It actually is the best for displaying all-number dates to people as well because no one in their right mind will ever do yyyy-dd-mm.
So if you see the year first, you know the format. When the year is last and you see a date like 03-02-2023, you have to take into account the nationality of the author to know if it's March 2nd or February 3rd.
But 2023-02-03 it becomes clear that it's February 3rd.
I actually agree that the metric system has nice round numbers, but this graphic is a hilarious rebuttal to the first one that just draws pictures to make their preferred system look like it fits into the pretty pictures.
But in all honesty, this is almost like being inside a Canadian's brain. I have to translate back and forth at work all the time, and even cooking involves converting things back and forth. I have no idea how many drams to a gallon, so I'll convert ounces to mL, then scale as necessary, and then convert back to US customary because the measuring cups and spoons are labelled in American.
Same, as a Canadian I wish we just had everything in metric instead of 70% of things. If systems of units were money, metric would be paying with dollars and cents, while imperial is paying with sheep and bars of gold.
I also hate that we are loosey goosey with date formats. What day is 07/08/23??? I hate that the US uses MM/DD/YY format but at least they are consistent about it.
It's like we're in a weird limbo between the two. Metric for distance, except height which is in feet and inches. Grams for weight, except for human weight it's pounds (or sometimes not). Celsius for temperatures, but ovens use farenheight. Just pick one goddammit!
I've actually done this a a lot for work needing to work out operating weights of mechanical equipment and checking existing structures for capacity etc. American equipment with all imperial info and Canadian building design. It's easy to convert, but still annoying.
Measuring cups and spoons is probably my worst international pet peeve. I do not understand why please? Why not measure with a scale like every sane being?
I may be in the minority but I tend to say "Fourth of July" to refer to the holiday but "July fourth" to refer to the date when not referencing the holiday.
I have always hated this argument. If that were the case, then 50 would be the most comfortable temperature and it's not. This scale is about 20 degrees off since most everybody prefers a temperature of about 70 F.
That makes the assumption that comfortable is at the center of weather patterns (which is what fahrenheit was made to describe), and there's no real reason that that would be the case. The average temperature worldwide is in the 50's, not in the 70's. Likewise, 0° F is more similar frequency to 100° F than it is to 140° F, which tends to be an extreme only for the hottest places on earth. 50°-ish is the center of the temperature scale, it's just that most people prefer temperatures that are abnormally warm
US date/time is actually closer to the ideal notation if you consider that for the majority of date references you don't need the year, so July 4th at 12:45:59 actually makes sense and denotes time from most to least significant digit. If you just shift the year to the front, you have an ideal naming convention and no confusion in identifying month and day.
In European, the date goes from least significant to most significant digits for the year and most to least significant for the time. For all the valid arguments on the side of the metric system vs imperial, if you ever want to shut the argument down for date formatting just ask why they don't keep the same format for date as they do for time, say 59:45:12 4/7/2023? For consistency that is how they should write 59 seconds after 45 minutes after the 12th hour of the 4th day of the 7th month of the year 2023.
In European, the date goes from least significant to most significant digits for the year and most to least significant for the time
This isn't true, the most and least significant parts of a date and time vary dramatically depending on context, and required specificity.
In day to day conversation, the day is the most important, to the extent that people often won't use the date at all but the day of the week, "we're doing X on wednesday evening", etc. The year is a given, and the month doesn't matter because it's either the same, or the next one because tomorrow is the 1st or whatever.
If you're talking about gardening or something broadly seasonal, month is the most important. It doesn't matter if you plant the seeds on the 10th or the 20th, but it should be during February. And obviously years matter when you're talking about things that happened a while ago, and decades if it's a long time, centuries for longer, etc etc.
Having a format that consistently increases, or decreases, specificity over it's length makes sense. Having one that muddles it up is very weird.
Well we agree on the last sentence anyway, but that also illustrates why both D/M/Y and M/D/Y are bad choices.... Because in the cases where you need the year, it means it figures in somehow and you're putting it last.
If the day is the most important, you just say 'the 15th' or 'Wednesday' or whatever. If the month is important, you can say 'May 15th' or the 15th of May (or, I guess 15 May?). But in the US we literally write like that. If the date is all you need, you say the date, if the month is important you give that info first (since if there is going to be confusion over the month, that's more important) so we say the month, then the date. IF we'd gone further and continued that path and actually wrote it YMD, we would have definitely won the high ground and settled our way as better, but because we decided the year could go at the end, we muddied things up and arguable came in second place...but we came in second place to an almost equally dumb, but one step more consistent, format.
DMY:HMS is still really dumb. Just that MDY:HMS is one step dumber.
just ask why they don't keep the same format for date as they do for time, say 59:45:12 4/7/2023? For consistency that is how they should write 59 seconds after 45 minutes after the 12th hour of the 4th day of the 7th month of the year 2023.
By that logic, that time should be written as 45:59:12 in Imperial.
:) fair point...I do admit that MDY is dumb, my only real argument is that MD makes more sense, and that is what is used in the US. The fact that our next step is MDY instead of YMD loses all the credibility, and Minute:Second:Hour is a funny and well deserved mockery of that.
I'm happy with metric generally speaking - except for Celsius when talking about ambient temperature. I will die on that hill. Freezing/boiling point of water is a ridiculous point of reference for temperature as experienced by humans.
Fahrenheit: 0 = really cold; 100 = really hot
Celsius: -17.778 = really cold; 38.333 = really hot
Not to mention that the Celsius grading is too big requiring use of tenths when discussing weather and setting a thermostat...
What? I have never ever had a discussion in my life about tenths of celsius when discussing weather or thermostat. Nobody does that. The units are small enough to be used in majors.
Freezing is excellent point of reference when you think about what effects it has on our lives. When water freezes, roads get frozen. When water freezes, pipes might blow up. When temperature reaches 0 Fahrenheit, nothing happens. Everything is same as 1 fahrenheit, or -1 fahrenheit. Nothing has changed, it is completely arbitrary.
But hot and cold is relative. It's largely up to experience to have a feel for temperature. Eg, what temperature do you need a jacket in? In Celsius, around zero is jacket weather. What's room temperature? It's a pretty arbitrary 20ish C vs 70ish F either way.
I could just as easily say Celsius has nifty ten degree bands for weather. 0 to 10 is chilly fall weather. 10 to 20 is nice late spring weather. 20 to 30 is summer weather. 30 to 40 are the hottest summer days. 0 to -10 is mild winter. -10 to -20 are the cold winter days. -20 to -30 are the coldest days in a place like Toronto.
For outside weather, I've never seen anyone use tenths. Thermostats (for inside) in Celsius usually use half degree granularity.
I generally agree with you, but I guess how you experience these depends on where you live and what you're used to. For me, it would be something like:
30 to 40C: really hot summer noons
20 to 30C: nicest range overall. Summer nights and autumn/spring days.
15 to 20C: comfortable if you move around, working, doing sports etc
10 to 15C: starting to get cold. Need jacket
0 to 10C: winter cold
-10 to 0C: my balls are freezing
-20 to -10C: once or twice in a lifetime. Not going out at all until it gets warmer.
Thermostats (for inside) in Celsius usually use half degree granularity.
I find it is hit or miss if a thermostat gives 0.5C or 1C for granularity. Even when the do have half degree increments I always just use whole degrees.
See, the problem with the Fahrenheit = percentage thing is that it DOES NOT WORK. how I am supposed to know how 50% of "very hot" feels like. ig it's something """neutral""". Oh wait it's 10°C, i need warmer clothing. You need to get used to a temperature measurement, however logical you think it is. Tenths are a non-issue.
It's really hot for a human way before 100°F, it's becoming uncomfortable when it's more than 77°F (or 25°C for most humans. The "100 really hot" part is not really a benefit for anyone.
Also the point when water freezes is pretty important in the winter. You can see immediately that you have to drive carefully when the temperature is close to 0°C. So I think 0° freezing makes the most sense.
However: Temperature of boiling water is useless, that's true.
Sorry these arguments about the superiority or otherwise of a unit of measurement are just silly.
It is 100% related to what you grew up with and are familiar with.
No one who grew up with Celsius has any issue discussing weather or adjusting thermostats and the only people who struggle would be people who didnt grow up with it.
Celsius: -17.778 = really cold; 38.333 = really hot
That looks silly because it's completely arbitrary, set to what you are used to. There is no universal "human experience". Where I'm from temperature typically ranges from -30 c to +30 c, which seems pretty nice and balanced compared to imperial's -22 f to 86 c which looks silly now, doesn't it?
Wow! I came here to tell about the time I had a discussion with an American about exactly this. And your arguments where the same as hers.
I guess it simply is about what you are used to. For me Celsius is just fine and an accurate enough measurement. I know that I like my shower water to be exactly 37,3° C (98,6°F). And I can adjust my AC with decimals as well. But for the weather forcast: nobody cares if it's 27,2° or 27,7° C (81° or 82°). The forecast isn't as accurate anyway. So noone is talking in decimals when discussing weather.
Also: 32F (0 C) is still literally freezing cold! And even your "halfway" mark of 50F (10C) is still cold in my books.
There will always and forever be arguments about it and it all comes down to this:
What ever you grew up with you are intuitive with and probably like it better.
Celsius is subjectively more logical and Fahrenheit seems to "feel" more right for some.