• Sven (unregistered)

    I've had a day like that.

    [image]

    Either that or live.com was confusing Celcius and Fahrenheit. :P

  • (cs) in reply to Glenn Lasher
    Glenn Lasher:
    The real WTF (Worse Than Failure) is that no one started a flame war about thermal metrics in Europe, USA and latin America.

    That's because, in measuring temperature, they are technically both wrong.

    Measuring temperature in kelvins, you still have the relic of centigrade (by virtue of there being 100 units between water freezing and boiling), but you do end up with a number that, for any fixed quantity of matter, will be proportional to the amount of heat embodied in that matter.

    Of course, there is the practical matter, that measuring temperature in kelvins results in numbers that are necessarily large at any normal surface temperature. This makes centigrade a bit more practical, because it is anchored to events that are familiar to everyone.

    Fahrenheit, on the other hand, is just fucked up.

    Happy now?

    Fahrenheit has two (admittedly minor) advantages: It's esoteric (and hence, more fun), and it gives finer grain accuracy without resorting to decimals. Everybody knows the decimal point was created by ivory tower eggheads to hold back the common man.

    The shocking truth about Fahrenheit!

  • (cs)

    The extreme temperature is due to a forest fire in the Alpine region. (Obviously, I don't get it.)

  • Zygo (unregistered)

    At 670 degF, flesh doesn't melt off bones. The skin will burn into a crispy (but delicious) shell thanks to the Maillard reaction, but unfortunately by the time the interior of the meat has risen to a safe microbe-free temperature, the exterior will be dry, tough and leathery, and the smaller extremeties (like noses, ears, fingers and toes) will be burnt to charcoal.

    If you want flesh to melt off the bones, you'll need to cook longer at a lower temperature, long enough to dissolve the collagens but not so hot that all the water boils away.

  • Hannibal (unregistered) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    At 670 degF, flesh doesn't melt off bones. The skin will burn into a crispy (but delicious) shell thanks to the Maillard reaction, but unfortunately by the time the interior of the meat has risen to a safe microbe-free temperature, the exterior will be dry, tough and leathery, and the smaller extremeties (like noses, ears, fingers and toes) will be burnt to charcoal.

    If you want flesh to melt off the bones, you'll need to cook longer at a lower temperature, long enough to dissolve the collagens but not so hot that all the water boils away.

    Thanks for the tip. Can't wait to give it a try.

  • nebbian (unregistered) in reply to Edowyth
    Edowyth:
    EDIT: The reason the USA still uses Fahrenheit is because it would simply be too expensive and time consuming to work our minds around another scale.

    This is funny on so many levels...

  • (cs) in reply to Glenn Lasher
    Glenn Lasher:
    Of course, there is the practical matter, that measuring temperature in kelvins results in numbers that are necessarily large at any normal surface temperature. This makes centigrade a bit more practical, because it is anchored to events that are familiar to everyone.

    Fahrenheit, on the other hand, is just fucked up.

    Happy now?

    Celsius is wonderful for discussing science. But it doesn't work so well it discussing human feelings.

    Can you tell the difference between 100 degrees celsius and 90? 80? 70?

    The Farenheight scale was created with humans in mind. 0 is cold, 100 is hot. And a good portion of the population, spends a good portion of their time living at temps between 0 and 100.

    When talking about whether a day is going to be hot or not, what does the boiling point of water at a certain atmosphere have to do with anything?

  • (cs) in reply to Martin
    Martin:
    Whopping 34 C last night, even though the show falling is quite visible.. And this is not human entry.. [image] And yes, it *is* usually a celcius display.. I just realized that the temperature is pretty accurate had it been farenheit.

    Yeah, saw that yesterday as well. No camphone handy, though :)

    And no, that display never shows Fahrenheit. Keep those non-SI units on the West side of the pond, please.

  • anonymous (unregistered)

    Damn, I guess global warming is happening (in Alpine at least)

    Here's a recent weather report for the Midwest.

    [image]

    Time to start building an arch?

  • (cs) in reply to anonymous
    anonymous :
    Damn, I guess global warming is happening (in Alpine at least)

    Here's a recent weather report for the Midwest.

    Time to start building an arch?

    They've got one in St. Louis that we can use.

  • Mania (unregistered) in reply to Edowyth
    Edowyth:
    Now, let's assume that we don't know where absolute zero is, or even that there is an absolute zero how'll we tell each other how HOT it is? Oh, I know, let's fix a zero somewhere on the part of the range we can measure and fix a step size for measuring from there... what you get is Fahrenheit in one part of the world and Celsius in another... when we all find out about absolute zero, somebody decides that we should base a scale off of it,
    You do know that celsius isn't based off two completely arbitrary points right ;)?
    and, if you really want to get into it: why doesn't the step size for Kelvin ensure that from absolute zero to freezing water at sea level is 10, 100, or 1000 digits? The rest of the international measurement system is strictly base 10...but here we have something which is base 273.15:
    for the same reason that the melting point of lead, boiling point of gold, and pretty much anything else you care to name isn't a nice round number. They can only make 2 things a round number in a linear system - and with the kelvin scale they decided to make these two things 1) absolute zero and 2) the range of melting to boiling water 100 Kelvin. They could have made it 1) absolute zero and 2) melting point of water = 100 degrees, but then we'd have yet a third mainstream scale that would be difficult to convert to from farenheit and celsius alike.
  • (cs) in reply to Pap

    If you want a 'logical' scale, set the Boltzman constant equal to unity, and use the Planck energy as your temperature unit.

  • paint (unregistered) in reply to m0ffx
    m0ffx:
    If you want a 'logical' scale, set the Boltzman constant equal to unity, and use the Planck energy as your temperature unit.
    I think I will do just that from now on. Could be fun, especially when using some of those SI scale factors that nobody knows.
  • (cs) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    Celsius is wonderful for discussing science. But it doesn't work so well it discussing human feelings.

    Can you tell the difference between 100 degrees celsius and 90? 80? 70?

    The Farenheight scale was created with humans in mind. 0 is cold, 100 is hot. And a good portion of the population, spends a good portion of their time living at temps between 0 and 100.

    When talking about whether a day is going to be hot or not, what does the boiling point of water at a certain atmosphere have to do with anything?

    Might not make sense to you, but if you live in a country where the Celsius scale is used you'll be totally used to thinking "dang, it's hot today, must be 35". I can testify to that, having lived both in the Celsius and the Fahrenheit parts of the world.

    Once you get used to a scale, it works just fine.

  • Joseph Newton (unregistered) in reply to haveworld
    haveworld:
    Anyone here remembers the good old days when this site was all about hardcore coding mistakes. You would read the comments and actually learn something.

    sighs

    Guess what? It's actually not unrelated. Dense, incomprehensible, vowel-deprived code gets foisted on the world because so many programmers--and those who hire them--live in a decontextualized, above-the-shoulders reality that takes no cognizance of the edn results the code is meant to achieve. They have forgotten they they are developing software that gets a job done to achieve some human purpose.

    Likewise, many posting on this thread have absoltely disregarded the context of the story. The subject was not a helium being, comfortable as long as some molecular activity could still take place. We are talking about a human here, with a body composed of somethng like 97% water.

    Humans, lets recall, have certain tolerance for sub-freezing weather. I'm not sure, nor very interested in, what physical standard this Farenheight guy used in developing his scale. I appreciate though that it tracks quite well to the range of temperatures in which physically active humans can work in reasonable comfort.

    I'd say that "three times the boiling point of water" is a pretty good estimate in relative terms.

  • PseudoNoise (unregistered)

    I propose another website name change: nerdyhumorlessprigs.com

    I was delighted to see this graphic as I live in San Diego. I can tell you for a fact that Alpine is hotter because it's closer to hell.

  • Guran (unregistered) in reply to ahf
    ahf:
    chrismcb:
    Celsius is wonderful for discussing science. But it doesn't work so well it discussing human feelings.

    Can you tell the difference between 100 degrees celsius and 90? 80? 70?

    The Farenheight scale was created with humans in mind. 0 is cold, 100 is hot. And a good portion of the population, spends a good portion of their time living at temps between 0 and 100.

    When talking about whether a day is going to be hot or not, what does the boiling point of water at a certain atmosphere have to do with anything?

    Might not make sense to you, but if you live in a country where the Celsius scale is used you'll be totally used to thinking "dang, it's hot today, must be 35". I can testify to that, having lived both in the Celsius and the Fahrenheit parts of the world.

    Once you get used to a scale, it works just fine.

    Furthermore: if you live in a part of the world whith regular periods of freezing temeratures, a scale where the freezing point of water is obvious is really handy. A forecast of +10 or +14 degrees (Celsius) is no big difference. -2 or +2, on the other hand, is a major deal. One means snow the other rain.

  • virtual256 (unregistered) in reply to meow

    Warning! Use of SPF 1 million will cause cancer! Use at own risk!

  • (cs)

    This is such a good story, it should be on The Daily WTF.

  • Martijn (unregistered)

    What I like best about this is that the image still shows rain falling over Alpine.. shouldn't it evaporate?

  • Alan (unregistered) in reply to Martijn
    Martijn:
    What I like best about this is that the image still shows rain falling over Alpine.. shouldn't it evaporate?

    Thats not rain - it's hot snow falling up.

  • CommonMan (unregistered)

    I would just like to ask if all those self-serving pedants on absolute temperature scales measure all geographic heights from the centre of the Earth? After all sea level is such an arbitrary origin to use.

    Get a life. When looking at changes in value you use the scale presented. When was the last time you told someone the outside temperature in Kelvin? and did they hit you for being an asshole? Multiples of value are applied to the values on that scale (not some other scale that you unilaterally choose to apply in an inapropriate situation).

    Of course if you want to continue to look like idiots who don't understand the world and should be kept away from the sharp objects then just keep going. It gives all us real-world people something to keep us amused.

  • Random (unregistered) in reply to Joseph Newton

    But that's the entire point, 670 degrees F is a terrible estimate! Three times the boiling point of water is not anywhere close to 670 degrees F or 636 degrees F! Yes 212*3 is very roughly 670, but that is not what you are saying. Read up on basic physics.

  • Nelle (unregistered) in reply to Zygo
    At 670 degF, flesh doesn't melt off bones. The skin will burn into a crispy (but delicious) shell thanks to the Maillard reaction, but unfortunately by the time the interior of the meat has risen to a safe microbe-free temperature, the exterior will be dry, tough and leathery, and the smaller extremeties (like noses, ears, fingers and toes) will be burnt to charcoal.

    If you want flesh to melt off the bones, you'll need to cook longer at a lower temperature, long enough to dissolve the collagens but not so hot that all the water boils away.

    hahahahahhahahahahhahah Best comment i have read today ...

    Thanks for making my day :)

    CATCHA: sanitarium :)

  • Alan (unregistered)

    I agree that sea level is too arbitrary. So i suggest we create a new scale, with 0 as absolute 0 and 100 as the boiling point of water in a vacuum.

  • /Arthur (unregistered)

    Show me the code

    Captcha : maked me type "Stinky"

  • (cs) in reply to /Arthur

    You guys got it all wrong. The right answer is 42.

    No quack.

  • (cs) in reply to haveworld
    haveworld:
    Anyone here remembers the good old days when this site was all about hardcore coding mistakes. You would read the comments and actually learn something.

    sighs

    Remember the days when people didn't waste our time whining... sighs

  • (cs) in reply to ben
    ben:
    I know that 212 X 3 is close enough to 670 for government work, thanks. 670 meters is roughly three times 212 meters, 670 hogsheads is roughly three times 212 hogsheads, 670 acre-feet is roughly three times 212 acre-feet.

    670 degrees F is not roughly three times 212 F.

    This has nothing to do with SI vs obsolete units. It's about the nature of degrees vs units.

    Isn't it a little silly to be so pedantic over a joke? Perhaps you should Google "sense of humor" - maybe that'll help.

  • (cs) in reply to PseudoNoise
    PseudoNoise:
    I propose another website name change: nerdyhumorlessprigs.com

    I was delighted to see this graphic as I live in San Diego. I can tell you for a fact that Alpine is hotter because it's closer to hell.

    ++ the name change suggestion. It would suit the majority of the posters to this thread.

    I grew up in that area of California, although I haven't lived there in about 20 years. I've lived in most of the cities in that graphic (but not Alpine). When I left, I had been living in the El Cajon/Lakeside area.

  • (cs) in reply to Random
    Random:
    But that's the entire point, 670 degrees F is a terrible estimate! Three times the boiling point of water is not anywhere close to 670 degrees F or 636 degrees F! Yes 212*3 is very roughly 670, but that is not what you are saying. Read up on basic physics.

    Read up on a sense of humor. If this was an educational site related to physics, I'd agree. Since it isn't, just read the text as it was intended (a joke), and not an attempt at scientific fact.

    Jeez... Ask your mom to help you back to your basement room, will you?

  • (cs) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    At 670 degF, flesh doesn't melt off bones. The skin will burn into a crispy (but delicious) shell thanks to the Maillard reaction, but unfortunately by the time the interior of the meat has risen to a safe microbe-free temperature, the exterior will be dry, tough and leathery, and the smaller extremeties (like noses, ears, fingers and toes) will be burnt to charcoal.

    Excellent post! At last, someone who has a sense of humor!

  • Baffled (unregistered) in reply to ben

    Are you kidding me??

  • Dancing at the Pedants' Ball (unregistered) in reply to Glenn Lasher

    Okay, let's remove the practical, Earth-bound, human-centric biases. Absolutely no heat is zero. Infinite heat is one. Everything in between is a fraction of one. So, today's forecast high is... Hmm... Maybe we need some practical, Earth-bound, human-centric biases.

  • (cs) in reply to Mania
    Mania:
    Edowyth:
    Now, let's assume that we don't know where absolute zero is, or even that there is an absolute zero how'll we tell each other how HOT it is? Oh, I know, let's fix a zero somewhere on the part of the range we can measure and fix a step size for measuring from there... what you get is Fahrenheit in one part of the world and Celsius in another... when we all find out about absolute zero, somebody decides that we should base a scale off of it,
    You do know that celsius isn't based off two completely arbitrary points right ;)?

    Fahrenheit isn't based off of two arbitrary points, either. Look it up.

  • (cs) in reply to Pap
    Pap:
    Mania:
    Edowyth:
    Now, let's assume that we don't know where absolute zero is, or even that there is an absolute zero how'll we tell each other how HOT it is? Oh, I know, let's fix a zero somewhere on the part of the range we can measure and fix a step size for measuring from there... what you get is Fahrenheit in one part of the world and Celsius in another... when we all find out about absolute zero, somebody decides that we should base a scale off of it,
    You do know that celsius isn't based off two completely arbitrary points right ;)?

    Fahrenheit isn't based off of two arbitrary points, either. Look it up.

    OOooh but it is ... at least the 100 part of it. ;) There is a reason scientists use Celsius...

    Anyway, I did the math and 670F is about 350C ... 3.5 times the boiling point of water. ;) Chill out doods, don't get so pedantic.

    Now I'm off to "melt flesh" according to some other users instructions ... ;)

  • (cs) in reply to PseudoNoise
    PseudoNoise:
    I propose another website name change: nerdyhumorlessprigs.com

    I was delighted to see this graphic as I live in San Diego. I can tell you for a fact that Alpine is hotter because it's closer to hell.

    Yes, but isn't Hell at a nice, constant 666F??? This seems 4 degrees hotter than hell.

  • Nazca (unregistered) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    At 670 degF, flesh doesn't melt off bones. The skin will burn into a crispy (but delicious) shell thanks to the Maillard reaction, but unfortunately by the time the interior of the meat has risen to a safe microbe-free temperature, the exterior will be dry, tough and leathery, and the smaller extremeties (like noses, ears, fingers and toes) will be burnt to charcoal.

    If you want flesh to melt off the bones, you'll need to cook longer at a lower temperature, long enough to dissolve the collagens but not so hot that all the water boils away.

    CSI?

    Okie ... water is H2O in a liquid state ... not ice.

    The effort of proving the 3 times thing relative to the lowest temperature at which H2O is water? Someone else already did that :P

    CAPTCHA: Pinball ... OH YEAH!!! Ever since I was a young boy, I've played that silver ball bounces off playing air guitar

  • Alex (unregistered) in reply to CommonMan
    CommonMan:
    I would just like to ask if all those self-serving pedants on absolute temperature scales measure all geographic heights from the centre of the Earth? After all sea level is such an arbitrary origin to use.

    Yes, but sea level does make sense when you say things like, "This ocean trench is twice as deep as that mountain is tall." That zero-point makes sense.

    Imagine doing the same thing with temperature: imagine that today the temperature is +10, but yesterday it was -5. Does it make any sense at all to say, "Todays temperature is twice as hot as yesterday's was cold"? That zero point makes no sense.

  • Feek (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    ben:
    I know that 212 X 3 is close enough to 670 for government work, thanks. 670 meters is roughly three times 212 meters, 670 hogsheads is roughly three times 212 hogsheads, 670 acre-feet is roughly three times 212 acre-feet.

    670 degrees F is not roughly three times 212 F.

    This has nothing to do with SI vs obsolete units. It's about the nature of degrees vs units.

    Isn't it a little silly to be so pedantic over a joke? Perhaps you should Google "sense of humor" - maybe that'll help.

    I did try Googling it, and got a page on how God doesn't think anything is funny...

  • Laie Techie (unregistered)

    For anyone really interested: 3 * 212 F =~ 1555 F 360 F / 212 F =~ 1.22

    I'm a geek, so I'll let out an evil muhahaha!

  • (cs) in reply to m0ffx
    m0ffx:
    Earth's surface temperatures do exceed those of the sun for momentaray periods in small regions, and it is because of clouds - and the lightning they sometimes produce. Temperatures can reach 30,000K (50,000°F)
    Go to the coronosphere and claim that. You might need some reflective foil to deal with the multi-million degree temperatures. Only if you make it through and get to the surface might you have to put the wolly jumper back on.
  • physicist (unregistered) in reply to Edowyth
    Edowyth:
    Dwayne:
    Edowyth:
    Wow, you guys are nuts...the point is the stupid graphics. The fact that numerically 212 is about 1/3 of 670 is all he's trying to point out, not that the actual amount of heat is 3x greater...
    It's actually temperature, not heat. :P

    Sorry, this kinda made me mad...

    Temperature is a measure of heat (in physics they would say a measure of the amount of movement of atoms)!

    No, temperature is NOT a measure of heat. In any one material, temperature will be proportional to heat, but the ratio depends on the heat capacity of the material. There is a lot more heat in 1kg of copper at 100 degrees than the same amount of air at the same temperature.

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    When talking about whether a day is going to be hot or not, what does the boiling point of water at a certain atmosphere have to do with anything?
    [image]

    Seriously, the boiling point of water doesn't change much depending on altitude - nice strawman argument. On Earth, that is, if you're talking about other planets, you should take a sip of your own medicine.

    ISTM you are just suffering from heavy cultural bias. Of course YOU don't know (intuitively) what 0°C, 10°C, etc. 40°C, 80°C or 100°C means. That's because you were raised on the Fahrenheit scale. You could just as well say that Japanese is a stupid language because you can't understand a single word spoken in it. Einstein once said: Some people's horizon is a circle of radius zero, which they call their point of view.

    I, on the other hand, was raised on the Celsius scale, and I know pretty well what those temperatures mean

    Environment: -20°C: damn-it's-cold -10°C: very cold, ice and snow probable 0°C: quite cold, ice and snow possible 10°C: not-that-cold 18°C-22°C: nuances of room temperature 25°C: warm 30°C: hot 35°C: damn-it's-hot! but that's my subjective rating (I tolerate cold better than heat)

    Water: 0°C: brrrr 10°C: not for the faint of heart 15°C: fresh but no longer cold 20-25°C: typical water temperature in outdoors swimming pools in summer (where I live) 30°C: nicely warm 35°C: getting hot 40°C: max. bearable temperature of water for sustained periods of time 50°C: hot, but safe to touch for about 30 seconds 60°C: quite hot, safe to touch for a few seconds 75°C+: burns almost guaranteed if more than droplets are touched

    Body (core) temperature: 36.5°C: normal 37.5°C: mild fever 38.5°C: fever 39.5°C: find a doctor 40.5°C+: find a priest

    Tea cooking: 60°C: low temperature even for green teas with very tender leaves 70°C: low temperature, tender-leaved green teas 80°C: medium temperature, medium green tea 90°C: high temperature, robust green tea or black tea 95°C: very high temperature, black tea

    (Of course, this depends somewhat on infusion times.)

    Laundry: 30°C: relatively cold, sensitive fabric or coloreds that are not too dirty 40°C: medium, typical coloreds that are somewhat more dirty 60°C: high, linen 90°C: very high, linen, sterilizing

    etc. etc.

  • AdT (unregistered) in reply to AdT
    chrismcb:
    When talking about whether a day is going to be hot or not, what does the boiling point of water at a certain atmosphere have to do with anything?

    Just to clarify: 0..100°F would work well for environmental temperatures, but what would be the point in using a different scales for different areas of everyday life? That's not less confusing than using °C for every area of everyday life, it's more confusing. And I don't see how using °F for everything would be any better than using °C.

    But then I'm talking to people who think there's no need to measure the length of a car and the distance between two towns with easily interconvertible units.

  • Steve (unregistered) in reply to paint

    While you're at it, let's redefine the unit of electric charge to be the elementary charge.

    We can also set the base unit of mass to be equal to the mass of the proton.

    Except then the subatomic physicists still work in fractions...

    That just leaves time and distance...(are there fundamental units for the strong and weak force? my quantum physics is a little rusty)

    (btw I'm surprised so many people are anal about using an absolute scale yet they continue to use heat which refers to thermal energy being transfered)

  • (cs) in reply to ahf
    ahf:
    When I was in highschool I had a really awful science teacher - we kept a little notebook with some really amazing facts she told us sometimes. An example? "Whales swim upriver to eat trout". We also listed in our notebook the phrase: "The earth is hotter than the sun, because it has clouds". She probably saw this on the news, but did not know that the sun is MUCH hotter than 670 F.
    I have a similar one. I have two friends who went to separate high schools in central New Jersey and were taught the same thing: that the rotation of the earth is what keeps us from drifting off. It's not often that one gets to be absurd, wrong, and counterintuitive all at the same time.

    Fortunately, the science teachers at my high school in south Jersey did not sniff glue (although two in particular probably smoked some serious weed).

Leave a comment on “I Guess I'll Stay In”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article