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The most official water costs $120k a gallon

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Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#121

Post by kelnos »

al_borland wrote: post #87
QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I think about where explicit temperatures are needed in the home, the oven and thermostat are the two things that come to mind. But in that case in what way is for example baking a frozen pizza from the store at 400 to 425 degrees F more relatable/convenient/natural than 200 to 220 degrees C?

It's not. When it comes to an oven, F and C are equally arbitrary, so it really doesn't matter. Optimize for what people use most, and let the other random uses fall as they may.

You have it backward. There's no absolute truth on what's optimal for what people use most. What's optimal is just what you were reinforcement-trained to feel when you were growing up as a child. That's it.

My wife says "30C" and knows exactly how that feels, while I struggle to find a reference point. I say "86F" and know exactly how that feels. Even though she prefers C, she can feel F slightly better than I feel C, as she moved to the US when she was in her teens. (Whereas I've spent my entire life in the US, outside of business and holiday travel.)

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#122

Post by kelnos »

clickety_clack wrote: post #36
ajmurmann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sense if weather is the main focus. For things like cooking Celsius is great though.

Aren’t you just remembering specific numbers though? Unless you’re trying to boil water unseen so that you can only see a thermometer, the specific 100°C mark isn't that useful.

> Aren’t you just remembering specific numbers though?

That's the thing about this. It's so tiring for people to argue which temperature scale is "better". Nothing is better or worse. What's "better" is individual, and is just "what you grew up with". Because right, you're just remembering specific numbers, and remembering how those temperatures feel. (Or in the case of cooking, remembering what those temperatures do to your food.)

> Unless you’re trying to boil water unseen so that you can only see a thermometer, the specific 100°C mark isn't that useful.

Even then it's not that useful, as water doesn't really boil the way most people think it does. (And god forbid you aren't at sea level and aren't at standard temperature and pressure.)

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#123

Post by kelnos »

quickthrowman wrote: post #70
ajmurmann wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sense if weather is the main focus. For things like cooking Celsius is great though.

The temperature water boils at is irrelevant when you can just look at it to see if it’s boiling. Any stove will get it hot enough, assuming you have enough energy.

Also if you set something to heat water until it's exactly 100C/212F, it probably won't be boiling when it gets there. Some bits of it might be bubbling, but it won't be what we normally think of as "boiling".

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#124

Post by bananamogul »

Timpanzee wrote: post #56
al_borland wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always been my primary argument in favor of Fahrenheit. It makes sense for humans, which is all a majority of the population really cares about. In addition, it's more granular. Sometimes turning the thermostat up or down by 1C could be too much, where 1F is just right. In science and math, I can see where having round numbers for commonly used temperatures would be useful, but if 0C and 100C are the only pl…

You only think it makes sense for humans because it makes sense for you, where you live the same way you feel changing a thermostat by 1F is perfect but 1C is too much: that’s true for you, not universally. Fahrenheit functionally requires you to be biased in order for it to seem like a good system.

Actually, 1 degree of Fahrenheit is the amount of temperature change a typical human can connect. It's a human-calibrated scale.

Though why 32F instead of 0F for frozen water...I have no idea.

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#125

Post by tedd4u »

colechristensen wrote: post #83
a3w wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much volume is that for the rest of the world? Really unscientific article.

Unless you're actually measuring something with any importance, a gallon is about 4 liters. More closely 3.78541... But saying a quart and a liter are about equal is often good enough.

As long as you also know a gallon is 4.0… quarts

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#127

Post by kelnos »

clickety_clack wrote: post #33
warmdarksea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is actually why i like fahrenheit the most... 0F is "really cold" and 100F is "really hot", whereas in celsius 0C is "kind of cold" and 100C is "uninhabitable". it makes sense for the 0-100 range to be reserved for temperatures frequently encountered in our habitat as humans i think...

I actually came around to Fahrenheit for the exact same reason. 0°F and 100°F are kind of the top and bottom of the temperature range I’m going to be experiencing and anything outside that is waaay too hot or cold. In Celsius a large portion of people have to flip to negative numbers regularly during the normal year, and everything between 45°C and 100°C is completely unused.

I dunno, temperature doesn't really work like that. As a sibling mentioned, saunas: I can sit in a 190F dry sauna for about a half hour at a time and it feels hot but nice and soothing. But I can only handle a 120F steam room for maybe 10 minutes before I need to get out of there. (Speaking of the dry sauna, if someone pours a bit of water on the stones, it near-instantly feels significantly hotter, even though the temperature hasn't changed.)

Put another way, I can sit in a 190F sauna for a half hour, but a half hour out in the sun in, say, Singapore, feels awful to me. 85F where I live now (unusual but happens), in a relatively dry climate, is bearable, while the same temperature where I grew up, in a much more humid place (where it was more common), feels gross and saps my energy.

And I can be out snowboarding in 25F weather that's calm and sunny, and feel fine in a medium-weight clothing. But add clouds and wind, at the same temperature, and it's unbearable.

And to me, based on the temperatures I usually see, 15F is waaay too cold, and 90F is waaay too hot. Sure, I guess I could round that down to 100F and up to 100F, but that just feels like being arbitrary for the sake of easy numbers.

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#128

Post by VTimofeenko »

Duanemclemore wrote: post #113

NIST Cigarettes are a mere $204 per carton. Depending on what state you live in, that's not bad these days. https://shop.nist.gov/ccrz__ProductDetails?sku=1196a&cclcl=e...

Shows $508 for 2 cartons, so 254 per. NY has probably most expensive smokes, ranging $140-155 per carton

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#129

Post by chrismorgan »

kelnos wrote: post #114
Timpanzee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only think it makes sense for humans because it makes sense for you, where you live the same way you feel changing a thermostat by 1F is perfect but 1C is too much: that’s true for you, not universally. Fahrenheit functionally requires you to be biased in order for it to seem like a good system.

Every non-US thermostat I've seen that works in Celsius is adjustable by half-degrees, so it seems the manufacturers agree with my feeling there...

Living in Australia and India, I have never encountered such a thermostat. But I do vaguely recall encountering a thermostat somewhere at some point that went up by twos in Fahrenheit.

I would guess you would only encounter ½°C steps on units that support both Celsius and Fahrenheit, so that they’re closer to parity. I don’t think any unit that I’ve owned has supported Fahrenheit at all.

Re: The most official water costs $120k a gallon

#130

Post by chrismorgan »

bananamogul wrote: post #124
Timpanzee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only think it makes sense for humans because it makes sense for you, where you live the same way you feel changing a thermostat by 1F is perfect but 1C is too much: that’s true for you, not universally. Fahrenheit functionally requires you to be biased in order for it to seem like a good system.

Actually, 1 degree of Fahrenheit is the amount of temperature change a typical human can connect. It's a human-calibrated scale. Though why 32F instead of 0F for frozen water...I have no idea.

> 1 degree of Fahrenheit is the amount of temperature change a typical human can connect

Citation needed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit suggests no such thing, nor have I ever heard the notion.

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