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geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: Novus on Tue, 14 April 2015, 18:44:44

Title: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Novus on Tue, 14 April 2015, 18:44:44
Which one should be universally adopted and why?
And no, nobody actually uses kelvin colloquially.

Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: fohat.digs on Tue, 14 April 2015, 18:50:14
I would be happy to get away from Imperial measure for everything except handcrafting physical objects.

Although I am an old man in the US, I am moderately comfortable in the metric system as well as my native system, but it has taken years to get there.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: paicrai on Tue, 14 April 2015, 18:51:13
1. only 2 places in the world uses fahrenheit
2. fahrenheit the game is ****ing garbage
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Joey Quinn on Tue, 14 April 2015, 19:17:30
All imperial units are garbage but I'm a math/ science person so I'm probably a bit biased. The only imperial units I use are pounds and horsepower but that's because I grew up talking about cars with those units.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Air tree on Tue, 14 April 2015, 19:21:23
I'm pretty much using metric as my go to anymore. American Standardised system sux.

So celsius...
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: noisyturtle on Tue, 14 April 2015, 21:43:27
'Murica
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 14 April 2015, 21:47:06
Celsius :p
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Touch_It on Tue, 14 April 2015, 21:51:01
Team America, **** yeah
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Lain1911 on Tue, 14 April 2015, 21:52:04
It doesn't matter what other countries do America will do it differently and claim it's the better way.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 14 April 2015, 22:38:31
It's funny (talking about imperial vs. metric) that in Australia everything is metric, but computer monitors (and often TVs) are still measures in inches.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Nai_Calus on Tue, 14 April 2015, 22:49:28
Rankine.

I like Fahrenheit better because the degrees are finer.

But Rankine uses the same degrees and starts at absolute zero.

So it's 514.67 degrees here.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: C5Allroad on Tue, 14 April 2015, 23:09:37
It's weird. We use Celsius for our computers. Some people like Celsius for car temps like oil and coolant vs murica system.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: azhdar on Wed, 15 April 2015, 03:11:38
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 15 April 2015, 03:21:54
I like Farenheit because when it gets hot it gets over 100 which is a nice marker, but I like Celcius because I can tell people to shut up about it being cold because it isn't even 0 yet.

A scale where the worldwide average for a summer day is 100 and 0 is 0C (ice related problems likely) would be more meaningful to the everyday man, while anyone who is involved in science should do it properly and use Kelvin.

"One scale to rule them all"?  No thanks.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: baldgye on Wed, 15 April 2015, 03:37:36
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.

+1

Celsius makes the most sense to me because;
0 = ice
100 = tea

ezpz
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: tp4tissue on Wed, 15 April 2015, 05:57:50
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.

+1

Celsius makes the most sense to me because;
0 = ice
100 = tea

ezpz

That's arbitrary..  it only works @ earth's gravity,  at a specific altitude, humidity and air pressure.

Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 15 April 2015, 05:59:42
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.

+1

Celsius makes the most sense to me because;
0 = ice
100 = tea

ezpz

That's arbitrary..  it only works @ earth's gravity,  at a specific altitude, humidity and air pressure.



But you'd need a fairly significant variation in any of those environmental variables before you'd see a noticable change in the baseline Celsius readings.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: paicrai on Wed, 15 April 2015, 06:34:50
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.

+1

Celsius makes the most sense to me because;
0 = ice
100 = tea

ezpz
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Findecanor on Wed, 15 April 2015, 07:10:12
When the thermometer says that it is 0° outside, then I know that the roads are slippery and that I should watch my step. In my climate, that is really handy.
Room temperature starts at 20°, which is a nice even number.

And Anders Celsius and Carl von Linné who came up with the Celsius scale were Swedish, and they were active about an hour from where I live, so yes, patriotism.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: iri on Wed, 15 April 2015, 08:09:00
fahrenheit vs celsius should not even be a question.

And Anders Celsius and Carl von Linné who came up with the Celsius scale were Swedish, and they were active about an hour from where I live, so yes, patriotism.
SWÄRJE!
(http://i.imgur.com/q0qXPgz.gif)
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: vivalarevolución on Wed, 15 April 2015, 08:23:17
America, nuff said.

Although Fahrenheit is garbage.  32 degrees as a freezing point?  What is this nonsense?  Anytime I have to chat with a non-American about the weather, I have to convert my units.  It's such a hassle.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: greath on Wed, 15 April 2015, 08:39:19
I would be happy to get away from Imperial measure for everything except handcrafting physical objects.

Although I am an old man in the US, I am moderately comfortable in the metric system as well as my native system, but it has taken years to get there.

+1

The imperial system is nice for estimating measurements on work that doesn't need to be super accurate. In every other way that I can think of the metric system is a lot better.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: paicrai on Wed, 15 April 2015, 08:56:49
fahrenheit vs celsius should not even be a question.

And Anders Celsius and Carl von Linné who came up with the Celsius scale were Swedish, and they were active about an hour from where I live, so yes, patriotism.
SWÄRJE!
Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/q0qXPgz.gif)

Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 15 April 2015, 17:24:27

DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 


I surrendered to the computer several years ago on dates.

Few people followed my lead, but I am certain of the validity of my choice.

If you express dates, particularly in file names, as:

YYYYMMDD

you will find that your file system will become a much more helpful friend.

PS - of course - it will not work if you leave out the zeros!
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: pichu23 on Wed, 15 April 2015, 17:30:42
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.

+1


KM
Kg

too
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: azhdar on Wed, 15 April 2015, 17:36:43

DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 


I surrendered to the computer several years ago on dates.

Few people followed my lead, but I am certain of the validity of my choice.

If you express dates, particularly in file names, as:

YYYYMMDD

you will find that your file system will become a much more helpful friend.

PS - of course - it will not work if you leave out the zeros!
That's also a great system but for a lot of daily stuff you don't use year.
Celcius
Metric
DD/MM/YYYY date sytem 
and so on.

Measuring with feet and inches was good enough for prehistory but please we are kind of civilized now.

+1


KM
Kg

too

What do those savages use instead of grammes?
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 15 April 2015, 17:54:32

What do those savages use instead of grammes?


After you get below about half an ounce, grams become the only realistic measure.

For cooking, there are still "quarter-teaspoons" and such, but it gets frustrating because although 1 teaspoon = 5 grams (easy) in liquid measure, but for dry powders and such the distinction between volume and weight becomes very significant.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: jacobolus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 19:35:41
The Metric system would be so amazing if we all switched to a base-12 number system. Base 10 is idiotic.

For consistency, we should also switch to base 12 for angles, instead of using 360 degrees, and probably for time as well, having 2-hour long "hours" (12 of them in a day) with 50-second long "minutes" (144 of them in an "hour"). We'd want to call them some microdays or something though, I’m not sure what the natural sounding prefixes would be.

The French concept of making a meter be one 40-thousandth of the earth’s circumference is sorta cute, but clashes obnoxiously with the Babylonian base-360/60 system we use for angle measure. I think the metric system people originally wanted us to switch to a 400-degree circle, but that never stuck (or I might be mis-remembering).  If we used base 12 for angle measures, we could make our basic unit about 1.3 centimeters long, and have the earth’s circumference be about 12^6 of them. (I’d be perfectly happy to accept other definitions of a basic length unit though. Being able to measure distances on the globe easily in terms of both angular and distance measures using the same number is nice but not really essential.)

While we’re at it, we should make sure that every digit and the various powers of 12 can be pronounced with one syllable each (needing two syllables for zero, seven, hundred, thousand, etc. is really unfortunate), ideally without any confusingly similar sounds, and abolish special forms for multi-digit numbers. Saying “fifty three” instead of “five ten three” is dumb, and words like “eleven” are terrible. Chinese people (and various others) get a free boost to understanding basic arithmetic simply by having a relatively sane way of naming all their numbers.

Also, whether you write dates as DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY, our calendar is awful either way. The Maya solar calendar was pretty good, but since we’re doing a base 12 system, we should probably have 12 months of 30 days each (six 5-day weeks per month would be my recommendation) instead of 18 months of 20 days, plus of course an extra week of 5–6 holiday days not part of any month.

I think fahrenheit is a bit more convenient than celsius in everyday use, but I don’t especially like either one. But I’m not going to worry about a better system for the moment, because there’s little chance we’ll ever be able to fix the base 10 problem.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: fohat.digs on Wed, 15 April 2015, 19:40:18
Truth there. The Neanderthals counted on 10 fingers, but 12 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, and 4, while 60 is divisible by 3, 4, and 5. But still base 10.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: jacobolus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 20:14:35
Also, while we’re at it, we should use a map similar to this instead of a stupid Mercator/Mollweide/Robinson/Winkel map:
(http://i.imgur.com/aDCMA2T.jpg)
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Novus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 21:30:59
Should I also switch to dvorak, maximize left turns and invent a new efficient easy to learn language without all these weird characteristics and idiosyncrasies while I'm at it?
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: jacobolus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 21:42:29
We should normalize English spelling, but inventing a new language and getting it adopted is even more impossible than switching away from the base 10 system.

Dvorak is fine, though you really should change the physical keyboard layout and only afterward figure out what logical layout to use.

Maximizing left turns sounds like exactly the opposite of what you want, in places where people drive on the right side of roads, but if we’re talking about traffic rules more generally, we should try to reduce car use wherever possible. Cars are basically giant death machines, privileging them has ruined our neighborhoods, long car commutes is one of the leading causes of unhappiness, the lack of basic exercise people used get from walking everywhere causes terrible health problems, and their carbon dioxide emissions are destroying our planet.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Novus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 21:44:28
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
... You do realize that was a rhetorical question right?
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Novus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 21:49:48
Oh right, it's right turns that are safer and faster.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: paicrai on Wed, 15 April 2015, 22:16:39

We should normalize English spelling, but inventing a new language and getting it adopted is even more impossible than switching away from the base 10 system.

Dvorak is fine, though you really should change the physical keyboard layout and only afterward figure out what logical layout to use.

Maximizing left turns sounds like exactly the opposite of what you want, in places where people drive on the right side of roads, but if we’re talking about traffic rules more generally, we should try to reduce car use wherever possible. Cars are basically giant death machines, privileging them has ruined our neighborhoods, long car commutes is one of the leading causes of unhappiness, and their carbon dioxide emissions are destroying our planet.
käften
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Air tree on Wed, 15 April 2015, 22:18:46
I'm such an american hipster, I spell honor as Honour.

2metric4you
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Novus on Wed, 15 April 2015, 23:09:59
I'm such an american hipster, I spell honor as Honour.

2metric4you

Maybe you just read too much harry potter as a kid and it rubbed off on you in which case you aren't a hipster :P
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: baldgye on Thu, 16 April 2015, 06:44:58
I'm such an american hipster, I spell honor as Hodor.

fixed it to the REAL AMERICAN version
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 16 April 2015, 22:45:43
I'm such an american hipster, I spell honor as Honour.

2metric4you

Maybe you just read too much harry potter as a kid and it rubbed off on you in which case you aren't a hipster :P

What does "too much Harry Potter" mean? I don't understand those words when used together.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: jacobolus on Fri, 17 April 2015, 00:21:15
What does "too much Harry Potter" mean? I don't understand those words when used together.
I think the implication is that reading many thousands of pages of mildly amusing but uninspired British children’s literature starts leading Americans to adopt British spelling.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: rowdy on Fri, 17 April 2015, 02:12:13
What does "too much Harry Potter" mean? I don't understand those words when used together.
I think the implication is that reading many thousands of pages of mildly amusing but uninspired British children�s literature starts leading Americans to adopt British spelling.

Ah.

That is understandable.

Although "uninspired"?
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: tbc on Fri, 17 April 2015, 03:56:28
harry potter is REALLY bad writing.

reading the first 10 pages literally triggered a vomit reflex after reading wheel of time and the shannara series.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: fohat.digs on Fri, 17 April 2015, 07:19:03
I read Harry Potter aloud to my children as "bedtime reading" when they were about 8 years old and it was a near-magical experience for the 3 of us. Their intellects were just awakening to the point of being able to understand it, and I was able to guide and explain whatever concepts that they were not ready for.

That sparked a real love for reading in them, and I had an epiphany about the power of reading aloud and story-telling in general. We read approximately a chapter a night, and finished the 6th book just about a week before the 7th was released. The first 6 books took a year and the last took at least another couple of months, so it was a long-term investment.

After that we did the entire Earthsea cycle by LeGuin and then Lord of the Rings. Each of those also took a year, and after that they were too old for bedtime reading.

"Revelation Space" or "Bas-Lag" it isn't, there is a proper place and time for a variety of stuff.

And my attitudes for The Queen's spelling and pronunciation were best informed by "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" .....
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: tp4tissue on Fri, 17 April 2015, 07:24:13
harry potter is REALLY bad writing.

reading the first 10 pages literally triggered a vomit reflex after reading wheel of time and the shannara series.

Harry potter is in plain english, it's a children's book.  (a LONG childrens book)

I don't think kids would understand or enjoy the florid prose and large vocabulary of more developed styles.

Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: Nai_Calus on Fri, 17 April 2015, 11:07:23
What does "too much Harry Potter" mean? I don't understand those words when used together.
I think the implication is that reading many thousands of pages of mildly amusing but uninspired British children’s literature starts leading Americans to adopt British spelling.

Except the books were actually 'translated'. The US versions eliminate the British spellings and word usages.
Title: Re: fahrenheit vs celsius
Post by: engicoder on Fri, 17 April 2015, 12:15:23
Also, while we’re at it, we should use a map similar to this instead of a stupid Mercator/Mollweide/Robinson/Winkel map:
Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/aDCMA2T.jpg)


I like the Cahill Butterfly map as well, but Canadians might not as it make Canada look much smaller.  ;D