• [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      I had an American explain “well you just know that 68 is long sleeve warm, 80 is shorts” or something, as if people cannot memorize that 18 is chilly and 21/22 is usual room temperature, 26 is shorts.

      The only thing I dislike like about Celsius is that my thermostat supports both, but doesn’t allow half degrees Celsius, so it provides less granular control in Celsius than if you set it to Fahrenheit.

        • frank@sopuli.xyz
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          9 days ago

          I was about to say, in Denmark i definitely have shorts on in the teens, else I’d barely need to own any

      • otter@lemmy.zip
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        9 days ago

        As you approach 0°F it is getting dangerously cold. As you approach 100°F it’s getting dangerously hot. Celsius is obviously better scientifically, but fahrenheit is pretty reasonable for everyday use (unlike other imperial measurements).

        • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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          9 days ago

          Really my point is you can memorize new numbers when you look at the weather report.

          When I go (went ) to the US it was not obvious to me looking at the weather in Fahrenheit what it would feel like.

        • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 days ago

          0°F is way colder than 100°F is hot.

          There are hardly any population centers that reach the lower temperature while there’s a shitton of them that reach the hotter one. That should say enough about how dangerous and inhospitable each is.

          • SystemDisc@piefed.world
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            8 days ago

            That’s not true. NYC frequently reaches 0°F and is home to 15 million people. All of northern US, and all of Canada frequently reach 0°F. It’s a fact than anything below 0°F is actively dangerous and anything above 100°F is actively dangerous.

    • GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      9 days ago

      Most metric units are designed around water in some way. Very easy to convert to different units because of this. 1mL of water is equal to 1g of water which is equal to 1 cubic cm of water, for example.

      • j5906@feddit.org
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        9 days ago

        and it takes 1 calorie to heat 1g of water by 1°C, so with your daily recommended food intake of 2000kcal you could heat 2000l of water by 1°C or raise 20l of water from 0°C to 100°C.

        Also a normal person can rides the bike between 0W and 100W comfortably, while trained people peak at around 1000W for short sprints.

    • imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 days ago

      And weight also revolves around water. 1L of water is 1KG which is 1000cm3 whereas 1cm3 is 1g. Super easy to calculate things.

      Edit: correction

  • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    There was something I read once upon a time that was like:

    F is how hot/cold people are C is how hot/cold water is K is how hot/cold matter is

    I feel like that’s pretty accurate.

  • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Soon it won’t matter anyways. Isn’t AmericaUS like…done now? We can move on with our normal shit and chuckle at it like a museum piece.

  • Hansae@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 days ago

    Tbf as someone who grew up with the imperial system due to being raised by a British boomer its fairly easy if you’re familiar with it, I still often cook in imperial due to a load of old cook books I have.

    Having said that anyone who wants the imperial system in the modern day is a absolute idiot, metric is objectively superior.

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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      9 days ago

      A brit once told me that the imperial system makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of a peasant at the market - units of 12 was a lot easier to work with in the olden days because it’s easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6.

      I guess it makes sense from a historical viewpoint.

      • seejur@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I just wish it was always 12 instead of 3, 12, 1760 and whatever the eff they come up with.

        Farenheit on the other hand does not make sense at all

        • Geologist@lemmy.zip
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          9 days ago

          Best way to use Fahrenheit is to consider it as a percentage of how hot it is. 0 degrees is zero percent hot, and 100 is fully hot. Beyond that you’re in super cold/hot territory.

          But yeah, Celsius is still better.

          • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
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            9 days ago

            Fahrenheit is better at describing weather in reference to human interaction with temperature Celsius is better for everything else.

            But that’s the same for everything imperial. It’s always better when it comes to actual human elements. How big is that stick? How many things in that piece of bread? How much weight is that rock? I need to move.

            While metric is basically better anytime you have tooling you need to be extremely exact. You need to know something that is less human and more mathematical or abstract.

            Well each system can do the thing. They’re not great at it quickly falls apart. That’s a big reason why people tend to say imperial sucks. Most people no longer actually interact with the natural world anymore. Everything is computers, exact measurements, quantifiable numbers from shops. The only thing left that most people deal with on a day-to-day basis is the weather and why Fahrenheit may be better than Celsius. It’s only vaguely better since weather is already such an imprecise thing that really doesn’t matter.

            Well yes the granularity of Fahrenheit is far more useful. If you actually want to be like specific about things Celsius when it comes to weather it’s close enough f****** does the job

            • Jiral@lemmy.org
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              8 days ago

              That “better reference to human interaction” argument just doesn’t hold any water though. The claim that using imperial means you are closer to nature is ludicrous and also horrendously US defaultist. Much of continental Europe was fully metric when people were still so much “closer to nature” and barely anything “was computer” yet, except for some room filling mainframes. Yet people here had no issue with all those metric units.

              While imperial is absolutely atrocious at engineering and at scientific applications, SI units work perfectly fine for human reference interactions. Are there tiny differences, that give maybe imperial an edge in some circumstances? Possibly? In a way that it actually matters? Hardly.

              This is certainly the case for °C vs °F. Anything finer than °C is below the precision of everyday thermometers and also hard to percept. While increments larger than that can be easily measured and are also perceptible. All relevant environmental temperatures are merely 2 digits, with boiling water at 100. That’s perfectly adjusted to human interaction and reference. Most people don’t need finer “granularity” in everyday life but if they do, they simply include the first position after the comma. This is optional and completely frictionless “ganularity”, when you need it.

              I am not saying that Fahrenheit is necessarily worse. It is one of the few imperial units that don’t suck. But it is also not meaningfully better either, just different.

      • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        Imperial is FAR more human and “natural” then metric. Metric fails frequently at being quantifiable with natural experiences and objects.

        But imperial falls apart the second your trying to do something at a large scale, super small scales or literally anything that isn’t “human scale”

        And basically every test I’ve ever seen. If you don’t have tools or some reference point, people will nine times out of 10 be able to more accurately gauge something using imperial measurements then using metric measurements.

        Metric relies far too much on reference in tooling, but that’s also its greatest strength. It’s absurdly, exact and reliable while imperial is loosey-goosey

        • la508@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          And basically every test I’ve ever seen. If you don’t have tools or some reference point, people will nine times out of 10 be able to more accurately gauge something using imperial measurements then using metric measurements.

          That’s clearly utter bollocks

  • folekaule@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    As a European living in the US now for many years the temperature scale is the least of my annoyances. It’s easy enough to memorize be ranges for what to wear. Fahrenheit is more granular, which is nice sometimes but really doesn’t matter.

    No, let’s convert all the ridiculous weight/volume measures first. Having two kinds of ounces makes no sense. Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn’t make sense. Having different units for different magnitudes doesn’t make sense.

    Fortunately things are often labeled in both metric and customary units so I can convert way easier.

    Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to have my 12 fluid ounces of coffee and a 1/3 cup of oatmeal.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      9 days ago

      I very much prefer to cook/bake/prep in metric grams.

      2c white flour, sifted.
      1c brown sugar, packed.
      1c room temperature water.
      2tsp active dry yeast.
      2tbsp vegetable oil.
      1/2tsp baking powder.
      2 egg yolks.
      5 egg whites.
      Pinch of cinnamon.

      Fuck you. Tell me how many grams that is. I don’t need five different tools to measure out my ingredients. I need a wet bowl, a dry bowl, and a scale.

      Also this isn’t a real recipe I just started naming shit at random.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      9 days ago

      Having the more granular temperature seems more practical. I often find myself adjusting my thermostat by just a single degree F. Do heating/ac thermostats in Europe use half degrees as increments? Even then I don’t think it’s as granular. But just integer values would be super annoying.

      • folekaule@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I have not seen any thermostats in Europe with decimal degrees. But I also don’t think a thermostat is necessarily accurate to that level anyway.

        • Sualtam@lemmus.org
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          7 days ago

          I have always wondered why electronic thermostats use 0.5°C increments and the answer seems to be Fahrenheit compatibility.

        • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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          9 days ago

          lol you don’t think it’s accurate to a degree Fahrenheit? Why wouldn’t it be?

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Because it’s mass produced consumer goods operating on a “below x temperature turn on heat/turn off AC” and “above y temperature turn off heat/turn on AC”. Old ones are just bimetallic strips where you change the trigger position with a slider, and modern ones use commodity grade temperature sensors, and neither is guaranteed to be placed particularly far from the vent.

      • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Except 5km is not 3 miles… it’s 3.1069 miles so off by a considerable factor. 1 mile = 1.6km is a much more accurate approximation that’s easy to remember.

        • Knightfox@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          That’s 4%, that’s not a significant amount for functional purposes and it’s a whole number to whole number conversion. Most of the time, if I’m converting, it’s from metric to imperial so 1 km is 0.62 miles. If you tell me the speed limit is 70 km/h it’s way easier for me to calculate 70 ÷ 5 x 3 = 42 mph than to calculate either 0.62 x 70 or 70 ÷ 1.6 = 43.49.

  • Oxysis/Oxy@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 days ago

    While I get this is a meme, I do think the imperial measurement system deserves some credit. More the vast majority of humanity’s existence it has been an incredibly capable and powerful system. It’s only in more modern times where a system like metric is an upgrade. This is also ignoring the few ways where imperial still eke out a win, but that is besides the point.

    Imperial’s weird gaps between units are pieces that come from a variety of different systems that got layered together over the centuries it lasted. 5280 feet in a mile? Based on the Roman mile which was 5000 paces from a soldier. 12 inches in a foot? From a different way people counted on their hands.

    Length of an inch and length of a foot? From different parts of the body. Weird? Certainly. Practical? Amazing so. They were easier for day to day tasks and for measuring on the small, human scale. Metric is easier to calculate between different units and that is an amazing innovation.

    Fahrenheit is weird today, but was more practical when it was first established. Even then it has value in how it is more granular without the necessity of decimals. Celsius is still the better unit, 0° being freezing and 100° being boiling for water is very useful. It gives you two easy to remember extremes.

    Imperial had to walk, so metric could run in a way. Both systems are great in their own ways and in their own times. Imperial isn’t needed anymore, but deserves recognition for being good for its time and for being more practical historically.

    The only dud metric really has is metric time, and that is because everything we have ever done has been based on the older time keeping system. Cultures have laid claim to certain dates and times of day within the old system that just have constrained us to it.

    I definitely prefer metric overall, but I genuinely believe that imperial deserves more credit for getting us to the point where metric makes sense to swap to.

  • username_1@programming.dev
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    9 days ago

    USA new monetary system:

    4 libertines – 1 donny
    12 donnies – 1 trump
    6 trumps – 1 dollar
    7 trumps – 1 eagle dollar
    2 eagle dollars – 1 flooz

  • voldage@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    0 C being the temperature water freezes is useful for knowing if there is ice outside, which has practical use. If we keep going the way we are, soon 100 will be an indicator that there is no water outside. Practical if you’re a hydrophobe or hydrophile.