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I'm very pro-metric, but Fahrenheit is nice for "human scale" temperatures. 0F is "very cold" and 100F is "very hot", with plenty of precision in between. 0C, on the other hand, is "kinda chilly" and 100C is "Oh my god, I'm dying".
As an example of this weird mixture: today I drove 48 miles at 60 or 70 mph to walk 20km up a mountain that is 975m high because it is over 3000 ft high.
I'm very pro-metric, but Fahrenheit is nice for "human scale" temperatures. 0F is "very cold" and 100F is "very hot", with plenty of precision in between. 0C, on the other hand, is "kinda chilly" and 100C is "Oh my god, I'm dying".
Does anyone have resources for other shortcut calculations for similar things? This particular one comes up a lot when speaking with my wife's family (they're from Mexico) but I've never tried to come up with a shortcut before. I'd love to see links to other resources, or recommendations for Math tricks for doing quicker mental math.
If you know the stops of the 6 train in Manhattan, the trick is that the stops are in Fahrenheit starting at 33rd street = 0˚ C. Each stop up town is +5˚C. Stays within 1˚C until 110th street.
So, every 9 streets from 33rd?
The stops are 33, 42, 51, 59, 68, 77, 86, 96, 103, which can also be read as ˚F.
The exact conversions are (˚C) 0.555, 5.555, 10.555, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35.555, 39.444 (I terminated the decimal repetitions, obviously)
The rule of thumb of 5˚ per stop is 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40.
Note that eg. 51-59 is 8 blocks, 86-96 is 10 blocks, 96-103 is 7. But the rule of thumb is nevertheless good to ~half a degree ˚C the whole way.
I'm very pro-metric, but Fahrenheit is nice for "human scale" temperatures. 0F is "very cold" and 100F is "very hot", with plenty of precision in between. 0C, on the other hand, is "kinda chilly" and 100C is "Oh my god, I'm dying".
0 in C is useful as the point of freezing. Very useful for determining things like whether rain is likely to turn to ice on roads, etc. I guarantee you that if you grew up using Kelvin, you’d be defending it right now. Spend a year looking at nothing but Celsius and you won’t need to go back: 0 and below is cold, 10 is spring time, 15 is jacket optional, 20-25 is warm, and 25+ is hot. That’s all you really need.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
0 in C is useful as the point of freezing. Very useful for determining things like whether rain is likely to turn to ice on roads, etc. I guarantee you that if you grew up using Kelvin, you’d be defending it right now. Spend a year looking at nothing but Celsius and you won’t need to go back: 0 and below is cold, 10 is spring time, 15 is jacket optional, 20-25 is warm, and 25+ is hot. That’s all you really need.
I'm not "defending" it... I'd be all for a wholesale switch to metric units. I simply said it's "nice" in one specific context.