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Comment by djtango | Hacker News Reader

I grew up during the F to C transition in the UK and F is not intuitive.

0 = ice 100 = steam

That is pretty intuitive if you ask me. And for gravy comfortable room temp is about 25

Fahrenheit is sort of intuitive if you think of it as somehow, impossibly, a percentage scale. 0C/32F is still decently comfortable anyway. 0F is, like, not at all comfortable. 100C is dead. 100F is the most unbearably hot temperature that isn’t immediately deadly.

100°C is somewhat uncomfortable, and it usually indicates that someone is trying to show off. 80 to 90 is much better. (In a sauna.)

Just curious on what planet you exist where 100C is only “somewhat uncomfortable”

It does kinda depend on humidity, fwiw. In New England, the 90’s are hot, unpleasant sticky weather.

I guess it doesn’t happen often, but I saw some upper-90’s temperature in the Portland, Oregon area. It feels relatively mild actually, compared to New England 90’s, I’m pretty sure because it is so dry. The lighter air just carries the heat away, rather than having it stick to you.

I think GP was talking about saunas and not ambient temperature. So 100C not 100F. Still the argument remains the same: Low humidity (and reasonably short durations)

Oh jeez, I totally missed the C, haha. Silly of me given the topic of the thread.

Our maximum day time tempreture in January 2025 was 113 F ( 45 C ), 12 days or so were over 100 F ( 37.7 C )

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/202501/html/IDCJDW6136.202...

This is in the cooler south west corner of a large state ( 3x size of Texas )

Of course, the experience of heat does depend on humidity as well. But, how was it? It sounds… too hot!

Fahrenheit is very intuitive if you are in Danzig in one particular year... [0] otherwise.. It's a historic accident. If you want to root your measurement system in human experience your measurement system will be outdated in a couple of decades. Because humanity changes! That way there will always be old/antiquated/historic units. Metric basically accepts that and uses easy to convert units and leaves the intuition forming to the humans gathering the experience

[0] Apparently the story is disputed.. But the way I was taught it was: 100F == typical healthy human and 0 F == lowest temperature in Danzig in the winter 1708/1709. This makes it (by construction) a more natural fit to human experience (especially one in northern Europe) https://web.archive.org/web/20131015045624/http://www.deutsc...

It's missing one important distinction: Below 0C: Freezing, probably slippery, not raining water. Above 0C: not freezing, probably not slippery, rain comes as water. They are as uncomfortable as you make them.

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