You're viewing a single thread.
This is why I'm Fahrenheit gang all the way. I'm not running lab experiments daily, but I am going outside all the time. If you have to express the temperature with decimal precision for everyday use, you've lost.
Edit: It's hilarious how easily you can piss people off by saying Fahrenheit is subjectively better as a human temperature scale. Too much of your identity is wrapped up in being able to talk temperature in multiples of ten, people. Chill out. Maybe something near 42 degrees. Sorry, meant to say 5.6 degrees for the nerds in here.
What? No one's using C to that precision outside the lab. It just depends on what you grew up with man. I know below 0 I need a winter jacket, ~10C chilly, ~20C is shorts weather, ~30C is hot, >40C is death. Perfectly practical everyday estimations.
For me the only advantage of F is you can say it's 69F out and bake things at 420F.
Also let me point out one nice feature here - the freezing point is 0. Bellow it you can expect snow instead of rain, ice on the road, sidewalk, plants are in danger, etc. A lot of things and situations in your life are affected by this simple fact that water freezes so it's nice that we have it at 0.
Fahrenheit has 32°F ...
And water boiling at 100C is useful too because boiling water is used so often in cooking.
I gotta ask, do you use a thermometer to boil water?
Metric is a more coherent system, but let's not pretend it's magic or more than it is.
The numeric value associated with boiling water has no impact on cooking, because the boiling water doesn't care.I gotta ask, do you use a thermometer to boil water?
No, but I use a thermometer (built into the electric kettle) to prepare tea. Greens want to be brewed at 75-80C. Whites are often about 70C. Oolongs are about 95C.
The numeric value associated with boiling water has no impact on cooking, because the boiling water doesn’t care.
But the human who is doing the cooking might care.
Well, it usually doesn't actually start to freeze and snow at 32/0. It's usually got to be below freezing for a while before it gets icy, and it'll often snow above freezing and sleet below. It's usually more dangerous if it's above freezing because the layers of melting ice make the unmelted ice far more slick.
It's why for weather information, it really doesn't matter what scale you use so much as knowing where those bands are on the scale you use.
The peril is a gradient, so the actual number that matches freezing really doesn't matter.At least that's my take as a person who lives somewhere where cold weather conditions are a frequent topic of conversation.
The temperature itself doesn't start to get perilous until you're in the negatives on the Fahrenheit scale, or -17C.Exactly. My car warns me about freezing conditions starting at 37 F.
The most I use in temperature is setting the air conditioner at work from 68 to 70 or 72 depending how hard I'm working
Eh, it's just exchanging what brain cells are used to remember what.
With Fahrenheit you need brain cells to remember that 32°F is freezing point of water. With Celsius, you need brain cells to remember that 40°C+ is super hot outside.
But, with Fahrenheit you also need brain cells to remember that 90F is super hot outside.
When pizzas call for 425°F, I purposely set the temp at 420° because of course
the food poisoning is so worth it edit: guys chill, it's just a joke, i know you don't actually have to cook pizza
Uh, what? You do know you can cook pizzas at different temps to affect crust consistency, and that as long as meats are cooked to a proper internal temperature, bacteria is killed?
I'm not expert in Fahrenheit but that difference doesn't feel like it'd make a difference
More than that, the temperature gradient inside the oven is far greater than that difference
I agree with most of that, but I have been in Phoenix, AZ in ~42°C. Sure it wasn't pleasant, but I'm not dead.
Edit: For extended periods, absolutely. For AC building hopping, survivable.
That is a slight exaggeration, but I know here in Australia if you went out in 42C with no sun protection then yeah, you're not having a good time and it is a risk to life.
In July 2023 in Phoenix on the 20th and 25th it was 119° F or 48.3° C. Not as much an exaggeration as I would like it to be.
It's regularly 79° F to 107° F or 26° C to 41° C in Phoenix in summer. Lately it's been hotter (past 5 years)
At those temperatures, dry or wet, it's still gonna be dangerous.
Not trying to argue here, but the fact those were both last year should be enough of an indication to our political "leaders" that climate change is a major threat.
Source: Extreme temps from weather.gov
Not trying to argue here
Why not, you coward?! Fite me!
But, seriously, no one is gonna argue that, here on lemmy, you're just preaching to the choir.
Just been burned too many times online. Dealing with libs of tiktok and Matt Walsh is a major pain in the ass.
Dry heat vs moist heat
At those temperatures, it's dangerous either way with dry having a slight benefit of being able to do mist cooling better than moist (30° F cooling vs 5-10° F cooling), but that requires water... Phoenix is in a desert
at 10 c i'm wearing 2 pairs pants and 2 light jackets.
People who use Celsius don't typically casually refer to the temperature with a decimal place.
The comfortable range is more compressed, but just like you probably say 75 instead of 74.5, they say 24 instead of 23.889.
Fahrenheit does coincidentally line up nicely for subjective weather scales, so it's not offensive for that use, similar to how pint is a good cup size, but in general consistency is king and you're not loosing anything by compressing a scale, particularly when we basically already measure the temperature in five degree increments, and generally refer to in in units of ten.
As a metric person, I can confirm.
Indoor temperatures are basically 18-22 for most people most of the time.
15-25 covers the whole range of indoor temperatures that people with functioning heat or A/C would see.
For temperatures outside we commonly round to the nearest five:*
- -5 and below: very cold winter weather
- 0 cold winter weather
- 5 mild winter weather
- 10 autumn weather
- 15 spring weather
- 20 summer weather
- 25 beach weather
- 30 heatwave
- 35 and higher heatwave in the Sahara
The only thing I admire of the Fahrenheit scale is that it can round to the nearest 10 and still be a little bit more precise than Celsius with the nearest 5. And when discussing fever temperatures, Celsius needs half degrees and Fahrenheit does not.
But it's an absolutely awful scale for cooking.
Rounding Fahrenheit temperatures to 10 is less precise than rounding Celsius temperatures to 5.
Yeah, but precision really doesn't matter for the scale of "what do I wear outside". "The 70s" and ”20-25” both convey "short sleeves, light pants or shorts".
If you want precision you shouldn't be rounding at all, and you're probably doing something where you should use Celsius because of convention. Rounding and precision don't really go together.
I agree; I was just being precise.
For cooking I think it's mostly a matter of what you're used to. Neither 145 or 63 are particularly "intuitive" numbers in my opinion, so as long as it's clear which you're using it doesn't really matter.
Of course, generations of humans cooked without thermometers or thermostats. You could cook with the Rankine scale if you get used to it .
But let me just say, I don't think it's an accident France is both the originator of the Metric system and haute cuisine.
Advanced cooking is as much engineering as it is art.
So, it actually isn't a coincidence, but not in the way that you're implying. :)
After their whole "fuck the monarchy" phase, France got deep into "throw it out and replace it with something better". Part of that was metric, and part was "OMG they're so many unemployed royal chefs now, what if we made it so everyone could have a chance to eat like a king for a meal?".
Surplus chefs, a cultural tilt towards trying new things, and Frances historical position giving them access to a huge array of spices, meat, dairy and fish made for a great opportunity for culinary revolution.
So they're both born from the same spirit, but one didn't cause the other. :) Thankfully they didn't go the way of metric time, or the French revolutionary calendar, neither of which panned out.
In Canada the scale goes higher and lower.
- -5 to -10: a warm day in the winter, a break from the misery
- -10 to -20: Ugh, again?
- -20 to -40: Wow, it's actually really cold out!
- -40 and below: Wow, even with all my winter gear, this is going to suck.
Then sometimes in summer:
- 35-40: WTF, we're hotter than the Sahara again!
I don't say 74.5, your right but I do care when the temperature is set to 72 or 73. I can tell the difference of that vs. 70 even.
Fahrenheit does coincidentally line up nicely for subjective weather scales
In what sense?
similar to how pint is a good cup size
Actually a pint is 2 cups.
In the sense that the image we're talking under is discussing. Below zero is when air temperature starts to get hazardous, and above 100. The ten degree increments are convenient delineations of rough weather conditions in an actionable way.
This isn't intentional on the part of Fahrenheit, and it's not some deal breaking feature since people who use Celsius for the same thing obviously know when to wear a coat or if the air will kill them outside.
It's just a nice coincidence.Actually a pint is 2 cups.
Nice.
Below zero is when air temperature starts to get hazardous
Hazardous in what sense? If you're not wearing proper clothing, lower than 10C can be hazardous. Many hikers who get lost get hypothermia even if it's above zero because they were dressed for an energetic hike, not sitting around waiting for a rescue.
If you are properly dressed, -10C is no big deal. Many people do outdoor sports for hours when the temperature is well in the negatives.
IMO, if you're within 10C of ideal room temperature, you may be uncomfortable but you're probably not in danger. But, if the temperature is above 30C or below 10C you need to take precautions: shade and water in the case of hot weather, warm clothing in the case of cold weather. I don't think there's anything special about 0C for humans, except for the fact it's when water turns to ice, rain turns to snow, etc. If you have the right gear, 5C, 0C, -10C and -20C are all survivable, possibly even comfortable. You just need more and more specialized gear as the temperature gets lower.
Like I said, people who use Celsius know when to wear a coat.
But if we're maintaining that 0 and 100 are special numbers, then Fahrenheit maps hazardous conditions more neatly to those numbers.
I don't think 0 and 100 have as much special significance as people seem to think when it's assigned to water.
Like I said, people who use Celsius know when to wear a coat.
So do people who use Fahrenheit.
But if we’re maintaining that 0 and 100 are special numbers, then Fahrenheit maps hazardous conditions more neatly to those numbers.
I completely disagree. 0 Fahrenheit is very cold, but there's nothing special about that temperature. You need to start dressing for cold conditions long before it gets that cold, and if you dress for cold conditions you can easily handle temperatures well below 0F. 100F is also nothing useful. Yes, it's very hot, but you start needing to take precautions for heat long before it hits 100F.
Basically the Fahrenheit scale has nothing particularly useful at 0 or 100F. The Celsius scale has useful things at 0C and 100C. 100C is not useful for weather, but 0C is very useful for weather because it tells you whether it's likely to be icy out.
which temperature unit requires using decimals?
Have you ever stayed in a hotel with the wall thermostat set to C? If so, press the up/down temperature buttons. They'll move by 0.2 or 0.5 usually.
many times, and no they don't.
Go figure. I guess the hotels I stay at don't exist then. Thanks for the info.
Who said that? I'm in Europe, and here all temperature controls I've seen move in 1 degree increments. Maybe it's different in the states.
Maybe someday a metric country will take 13th place for walking on the moon
Guess which system NASA uses
I refuse
Chuckled at this. Well done
Pre- or post- Mars orbiter?
Well they did for the moon landing, and have as a policy since 1979.
I didn't know about why that orbiter failed though, pretty funny!
The orbiter failed because while NASA used metric, the contractor (Lockheed Martin, I believe?) used imperial for one system and no one caught their mistake.
It is worth pointing out though that NASA employees use imperial units in their everyday lives. Using both systems may have given US scientists and engineers a competitive advantage over European scientists and engineers.
When I'm reading through dates, January gives me a hell of a lot more information than "the fifteenth"
Then use ISO and start with the year, which gives you even more information.
Not necessarily. I work outdoors, the month gives extremely important seasonal context. "A July" tells more than "1985"... although realistically I need both for any conceivable purpose.
Also, to be honest, reading dates is not a difficult process. It takes less than a second regardless of whether it starts with a month, a day, or a year. It's not worth to use that as the basis of discussion. Imo, having the numbers be logically sorted from biggest to smallest unit (or reverse) is worth it just to avoid the confusion.
Too much of your identity is wrapped up in being able to talk temperature in multiples of ten, people.
Wtf are you talking about? You're the one that brought up how your favourite unit is superior, and we're the one that has our identity wrapped up in something?
Chill out. Maybe something near 42 degrees. Sorry, meant to say 5.6 degrees for the nerds in here.
Do you know how math works? Of course you're gonna end up with decimals when you're starting from F. Why don't you chill out at 11? Oh, I mean 51.8 you narcissistic swine.
I'd just say 52, but keep raging.
Ok, and I'd say 6? What's your point lmao
My original point was that Fahrenheit is more useful as a gauge of human comfort temperature.
But now you've made my other point that there is a not-insignificant number of people, like you, who's identity is so wrapped up in the perceived superiority of all things metric that you get your panties in a twist at the slightest challenge. It's honestly funny.
I mean, look at you for example. You voluntarily joined a conversation to go off on an unhinged rant and call me names. Just take a moment to think about your life and the choices you've made to bring you to this point where you lose your shit over a unit of measure.
You shat in the middle of the room, calling everyone names, and when everyone get annoyed you don't get to get on the high horse my guy.
You're the one that made the unprovoked comment on how your favourite unit is better. You're the one that called people nerds for some reason. You spent hours replying to dozens of people and you call people unhinged? Have you looked in the mirror? You're literally doing what you're making fun of me for doing but tenfold my friend. You're the one that started saying your team is better for no reason. And when people point out you made no sense you make fun of people for replying? Are you okay?
Do you honestly think you're winning? You're trolling people? Trolling used to take effort back in my day. know what, it's my fault. People always say you shouldn't argue with dumb ass because they'll drag you down to their level and win with experience. I voluntarily touched the poop.
Stay mad lmao
You're a weird dude. Go find something to do that makes you happy. Whatever you've got now isn't working.
You're the one that brought up how your favourite unit is superior
Considering the majority of TLCs are people going "lol Americans using their savage system unlike us civilized people" it's funny to act like this person is somehow unique
you narcissistic swine.
Also funny given the previous
If you have to express the temperature with decimal precision for everyday use, you’ve lost.
I don't think it's necessary to do in Celsius though?
"Necessary" is a strong word, but it is, moreso than when using Fahrenheit.
Weather, cooking, at least people around me don't use decimals for that. One degree C is not really big enough difference for those two to break down into decimals. Moreso I guess in the sense that one Fahrenheit difference is smaller than the same for Celsius. Do you know people using decimals for daily stuff with C?
Daily? No. Never. I'd actually think it weird if an app or person told me the weather temperature with decimal places. The only place I'd expect to see decimals is body temperature which is not daily and not something you really think about.
I grew up using Celsius but had a thermostat in Farenheit for long enough to get accustomed to them both, at least when it comes to comfortable living temperature ranges. I find they both work fine in that range, but (likely because I grew up with it) find Celsius much more intuitive when it comes to more extreme temperatures.
As said elsewhere, every ten degrees more or less marks different weather ranges for what I can expect to feel and wear that day.
I think it's a straw man personally because most people will still talk in integer amounts.
Nobody even uses exact degrees when using Fahrenheit and talking about the weather. You can't feel the difference between 71 and 72. Most people just round off to the nearest 5 degrees or so when talking about the weather. With Celsius you might be slightly more likely to use a non-rounded value, say 22 degrees instead of 20 or 25. But, you're almost never going to use fractional degrees.
... You don't. But I find it funny when failheit rounds to the nearest 10s in conversation.
And believe it or not Celsius is much better for outside because it's actually zeroed to the actual fucking weather.
I never round 10 degrees, that's crazy. Definitely to a nearby whole number though.
"What's the temperature going to be today?"
"I think low 60s in the morning and 75 or 78 for the high."
So, maybe a 5 degree range max.
Dude you just did it, "low 60s".
I see it even on weather forecasts "We're going to get into the high 70s" which I think is what you didn't want to say, so you now specified 78.
And it's still a completely floating, arbitrary scale.
Dude you just did it, "low 60s".
???
You do know that low 60s is not a 10 degree span, right? Right??
I'm beginning to see why some of you can't handle Fahrenheit units of measure...
ETA: Sure, I might say something like "upper 70s for the high" if I don't have any better Idea but, again that is not a 10 degree span of temperature units. Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me you understand that basic premise of communication?!
That's what I call round to the nearest 10 degrees. High/low of tens unit if you realllllly want to be pedantic. But at this point I think you're trying to be really pedantic to win fahrenheit.
Because the point is: I find it funny when people say Fahrenheit is so much more accurate when they round to the nearest high/low of the tens unit, but then think Celsius has to be given in decimal lol.
You don't need decimals for everyday measurements. No one can tell the difference between 60 and 62 degrees F. With Celsius 10 or 5 degree ranges is all you need to know for weather purposes, and it falls into much more logical ranges.
Below 0 = cold, limit time outside 0-10C = wear a coat 10-15 = wear a jacket 15-20 = comfortable 20-25 = shorts 25-30 = hot 30-40 = limit time outside 40+ = thank you global warming; don't live here.
No one can tell the difference between 60 and 62 degrees F.
This is true in the sense that someone can't walk into a room and say "it's 62F in here" accurately, but if you're in a room that's 60F and you raise the temperature to 62F you can definitely feel the difference.
People can spend hours outside at below 0C temperatures as long as they're wearing the right gear. Some people even like doing sports outside when it's -20C.
But, you're right that most of the time people only care to the 5 degree range. It's a bit different when it's close to the ideal room temperature. If you personally like it at 22C and the room is set to 20C you will probably feel cold after a while. If it's 24C you'll probably feel overly warm. But, except for something like measuring a fever, people almost never care about fractional degrees.
We all subjectively are more used to our scales, and what numbers mean "very hot" and "very cold" are very varied based on your physiology, adaptation to the climate and the relative humidity.
For water, however, freezing pretty bang on zero (slight variation due to pressure), and you get enough days below zero water of different amounts will start freezing. Which I'd argue is an objective benefit over Fahrenheit for weather. Water freezing at zero is a useful distinction.
Negative? Freezing. Looks great on a graph with an X axis for time and y for temp. To get the equivalent nice graph in Fahrenheit gotta put a line at whatever weird number lines up with freezing.
A random city which I thought may be dipping below zero. That's interesting, there's a line at freezing, almost like that's useful or something.
Putting a line that's not zero, look at what Fahrenheit needs to do to mimic a fraction of our power!
Point of order, the Celsius chart also has a line.
Without a scale on the axis it's kinda necessary with both so I'm not sure that conveyed your point too well.Celsius is good because of how it fits with the rest of metric and the units stay pretty rather often, and because everyone else uses it.
That it makes water freeze at zero is kinda the smaller bit. As you mention, charts can just have lines on them because you can't see the axis and it's really not that hard to remember 32 vs 0. Hell, I remember both. Also 100, 212 and 451. Had to lookup 233 though, I don't remember that one.My point here is that both graphs have a line at freezing (°F and °C). My point is that freezing is a useful differentiation when it comes to weather. Celcius is suitably set to have freezing at zero, a nice round number, which then is negative when water starts to freeze.
It's not that hard to remember, sure, and both systems work okay, but I dislike when people pretend there aren't objective (however slight) advantages to Celcius for every day use.
I'd challenge anyone to find a benefit to Fahrenheit that isn't subjective, for every day use. (Because as noted, Celcius obviously wipes the floor with Fahrenheit in scientific use)
I feel people are clutching at straws trying to justify why Fahrenheit is "better", or even "as good" for everyday use. But heck, they should just live with the fact they just like it, and that's fine. (Just keep it to themselves because they'll get weirdos like me on the internet who will tell them they're wrong).
We all subjectively are more used to our scales
Definitely agree. We're comfortable with what we grew up with and there's nothing wrong with that.
For water, however, freezing pretty bang on zero ... Which I'd argue is an objective benefit over Fahrenheit for weather.
Ehhh, only if you have to think of freezing as zero. For us Fahrenheiters, "above 0" is cold but manageable with a coat. "below 0" means don't go outside unless you have to. That's a pretty convenient gauge to me.
Negative? Freezing. Looks great on a graph
Of course. If you're plotting shit on a graph then you're likely doing lab work, and I'll agree that celsius is a great scale. Not for daily "how's the weather" use though.
For water, however, freezing pretty bang on zero ... Which I'd argue is an objective benefit over Fahrenheit for weather.
Ehhh, only if you have to think of freezing as zero. For us Fahrenheiters, "above 0" is cold but manageable with a coat. "below 0" means don't go outside unless you have to. That's a pretty convenient gauge to me.
Notice how 0 means something concrete for celcius, and for Fahrenheit it's just your subjective feeling. I'd argue this is an objective benefit, which mean celcius takes the cake for weather too (and it's a tie or Celcius in every othe case, also). Ice forming means it gets slippery. Having a distinct indication of a negative symbol and emphasis on freezing at zero, I'd argue, is starting to be objectively more useful, since nothing in particular changes state at 0 °F which is of daily use.
Negative? Freezing. Looks great on a graph
Of course. If you're plotting shit on a graph then you're likely doing lab work, and I'll agree that celsius is a great scale. Not for daily "how's the weather" use though.
But I gave you weather graphs 🙁, this isn't lab work in the slightest, that's real-world everyday stuff. And funnily enough the Fahrenheit graph had a line at freezing too. Just not at 0.
Celcius is absolutely for "how's the weather" use, and it's even slight better for "how's the weather".
And you can't go outside when you're too dense to read the temperature?
Not sure what you're on about, I read the temperature just fine.
What.
I'm not talking any louder, you're going to have to move to the front of the room.