US Presidential Election 2016...because it's never too early

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We absolutely should convert to the metric system, and I think the average American could handle it.

However, I do prefer Fahrenheit over Celsius for weather purposes (and that's it). Maybe by design, Fahrenheit does a good job of spreading out the typical weather temperatures over a wide range, concurrently between 0 and 100. And just stating a "decile" of that (70s, 80s, whatever) is a pretty decent way of giving someone a picture of what it feels like outside. Celsius, while a much more practical system in science, bunches the weather temperatures up in a significantly smaller range, and 1.8 times as temperature levels fit in a group of ten Celsius integers.


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Yep. I worked mightily to speak in Celcius when living abroad, and I came to appreciate the precision of Farenheit.
 
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0 as freezing point and 100 as boiling point makes a heap more sense than freezing point as 32 and boiling point as 212. That just seems to be numbers plucked out of thin air! The idea of Celsius seeming bunched together I guess is just perception. There already isn't that much of a meaningful distinction between 22 and 23 Celsius - there's even less between 71 and 72 Fahrenheit.

And you can just as easily say "low twenties" for Celsius as you can "seventies" Fahrenheit. Same amount of syllables, even. :wink:



But we can say low, mid, or upper 70s. And perhaps having grow up with it, I can fairly precisely decide what it is I should be wearing based on the difference between 72 and 77.

I'm with everyone else on everything else and obviously we should do metric, which I believe I was taught in school even if daily life is expressed otherwise -- I find kilometers kind of wussy, like doing knee-pushups, but it is pleasant and satisfying to see how quickly they fly by when you're road tripping in Europe.

Could we also talk about how the UK and Australia are in a minority of countries driving on the wrong side of the road?

We tend to think its cute and charming and antiquated and part of cultural differences, but when we behave in antiquated ways (inches, gallons) we're met with sneer and derision. What gives?
 
When I was a kid, Canada was still within the first 10-15 years of conversion. We learned strictly metric measurements in school, and pretty much everything in terms of distance and packaging was in metric by then. My parents and grandparents still spoke to each other in terms of weather in Fahrenheit most of the time. The weather channel on TV reported both Fahrenheit and Celsius temperatures until I was about six years old (as "72/21" or whatever). The TV and news all stopped reporting Fahrenheit around then at the same time, then everybody stopped mentioning Fahrenheit degrees in conversation after another year or so.

Doing it gradually like this seemed to work just fine here. Nobody uses the Imperial system here anymore, and it doesn't make any sense. The only good thing to me about Imperial measurements is that it was surprisingly satisfying to see the temperature gauge in my rental car go from 99 to 100 degrees in the Mojave.
 
I can think of 3 big reasons how it would mindfuck Americans. Temperatures in Celsius. Speed in Km/hour. And Gas in Price per liter.



There would be a huge backlash. Especially for Weather temperatures. Small talk would be impossible.


You heard it here, we are not exceptional; we are ignorant and lazy.


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I for one think it's very wise to make policy decisions on the basis of being able to have a smooth conversation with the mail carrier or the cashier at the grocery store.
 
I can think of 3 big reasons how it would mindfuck Americans. Temperatures in Celsius. Speed in Km/hour. And Gas in Price per liter.

Speed will be especially hard, considering car manufacturers already put the conversion from mph to kph right there on the speedometer.

There would be a huge backlash. Especially for Weather temperatures. Small talk would be impossible.


Yes, because all small talk is centered around the weather? :)

Imagine how much harder it is to say "man, it's going to be 35 degrees today" instead of "man, it's going to be 95 degrees out there!"
 
Yes, because all small talk is centered around the weather? :)

Imagine how much harder it is to say "man, it's going to be 35 degrees today" instead of "man, it's going to be 95 degrees out there!"

Like I said earlier, I'm sure there would be a transition period where they would show both Fahrenheit and Celsius on the weather reports for a while anyways. Some people seem to have the idea that they would just wake up one morning and everything would be switched over instantly and it would just cause chaos.
 
Confession: I make my car read the temperature in Celsius for this blasphemous, un-American Armageddon.

I digress. We should speak in degrees rankine! And maybe concert our food information from calories into BTU!
 
Maybe the entire world should just start reading temperatures in Kelvin. Degrees in decimals, so the Fahrenheit fans can have their accuracy, and it has a logical scale for the Celcius fans. :wink: Win/win for science!
 
Speed will be especially hard, considering car manufacturers already put the conversion from mph to kph right there on the speedometer.

I've been trying to practice reading my speeds in kph around town, but the km readings on my speedo are damn near impossible to read without squinting, staring, and crashing.

JUST DO IT THE AMERICAN WAY.
 
It would sure be a help in many south west states, anything to keep the temperatures under 100 degrees would be fantastic.
 
Maybe the entire world should just start reading temperatures in Kelvin. Degrees in decimals, so the Fahrenheit fans can have their accuracy, and it has a logical scale for the Celcius fans. :wink: Win/win for science!


I would appreciate the hell out of using Kelvin. But, I also do understand the shift for water freezing as the reference.
 
But we can say low, mid, or upper 70s. And perhaps having grow up with it, I can fairly precisely decide what it is I should be wearing based on the difference between 72 and 77.

What I was getting at was that, for example, if I tell you it's 22 in Melbourne today and Cobbler tells you it's 23, you still get the same idea of how warm it is (even though that basically covers 71-74F). Nobody's regretted their clothing choice because they dressed for 22 and the temperature ended up nudging 23. Now, if Cobbler reckons it's 26, you might start to suspect one of us has got it wrong and decide to check a weather forecast before choosing what to wear.

Could we also talk about how the UK and Australia are in a minority of countries driving on the wrong side of the road?

Keep left mate, like our politics.

(If only.)

Irvine's conservatism finally rears its ugly head.

:lol:

In full seriousness, I only understand height in feet and inches. I can't even remember what my height is in centimetres because the number's meaningless to me. So that one bit of imperial has lingered, though I know other people in their twenties who are the opposite of me and are baffled by height in imperial. The news now only uses metric for height, but I remember both being given as a child.

As a child, I was weighed in stone by my mother - who was herself a child when New Zealand transitioned to metric. I haven't been weighed in stone since I was about ten, but I still loosely understand it.
 
To perhaps get this thread back on topic, yesterday some friends and I were discussing next year's primaries. The Republican field already seems very large, but off the top of our heads we couldn't think of who was going to run against Hilary Clinton for the Democrat nomination. Even when we Googled it, the names of other potential contenders had little or no familiarity for most of us, and we like to think of ourselves as people well informed about global politics who will follow the campaign closely once it heats up.

So I was just wondering, is there anybody who's likely to mount a strong challenge to Clinton for the Democrat nomination, or is it essentially hers as long as she doesn't reveal a fondness for ISIS, Hitler, or the metric system?
 
Some 2016 thoughts on the GOP race and whether they can make a run at Hillary...

Most people are counting out any republican candidates, but it is still very early. I think we'll have a much better picture in January once the Republicans start to weave themselves out.
It'll be interesting to see who captures the Tea Party vote and whether or not their candidate will actually get the nomination. I'd say Cruz is the strongest contender from that group and could possibly make things interesting. Santorum and Huckabee are the only others in that pot and they have absolutely no chance at all.
At the end of the day, I think it will come down to Rubio, Bush, and Cruz. Rubio will be the one to watch in the long run, though, and I think he'll get the nomination.
He has the best shot at getting some much coveted minority votes that the GOP has been slaughtered in for decades. If he could put up a solid showing in that facet, he would give Hillary a tough run.


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So I was just wondering, is there anybody who's likely to mount a strong challenge to Clinton for the Democrat nomination, or is it essentially hers as long as she doesn't reveal a fondness for ISIS, Hitler, or the metric system?


No chance.


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I love the argument that Celsius is less precise than Fahrenheit, all the while referring to height in feet and inches over centimetres and distance in miles. That's some kind of cognitive dissonance right there.
 
Fun fact. -40 F and -40 C are the same temperature


Back to the Democratic nom. Sanders is polling close to single digit striking distance of Clinton in a few states.


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I love the argument that Celsius is less precise than Fahrenheit, all the while referring to height in feet and inches over centimetres and distance in miles. That's some kind of cognitive dissonance right there.

If they want it more precise, just use Celcius with decimals. Same diff. It's an odd argument indeed. Though I think the UK still uses feet and inches as well. And miles per hour of course. Some sort of hybrid system would probably works best.
 
To perhaps get this thread back on topic, yesterday some friends and I were discussing next year's primaries. The Republican field already seems very large, but off the top of our heads we couldn't think of who was going to run against Hilary Clinton for the Democrat nomination. Even when we Googled it, the names of other potential contenders had little or no familiarity for most of us, and we like to think of ourselves as people well informed about global politics who will follow the campaign closely once it heats up.

So I was just wondering, is there anybody who's likely to mount a strong challenge to Clinton for the Democrat nomination, or is it essentially hers as long as she doesn't reveal a fondness for ISIS, Hitler, or the metric system?

Unless George Clooney suddenly throws his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination, it's still Hillary's to lose.

I'm not saying that George Clooney would ever do that, just using him as an example because of his popularity, political leanings, etc.
 
Back to the Democratic nom. Sanders is polling close to single digit striking distance of Clinton in a few states.

Yep, and that's even with a lot of people still unaware of who he is...I think Clinton will lose early states like Iowa and New Hampshire, but as I said earlier, there's just no chance she loses in somewhere like Florida or California as I can't see millions of low-information voters suddenly knowing who the other candidates are and what they stand for...

For what it's worth, Sanders was in California the other day and says he plans to make it competitive there...a steamroll effect like John Kerry in '04 could really wipe Hillary out.
 
I love the argument that Celsius is less precise than Fahrenheit, all the while referring to height in feet and inches over centimetres and distance in miles. That's some kind of cognitive dissonance right there.


or maybe the conversation was simply tongue-in-cheek?
 
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