nelly_man

Right, 1/1024 is 0.0009765625 or about 0.1%.

Bit in this context refers to the [Shannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_(unit)) from information theory. 1 bit of information (that is, 1 shannon) is the amount of information you receive from observing an event with a 50% chance of occurring. 10 bits would be equivalent to the amount of information learned from observing an event with about a 0.1% chance of occurring. So 10 bits in this context is actually not that small of a number.

Along the same lines, because alcohol is regulated by the ATF and nutrition labels are a requirement from the FDA, alcoholic beverages don't need to include nutritional information. As somebody who restricts their diet of certain ingredients, I find the lack of listed allergens or ingredients annoying.

My point is that Fahrenheit is not like our other units of measure. 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 1760 yards or 5280 feet in a mile is ridiculous. There's no benefit to these units with arbitrary scaling factors for conversion. That lack of consistent scaling factor is the primary difference with metric, and it is also precisely why metric is superior. The image's assertion that these units are stupid is valid.

But for temperature, there are some aspects of Fahrenheit that work out nicely, and learning 32 and 212 for the freezing and boiling points of water is not that bad. It's not as nice as 0 and 100, but this difference leads to certain other temperatures being in the range of 0 and 100. My enjoyment for which temperatures fall between 0 and 100 feels about as arbitrary as your enjoyment for water being liquid within this range. At the very least, the difference here is not as clear cut as it is for other units, so I don't buy into the idea that Fahrenheit is a bad unit of measure.

To put it simply: I don't see any redeeming quality for our other units of measure, but I do for Fahrenheit. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad or that Fahrenheit is better. I'm merely saying that the phase changes of water are not enough to convince me that Fahrenheit is stupid.

Right. You learn two numbers for the phase changes of water, and we do as well. It's easy to remember two numbers and understand when you've crossed a boundary. Sure, learning 0 and 100 might be easier than 32 and 212, but I don't think that understanding whether a number is smaller or larger than 32 is really harder than understanding if it's smaller or larger than 0. Both are pretty much instantaneous recognitions for a numerically literate person.

My point was merely that the Fahrenheit defines these two points in such a way that the ambient temperatures that we experience generally fall nicely within the range of 0 to 100, and I don't think that this fact is any less compelling an argument than having nicer numbers for the boundaries of liquid water. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad. I'm just saying that the range of liquid water is not a convincing enough argument for me.

For other units of measures, the ease of converting units in metric is a clear win over imperial (or US customary). For temperature, there are benefits to both scales, and neither has as compelling an argument as we see in the meter vs the yard or the kilogram vs the pound. The only really convincing argument for me is that the rest of the world uses Celsius, and I think that is a good enough argument.

Fahrenheit is also based on water's phase changes, but the 0-100 range just falls nicely around the range of common ambient temperatures. The basis in water is nice because it's abundant and thus makes calibration of a thermometer easy. My contention is merely that the specific values of the phase changes are not so important that it makes the Celsius scale inherently better. I like that the ambient temperatures outside fall nicely throughout the 0-100 range in Fahrenheit, and I think that is just as valid an argument as water being liquid within this range.

And perhaps I'm particularly swayed by this argument because I live in a place that has cold winters and hot summers, so I see the full range of 0 to 100 in the weather. I'm also not going to pretend that growing up using Fahrenheit is not the main reason for my continuing usage of it.

I just wanted to point out that I'm convinced by the arguments in favor of the metric system for everything except Celsius. For that one, I just don't think water is as compelling an argument as is always presented.

One thing to note: that hasn't always been the case. This is something that can change.

It really started in the late 1970s with the Friedman Doctrine.

The Friedman doctrine, also called shareholder theory, is a normative theory of business ethics advanced by economist Milton Friedman which holds that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. This shareholder primacy approach views shareholders as the economic engine of the organization and the only group to which the firm is socially responsible. As such, the goal of the firm is to increase its profits and maximize returns to shareholders.

I'm trying to find the story I listened to about this on NPR a few years ago, but it essentially discussed how this doctrine was taken up after the stagflation in the 1970s (particularly as Reagan was heavily influenced by Milton Friedman). The main point was that it seemed like the traditional economic system was collapsing at that time, and Friedman's ideas argued that it was because businesses were not focused enough on profits. Instead, many businesses were trying to be part of a broader community and work on doing things that were good for the public. Friedman's idea was that this was too economically inefficient and that a businesses only ethical obligation should be to make money for the shareholders, and that the shareholders could decide for themselves on how too help the public.

This went over very well with business leaders, and it helped ushered in the Gordon Gecko era of unironic "greed is good".

I'm in agreement with everything except temperature. I'm not saying that Celsius is bad, but I do think that using the phase changes of water as the sole point of comparison is a bad argument.

For most people, the interaction with temperature is through the weather, and I don't think Celsius is inherently better for that. I like that in Fahrenheit 0 is a cold winter's day, and 100 is a hot summer's day. I find that more relevant in day-to-day life than the phase changes of water. The big argument I see for preferring Celsius is that everybody else is doing it, so we may as well jump in.

However, in regards to the other systems of measurement, metric is best. The imperial system was nice when manufacturing measuring tools was difficult, so using easily divisible numbers allowed for easier creation of accurate measuring devices. But it has been quite some time since that was a reasonable argument (and that's only really relevant for some of the units anyway).

Thomas Jefferson, 1787

And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

I think this quote puts it aptly. It obviously comes from a more tumultuous time, but the United States was borne out of the idea that violence is a valid response to injustice. Law and order are preferable to anarchy, but that doesn't mean that all law is valid. When the laws are used to insulate the powerful few against the many, what reason is there for the many to follow the law?

This often-cited quote from Jefferson urges regular rebellion against the law so that the powerful will never lose sight of how tenuous their position is. If you let the powerful manipulate the laws for their own benefit against the interests of the rest of society, you'll be left with a population that has no interest in upholding the law.

That is ultimately why people are happy to let this man face no consequences. People are angry at the billionaires, especially those in the health insurance industry. And this action is being picked up as a warning shot across the bow. Society is saying that we are sick of the status quo, and if things keep going as they have been, this is not going to be an isolated event.

So this mineral was found in the Mogok region of Myanmar, and the second rarest mineral, painite, was also found in the Mogok region of Myanmar. It sounds like there's something funky going on there geologically speaking, and it's probably not a coincidence that the country had been mostly closed off from the rest of the world for decades.

I know that reality TV sort of got its start in the '90s with The Real World, but I don't think the reality TV era really started until the 2000s. The Truman Show came out in 1998, and I think The Real World (starting in 1992) and Survivor (starting in 1997) are the only ones to predate it.

I think The Truman Show was more a critique of the increasing obsession with celebrity and tabloid news in general than it was of reality TV. In particular, the media frenzy that was the OJ Simpson trial.

However, when I started this comment, I didn't realize how early The Real World was, so maybes the Reality TV Era did start earlier than I thought. I always associate it more with the writers strike in 2007-2008.

I always think about Christine Jorgensen, who was the first American to be widely known as having a sex reassignment surgery in 1952. She went to Europe to have the surgery and sent letters back home to inform her friends and family about the change. The letters she sent to her parents were leaked to the press and it was front page news by the time she returned home.

At the beginning, the press and public at large was fascinated. It was a weird story that people had no experience with, and they were mostly fine with accepting it as confusing but interesting. Over time, however, people learned to hate it and started to be more critical of the concept. It's from before my time, so I'm not really sure of how it was received, but the impression I get is that most people weren't bothered by it until somebody told them to be bothered by it. And that's ultimately what seems to happen with children.

If you tell them that somebody is different, they find it amusing and then move on. But if you also tell them that it's wrong and that they should hate that person for being different, they'll hate them as well. The hate itself is what's unnatural. Young kids encountering something new and confusing is entirely natural. When you're young, everything is new and confusing.