Spyke
lemm.ee

If those Americans could read they'd be very upset.

107
MrShanklesreply
reddthat.com

I'd take offense if I could; but you're right... I think... idk, I can't think. I'm not upset, you're upset!

What's an up set?

15

I just use

30°C is hot, 20°C is nice 10°C is cold, 0°C is ice.

Obviously that won't apply everywhere, but in milder climates it works pretty good.

86
lemmy.world

And 40°C is the melting point of the human brain.

Which goes some way towards explaining some of the decisions happening in Florida, Texas and Arizona during their ridiculously hot summers..

51
lemmy.dbzer0.com

I understand and appreciate your joke, but is it really? And I imagine that the bones and skin would melt first, right? Idk. I've never considered that someone could melt from the inside.

8
lemmy.world

Not literally, no, but it can be very difficult to concentrate on anything else when you're suffering under immense heat and a lack of concentration can lead to a figurative brain meltdown.

That being said, the brain is mostly fluid, fat and electric connections so it would DEFINITELY melt long before your bones.

Would have to be around 50-60°C for the 60% of it that's fat to hypothetically melt if exposed directly to the heat rather than protected by the skull and cooled down by the blood, but that's nothing compared to the 1670°C melting point of human bones.

Btw, I hope you're happy with this reply since my Google search history looks rather grisly now 😂

31

Well, looks like, we have to test that. Any volunteers?

3
Auxreply
lemmy.world

What would you then call sauna temperatures which range between 80 to 120?

3

It's the best way to think about it because if you're always doing the calculation in your head you still always think in Fahrenheit first. Just get the feeling for Celcius instead of trying to shoehorn a worse system in (as a user of said worse system myself).

10

And it's always helpful to remember that 40 below is 40 below, in both F and C.

(Whew, ninja edit so I don't look like an idiot, on Reddit I'd already have six people correcting me)

6
Afrazzlereply
sh.itjust.works

More like 30° I'm melted into the pavement, 20° warm but good, 10° is near perfect, 0° starts getting cols, -10° put on a jacket, -20° and below put on a good jacket.

4
lemmy.world

That doesn't rhyme for shit, man. Ha :)

I'm going to try and add some flair to your post

2

Don't feel dumb man, trying to make yours rhyme is fun actually. I like that you added other temps. That's how I learned it in America as a kid and remembered it, because it rhymes.

2
S_204reply
lemmy.world

Texas is Hell though. Anyone who's been there understands this. From the heat to the guns to the people, it's far and away the least desirable or interesting place I've been to. Austin wasn't terrible though.

6

Austin is the common "island of sanity" that happens with American cities. Is it enough to say in Texas... Not for me.

4
lemmy.world

Don't Texans just stay in air-conditioned buildings and vehicles all the time? I just saw a YouTube video where a guy in Texas was complaining that his air conditioning setup wouldn't get the temperature below 76°F, which I found odd since I set the thermostat on my AC to 26°C (which is nearly 79°F.)

1

Yeah that's absolutely a thing all over warm weather states in America. It drives me crazy that I try to acclimate to the higher heat and just end up inside with 68° air conditioner settings. Absolutely freezing my ass off. But the reality is that is more middle/ upper class living. If you're doing manual labor or living in poverty, you know what the heat is actually like.

1
lemmy.world

It doesn't fit into the rhyme, but -10°C is the point where just wearing a coat isn't enough. You need to either start limiting the time you spend outside or put some serious thought into the protective clothing you wear beyond just throwing a coat on as you go out the door.

3

I had a water bottle in my car when it was around -11 °C, and when I tried to drink it, the supercooled water instantly froze solid, which was startling, but hardly surprising.

1
lemmy.world

For the other Americans that came into the thread hoping to see a conversion:

  • 10c = 50f
  • 30c = 86f

Edit: I'd like to note that 10c is a very reasonable temperature for shorts. I'm a Minnesotan (basically Canada lite (please annex us)), people start raising eyebrows at around 0C

71

And if you want to do the math fast and just get close enough, you can just do “double it and add 30”.

3
Foshezereply
lemmy.world

0C? Fellow Minnesotan here and I've definitely seen plent of people wearing shorts at temps below -5C. But I'm also in a college town so that may change things.

11

I once amusedly watched girls sunbathe in bikinis at St. Lawrence University with patches of snow nearby in, I think March.

Conversely, I personally wore shorts and a tee one fine vacation in Florida around Christmas. It was 60f, and everybody was running around in jackets looking like they were in Chicago in January.

12

Lmao, that brings back memories of going to open gym in high school while wearing basketball shorts in -40 with my winter jacket on

4
lemmy.world

The quick conversation I use is take off 30 and half the rest to go F to C or double it and add 30 to go C to F.

20C doubled is 40 and add 30. 70F

80F take off 30 is 50. Half that is 25. 25C

It's not completely accurate but close enough for conversation purposes.

8

I use that trick too! I just wanted to make sure I got it correct as a service

2

I learned during the polar vortices that when it's -40 out it's the same in both Celsius and Fahrenheit

6
kbin.social

Paraphrasing an old meme:

Fahrenheit - how hot humans feel
Celsius - how hot water feels
Kelvin - how hot atoms feel

43

How measuring devices see it:

| Celsius | How hot humans feel | | Fahrenheit | Measure Celsius and do a calculation | | Kelvin | Measure Celsius and do a calculation |

Clearly, Celsius is superior here

4
lemmy.world

Jokes on you. I'm an american who works with scientific equipment so I mainly work in Celsius. Also live in Minnesota so we get the best of both worlds. Last winter hit almost -30C at times meanwhile tomorrow has a high of 39C with almost 70% humidity.

33

I was going to make the joke that Minnesotan kids definitely know what -40°C is.

I moved up here from Florida to get out of this kind of heat and humidity. Thanks Minnesota. This is miserable.

15
lemmy.ca

Minnesota is just lower Manitoba, you get the same insane 80c temperature variance

12
lemmy.ca

Lower Manitoba 😂 so that makes Saskatchewan into Northest Dakota and the Okanagan is Upper California?

5

I love the annual tradition of people posting youtube videos in which someone throws a bucket of water and it instantly turns to snow.

7
pawb.social

It's going to hit 39 tomorrow? Gotdamn my wallet isn't going to like the upcoming electric bill

4

Yup. At least in my area. It's not going to be pretty. Hell I'm outside right now and it's over 30C at nearly midnight. I walked out the door and felt like I stepped into a sauna.

6
vinylreply
lemmy.world

It's °C, but the temperature increases exponentially with every higher number

16
bouhreply
lemmy.world

What when there is no north anymore?!

7

There are two options,

  1. go to the north enough that you'll end up in the south.

  2. Stay where you are and hope for a pole shift and then move to the new north.

1

Try 38° at 9am. I reckon, i live in the Sahara desert but australia is just a huge desert too.

4
lemmy.ca

Here's a rough C° primer for Americans

0° or below, fucking cold

1° - 10° cold

11° - 20° cool

21° - 30° warm

31° - 40° hot

41° or above - Jesus Christ I'm on fire!

As for Fahrenheit for the rest of the world, on a scale from 0 to 100, how hot is it? Assume anything below zero is really fucking cold, and anything above 100 is really fucking hot.

18
Hyperi0nreply
lemmy.film

-10° - -1° very cold

0° Water freezes

1° - 5° Cold

6° - 10° cool

11° - 16° warm

17° - 25° hot

26° - 30 very hot

11
duff5000reply
aussie.zone

26 very hot? It was 25 the other day in winter here. (Melbourne)

6
ErevanDBreply
lemmy.zip

That's the thing, you live in hell's microwave.

10

Most of the US and Canada would be using AC at that temp. Since the example was poised for Americans and not those living in bizzaro world.

3

Yup. Where I live we have seen down to -20F (during that time texas almost lost their power grid) and up to 115F.

Its currently 110F. Aka, hot.

Or, -28c to 46C. Currently 43C. And 40% humidity. Feels horrible.

9

I was in Dubai earlier this year and the heat index was 53⁰C. Felt like I was being baked alive.

2
sh.itjust.works

I get metric for everything else, but °F is the better system for everyday/non scientific use. I will die on this hill.

-5
ErevanDBreply
lemmy.zip

That's because Fahrenheit is % of hot, based on what we feel. Therefore, °F is better for everyday use.

-2

The one you use is the better system. I want to know whether I should bring a sweater. The system is arbitrary.

3
literature.cafe

Why does the US live rent free in so many European's heads all the time?

17
Honytawkreply
lemmy.zip

Because each time we look for some English content, they use some dumb fantasy metrics based on the size fo the feet of a king for some reason, and we need to look up a converter to change it to a metric used in 195 different countries.

33
stingpiereply
lemmy.world

1 yard is about a meter. 3 feet in a yard. Just divide by 3 and that's good enough for 99% of cases.

-2

I measure in freedom units brother!

Also how did feet/metric get brought up, that's not even remotely relevant, tf lol.

-3
CADmonkeyreply
lemmy.world

If you grow up in the US, you learn both systems and you're able to convert between them. It's easy.

2.2 pounds to the kg

1 inch is 25.4 mm

A gallon is 3.8 liters

But it's fun watching supposedly intelligent people from other countries who reeeeeee when seeing imperial units.

-7
discuss.tchncs.de

? i don't know about you, but multiplying 19" times 25.4 isnt something easy at all to do quickly in your head. Also, not to mention the best example: when i have to convert cm to m I move the comma

when I have to convert from cm to freedom units: -Divide the height in centimeters by 30.48 and write down the whole number as feet

-Multiply the decimal part of the above division by 12

-Round the result of the multiplication to the nearest whole number and write it down as inches

like, really? you have to use two different units added together for one thing? How is that easy?

8
sfgifzreply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

when i have to convert cm to m I move the comma

I feel the real war we need to fight over is whether the decimal point or the decimal comma is the one true decimal separator.

3
bastionreply
feddit.nl

Freedom units.. Oh, you mean imperial? As in, Britain? Yeah, we're just using their old system and haven't bothered to change unless there's a practical necessity.

1
toastalreply
lemmy.ml

The British still gladly mix both systems inconsistently. They measure themselves in stones & buy cars based on liter per mile fuel efficiency.

4

Which is exactly why we had to kick them out of the EU. This is obviously a joke. They went because their politicians are incompetent liars.

4
CADmonkeyreply
lemmy.world

How is it hard? Aren't people in the rest of the world much better educated than people in the US?

1
theragu40reply
lemmy.world

They aren't, which makes this meme even funnier because in my experience Canadians and Aussies are pretty likely to understand both systems and wouldn't have a problem identifying either.

I'd put money on this having been made by a European.

3

Australian here. Celsius is all we use here really. I'd have to convert to Celsius to understand Fahrenheit units.

4
slrpnk.net

As a Canadian myself, it really depends. Most of us only understand farenheit in certain contexts. Some of us can understand it for weather but I think that's mostly older generations. I use farenheit for oven and pool temperature only. In every other context, it is meaningless to me.

2
theragu40reply
lemmy.world

The crossover is so fascinating to me.

Like you just nonchalantly use it for pools and ovens and nothing else. Kind of like we use liters randomly for certain soda bottles and basically nothing else.

3
slrpnk.net

Oh I know! It's so weird. Ovens are probably because we get ours from the US, but why we do pool temperature in farenheit is a mystery to me.

1
lemmy.ml

I certainly know what degrees Celsius are, but I have no idea what Celsius degrees are supposed to be.

17

I thought that was the point Americans allegedly wouldn't understand. Glad I wasn't the only one that noticed the error in a meme trying to make another culture looks like idiots.

7
lemmy.world

I was taught both.

Just like I was taught both metric and imperial.

I use both temp scales, though fahrenheit is more common.

I use both measurements scales, though imperial is more common.

One thing I've never understood though. Metric is more precise for measurements (at least without needing to involve fractional measures). I totally get why it's superior for a lot of things, and indeed it is used in many places for this exact reason.

Why would anyone say Celsius is better? Apart from freezing and boiling temps seeming somewhat arbitrary with fahrenheit, does it not allow for much higher precision with regards to temperature identification without resorting to decimals? Isn't this the same rationale used with metric vs imperial? It seems like a double standard to me, because remembering two temperatures (for boiling and freezing) seems like a small price to pay for a more precise system.

15
LukeMediareply
lemm.ee

I've always thought Fahrenheit was the better measurement in regards to weather. 0 F is uncomfortably cold, 100 F is uncomfortably hot. It makes so much sense for the weather. 0 C is freezing, 100 C you are dead. Of course, for most things Celsius makes more sense, and even though I live in the US I don't even know how to measure computer temperatures in F, it just sounds crazy. When it comes to weather though? Fahrenheit is where it is, in my opinion.

Please guys, I know plenty of you will disagree with me, that's okay, this is just my opinion. Please don't get upset I know metric is generally better!

13
seejurreply
lemmy.world

I always found fahrenheit a lot more arbitrary: in Celsius 0 is the freezing of water, so if you are driving/walking, that is a very important temperature to look out for. Also 30 being hot or 100 being hot outside does not really make a difference. Some people find 30 hot, some other find it OK, since its subjective anyway

11
Sludgeyyreply
lemmy.world

Water freezes at 0°C at standard pressure, sea level.

If you are above or below, it will be different.

Saying "It's not 0°C outside so there's no ice on the road" is dumb. Because there could definitely be ice on the road.

You should be looking out for other things while driving. Not if the one thermometer, who knows where, is saying that it's 0°C or not.

-1
seejurreply
lemmy.world

As usual, there should be a bit of flexibility in there. I am not saying "oh, it's 0C, therefore ALL water in all town is frozen , lets wait until it gets to 1C so all water melt". But more on the line "oh, its around 0C (+ or - 5C), lets be careful while driving because some of the streets might have ice". Farenheit freezing temp is 32 I think? Thats VERY arbitrary. A lot more than C.

1
  • or - 5°C

23°F to 41°F is -5°C to 5°C

If it's below 40°F I'd be cautious of Ice. Once again, it doesn't matter that water freezes at exactly 32°F at standard pressure.

It's like boiling water. No one puts a thermometer in water to make sure that it hits 100°C exactly.

150°F water will scald you in a second (65°C)

140°F water will scaled you in 3 seconds (60°C)

120°F water will scaled you in 10 minutes (50°C)

+100°F water has the potential to scaled you (~40°C)

I'd rather know that +100°F water has a chance to burn me than remembering +40°C has a chance.

That's way more important knowledge than the freezing and boiling temperatures of water at standard pressure.

1
discuss.tchncs.de

Fahrenheit is asking a human how hot it is, Celsius is asking water. This is what I was taught. I have no idea how you ask water for anything

3

The problem is that humans are subjective in my opinion. Water is not (or at least not the the degree humans are). With the same pressure, all water freeze at the same temp. Ask a Minnesotan or a Floridian (just to remain within the US, can use Greek/Norwegian for EU) what "cold" means, and they'll have VERY different answers

2
bastionreply
feddit.nl

I mean, we could get the temperature up to 100 and see which are human and which are meat..

0
Holzkohlenreply
feddit.de

You are already using Celsius as well. If you just did not know Fahrenheit, you obviously would not miss it. To us Celcius feels just as natural as Fahrenheit does to you. It would be nice to have one global system we can agree on, just like we agree on english being the language of the internet. English is my 2nd language and if I can learn a whole other language, then americans can learn metric. (Is celcius part of the metric system? I have no idea tbh)

2

Celcius isn't rocket science

For 99% of things it's simply reading a thermometer or typing in numbers on a device to set a temperature.

Just like I would have to look up what temperature to bake my cookies, 325°F, 350°F, 400°F. I'd have to look it up to cook them in C.

Me "knowing" the system doesn't help me. Because I have no idea what 325°F really is. That would cook my skin, no way I'm "feeling" it. All it is is just a number to me. If I had to push 325 or 163 on my oven it makes no difference to me.

When someone says I put a liter of gas in my car, I can reasonably think and know what a liter is. To me, the easiest way is that it's half of a 2L of soda because soda is sold in metric liters, and it gives me a reference. I also know that a liter is basically 1/4 gallon.

But when you say 28°C, I have nothing to compare it to. I know 40°C is really hot, and 20°C is basically room temperature. Even that doesn't even help me. So I guess I can deduce it's somewhere in the middle? It's 82°F. But I have no reference to how 28°C feels.

82°F. Is low 80's, I know what low 80's feels like. Easy for me to figure out the realitive temperature.

Fahrenheit and weather temperatures just line up so good at 0-100.

But if you just thought of 82°F as 82% hot you could easily get a general idea of how hot it is.

Livable temperatures are between 50°F and 100°F. Humans like it halfway between the two. ~75% hot. 65°F is a cold house, 85°F is a hot house. 99% of homes are between those two and still averages to 75°F.

1°F is smaller than 1°C.

82°F vs 83°F a normal person wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But you know, as it approaches 85°F or 90°F it's definitely heating up.

I could say 93°F. 93% hot. That's pretty hot. I'm sure you could wrap your mind around that.

But tell me 34°C and how am I suppose to really quickly wrap my head around that?

6° less than the hottest realistic temperature outside? I don't even know how 1°C drop feels, much less 6°.

1
lemmy.world

Because precision has nothing to do with it and it's all about being easy to convert between different units and having sensible zero and 100-points for temperature?

10
theragu40reply
lemmy.world

How often do you convert temperature to different units? Isn't that what we are stupid for doing?

And I would like to know why precision is irrelevant for temperature but relevant for other things.

I'm being genuine, I'm not trying to shit on you. I'm pretty open about liking the metric system, and I think the reason we don't use it is largely the extreme administrative costs of doing so more than anyone thinking imperial is actually better. I think most agree it's pretty clearly worse.

But I legitimately don't understand how people can argue Celsius over fahrenheit when the arguments for fahrenheit largely match those for the metric system.

7
lemmy.world

How often do you convert temperature to different units? Isn’t that what we are stupid for doing?

I was talking about Metric as a whole, where the units of measurement for distance, mass, etc. are easily convertible and the unit for temperature has sensible zero- and 100-points. I would have thought that was obvious.

-3

Why would you talk about metric as a whole in response to a question asking about Celsius in particular? I very openly stated that I understand why metric in general is used for measurements of length, weight, and volume and asked specifically why people argue that Celsius is superior when its weaknesses in comparison to fahrenheit are similar to imperial's weaknesses in comparison to metric.

I would have thought that was obvious.

2

Fahrenheit has a fairly sensible 0 - just as Celsius is the temp of ice water, Fahrenheit is the temp of salty ice water.

2
sh.itjust.works

Why write 36.111 C when you could write 97 F? Its the same reason you write 3cm instead of 0.03m. Its just more convenient even though its the same thing.

-1
lemmy.world

Why write 36.111 C when you could write 97 F?

Why write 96.8 F when you could write 36 C? Do you honestly believe that we're thinking about temperatures in Fahrenheit and then just converting to Celsius when we write them down?

14
LukeMediareply
lemm.ee

In fairness to Fahrenheit, you can round it to a whole number with a lesser difference in feel. That's more for feel though, for measurements of temp in cooking or chemistry, Celsius is useful due to boiling point.

3
theragu40reply
lemmy.world

Agreed, though if you are measuring it via instrument then what difference does it make how "round" the number is?

2
LukeMediareply
lemm.ee

I was more thinking of when you're telling your friend what the temperature is outside, or scenarios similar to that. It's not useful in most other applications.

1

What difference does it make if the temperature is 79 or 80 F? That's a difference of about half a Celsius, and as a Celsius user, I can tell you that I don't plan my daily life based on a half a degree difference, or even a one degree difference; 5 degree precision is almost always enough.

1

Do you honestly believe that we're thinking about temperatures in Fahrenheit and then just converting to Celsius when we write them down?

Why on earth would I think that? I made the comparison to other units of measurement to demonstrate why smaller units are useful in some cases. There are cases where its not useful, but there are also many cases where the advantages of Celsius aren't useful. Neither is inherently better, the correct one to use is the one you know better or the one that fits the use case better.

3
lib.lgbt

I pointed something similar with regard to thermometers to a group of European tourists. In Farenheidt, 98.6 is the normal temperature and if you are getting sick, people will say that 99 is a low-grade fever. While that is a. 4 degree difference in F, that's only a .2 difference in C.

Likewise for weather, F is much more precise and easier to communicate given that there is a smaller interval between units. There's more than 2 units difference in F for every 1 unit difference in C. That's huge when you're talking about the difference between 38 and 39 C

3
zikreply
lemmy.world

It may astonish you to learn that it's very easy to work in fractional degrees Celsius and it's done commonly.

0

Not on my AC unit. I’d love a fractional temp for perfection, but I can’t get it because integers values for Celsius have a noticeably large gap between them.

1

Lol, you have to use fractional measures because each degree is further apart. I thought I had made that point. Sure you won't ever get rid of all fractional measuring in any system, but it's much easier if you don't have to use as much

1
zikreply
lemmy.world

Celsius is better because it's the standard used by almost the entire world. If you're talking with anyone but Americans or you're working in science then you're using Celsius.

The rest is just arbitrary - you can get used to either system.

-3
theragu40reply
lemmy.world

Ah the old "it's what everyone does so it must be better" argument. A classic.

1

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying there's little to no difference in practical use, except for the convenience of using a standard. Standards make life much easier because you're talking the same language as everyone else. When you're pretty much the only country still using Fahrenheit maybe it's time to think about using the global standard?

3

I don’t know if they stopped, but American kids at least used to be taught both Celsius and Fahrenheit. At least in some parts anyway. I was taught both as a kid, with my school largely banning the use of Fahrenheit by staff on campus even, for instance.

15
lemmy.world

Double Celsius and add 30. It'll get you close enough for environment temps.

10*2 is 20, plus 30 = 50.

(10°C × 9/5) + 32 = 50°F

30 doubled is 60, plus 30 is 90.

(30°C × 9/5) + 32 = 86°F

10°C is mild af. Who tf doesn't wear shorts when it's 50F?

If you want to sound more metal, tell people how cold it is in celsius. Was it kinda cold or was it in the negatives?

12
sh.itjust.works

American here. Always knew C temps.

10 c cool 20 c perfect 30 c ok I need shade and a body of water 40 c wtf 50 c I’m dead

12
lemmy.world

-5C your pee freezes when it hits the ground -25C you pee freezes internally -35C you pack the floofier sleeping bag for camping

9

-60C your hands freeze in minutes without very thick gloves.

4
lemmy.today

Shorts in 10C is standard practice for me. Really not that cold for us in the NorthWest. Now if we're talking Southern Californians 10C is heavy winter jacket weather.

12

I mostly just wear long trousers in 10C weather in my current locale so as not to disturb the fine sensibilities of the local warmbloodeds.

1
Cabrioreply
lemmy.world

Where I am in Aus we'd be lucky to see 0C once or twice a year at most in the middle of the night in the middle of winter for maybe an hour. I put on long pants or a sweater under 20C.

6
Swarfegareply
lemm.ee

In the UK this summer we've been lucky if it hits 20°C this year. I've been in shorts all summer. We had a nice June but since then it's been cloudy and rainy. Regardless I've been in shorts since June. Winter is typically a single figure affair so summer is always very much welcomed. Feels like we haven't had one this year :(

2

The oceans on this side of the planet are about to see record temps, fingers crossed we don't see ecological collapse of the Great Barrier Reef and record fire seasons.

0
lemmy.3cm.us

Let's ignore the fact that celsius is taught in American schools because "hAha AMeRiCa bAd beCauSe nO MeTric."

8

I personally use metric as much as I can. The temperature on my phone for example is in celsius, try me.

1
zalgotextreply
sh.itjust.works

Because for weather, °F is arguably better. 0°F - 100°F is the general range that most weather on the planet happens at (yes I know there are extremes where it gets to like -30°F or 120°F, but bear* with me). You can then further break those up into 10°F segments that are a bit more practical and granular than 10°C segments:

  • under 0°F: stay inside
  • 0°F - 10°F: really fucking cold, don't stay out too long or you risk hypothermia
  • 10°F - 20°F: still really cold, but you can stay out long enough to shovel your driveway without fear of losing fingers/toes, if you're wearing winter gear
  • 20°F - 30°F: cold but not bitterly so. Perfect weather for outdoor winter activities like sledding or snowball fights
  • 30°F - 40°F: Snow starts melting here, and you can probably ditch the scarf, but you still need a winter jacket
  • 40°F - 50°F: Too warm for your heavy winter jacket, to cold for your light spring jacket. It's layering season baybee
  • 50°F - 60°F: still layering season, but you can probably get by with just a light jacket at this point, especially if you're doing something active outside. Some people start breaking out the shorts, but that's not the norm.
  • 60°F - 70°F: a more generally acceptable range to start wearing shorts and short sleeves. Perfect temps for doing yard work and sipping beers on the patio alike
  • 70°F - 80°F: definitely shorts weather, and pools start coming into play. If you're doing something rigorous outside, you're probably sweating
  • 80°F - 90°F: you'd probably rather be inside, if you're not in a pool. You'll be sweating just lounging in your deck chair.
  • 90°F - 100°F: hot as balls, probably not worth going outside for very long, as the pool water feels like taking a dip in lukewarm soup
  • Over 100°F: stay inside

Now I know you can do something similar with °C, but the workable range there is smaller, because you're going from like -15°C to 40°C. It's less granular, and the start/stop temps are more awkward.

Is it weird that water freezes at 32°F and boils at 212°F? Sure, absolutely. When you're doing stuff in that context, it absolutely makes sense to use Celsius, where you're working on a nice, neat 0°C-100°C range. But weather, the thing most people contextualize temperatures with, doesn't happen in that range. It starts well below freezing, and (hopefully) doesn't get anywhere close to the boiling point of water. For that, I'd argue °F is actually a little more useful.

0
zikreply
lemmy.world

All these arguments don't really have any effect in reality. As someone born in Australia everyone is super comfortable with Celsius and the problems you describe just don't exist because in the end it's really just what you're used to.

To me Fahrenheit seems incredibly awkward but then I wasn't brought up using it.

1

Oh yeah I absolutely recognize that what you're used to or brought up on is gonna have a huge impact on which system you prefer. That being said, I think a Fahrenheit user would have a harder time switching to Celsius, than a Celsius user would switching to Fahrenheit, at least for normal day-to-day weather applications. And for some of the same reasons that people prefer metric units in general - it's more granular, has more resolution, is base 10 (for this application), etc.

1

Because it doesn't have as much resolution as Fahrenheit.

There are 180 degrees between freezing water and boiling water in °F. But 100 degrees between the two in °C. So with Fahrenheit we can give mote accurate temperature info without resorting to decimal degrees. And if your response is "learn to handle decimals" then the same argument can be given for inches vs mm.

-2
CoggyMcFeereply
lemmy.world

It’s taught but not really for weather. So while I know the boiling and freezing points of various substances in Celsius, I don’t have instant recognition when I hear a Celsius temperature, I have to convert it in my head.

9
lemmy.world

No need to convert. 0 to 40 is the part of the scale for weather, where 0 is dangerously cold and 40 is dangerously hot.

1
CoggyMcFeereply
lemmy.world

No need to convert? What do you mean? Are you saying if I just intrinsically knew Celsius for weather I wouldn’t have to convert Celsius? Because that’s obviously true, but I’m just explaining I don’t intrinsically know Celsius in that way.

Also, even if I did get to know Celsius really well, I would still have to convert it every time someone uses Fahrenheit, which is pretty much all the time in the US.

Lastly, what do you mean, saying 0 C is “dangerously cold” and suggesting that below that temp is outside of the bounds of what is used for weather? Where I live the temperature stays below 0 C for long periods of time, never going above it.

3

If you know those two numbers, 0 and 40, you can get a general idea of what the temperature is in Celsius without doing any math. If you hear 20, you know that's a moderate temperature because it's right in between. If you hear 30, you know that's fairly warm. If you hear 10, you know that's chilly but not freezing. Below 0 or above 40 are extreme cold and extreme heat, respectively.

0

What's 28° C? How can I envision in my mind what that means?

0-40 as a scale. 28 is about 3/4 between the two. So it's towards the hotter side but how far into it?

It's 82.4° F

Low 80s. I know exactly how low 80's feel.

0-100 is easy to compare with %

82.4° F is 82% hot.

Humans like it around 75% hot between 50-100.

So 82° is hot but not pushing 90s

You can get a general idea of temperature very easy.

1

35°C with 100% humidity can be fatal to humans

46°C with 50% humidity can be fatal to humans

Humans can not survive for extended lengths at these temperatures and humidities.

Saying "40 ain't dangerously hot" is dumb.

3

56.7° C is the hottest temperature ever recorded. It was in the US.

2
lemmy.world

Whoever thought having to say "it's 13/64 inches long" was a good idea needs to fuck right off.

18
Magnetarreply
feddit.de

American are like "cut 37/64 and 52 thousandths of an inch off your 2 by 4 inch piece of wood, that's obviously not 2 by 4 inches", and don't get me started on wire gauge.

3
Magnetarreply
feddit.de

No, I live in the metric world. I just watch some woodworking etc. videos by Americans for entertainment, and get horribly confused and annoyed.

1

Irc the US is now the only (or one of two countries) that doesn't officially use the metric system. Uncle Sam just needs to rip the bandaid off.

6
Che Bananareply
lemmy.ml

Metric is Fer socialistcommies...now let me chug this 2L coke!

6

Fuk yeah brother! God Bless the Double Large Coke freedom unit! /S

4
CADmonkeyreply
lemmy.world

Except they do use the metric system, all their imperial units are defined by metric units.

4
Zerushreply
lemmy.ml

Kelvin use the same scale as Celsius, the only difference is the zero point. The imperial system and Farenheit sucks and result very expensive and cause even deaths because of wrong conversions: Crushed 2 Mars probes >$350M, flight crash with more than 130 victims because of an error calculating the amount of fuel, wrong amount of medicine respect bodyweight, etc..

https://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8031177/america-fahrenheit

vs

7

The US doesn't use imperial, it uses US customary.

There's no US customary Roman mile, ell or skeine, for example.

Chains and links are basically standard surveyors chains. They're distinct units in their own right in the sense that a metric chain or metric link is. Should your metric chart have a metric chain on it? What about light years or parsecs?

Hands are used in measuring horses, and that's basically it. They're used in commonwealth countries, the US and South Africa.

3

An American: lmao. Seriously? Y’all weak. No shirt & Mohawk/Mullet all day! Lol just messing around

5

The C is the grade those kids on got in "Temperature Understanding Class" because they're almost failing.

5

I can understand canadians wearing shorts on a 10° day, Aussies sometimes do the same. But what Australian wears a jacket on a 30°C day???

4

American kids wear hoodies in 30C+ for some bizarre reason.

4

Not gonna lie, this is my experience.

At least I try. I have the gist of it, and agree it's a more sane scale. I know 40 is around 100f, for example.

4

It actually depends on humidity and movement of wind as well as tempreture

4
lemmy.ml

Not just us not understanding Celcius. Where I come from, we wear shorts down to 0°C or lower.

4

As a Canadian who spent a few years of my youth in Australia: I can definitely confirm.

I spent most of my ozzy summers in a black hoodie for some god forsaken reason, and I also wear shorts in winter occasionally....

3

Americans do understand Celsius, although it is unfortunately not as commonly used for weather/room temperature as Fahrenheit

2

Unpopular opinion time; the US already uses metric/Celsius where it matters; in science, engineering and the military. Where it doesn't matter, we use a weird hybrid system that makes intuitive sense to us and is accordingly perfectly functional and doesn't need to be changed.

1
lemmy.ml

Is it weird that I use C for negative and F for positive? lol

1
lemmy.world

the fact that 20-30 points goes from freezing cold to death and destruction and fire is everything that's wrong with Celsius for weather.

F for weather C for chemistry K for astronomy

FCK one unit of measure.

-1
lemmy.world

Why is that a problem once you know it? I know 0 is kinda cold, 20 is kind warm and 30 is kinda hot.

8

Loss of precision. Most digital thermostats only display two digits for cost savings. I've had experiences with mini-splits that are too cold at 27 and too hot at 28.

2
w2tpmfreply
lemmy.world

It's not supposed to be.

It's supposed to be for "not relevant or doesn't add value to the discussion".

2
lemmy.world

I enjoy rabble rousing C-freaks. I lived in a Celsius country for 3 years (Hong Kong), each degree is too much, decimals for weather is silly.

Farenheit is so simple, on a scale of 0-100, how fucking hold/cold is it?

-1

Mate, it's metric, if you need more units just go down an order and you have 200 to 300 units.

1
Honytawkreply
lemmy.zip

In Celsius we at least have some leeway to adapt to the rising temperature of the Climate.

-1
sh.itjust.works

Farhenhiet and Celsius are equally made up. All measurement systems that we use on human scales are made up. And in this case, farhenhiet is actually just better. More granular and more useful on a day to day basis. Yeah, it doesn't have the freezing point of an arbitrary substance as the 0, nor the boiling point of an arbitrary substance at 100, but it has temperature you should immediately be concerned about coming into contact with outside of -20 and 120, temperatures you should be concerned about contacting outside of 10 and 90, and fairly normal weather between those two.

-3

I don't care too much about 100 being the boiling point of water, but 0 being the freezing point is really convenient. Most weather has something to do with water, negative temperatures mean snow and ice.

8
kbin.social

Fahrenheit: 0=cold, 50=mild, 100=hot
Celsius: 0=moderately cold, 50=dangerously hot, 100=dead

It makes no difference to me if the boiling point of water is 100°C or 212°F, if I see it boiling the pasta goes in.

In a scientific context Celsius and metric in general are superior without a doubt. But to live my life Fahrenheit works just fine.

-1

The only important property of a temperature scale is that it exists and is agreed upon for science. Farhenhiet and Celsius do that job equally as well.

2
lemmy.world

Stupid. I hate these "America dumb tehehe" memes.

They seem to be mostly loved by left of center Americans that enjoy stereotyping their fellow countrymen by saying "Merica" a lot. 🙄

-17
Gameyreply
feddit.rocks

If your country dose a lot of stupid shit people will make memes about it, you dumb American!

4
lemmy.world

The US is a cultural hegemon so it is often picked on. There are tons of idiotic peoole and cultural practices here in Spain. But the rest of the world isn't really aware... I mean I don't blame them. One cannot keep up with everything.

But believe me, stupidity and insular thinking is just as endemic here as it is in the States. It just annoys me when "enlightened" Americans habitually paint other Americans as somehow dumber than dumb people elsewhere.

0
Gameyreply
feddit.rocks

America is leading the chart of the western world in terms of stupidity rn if you ask me and it's definitely easy to be one of the enlighned over there (just don't try to oppress others) but compared to other parts of the population I definitely prefer them!

-1
lemmy.world

I'm an American who has lived in Spain for the past 11 years. I've grown up in the States, worked in the States as a young person, still visit frequently, but my professional, personal, and cultural life has not been primarily there for some time.

I am telling you, both cultures have their dumb preoccupations, their misconceptions, and their morons.

The idea of "America is so bad, Americans are so dumb" is exactly the same ideology as American exceptionalism. It is just as wrong.

0
Gameyreply
feddit.rocks

That's not what I try to say, America is simply first rn and similar groups all over the western world adopt it because of that, it's not a secret that the western world started to move to the right again in recent times and that leads to a lot of shit if you ask me which definitely isn't limited to America but currently they are simply the first to do certain really bad tgings!

0
lemmy.world

As I said, America is a cultural hegemony at the moment. It does export a lot of its culture, but far from all of it's culture.

I think the direction the world is moving is a bit of a mixed bag. With LGBT stuff, it is moving far to the left very quickly. With things like workers rights it has stagnated or moved rightwards somewhat. It's true that the Western world has seen the emergence of the alt-right in the past decade. But there is an alt-left or far left that has also been gaining in prominence. Generally just deviation from the political center in both directions.

0

Judiging from the culture war the alt-right started to adopt in europe and other global leader changes (E.g. India) in the past few years I highly disagree, there is more accaptance in the general population but over all there are more and more countries LGBTQ people aren't welcome in or have to flee from and the pure hate appears even here in Austria and in our neighbor countries. Trump of all people put it very well, five years ago his audiance didn't even know what trans is and now they get more excited about it than about tax cuts. I do agree that the world generally moves towards neo liberal ideas rouggly since the early 2000s and that workers right are at risk too, that's just not a very new development, stuff like that simply gains visibility during a crisis.

1