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Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

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Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#51
post #37

A bit related, but I hate how many errors I get because I want my system language to be English instead of my native language (Norwegian) on my laptop, phone etc. Because I don't want a badly translated experience. However, I still want units in meters, Celsius, dates written sensibly, time in 24h format etc. But not all apps understand this, which is quite annoying. It's like they only look at the language and make…

I'm Italian and I have the same problem. You just have to set the system to English (UK) and all your problems will be fixed :)

I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the "C" locale seems to default to metric units and a 24-hours date format.

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#52

A bit related, but I hate how many errors I get because I want my system language to be English instead of my native language (Norwegian) on my laptop, phone etc. Because I don't want a badly translated experience. However, I still want units in meters, Celsius, dates written sensibly, time in 24h format etc. But not all apps understand this, which is quite annoying. It's like they only look at the language and make…

You don't know the pain until you move to Switzerland. Geolocalisation to German websites or language, numerical format is a mess (sometimes thousand separators are either ' or space, huge mess in excel), cloud Saas providers believe only fr-FR or de-DE exists. Just awful...

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#53

It's not hard at all, the localization team just made a mistake. The solution is to not localize for Americans.

Maybe it helps to push for Murica to finally adapt SI units.

All American countries outside the USA already use °C

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/references/weights-an...

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#54

Hard? So is using the degree symbol apparently: not a single one in the whole article. (68F is not a temperature — it’s a seat number.) https://degreeswhat.com/?68

No, 68 farads is a capacitance. Pretty massive one, too. It's another question how they obtain that from coulombs...

That would be 68 F, not 86F.

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#55
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, 68 farads is a capacitance. Pretty massive one, too. It's another question how they obtain that from coulombs...

That would be 68 F [1]. I agree with parent, 68F is a seat number. [1] https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html (number 15).

After using siunitx[1], I have taken great care to ensure the spacing of measures and their corresponding units.

[1]: https://ctan.org/pkg/siunitx?lang=en

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#57

It's not hard at all, the localization team just made a mistake. The solution is to not localize for Americans.

Yes just ignore the vast majority of native English speakers. I wonder why an English-language newspaper (which heavily markets itself outside the UK) didn’t think of that.

"vast majority" is a bit of a hyperbole; there are more English speakers outside of the USA than in it, though it's close to 50/50, and it's indeed the country with the most English speakers.

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#58
post #23
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the degrees that measure an angle.

No - An angle can be measured from an arbitrary point, and thus "0°" is not a true zero. "0° on a circle" (for example) doesn't make sense. It has to be 0° _from somewhere._

180° on a circle makes a lot of sense, it’s half the circle. Just like a meter makes sense, it’s a unit of distance.

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#59

One thing that really annoys me is youtube translating video titles - why would I ever want the title of an english language video to be translated?

If I didn't speak English, I'm sure I would appreciate it. E.g. to swap the roles, while I'm sure some wouldn't mind but I'd guess that the majority of people who watch anime appreciate the anime titles have English translations, even if they watch in Japanese (with subtitles).

Re: Localization Failure: Temperature Is Hard

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes just ignore the vast majority of native English speakers. I wonder why an English-language newspaper (which heavily markets itself outside the UK) didn’t think of that.

"vast majority" is a bit of a hyperbole; there are more English speakers outside of the USA than in it, though it's close to 50/50, and it's indeed the country with the most English speakers.

I did say native English speakers, but regardless, the point stands that the US is an extremely important market for any media targeting itself to the broader Anglosphere.
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