Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius • Hacker News Board

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#51

Post by arlort » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

troad wrote: post #44

nly wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British. Let me give you some intuition. 30C+ is too hot to go outside. 20-30C is a hot summer. 12-20C is the rest of the year. 0-12C is jumper weather or freezing to death in your home, depending on whether you can afford your energy bill. <0C is fucking Baltic.

As I said, I grew up with and actively use Celsius, so I’m unsure why you’re explaining it in a reply to me. I’m also Australian, so your ranges are wildly off for my climate. Summers don’t get started until the 30 C days, and less than 20 C is the heart of winter. Celsius has many strengths, and is obviously better suited for scientific purposes. Fahrenheit is handy for outdoor temperatures. That doesn’t mean Celsiu…

> and is obviously better suited for scientific purposes

Celsius and Fahrenheit are equally arbitrary / bad for scientific purposes, Kelvin is the only scale that makes sense since it's zeroed at absolute zero. Celsius is only marginally better than Fahrenheit in that you mostly deal with temperature increments rather than absolute values and celsius increments are the same as kelvin increments

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#52

Post by piva00 » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:40 AM UTC

saargrin wrote: post #40

27C is intolerable to work in..

I work from home most days, living in Sweden which makes me more used to colder temps. Some weeks ago we had a few days over 27C and my working space thermometer measured 26C inside. It was perfectly comfortable.

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#53

Post by arlort » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

isametry wrote: post #10

mathgladiator wrote: post #5

For whatever reason, I don't comprehend Celsius intuitively. I convert that to Fahrenheit and see 80.6 degrees. Is Spain dry? Or humid? I would revolt as I much prefer cold.

Sometimes I wonder why I constantly hear the Fahrenheit people whine about Celsius, but almost never the other way around. https://i.ibb.co/7zJ640F/d9p762f83xw71-jpg.webp

I think it might be because Fahrenheit is the one unit in the US customary system which is not particularly arbitrary compared to the metric equivalent and it actually has some advantages in day to day use since it maps pretty well to human temperatures

It probably has an element of catharsis for people on the receiving end of "metric is superior" whining to point out celsius is not particularly rational

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#54

Post by piva00 » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:43 AM UTC

arlort wrote: post #51

troad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, I grew up with and actively use Celsius, so I’m unsure why you’re explaining it in a reply to me. I’m also Australian, so your ranges are wildly off for my climate. Summers don’t get started until the 30 C days, and less than 20 C is the heart of winter. Celsius has many strengths, and is obviously better suited for scientific purposes. Fahrenheit is handy for outdoor temperatures. That doesn’t mean Celsiu…

> and is obviously better suited for scientific purposes Celsius and Fahrenheit are equally arbitrary / bad for scientific purposes, Kelvin is the only scale that makes sense since it's zeroed at absolute zero. Celsius is only marginally better than Fahrenheit in that you mostly deal with temperature increments rather than absolute values and celsius increments are the same as kelvin increments

Celsius and Kelvin are the same scale with just different starting points for 0. So I wouldn't say it's on the same league as Fahrenheit for scientific purposes, you just need to sum/subtract -273.15 to convert. F to C or K is a much more cumbersome conversion comparatively.

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#55

Post by tnova » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:54 AM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #52

saargrin wrote: post #40

27C is intolerable to work in..

I work from home most days, living in Sweden which makes me more used to colder temps. Some weeks ago we had a few days over 27C and my working space thermometer measured 26C inside. It was perfectly comfortable.

My working space thermometer was also measuring 26C last week and I was very uncomfortable. Tolerance for warm and cold temperatures is different for everyone.

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#56

Post by Macha » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:55 AM UTC

troad wrote: post #27

midasz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because you didn't grow up with Celcius. Celcius makes sense because it's based on water, 0 is freezing and 100 is boiling. What's Fahrenheit based on? Anything we use in our daily lives?

Yes, it’s incredibly useful for outdoor temperature. 0 F means it’s very cold, 100 F means it’s very hot. Meanwhile, 0 C means it’s sort of a little cold, and 100 C means your eyes will melt. I grew up with and actively use Celsius, but this instinctive disdain for other measurement systems leaves me… a little cold. It’s not even like Fahrenheit has weird non-decimal ratios. Save your mocking for the avoirdupois furl…

100C is also very hot.

What's your standard of too hot? Uncomfortably hot? From the climate I'm used to then 80F qualifies. I'm not sure 80F is any less arbitrary a threshold than 25C. Don't confuse "my personal range of comfortable temperatures goes from 0-100F" with "0-100F maps neatly to every person's preferred temperature range and therefore is an advantage to fahrenheit"

(and that's before we get into the effects of humidity, or if outdoors, windspeed, on perception of temperature)

Similarly, 0F is -18C. -18C in my country would be a minor disaster, given our historical low is -5C. Our usual yearly low is about 0C, and 0C is more logical here than 32F, with negative temperatures actually being exceptional

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#57

Post by manuelabeledo » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 9:58 AM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #35

manuelabeledo wrote: post #19

For context, A/C in public places is not as prevalent as in the US. In some large retailers, e.g. El Corte Ingles, it's set to ~24 degrees Celsius, quite lower than outdoors, especially in the larger cities of Central, Southern, and Mediterranean Spain. It feels really cold. Anyway, the odd voice here is the one from the president of the Madrid region, who went on Twitter to say that they won't comply, mostly not bec…

> Personally, it sounds like the stupidest hill to die on. Lit showcases are an anti theft measure too...

How so?

I mean, in a world where alarm systems usually include vibration and glass break detectors, cameras with night vision, and redundant phones for early alerts, do we really need showcases to be lit all night long?

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#58

Post by manuelabeledo » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 10:01 AM UTC

hgazx wrote: post #31

manuelabeledo wrote: post #19

For context, A/C in public places is not as prevalent as in the US. In some large retailers, e.g. El Corte Ingles, it's set to ~24 degrees Celsius, quite lower than outdoors, especially in the larger cities of Central, Southern, and Mediterranean Spain. It feels really cold. Anyway, the odd voice here is the one from the president of the Madrid region, who went on Twitter to say that they won't comply, mostly not bec…

Freedom is a good hill to die on.

Then, they alone should suffer the consequences, right?

If they refuse to acknowledge that Spain is in dire need of saving energy, then they should be the first ones to be shut down if/when there is no enough power to warm up the country on winter.

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#59

Post by ciconia » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 10:08 AM UTC

What would a modern human do without technology? Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort. Personally I find this ridiculous. Our bodies are perfectly capable of regulating their temperature over a pretty wide range of circumstances, especially with the help of adequate clothing, yet people are complaining about 18c in the winter or 25c in the summer.

Re: Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

#60

Post by manuelabeledo » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 10:13 AM UTC

ciconia wrote: post #59

What would a modern human do without technology? Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort. Personally I find this ridiculous. Our bodies are perfectly capable of regulating their temperature over a pretty wide range of circumstances, especially with the help of adequate clothing, yet people are complaining about 18c in the winter or 25c in the summe…

> Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort.

You could use the same argument against any modern technology.

A car? Our bodies are designed to walk for hours. A hot shower? Our bodies can withstand cold water, and don't need to be washed every day anyway. And so on and so forth.