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Show HN: Degrees What?

degreeswhat.com

31–40 of 124 posts

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#32
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was tempted to add device orientation for mobile, but figured people might think it was an actual compass, and AFAIK support is a bit spotty.

It's a challenge and it'll force you to ask what and why are you doing this for. There's "real life navigation" - these things matter at high and low latitudes, and near massive iron deposits such as Kursk, not so much elsewhere - although orienteering with magnetic compass only requires understanding of local deviations. There's also "teaching geodesy" - which might allow you to simulate changes of location etc. All…

> why are you doing this for

Honestly, I just thought it would be an amusing way to convert temperature, and a subtle dig at people who don't use the correct units. I don't want people to use this as an actual compass, and get themselves lost because of it.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#34
post #4

Congrats on a good execution of a fun idea. The mobile UX feels very good. Also sorry to be that guy but: > when people specify a temperature in "degrees" when it’s not clear from the context which scale is being used. It should be degrees Celsius. Anything else is just insane ;)

"Degrees Kelvin". Yeah, I've actually heard that.

It's an obsolete name, but was official at one point.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#35

Congrats on a good execution of a fun idea. The mobile UX feels very good. Also sorry to be that guy but: > when people specify a temperature in "degrees" when it’s not clear from the context which scale is being used. It should be degrees Celsius. Anything else is just insane ;)

Most of my use of degrees is either in cooking or weather. Having a larger scale means more accuracy, seeing as we don't use decimals in either. I'm not saying it makes a ton of sense, but my only real defense of it. That said, I find negative units rather silly in most measurements, so we should really be using K I think.

> * Most of my use of degrees is either in cooking or weather. Having a larger scale means more accuracy, seeing as we don't use decimals in either.*

That's your choice though. Outside temperature cannot be measured precisely enough to warrant decimals (it's supposed to be 17.4°C outside but who can tell the difference with 17°C or 18°C...) but my car's A/C is set to 21.5°C and my home's heating is set to 19.5°C.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#36
This design reminds me an example from Jef Raskin’s book about user interfaces. Instead of choosing a mode (C->F, F->C) it just shows both results, so a user can pick what they need without interacting.

It would be cool if compass was inertial.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#37
post #31

Next convert it to radians.

Give the angle not only in radians, but also in units of tau https://math.fandom.com/wiki/Tau_(constant) ;-)

In landscape orientation there's radians, gons, turns, and °Ra conversions as well as °C and °F.

I use tau in the code actually. JS trig functions use radians, and SVG uses degrees; when I convert I use tau instead of pi.

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#38
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go below absolute zero, but things get weird. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130104143516.h...

That seems to be taking a theoretical approach. I don't think there are any experiments that have proven it is possible?

Negative temperature is a perfectly normal and well-studied phenomenon with lots of common examples. Temperature is defined as the rate of change of entropy wrt internal energy, usually more energy means more entropy, but it's not a given.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_temperature

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#39
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go below absolute zero, but things get weird. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130104143516.h...

That seems to be taking a theoretical approach. I don't think there are any experiments that have proven it is possible?

Probably not, that's why it's called "absolute" zero

Re: Show HN: Degrees What?

#40
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can go below absolute zero, but things get weird. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130104143516.h...

That seems to be taking a theoretical approach. I don't think there are any experiments that have proven it is possible?

Population inversion is a thing; many lasers exhibit this behaviour.

But we tend not to talk about the 'temperature' of electron energy levels. If we did, then they would have negative temperature.

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