• ricecake
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

        • ricecake
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          8 months ago

          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.

      • ricecake
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        8 months ago

        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.

        • alvvayson@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          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.

          • ricecake
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            8 months ago

            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.

      • merc
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        8 months ago

        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!
    • merc
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • ricecake
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        8 months ago

        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.

        • merc
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          8 months ago

          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.

          • ricecake
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            8 months ago

            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.

            • merc
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              8 months ago

              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.