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Comment by gwbas1c | Hacker News Reader

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=calibrated+milligram+scale

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They're common, cheap, and plenty of (recreational) drug dealers use them.

This is completely incapable of measuring individual milligrams. Just because it claims to and shows a digit for it doesn’t mean it can.

Even $500 analytical balances like [0] can struggle with 1mg resolution, but I’d trust them a lot more. Generally you need to throw away the least significant digit of precision with digital scales.

0: https://ussolid.com/products/u-s-solid-0-1-mg-analytical-bal...

The request may have been misguided. They don't need a milligram accurate scale. They're actually wondering how to taper a 10mg doses drug, which is actually comprised of a much higher than 10mg pill, more like 100 to 200mg. The rest is typically binder.

Also, note that while your $500 scale may be necessary for absolute accuracy, splitting 10mg is not the same as finding exactly 10mg.

They are also great for photo chemicals mixed from scratch.

They're also fantastic for small measures for baking and cooking when it matters.

Curious: What do you make where you need such accurate measurements?

I just eyeball everything when I cook. (For other things that I'm passionate about I'm much more careful.)

Baking often rewards precision.

I'm also an eyeballer. I'm a decent cook but a truly lousy baker.

I sometimes wish my scale was precise to below 1g when measuring yeast for long-rising (bread) dough. A recipe may ask for 1g, and adding 2g will make a huge difference.

There's a few modernist cooking tricks that require small amounts - tenths of a gram - for big impacts. Sodium citrate can make any cheese melt beautifully into a smooth sauce, using something like 1% of the weight of the cheese.

Any juice can take the roll of lime or lemon (in cocktails or baking) by adding a bit of citric or malic acid. Orange juice is 1% citric acid, so add 3g citric and 2g malic per 100g juice and now you can make an orange daiquiri or "key" orange pie.

Emulsifiers get goopy if you use a lot, but can make a smooth syrup in small amounts. You can make a nice syrup from any nut milk with a small amount of xanthan and gum arabic.

There's a wide array of ingredients including xanthan and gum arabic used in tiny amounts in gluten free baking

Somewhere there’s probably a coffee nerd who wants to measure small fractions of a bean.

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