I posted this further upthread, but it bears repeating. Don’t manufacture fake precision. Nobody says “It’s 69.8 degrees out”, just like nobody says “It’s 21.1°C”. 70F is 21C, and if you need more precision than that, it’s not in a Lemmy comment!
This is a sciency thing about precision. The classic example is the old joke of “this dinosaur skeleton is ten million years and two weeks old - they told me it was ten million years old when I started, and I’ve been working here two weeks”, the point being that the age was roughly ten million years, not tell million years exact to the day.
Scientists talk about “significant figures”, the number of digits that are actually important and not just extra zeroes, e.g. 10000 has one (probably!) and 0.0103 has 3. So when someone says it’s 70°F they are probably rounding to two significant figures, so for the conversion you should do the same, i.e. 21°C. If they said it’s 70.0°F then you’d convert to 21.1°C.
Sure, it’s a simple unit conversion, but it’s a rough figure. When I say it’s 70 degrees, I’m not saying that it’s 70.000 degrees.
What I’m really saying is that it’s about 70 degrees, so the true temp could be between 69.6 and 70.4 degrees (I don’t know, I’m not looking at the thermometer that closely).
69.60 F = 20.89 C
70.40 F = 21.33 C
Turning my “70F” into “exactly 21.11111C” is just silly.
Did no one else learn about significant figures in grade school?!
It’s slightly below freezing and snowing here in West-Central Indiana. We haven’t been above the 50s yet this Dember.
Now admittedly, the 50s in December is not the same as when I was a kid and we are definitely doing great damage to the Earth’s climate and biosphere, but saying kids aren’t going to grow up because of it is a bit hyperbolic.
No kidding (!) Thanks for man-splaining that to me. (Rolls eyes)… if that’s the case then why is it that whenever I make a facetious comment nobody sees it as such and everyone thinks I’m being serious. You’re preaching to the choir here without realizing it.
You’re right, we do get used to seeing information deliberately exaggerated for comedy and then taken seriously. It’s why the internet is so braindead.
No need to discourage people from getting the facts straight. Just agree and move on.
Of course they are going to grow up. 20 years are nothing. Those are issues that will only start to get serious after that time. Which is exactly why so little is happening now.
Two years ago, a “once in a hundred years” wind storm downed trees that had been around for decades. Many of them fell on houses, garages, etc. Last year, the once in a hundred years wind storm took down even more. We haven’t had the every hundred year storm this year yet but I am expecting it. The issues are serious.
On a positive note, more of us are adding our voices and resources to combat the profiteers. Join us if you can.
I agree. Just look at how many blindly downvote me for stating the obvious. People want to live based on feelings instead of facts. A real issue in today’s society.
And here in Utah we’re having sunshine all over the place, which is odd for us this time of year. In fact it will be mid-50s this week and we may get rain, but no snow this year for Christmas (which I’m fine with). The sun is coming out again today and it feels like it’s mid-August, not December! I love the warm weather and am not a ski person, so I happen to love it - but it is so WEIRD!
I’m not suggesting nothing is happening. I’m just saying there’s a huge gap between ‘it’s way too warm for this time of year than it used to be’ and ‘children of this generation won’t grow up.’
There is, and it is hyperbolic to suggest kids today won’t grow up. They will grow up. I mean in the 60s we all thought we’d be destroyed by atomic bombs so it was the same with people making dire predictions back then. And yet, we did grow up. The problems just came along with us. Some of them are worse than back then, but kids will still have to grow up dealing with them.
I mean in the 60s we all thought we’d be destroyed by atomic bombs
Which wasn’t something that was guaranteed to happen. You had a reasonable hope that political interaction would make that unnecessary, which is what ended up happening.
We are 100% guaranteed to face climate catastrophe and can no longer prevent it, only attempt to handle and contain it when it inevitably crosses the line of survivability, and even that is looking unlikely these days. These things are not the same.
Actually as a regular dumb kid, I didn’t really give the whole atomic destruction threat that much attention. I assumed I’d grow up and things would work out, which they kind of did. But you’re right about climate catastrophe, we can’t really stop what has already grown into a huge problem. But maybe we can do more to keep it from getting even worse. Only people shouldn’t do nothing on the belief that they’ll never “have to grow up and face it.” They will grow up, and they will have to face it and more besides.
I think the guy above you was calling out the fact that the picture in the post is using a temperature scale that is only used by very few countries as if it was the default for the Internet.
70 degrees of what? Freedom?
Temperature translation for non-Americans:
70°F ≈ 21.1°C
50°F = 10°C
20°F ≈ -6.7°C
I posted this further upthread, but it bears repeating. Don’t manufacture fake precision. Nobody says “It’s 69.8 degrees out”, just like nobody says “It’s 21.1°C”. 70F is 21C, and if you need more precision than that, it’s not in a Lemmy comment!
If you need more precision about less precision?
That’s in a Lemmy comment! 🤓
I get what you’re saying, but there are threads on Lemmy that get super technical. Those do require quite a bit of specifics in some cases.
Super-technical threads need to respect significant figures. Your result can’t be more precise than your inputs.
Fake precision? It’s a simple unit conversion.
This is a sciency thing about precision. The classic example is the old joke of “this dinosaur skeleton is ten million years and two weeks old - they told me it was ten million years old when I started, and I’ve been working here two weeks”, the point being that the age was roughly ten million years, not tell million years exact to the day.
Scientists talk about “significant figures”, the number of digits that are actually important and not just extra zeroes, e.g. 10000 has one (probably!) and 0.0103 has 3. So when someone says it’s 70°F they are probably rounding to two significant figures, so for the conversion you should do the same, i.e. 21°C. If they said it’s 70.0°F then you’d convert to 21.1°C.
Sure, it’s a simple unit conversion, but it’s a rough figure. When I say it’s 70 degrees, I’m not saying that it’s 70.000 degrees.
What I’m really saying is that it’s about 70 degrees, so the true temp could be between 69.6 and 70.4 degrees (I don’t know, I’m not looking at the thermometer that closely).
69.60 F = 20.89 C 70.40 F = 21.33 C
Turning my “70F” into “exactly 21.11111C” is just silly.
Did no one else learn about significant figures in grade school?!
-40
I’m in the US and it’s below freezing here & now. Do I need to translate that somehow?
Separation. Kevin Bacon wanted nothing to do with this.
sweet memory thanks :)
It’s slightly below freezing and snowing here in West-Central Indiana. We haven’t been above the 50s yet this Dember.
Now admittedly, the 50s in December is not the same as when I was a kid and we are definitely doing great damage to the Earth’s climate and biosphere, but saying kids aren’t going to grow up because of it is a bit hyperbolic.
Yes. It’s a facetious tweet… You are in a meme community. You’ll have to get used to seeing jokes here.
The Skywalkers always regretted their appearance on Maury
No kidding (!) Thanks for man-splaining that to me. (Rolls eyes)… if that’s the case then why is it that whenever I make a facetious comment nobody sees it as such and everyone thinks I’m being serious. You’re preaching to the choir here without realizing it.
I did not reply to you so I don’t know why the hell you’re ranting to me about how I was man-splaining things to you.
Edit: nevermind, just saw their comment history and they’re an actual crazy person. Just gonna go ahead and block them now.
Farts in your direction Suck on that dick head.
You’re right, we do get used to seeing information deliberately exaggerated for comedy and then taken seriously. It’s why the internet is so braindead.
No need to discourage people from getting the facts straight. Just agree and move on.
We’ve been over 50 north of you in southeast Michigan multiple times this December
Of course they are going to grow up. 20 years are nothing. Those are issues that will only start to get serious after that time. Which is exactly why so little is happening now.
Two years ago, a “once in a hundred years” wind storm downed trees that had been around for decades. Many of them fell on houses, garages, etc. Last year, the once in a hundred years wind storm took down even more. We haven’t had the every hundred year storm this year yet but I am expecting it. The issues are serious.
On a positive note, more of us are adding our voices and resources to combat the profiteers. Join us if you can.
That are not serious issues on the scale we are looking at (kids not going to grow up = all dead).
True, not quite there, but working on it.
I agree. Just look at how many blindly downvote me for stating the obvious. People want to live based on feelings instead of facts. A real issue in today’s society.
And here in Utah we’re having sunshine all over the place, which is odd for us this time of year. In fact it will be mid-50s this week and we may get rain, but no snow this year for Christmas (which I’m fine with). The sun is coming out again today and it feels like it’s mid-August, not December! I love the warm weather and am not a ski person, so I happen to love it - but it is so WEIRD!
I’m not suggesting nothing is happening. I’m just saying there’s a huge gap between ‘it’s way too warm for this time of year than it used to be’ and ‘children of this generation won’t grow up.’
There is, and it is hyperbolic to suggest kids today won’t grow up. They will grow up. I mean in the 60s we all thought we’d be destroyed by atomic bombs so it was the same with people making dire predictions back then. And yet, we did grow up. The problems just came along with us. Some of them are worse than back then, but kids will still have to grow up dealing with them.
Which wasn’t something that was guaranteed to happen. You had a reasonable hope that political interaction would make that unnecessary, which is what ended up happening.
We are 100% guaranteed to face climate catastrophe and can no longer prevent it, only attempt to handle and contain it when it inevitably crosses the line of survivability, and even that is looking unlikely these days. These things are not the same.
Actually as a regular dumb kid, I didn’t really give the whole atomic destruction threat that much attention. I assumed I’d grow up and things would work out, which they kind of did. But you’re right about climate catastrophe, we can’t really stop what has already grown into a huge problem. But maybe we can do more to keep it from getting even worse. Only people shouldn’t do nothing on the belief that they’ll never “have to grow up and face it.” They will grow up, and they will have to face it and more besides.
I think the guy above you was calling out the fact that the picture in the post is using a temperature scale that is only used by very few countries as if it was the default for the Internet.
I’m in Indiana and it was 60 fricken two days ago.
Hush
it didnt say degrees whatre u on about?
unless you cant use context clues to decipher a unit but blaming another country for existing isnt a proper exuse for your own shortcomings.