• drowland (unregistered) in reply to Sgt. Preston
    Sgt. Preston:
    Ah, yes, "Canadian English"... the regional setting that even most Canadians don't think of. I work in Canada, for a Canadian-owned company, and all of my documents must be written in US English, because, of course, that's our larger market.
    Ah, the silly 'canadian english' setting in computers irks me. I'm Canadian. I speak English. I've yet to see a computer with a 'canadian english' keyboard. We use english US keyboards. Yet why do so many black-box computers ship pre-configured to "canadian english" region, canadian english keyboard layout (which means good luck finding the backslash key, it's supposedly in a different spot on this mythical "canadian english keyboard"), and default paper size set to A4 instead of 8.5x11 letter?
  • Lihtox (unregistered) in reply to Graham S
    Surely Celsius is a more natural fit for a programmer's brain?

    "Is it cold enough to freeze?" is expressed as (Temp_c <= 0)

    "Is it hot enough to boil water?" is (Temp_c >= 100)

    Surely programmers would have water boil at 256° or the like?

  • DeadEyeDusty (unregistered)

    How many Euro in a Loony? And how many Loonies to a Globo? Who, exactly, establishes the conversion rate, and are they subject to inflation? Is that pre-tax?

  • Zaphod (unregistered) in reply to DeadEyeDusty
    DeadEyeDusty:
    And how many Loonies to a Globo?
    42. How many did you think?
  • Frost Cat (unregistered) in reply to DeadEyeDusty
    DeadEyeDusty:
    How many Euro in a Loony? And how many Loonies to a Globo? Who, exactly, establishes the conversion rate, and are they subject to inflation? Is that pre-tax?
    I'm not sure about that, but there are 3 ningis to a pu.
  • Willie (unregistered) in reply to Graham S
    Graham S:
    Willie:
    The Real WTF is that they use Celsius for the weather.
    Surely Celsius is a more natural fit for a programmer's brain?

    "Is it cold enough to freeze?" is expressed as (Temp_c <= 0)

    "Is it hot enough to boil water?" is (Temp_c >= 100)

    That makes a lot more sense to me than using magic numbers: (Temp_f <= 32) or (Temp_f >= 212)

    Water is a magic number.

    Fahrenheit was calibrated on the weather (in the location of its invention). This is why noticable changes in your feelings of hot and cold happen in units of 10 (70s is pleasant, 60s is cool, 50s is put on a slightly heavy shirt, 80s is hot, 90s is burning up).

    Celsius was calibrated on water at sea level. That's why the weather only uses a tiny amount of the Celsius scale.

    Kelvin was calibrated on absolute zero. That's why it isn't used for the weather.

    Using Celsius for the weather is like using SQL to implement business logic.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Willie
    Willie:
    Fahrenheit was calibrated on the weather (in the location of its invention). This is why noticable changes in your feelings of hot and cold happen in units of 10 (70s is pleasant, 60s is cool, 50s is put on a slightly heavy shirt, 80s is hot, 90s is burning up).
    Fahrenheit was calibrated on such inaccurate terms that it had to be redefined later, guess what, based on water. Apart from that, for a human it's hard to notice a difference of 1°C. Why use a scale with even finer steps?
    Celsius was calibrated on water at sea level. That's why the weather only uses a tiny amount of the Celsius scale.
    You know, both Fahrenheit's and Kelvin's scale are infinite. So the weather indeed uses a very tiny amount of both scales.

    On the other hand, having the point of zero at "water freezes" is rather relevant in terms of weather, because this tells you to take your plants inside, drive more carefully, and not leave bottles/cans filled with water outside too long.

  • (cs) in reply to Erzengel
    Erzengel:
    Catprog:
    Don't you mean one that is inflammable
    Look up "inflammable" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inflammable), it means exactly the opposite of what you think it means. Yes, in- usually means "is not", but not in this case. Yes, English is a very odd language.
    Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
  • Sgt. Preston (unregistered) in reply to BrownHornet
    BrownHornet:
    Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
    English is a language, not a country, but it's a bizarre language indeed. The older form of the word is "inflammable", meaning able to be inflamed -- i.e., set on fire. The "in" prefix comes from the Latin preposition "in", meaning "in" or "into" as in "in flames", not from the Latin prefix "in", which negates the meaning of its base word. Misunderstanding of this distinction led some people to think that "inflammable" meant "immune to fire" and to coin "flammable" as a back-formation. Today, both are considered valid and they have exactly the same meaning, but "flammable" tends to produce less confusion.
  • (cs)

    The picure of the guy blowing in the wind should be a picture of someone splattered over a wall.

  • Mikoangelo (unregistered)

    The real WTF(tm) is that the wind direction pictures point in the exact opposite direction as intended.

    Unless those silly UKians have your direction names wrong too.

  • Willie (unregistered) in reply to Erzengel
    Erzengel:
    GuntherVB:
    It'll never survive anno 2590 by the time we will have a global currency that's not just for Europe. America could never adopt it.

    But by the time we spread across the galaxy thanks to Sender Spikes, we'll have adopted the Loony. (Kudos to anyone that understood that)

    Yeah but then we'll have to worry about entire planets following us around.

  • Willie (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous

    [quote user="Anonymous"][quote user="Willie"]Fahrenheit was calibrated on the weather (in the location of its invention). This is why noticable changes in your feelings of hot and cold happen in units of 10 (70s is pleasant, 60s is cool, 50s is put on a slightly heavy shirt, 80s is hot, 90s is burning up).[/quote] Fahrenheit was calibrated on such inaccurate terms that it had to be redefined later, guess what, based on water. Apart from that, for a human it's hard to notice a difference of 1°C. Why use a scale with even finer steps? [/qoute]

    It may have been finalized on water's freezing and boiling temperature but its 0-100 range fits excellently within the weather and has nice 10 degree increments of comfort level.

    Celsius's weather range is something like -17 to 38 which is much uglier for the phenomenon being measured.

    Units of 10 are pretty numbers for people.

    [quote] [quote]Celsius was calibrated on water at sea level. That's why the weather only uses a tiny amount of the Celsius scale.[/quote] You know, both Fahrenheit's and Kelvin's scale are infinite. So the weather indeed uses a very tiny amount of both scales.

    On the other hand, having the point of zero at "water freezes" is rather relevant in terms of weather, because this tells you to take your plants inside, drive more carefully, and not leave bottles/cans filled with water outside too long.[/quote]

    Yes but water boiling is rather irrelavent to the weather. 100 C outside probably means we just got hit by a big meteor and all life on the planet just died (or I have a house in a volcano).

    Fahrenheit was built for the weather and that's it. It's very good at its job. For cooking and chemistry its calibration is pretty crappy. It wasn't built for those applications.

    Celsius was built to be general purpose (cooking, chemistry, weather, etc.). It's more generally useful than Fahrenheit but not as good for the weather.

    Kelvin is just Celsius re-zeroed for physics, this makes it really only useful for physics.

    Celsius is the general purpose programming language (C/C#/Java/Ruby/Python/Perl) of temperature. Fahrenheit is the domain specific language (SQL).

  • Dr. Nick! (unregistered) in reply to Sgt. Preston
    Sgt. Preston:
    BrownHornet:
    Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
    English is a language, not a country, but it's a bizarre language indeed. The older form of the word is "inflammable", meaning able to be inflamed -- i.e., set on fire. The "in" prefix comes from the Latin preposition "in", meaning "in" or "into" as in "in flames", not from the Latin prefix "in", which negates the meaning of its base word. Misunderstanding of this distinction led some people to think that "inflammable" meant "immune to fire" and to coin "flammable" as a back-formation. Today, both are considered valid and they have exactly the same meaning, but "flammable" tends to produce less confusion.

    Evidently Simpson's quotes are lost on some people. Entertaining and informative nonetheless.

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to Graham S
    Graham S:
    Willie:
    The Real WTF is that they use Celsius for the weather.
    Surely Celsius is a more natural fit for a programmer's brain?

    "Is it cold enough to freeze?" is expressed as (Temp_c <= 0)

    "Is it hot enough to boil water?" is (Temp_c >= 100)

    That makes a lot more sense to me than using magic numbers: (Temp_f <= 32) or (Temp_f >= 212)

    The most important thing about temperature isn't water, it's us. And Fahrenheit is suited to the human scale: below 0 deg. F == too damn cold to be outside; above 100 deg. F == too damn hot to be outside.

    Chris Mattern

  • (cs) in reply to Willie

    [quote user="Willie"][quote user="Anonymous"][quote user="Willie"]Fahrenheit was calibrated on the weather (in the location of its invention). This is why noticable changes in your feelings of hot and cold happen in units of 10 (70s is pleasant, 60s is cool, 50s is put on a slightly heavy shirt, 80s is hot, 90s is burning up).[/quote] Fahrenheit was calibrated on such inaccurate terms that it had to be redefined later, guess what, based on water. Apart from that, for a human it's hard to notice a difference of 1°C. Why use a scale with even finer steps? [/qoute]

    It may have been finalized on water's freezing and boiling temperature but its 0-100 range fits excellently within the weather and has nice 10 degree increments of comfort level.

    Celsius's weather range is something like -17 to 38 which is much uglier for the phenomenon being measured.

    Units of 10 are pretty numbers for people.

    [quote] [quote]Celsius was calibrated on water at sea level. That's why the weather only uses a tiny amount of the Celsius scale.[/quote] You know, both Fahrenheit's and Kelvin's scale are infinite. So the weather indeed uses a very tiny amount of both scales.

    On the other hand, having the point of zero at "water freezes" is rather relevant in terms of weather, because this tells you to take your plants inside, drive more carefully, and not leave bottles/cans filled with water outside too long.[/quote]

    Yes but water boiling is rather irrelavent to the weather. 100 C outside probably means we just got hit by a big meteor and all life on the planet just died (or I have a house in a volcano).

    Fahrenheit was built for the weather and that's it. It's very good at its job. For cooking and chemistry its calibration is pretty crappy. It wasn't built for those applications.

    Celsius was built to be general purpose (cooking, chemistry, weather, etc.). It's more generally useful than Fahrenheit but not as good for the weather.

    Kelvin is just Celsius re-zeroed for physics, this makes it really only useful for physics.

    Celsius is the general purpose programming language (C/C#/Java/Ruby/Python/Perl) of temperature. Fahrenheit is the domain specific language (SQL).[/quote]

    ... and with global warming and all, Fahrenheit is becoming increasingly obsolete having been defined in a period of colder climate .............

  • (cs) in reply to BrownHornet
    BrownHornet:
    Erzengel:
    Catprog:
    Don't you mean one that is inflammable
    Look up "inflammable" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inflammable), it means exactly the opposite of what you think it means. Yes, in- usually means "is not", but not in this case. Yes, English is a very odd language.
    Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

    Hello, Dr Nick.

  • namezero111111 (unregistered)

    I think the real WTF is that someone used paint to draw the weather pictures!

  • namezero111111 (unregistered) in reply to Graham S
    Graham S:
    Willie:
    The Real WTF is that they use Celsius for the weather.
    Surely Celsius is a more natural fit for a programmer's brain?

    "Is it cold enough to freeze?" is expressed as (Temp_c <= 0)

    "Is it hot enough to boil water?" is (Temp_c >= 100)

    That makes a lot more sense to me than using magic numbers: (Temp_f <= 32) or (Temp_f >= 212)

    Only under standard atmospheric conditions - 59 Fahrenheit (15 Centigrade) and 29.92 inches of mercury (1013.2 millibars).

  • LooneyTunes (unregistered) in reply to Erzengel

    Of course, it's Canadian. And we have become almost as looney as our neighbors to the south what with our background checks turning back tourists because of 27 (!) year old pot busts.

  • (cs)

    Sheesh, wonder what the wind-chill factor is. Might be offset by air friction somewhat.

    Oddly this is the 2nd blog in the past hour where I've had to write this comment:

    "Flammable" is a word invented for dumbasses who think inflammable means not inflammable.

  • Joebone (unregistered) in reply to Mikoangelo
    Mikoangelo:
    The real WTF(tm) is that the wind direction pictures point in the exact opposite direction as intended.

    Unless those silly UKians have your direction names wrong too.

    Erm you do realise that the SSW or whatever direction signifies where the wind is coming from not where its going to, right? :p

  • (cs) in reply to Sgt. Preston
    Sgt. Preston:
    BrownHornet:
    Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
    English is a language, not a country, but it's a bizarre language indeed. The older form of the word is "inflammable", meaning able to be inflamed -- i.e., set on fire. The "in" prefix comes from the Latin preposition "in", meaning "in" or "into" as in "in flames", not from the Latin prefix "in", which negates the meaning of its base word. Misunderstanding of this distinction led some people to think that "inflammable" meant "immune to fire" and to coin "flammable" as a back-formation. Today, both are considered valid and they have exactly the same meaning, but "flammable" tends to produce less confusion.
    That was a quote from The Simpsons. See this link and search for "flammable".
  • (cs) in reply to marlow4
    marlow4:
    GuntherVB:
    From a programmer's point of perspective the euro is one big WTF, why name something "euro" if it's supposed to unify currency among countries?
    Umm, actually it's supposed to be the currency for the European Union, whence the name.

    Otherwise I'd concede that "globo" would've been a better name.

    Hmm. If we're talking about a global currency unit for Earth (or Terra or whatever we want to call it), and noting that all of those names basically mean "land" or "dirt", maybe we should trade in "clods" (as in dirt clods), or in "soil" (earning money could be to soil oneself), or...

  • Jordanwb (unregistered) in reply to 18Rabbit
    18Rabbit:
    Why is the temperature in Celsius but the wind speed is in miles per hour?

    Americans. <_<

    ShelteredCoder:
    The guy with the umbrella is awsome

    +1

  • TheAnonCoward (unregistered) in reply to verisimilidude
    verisimilidude:
    Without the ability to force anyone we just go on, inch by inch, mile by mile, while the rest of the world zips by going km/hr
    Except that 100 mph is faster than 100 km/hr.
  • Edward Cullen (unregistered)
    Comment held for moderation.

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