if you see an American (me) whining about it being -8 degrees just know that -8C is warm in comparison

      • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        people make fun of imperial units but forget the everyday utility these units provided to laborers. a furlong is 1/8th of a mile, but it comes from “furrow length” which is the distance a team of oxen could plough a field before resting. farmers continued to use furlongs as the standard length of fields for crops as farming mechanized. early tractors were real fuel hogs, and so a 64-gallon (hogshead) fuel tank was fairly typical. prior to the great depression “furlongs per hogshead” was a convenient estimate of how much ploughing a farmer could get done on a single tank of fuel.

          • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            The bit about the furlong being named after a furrow length, I.e. the length that oxen could drag a heavy plow, is true.
            Incidentally that is also the origin of acres. An acre is a furlong long and a chain wide. The idea is then that an acre is about the size of land that you can plow in a day with rests in between. Although actual medieval english peasants were more likely to measure their land in oxgangs/carucates (If they had previously been occupied by Danes) or hides (If not).

            Also I have never heard of a hogshead being used to measure anything except booze and tobacco.

    • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I use metric in ordinary interactions with Americans and smoke starts to come out of their ears

      yeah it is hard to make friends, why do you ask?

    • the rizzler@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 months ago

      fahrenheit is the one unit i will never give up. fuck celsius and whoever said it was “more logical” to compress the majority of the weather into the same 30-degree span. i will go to my deathbed weighing 35 kilograms at a body temperature of 95 degrees.

      • volcel_olive_oil [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Celsius is more useful

        reason: it’s the unit people use

        sidenote: a small, disadvantaged 3-4% minority never learned it, because of failures in their education system

      • aebletrae [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Typical supremacist indoctrination, treating integers as if they’re the only real numbers, and decimal places as if they aren’t significant at all.

        • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          Yeah but that’s not how the number monkeys running human heuristics work. 70 degrees F = warm, I can wear a T-shirt and shorts; 60 degrees F = a little bit cooler, I would wear pants and long sleeves. 21.111 degrees C vs 15.556 degrees C = monke-beepboop

          • volcel_olive_oil [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            I don’t know why people insist on bringing up decimals at all for Celsius; nobody uses them. never even think about temperatures other than in 5C increments

            it’s

            30C - too hot

            25C - perfect

            20C - oh that’s nice

            15C - I’m wearing a thin jacket

            10C - I’m wearing a jacket

            5C - I’m wearing a hat and a scarf

            0C - winter has arrived

            -5C and below - damn it’s kinda cold

            • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              That’s fair, but Fahrenheit is basically the same thing but for 10s and fits comfortably between 0 and 100:
              100 - I ain’t movin’
              90 - too hot
              80 - hot
              70 - perfect
              60 - cool
              50 - chilly
              40 - brisk
              30 - brr
              20 - heavy coat
              10 - heavy coat + thermals
              0 - I ain’t movin’

            • the rizzler@lemmygrad.ml
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              3 months ago

              negative celsius is the most important part of why i dislike it. in the fahrenheit you have “below freezing”, which isn’t really all that cold, and you have “below zero”, which is fucking freezing. you could say “below negative seventeen point seven eight” i guess

              • Soot [any]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                This reasoning is bizarre to me. Is it 0 or less? Then it will fundamentally change the weather - it’ll be frosty, watch out for ice or snow. I’m not sure why you’d “most importantly” prefer negative meaning that yeah it’s like… colder.

                • the rizzler@lemmygrad.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  because it’s convenient to be able to express the difference between just below freezing and abnormally cold. it’s the difference between wearing a sweater and a long sleeve shirt and wearing a jacket and scarf. or just not going outside.

          • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            20 celsius is 68 fahrenheit, 21 celsius is not quite 70 fahrenheit. you don’t need the granularity of fahrenheit, you cannot feel the difference between 68 and 69 fahrenheit. any belief you have that there is a benefit to fahrenheit is an illusion brought about from your immersion in it

          • Soot [any]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            Because that level of precision is… entirely unnecessary anyway. Say 21C vs 15C and everybody understands the same thing.

          • Euergetes [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            70 degree F - 60 degree F comparison is just 20 and 15 C for the purposes of dressing you don’t really need to use the fractions lol. you do need to abandon the notion that every perceptually significant difference is 10 degrees up or down.

            ironic i was replying to someone suggesting F gives users more granularity but how you use it you’re only paying attention to the deci-degrees

            • the rizzler@lemmygrad.ml
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              3 months ago

              it’s not just the granularity. in the modern day weather systems convert from celsius anyway, so you will never see a temperature of 69 (unfortunately). it’s about how many numbers relating to humanity happen to fit in between 0 and 100°. if i were designing a system of measurement from scratch i would set whatever baseline body temperature is at 100. call it the “go nude in the shade” temperature. the temperature at which the average person is at complete equilibrium with the room. for zero it would have to be something really cold so that “below zero” actually means something. the actual number is debatable but it definitely isn’t the point at which water freezes. fahrenheit isn’t perfect but it almost matches those those constraints and so, while certain climates might regularly fall outside the 0-99° range, i think most people in the world would agree that their definition of “temperate” falls in there, and outside that range is uncomfortable. also as a bonus the difference between freezing and boiling is 180°F, which is half 360°, which is a nice number.

              • Euergetes [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                below freezing is not subjective and tells you concrete things about the environment. i don’t see the advantage in having “temperate” on a 30 vs 20 degree scale, 1 degree C and 1 degree F are both imperceptible

                • the rizzler@lemmygrad.ml
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                  3 months ago

                  it’s an advantage of having “below zero” actually tell you something, and to tell you something different from “below freezing”. it’s useful shorthand for “it’s fucking freezing out”

        • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
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          3 months ago

          “Stupidly unrelateable” lol. lmao

          Americans stop universalizing your experience challenge (impossible)

          • microfiche [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            ITT:

            The exact same shit you’re hollering about but from the other side. It’s almost like it’s all pretty fucking lame and you should just log off.

            Celsius is more useful

            reason: it’s the unit people use

            sidenote: a small, disadvantaged 3-4% minority never learned it, because of failures in their education system

            • Euergetes [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              SI is not “relatable” it is based on universally observable constants. no one has to ask another country “hey what’s a kilogram” or “how long is a meter” you just do some math

            • Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml
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              3 months ago

              I never said anything about Celsius being better. I was pointing out that “Fahrenheit is more human” - a take I see all the time from Americans - only seems to hold water if you are familiar with Fahrenheit. But then it just reduces to Fahrenheit is good because it’s familiar. Which… yeah lol.

              Celsius isn’t better for regular people with the sole exception of telling you what kind of precipitation is falling based on the minus sign. But it’s not worse either

      • ClimateStalin [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        I’m a Fahrenheit defender but also a punctuation outside of quotations defender.

        The only things inside the quotation marks should be the original quote itself. If the punctuation wasn’t part of the original quote, it should be outside the marks. I will die on this hill.

        If I’m going to my real extreme position, what’s inside of quotation marks should be almost completely ignored by things outside them. You should have to double punctuation.

        Example sentence : Jane told me “It’s hot outside today.”, and I said it’s only 70 degrees.

        The period was part of Jane’s sentence, and should be included. My sentence however, had not concluded, and needs a comma after the quote and a period to end the sentence.

        • ClimateStalin [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          Allegedly, the “correct” way to write that sentence would be: Jane told me “It’s hot outside today,” and I said it’s only 70 degrees.

          But this is garbage nonsense. Jane didn’t use a comma. Jane’s sentence was “It’s hot outside today.”, where are you picking up that comma from and where did her period go?

    • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      since a °C isn’t even 2° F, this argument relies on there being a time where a difference of 1° F changed your decision-making

      and negative immediately lets you know it’s below freezing temperature visually much faster than checking if it’s lower than 32

      • ClimateStalin [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Are there not times when a difference of 1F changes your decision making? That is absolutely a noticeable difference in the temperature of a home. 76 I’m sweaty, 75 I’m comfortable.

          • ClimateStalin [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            3 months ago

            Well yeah but that’s the point, the fact that Celsius requires using decimal points in order to accommodate a human scale is the thing that makes it worse

            I’m not saying Celsius is unusable or anything, it honestly doesn’t really matter, we could measure temperature in Kelvin as long as we all understand. But if you’re designing a system, you should want it to be as smooth and painless as possible.

            • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              3 months ago

              I have never used a decimal point tbc. I just don’t think you need that many gradations, and from my perspective having so many numbers seems like the opposite of painless. But it’s what you’re used to isn’t it, and not being bothered to learn a different system is perfectly valid. Just don’t try to tell me that farenheit makes more sense lol

              Out of curiosity, do you ever adjust your heating or air conditioning by a single degree?

              • ClimateStalin [they/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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                3 months ago

                Out of curiosity, do you ever adjust your heating or air conditioning by a single degree?

                Relatively frequently, although for the most part I’ve figured out the precise numbers that work well on my house and don’t change it

        • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          not for me, personally, but my thermostat does adjust in 0.5 °C increments. I guess I can’t assume that for everyone

        • Keld [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          Are you diabetic? Wait that sounds like I’m pathologising this. That’s rude and uncalled for. It’s just that I’ve heard of situations where people get that specific about room temperatures being linked to stuff like diabetes and I got curious.

    • Collatz_problem [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      I would have to use negative numbers for outside temperature anyway, so what’s the point to have a system, where zero is the freezing temperature of some weird ammonium chloride brine?

  • KnilAdlez [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    Metric is wrong as it continues to be in base-10. Unfortunately, fahrenheit has the same issue. Communism cannot be achieved until we all agree to use Base-B metric.

        • aebletrae [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          For Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion, you only need to calculate with twos:

          • Divide by two
          • Add two
          • Subtract two from the tens (i.e., subtract 20).

          For extra accuracy, after adding two (in step two 😉), slide that number over to the right (i.e., divide by 10) and add that on. Do this as many times as you are comfortable with (which can be none for rough calculations).

          For example:

          • 90ºF divided by two is 45
          • 45 plus two is 47
          • Subtracting two from the 4 in 47 leaves 27

          This is quite rough so round it off: 30ºC

          More accurately:

          • 90ºF divided by 2 is 45
          • 45 plus two is 47
          • Sliding 47 over to the right makes 4.7
          • 47 plus 4.7 is 51.7
          • Subtracting two from the 5 in 51.7 leaves 31.7

          This is a little rough so round it off: 32ºC.

          Probably unnecessarily accurate:

          • 90ºF divided by 2 is 45
          • 45 plus 2 is 47
          • Sliding 47 over gives 4.7, and again is 0.47
          • 47 + 4.7 + 0.47 = 52.17
          • Subtracting twenty makes 32.17ºC

          There’s still an infinity of sliding that could go on so, once again, round off: 32.2ºC.

          The usual (F - 32) * 5 ÷ 9 formula gives 32.222…ºC.

    • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      10° C <-> 50° F
      20° C <-> 68° F
      30° C <-> 86° F
      40° C <-> 104° F

      you can see here that 5° C = 9° F, but the ratio of 10 and 18 is easier to work with. if you remember these four points (and you surely already know 0° C = 32° F) you can freely interchange in your head or at least get a general idea what the weather will feel like

      (with practice when someone says 25° C, you know that’s 68 + 9 = 77° F)

      as other people in the thread have mentioned, within 5° C is about all the precision you need for weather anyway

      @aebletrae@hexbear.net

  • Soot [any]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    Why would I listen to someone speaking in absolute nonsense units? I only care about it by 26 burgerdegrees.