to fix when the score comes back low.

#writing#editing#text-analysis#analysis
· 8 min read

How many minutes is my script? Words-per-minute math for voiceover and podcasts

A 1,000-word script can run six minutes or nine depending on pacing. The WPM presets pros actually use, why breaths and pauses add real time, and how to size a script before you record.

#writing#content#how-to
· 8 min read

How to read the Fry Readability Graph (and why it still beats a single grade number)

The Fry graph plots two numbers instead of computing one formula. Here is what those numbers are, how the curved grade bands work, and why editors still reach for a picture instead of a score.

#readability#fry#editing#education
· 8 min read

How to build a cloze test that actually measures comprehension

Interval blanking vs. random blanking, why excluding proper nouns matters, and the scoring bands language teachers use to turn a fill-in-the-blank exercise into a real comprehension signal.

#cloze#esl#education#reading-comprehension
· 8 min read

Building a fantasy economy that actually holds together

Why "500 gold for a sword, 5 gold for a horse" breaks immersion, how anchoring every price to one baseline item fixes it, and how economic tiers let you keep the same coinage from a grimdark frontier to a wealthy trade hub.

#ttrpg#worldbuilding#dnd#creator-tools
· 8 min read

Powers-Sumner-Kearl: the readability formula built for beginning readers

Why grade-level formulas built for high schoolers fall apart on primary-grade text, how the Powers-Sumner-Kearl formula was calibrated differently, and when to reach for it over Flesch-Kincaid.

#readability#formulas#esl#spache
· 8 min read

Punnett squares for fictional bloodlines: a genetics primer for writers

How to use real Mendelian genetics to plan inherited traits in fantasy families and fan fiction, what a Punnett square actually tells you, and where the model breaks down on purpose.

#worldbuilding#fantasy#genetics#character-design
· 7 min read

Pricing laser-cut items for Etsy: what a Glowforge or xTool job really costs

The real cost stack behind a laser-cut item — sheet material, run time, machine wear, and labor — and how to turn it into a wholesale and retail price that actually makes money.

#maker#pricing#etsy#laser-cutting
· 8 min read

Clause depth, not word count: how a sentence complexity analyzer reads your syntax

Readability formulas count syllables and sentence length. A sentence complexity analyzer goes one level deeper — into clauses, subordination, and passive structure. Here is exactly what it measures and how to use it to untangle dense prose.

#readability#writing#editing#analysis
· 8 min read

How to measure the formality of your writing (and hit the register you are aiming for)

Tone is hard to judge in your own writing. A formality analyzer turns the casual-to-formal axis into a 0–100 score by counting the signals readers react to: slang, contractions, pronouns, passive voice, and Latin-root vocabulary. Here is how it works and how to use it.

#writing#editing#tone#analysis
· 8 min read

Measuring vocabulary sophistication: rare words, CEFR levels, and when "advanced" hurts you

A vocabulary sophistication analyzer estimates how demanding your word choices are — average word length, advanced-word percentage, and a CEFR level estimate. Here is how it decides what counts as advanced, and how to read the result without dumbing your writing down.

#readability#vocabulary#writing#analysis
· 8 min read

Hedge words: when "might", "perhaps", and "appears to" undercut your writing

Hedge words signal uncertainty and drain authority from your prose. What they are, when they belong, and how to find the ones that are quietly weakening every paragraph.

#writing#editing#confidence#hedge-words

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