• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    18 hours ago

    Ugh, I’m one of those people who will defend imperial as not being irrational, just built ad-hoc for purposes that aren’t in alignment with modern ones and … No, that’s not what Fahrenheit is.

    Fahrenheit was trying to make a temperature scale that was easy to recreate to ease the calibration of thermometers. Zero is a temperature that can be created in your garage with some ice, salt and water. 100 was his best, ultimately inaccurate, attempt to measure human body temperature, since it’s another easy calibration point, and from there water was defined as 32 and 212 so that they were 180 degrees apart, which would fit will on a temperature dial.
    Not irrational, not a comfort scale, and not in alignment with current needs.

    It’s pure coincidence that it kinda lines up with comfortable outdoor temperatures in the opinion of a good chunk of a population living in the northern part of the western hemisphere.

    • OldChicoAle@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Yeah we know it’s a coincidence. That’s kinda a part of the joke. No need to flex your knowledge here Mr smarty pants

  • KaChilde@sh.itjust.works
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    21 hours ago

    100% hot by what understanding? If I set my oven to 100F, the peak of heat by this memes reckoning, that roast chicken is going to kill my family.

    If I run a warm bath at 50F, the medium-est of heats, My testicles are going to implode faster than a billionaire in a homemade submarine when they touch the water.

    If we are talking human comfort, then 50F is also way too cold to be considered “50% hot”.

  • Aljernon@lemmy.today
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    23 hours ago

    The only temperature system that isn’t arbitrary would tell you how spreadable butter is. Zero degrees butter is utterly not spreadable while 100 degrees butter is the maximum spreadability it could achieve before melting.

    • Random Dent@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      I worked retail for a decade. There is no bottom to the barrel. There are people driving around in cars who genuinely shouldn’t be left unsupervised with metal utensils.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I suppose the takeaway is once the weather is 100 or higher, I don’t care it’s just too damn hot.

        After being in 115 degree heat, 100 degree heat still feels just terrible.

        Similarly below zero, subjectively I didn’t need specifics anymore. I know that salting ice outside is probably not going to work anymore. Yes it does make a difference, but comfort wise I just hate it either way.

        So I can see, mostly joking but a grain of truth that you have “stupidly cold” then 0 to 100 scale of usual air temperature then “too damn hot”.

        It’s like the only way the farenheight scale is kind of appealing from a “humans like 0 to 100 scale”, but it’s mathematically painful and nonsense apart from comfortable human temperatures.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          3 hours ago

          I’m one of those people who knows we should standardize, bit also finds Fahrenheit just very convenient.

          Like, when people say it’s 50 out, I immediately know that it’s going to feel about halfway between what I know 0 and 100 feel like. No one can even put up the pretext of doing that with Celsius, because not even the most pedantic person ever bothers to tell you when it’s 100 c out.

          In seriousness though, the Fahrenheit scale isn’t non-sense, it’s just addressing things we don’t much need help with anymore. The zero point was chosen as a temperature you can create reliably without particularly sophisticated tools, and the range is so freezing and boiling are 180 degrees apart, putting them on the opposite sides of a dial.

  • chetradley@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Celsius is the perfect system to describe how hot or cold it is, assuming you’re a water molecule.

  • m0darn@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    You guys are too ignorant to see how full of shit OP is.

    50F is not 50% hot, it’s cold. If your house was 50F you’d be saying “something is wrong with my HVAC”. You’d never heat to only 50, and you’d never cool that far. It’s cellar temperature (colder than a wine cellar, warmer than a root cellar).

    70F is 50% hot. It’s a temp you’d cool to in the summer, and a temp you’d heat to in the winter.

    100F isn’t 100% hot either, most people enjoy a hottub to be a little hotter.

    Tldr: OP is wrong

  • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Americans using the word propaganda for “something I don’t understand because my school system failed me so now I overcompensate by making up factoids that make me look even more uneducated by the rest of the world”

    • PugJesus@piefed.socialOP
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      2 days ago

      Americans using the word propaganda for “something I don’t understand because my school system failed me so now I overcompensate by making up factoids that make me look even more uneducated by the rest of the world”

      Whoosh.

      • Fmstrat@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        I’m geniunly curious why you are getting down voted. The “propaganda” word choice is clearly part of the joke.

        I mean, I wish we used C instead of F, but this take is still a whoosh.

        • person420@lemmynsfw.com
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          16 hours ago

          I’m curious, why? I think metric makes sense in most regards but I like the granularity of F. The difference between 70F and 75F is pretty noticeable, but in C, it’s like what? 1 degree?

          • Fmstrat@lemmy.world
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            16 hours ago

            Because my partner uses C. The constant jump scares from temps is annoying 😀

            Separate from that, I use temps for what to wear, so exactness is less important to me. In truth AQI and humidity are much more important metrics to me.

            Plus:

            • Equipment temps are always in C
            • Using C is a gateway to metric use
            • Devices built for C are just… better. Example: Any washing machine for C has the temperatures listed on the settings vs the ever so useful “warm” or “colors”
            • Kettle boils when it hits 3 digits. More fun.

            So, lots of ancillary reasons I guess, vs any one direct reason.

        • offspec@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          Yeah but I can’t be -10% naked, at 0°f I’m 0% naked, I have on all the layers that I could possibly layer. At 100°F I want to be 100% naked, minimal clothing socially required because it’s hot outside. My outfit might change from 90 to 100, but after 100 I’m capped out on what I can remove before I need to either move to a place that allows public nudity or just resolve myself to public indecency charges. At 32°F I can still run out to the mailbox in shorts and a hoodie, that’s not 0% naked that’s frankly still a long ways away from fully clothed.

  • lefixxx@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    i tell them i use a 100 hour clock. Day starts at 0 at ends at 100. They see how much better it is and they have an existential crisis. And then everyone clapped

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      Honestly it’s not the worst idea, the french have tried something like that during one of their revolutions.

      Semi-relatedly, I’m salty they didn’t push for duodecimal numbers and base metric on that, it would incorporate the only good part of imperial system & 12-based time system, not only into measurements but also all other aspects of life.

      Then they could make time more consistent too, maybe have like 10000 (20736 in decimal) “metric seconds” in a day (which would mean 1 “metric second” ≈ 4 “normal” seconds) and derive stuff from there (e.g. 100 “metric seconds” in a “metric minute”, 10 “metric minutes” in a “metric hour”, 10 “metric hours” in a “metric day”). Would be really quite neat.