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sarchertechtoday at 1:21 PM4 repliesview on HN

That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that a system where the majority of air temperatures in the vast majority of the country fall between 0 and 100 is slightly more convenient than one in which they fall between -17 and 37. 0 is really cold it doesn’t frequently get colder than that in most of the country. 100 is really hot, in most places it doesn’t get hotter than that.

Feet are slightly more convent for declining human sized things because meters are just a little too big to describe human height and centimeters are a bit you

If you were designing a system to describe humans with no other consideration you’d probably pick one where 10 units was the average human height. And feet is closer to that than meters. Also you can divide 12 by 6 and 3.

I’m not saying that customary is superior just that it does has certain advantages.


Replies

childintimetoday at 5:43 PM

You're suggesting it's not convenient to know when temps are below zero, or above. A quite critical distinction on the road actually.

Choose your poison.

llsftoday at 4:40 PM

Was in Fairbanks last weekend and it was -15F. So, having Fahrenheit staying positive for weather in US, is not really an argument. I am fine with Celsius based on water (0 freezing and 100 boiling). But I get that changing is confusing when you have adjusted your whole life to a system. If taught at school and displayed, in half a generation we could move to metric. Like others said groceries are already there.

jojomoddingtoday at 2:19 PM

Saying "I'm 5 feet 11 inches" requires about 3 digits, saying "I'm 180cm" also requires that many digits. It takes about as many syllables as well, because in practice you say "five-(feet)-e-leven" or "one-eighty" (Note that I don't know how to say US customary units out loud)

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mcntshtoday at 1:31 PM

You're just saying this because you're American and accustomed to it.

To you, a 0-100 scale makes sense but to me it doesn't because 0f (-17c) is way rarer of a temp than 100f (38c).

Anyway, from the metric perspective, most people look at it like... 0 is coat and boots weather, + 10 degrees is jacket weather, + 10 degrees is t-shirt weather, and + 10 degrees is hot. IMO, using "freezing" as the reference kinda makes sense...

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