We’re taught both metric and US customary units in school. I prefer metric for most things, to the point I have a metric-only tape measure among other things.

However, I’ll die on the hill that Fahrenheit is superior for ambient air temperature. 0 degrees to 100 degrees neatly encompasses the range of average surface temperatures seen throughout the year in the contiguous US.

  • smeg
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    3 days ago

    I always preferred metric and Celsius. When I lived in South Korea, I was able to adapt immediately. Now I live in Europe and it makes all of the conversions easier.

    Americans resistant to metric, in my opinion, are not very smart.

    • sorghum@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Murican’ here. The only place I prefer Fahrenheit is in weather mainly for how ironically base 10 it scales for human related comfortability for outdoor activity.

      100°+ dangerous heat

      90s very hot, drink lots of water

      80s shorts weather

      70s comfortable

      60s long sleeves

      50s jacket weather

      40s bring a coat

      30s coat and hat (water freezing is here at 32°)

      20s layers

      10s insulated layers

      0s very cold, protect exposed skin

      -0s dangerous cold

      Everywhere else I’m fine for C°

      • smeg
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        3 days ago

        30 is hot

        20 is not

        10 is cool

        0 is freezing

        -10 is terribly cold

      • Orygin@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        You can just scale it down and have the same experience. It’s all just habit and familiarity

          • schnapsman@feddit.org
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            3 days ago

            Base 10 is nice for crossing regimes of scales, orders of magnitude. But we don’t really engage with temperature that way. The problem I have with F-heit on its own, is that it’s much too precise. The difference of a degree is meaningless, especially when considering weather. Fahrenheit weather maps are cluttered, dials and buttons on thermostats and in cars are slow, thermometer readings change too frequently, etc. USian shoe sizes have the opposite problem. If you need to use half sizes all the time then FFS just multiply the scale by 2.

          • Orygin@sh.itjust.works
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            3 days ago

            That’s incidental:

            he adjusted the scale so that the melting point of ice would be 32 degrees, and body temperature 96 degrees, so that 64 intervals would separate the two, allowing him to mark degree lines on his instruments by simply bisecting the interval 6 times (since 64 = 2⁶).