this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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What? I have never ever had a discussion in my life about tenths of celsius when discussing weather or thermostat. Nobody does that. The units are small enough to be used in majors.
Freezing is excellent point of reference when you think about what effects it has on our lives. When water freezes, roads get frozen. When water freezes, pipes might blow up. When temperature reaches 0 Fahrenheit, nothing happens. Everything is same as 1 fahrenheit, or -1 fahrenheit. Nothing has changed, it is completely arbitrary.
Many Celsius thermostats increment in .5 degrees. Both systems are completely arbitrary.
This is literally all about what you're used to.
From my "UX" I know that
I have no idea what 70F is - because I've never used it.
70% of what?! What I consider hot, living in the north of England, is very different to what someone in Spain, or Nigeria, would consider hot.
Temperature isn't volume, no one can conceptualise a 70% reduction in temperature because it's literally not how any one, nor any scale other than Kelvin, considers it.
You can't, like, grab heat and go "oh yea, there's less here".
Absolute clown shoes.
Edit: typos, various shit.
Except that's not true, the deadly zones start earlier than that.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/excessmortalityduringheatperiods/englandandwales1juneto31august2022
20C is 68F, 30C is 86F.
While the report does make it clear that these were already vulnerable people who were already expected to die soon - within weeks or maybe months - it was the heatwave that pushed them over the edge.
In the UK, with our brick houses built to absorb and retain heat, and absence of AC, average temps above 20C/68F do kill.
Similarly, it's reported that two thirds of the deaths in the 2021 Texas storm were due to hypothemia, in a state where houses are also built to shed heat. For the majority of the state, as seen in the article below, the temps were negative C but above 0F. I also think it's fair to suggest a good many of these people were likely already vulnerable.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56095479
I absolutely agree that 0F and below temps are even colder, and even more deadly, but to suggest that is where it starts to be deadly is wrong.
Ultimately how humans experience and deal with tempurature has nothing to do with the scale we use to measure it, but what it is compared to what we are used to and how prepared we are to protect ourself against being "too hot" or "too cold". It's pretty much a perfect example of subjectivity.
If you prefer to use F than C, or K, or any other method, then go for it. But to try and argue that either method is inheriantly better or superior based solely on subjectivity is a fools errand.
Everything in metric is defined around distilled fresh water. The temp scales between 0-100 for solid/ice and gas/stream, and because water is almost incompressible then weight, quantity and volume all interact as well (1kg of water = 1 litre, 1 metre^3 = 1000kg = 1000litres).
Is that easier? I bake a lot, so not having to measure volume for water and instead being able to use weight as a 1:1 conversion sure makes easier when hydrating mixtures - but my oven being at 200C or ~400F makes no practical difference. Again it's just what we're used to.
That said, and I get why they were invented, but using cups, and thus volume, for compressible ingredients like flour honestly makes no sense. But now we're wildly off topic.
Wow.
Btw, I literally said I live in the north of England a few messages ago.
As covered in my essay.
I absolutely agree.
But that was not your original argument though.
You are/were, at that point, trying to argue that F is objectively better. All of my comments, including my first one, are pointing out that not only does F mean nothing to me because I don't use it, but also that what I consider hot or cold is different to someone living in a hotter or colder country than me.
There is no objectivity in how humans experience temperature on a personal level, it is all subjective and based on what we are used to.
If F works for you in the way you describe that's great. But to claim that counts for everyone is simply wrong.
There's literally nothing else I can say on this, so if you fancy having the last word then go ahead.