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> NOAA needs to justify why they're ADDING ift in 2023 rather than just scrapping sft? The reason is well known. American exceptionalism. Personally I've jus

by 77pt77 4y ago

> NOAA needs to justify why they're ADDING ift in 2023 rather than just scrapping sft? The reason is well known. American exceptionalism. Personally I've just given up on the USA dropping anything legacy for international standards. Things will only get worse, as this example clearly shows.

kibwen 4y ago
This is needlessly pessimistic. The US has been, ahem, inching its way towards metrication for decades. It's not a particularly sexy or urgent topic, and it's staunchly opposed by a certain vocal segment of the populace, but industry, academia, and the government (including the military) have been making metric the default (and sometimes the only option) in more and more places. Previously the big win was in requiring consumer packaging to label in both customary and metric; nowadays the big win is that goods themselves are increasingly sold in nice round metric numbers with a customary conversion rather than the other way around. Give it another generation or so and we'll be in no worse a position than Canada or the UK is today.
- ericd 4y ago
  The only one I’m going to be sad about is going from Fahrenheit to Celsius, outside of the slightly harder to remember water freezing and boiling points, Fahrenheit seems like it has a better UX for weather comfort. Because the scale is spread out more, each 10 degrees corresponds pretty well to a type of dress, whereas a 10 degree swing in Celsius is pretty drastic. I’m sure Celsius users have their own mental mapping for that, but it‘s not going to be simple 10 degree bands.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Because the scale is spread out more, each 10 degrees corresponds pretty well to a type of dress, whereas a 10 degree swing in Celsius is pretty drastic. On the level of comfort and dress, looking at a ±10°F as a change of clothing type corresponds reasonably closely to viewing ±5°C in the same way. Seems like, while there is a familiarization period, its not likely to be any less convenient long term.
    - ericd 4y ago
      Yeah, that’s roughly what I was guessing based on the conversion, so just slightly worse on that front. There’s also something aesthetically pleasing about having a normal temperature range that’s essentially 0 to 100, rather than -20 to 40.
      - kortilla 4y ago
        Why is -10F not as normal as 0F? Seems arbitrary.
  - nephanth 4y ago
    On the flip side, Celsius is well suited to measure weather, because I can actually feel a 1~2°C shift in air temperature whereas 1~2°F is more faint
- kergonath 4y ago
  > Give it another generation or so and we'll be in no worse a position than Canada or the UK is today. On the other hand, give it another generation and the UK will be in a worse position than the US’ today…

by 77pt77 4y ago

kibwen 4y ago

This is needlessly pessimistic. The US has been, ahem, inching its way towards metrication for decades. It's not a particularly sexy or urgent topic, and it's staunchly opposed by a certain vocal segment of the populace, but industry, academia, and the government (including the military) have been making metric the default (and sometimes the only option) in more and more places. Previously the big win was in requiring consumer packaging to label in both customary and metric; nowadays the big win is that goods themselves are increasingly sold in nice round metric numbers with a customary conversion rather than the other way around. Give it another generation or so and we'll be in no worse a position than Canada or the UK is today.

ericd 4y ago
The only one I’m going to be sad about is going from Fahrenheit to Celsius, outside of the slightly harder to remember water freezing and boiling points, Fahrenheit seems like it has a better UX for weather comfort. Because the scale is spread out more, each 10 degrees corresponds pretty well to a type of dress, whereas a 10 degree swing in Celsius is pretty drastic. I’m sure Celsius users have their own mental mapping for that, but it‘s not going to be simple 10 degree bands.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Because the scale is spread out more, each 10 degrees corresponds pretty well to a type of dress, whereas a 10 degree swing in Celsius is pretty drastic. On the level of comfort and dress, looking at a ±10°F as a change of clothing type corresponds reasonably closely to viewing ±5°C in the same way. Seems like, while there is a familiarization period, its not likely to be any less convenient long term.
  - ericd 4y ago
    Yeah, that’s roughly what I was guessing based on the conversion, so just slightly worse on that front. There’s also something aesthetically pleasing about having a normal temperature range that’s essentially 0 to 100, rather than -20 to 40.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      Why is -10F not as normal as 0F? Seems arbitrary.
- nephanth 4y ago
  On the flip side, Celsius is well suited to measure weather, because I can actually feel a 1~2°C shift in air temperature whereas 1~2°F is more faint
kergonath 4y ago
> Give it another generation or so and we'll be in no worse a position than Canada or the UK is today. On the other hand, give it another generation and the UK will be in a worse position than the US’ today…