Unit Conversion
Comments (99)
I suppose I didn't notice too much because it's the middle of winter, and it's been about 15f/-9.44444444c here, but this is definitely the problem of dysphoria hoodies in the summer....
Hehe. See, I'm so celsius-brained that Emmet's confusion/subsequent reaction made perfect sense to me. Personally I grew up entirely metric, in Aus. But loving in the UK means I'm having to constantly convert. I'm pretty good with feet/inches now, but stone, or miles? Forget it.
You'd figure snow would be easier to draw.
I remember winter in QC once... Was it 8 years ago?
That Canadian child is so freaking adorable.
“Whassat in meters?” About one.
I used to first go to yards being roughly a meter, but with the current situation, I know that you stay about 6ft away from other folks in the US and 2 meters in the EU (I think I've seen Canada and UK stuff with both), so my brain took that route
At the risk of getting brigaded by the metric partisans, I will say that 12 (as in inches to a foot) is much easier to divide into smaller units than 10. Aaaand most of the words for the "old system" are shorter and IMHO more... poetic? than metric. Aside from "klick" for kilometer, of course. Agree that Celsius is more logical than Fahrenheit, I just think in the latter and will always need a conversion table.
As a metric partisan, you do have a point: Fahrenheit makes sense as a weather-survival system. If you're near 0 or near 100, you need to take special precautions or you're going to get ill and die. If you're near the middle-ish (40 to 70) you're probably very comfortable. These are very instinctive responses, which is what you want in a public alert system. The rest... maybe it's working in the sciences, but I don't really agree. If I'm subdividing a foot I've already got the measuring tape out, and centimeters are more granular than inches. Yes. "Inch" and "pound" are shorter and more fluid than "centimeter" and "kilogram" ...which is probably why we don't actually call them that. Our warehouse guys started us on the trend where everything is weighed in "ki's" (pronounced keys), and anything we measure with a ruler in the lab is in c's (pronounced seas). eg "This five-ki weight is only thirty c's to a side, it'll fit on that balance."
Hot take: people in dry climates who claim that high 20’s C isn’t hot don’t know jack about heat. Set your thermostat to 27C, and then start humidifying the air until water is condensing on the walls. Then try and think, “oh, a sweater would be lovely!”
I’m aware of the parallel problem of people visiting dry climates passing out dehydrated because they never felt hot.
How to Measure Things Like a Canadian: https://www.clivemaxfield.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/maxncb-0234-01-how-to-measure-things-like-a-canadian.png
Close, but long distances are actually measured in Time. Ie, Toronto is 3 hours away.
I *am* really into hockey, but I love that shirt!
Personally I just round 3ft to 1m. Tolerance stacking effect is noticeable at large values...but even at a mile it's close enough to not care too much for rough estimates. And once you hit a mile I'm measuring in miles anyway.
*Looks outside at the -2°F/-18.9°C* I wish it was 80...
gonna tell my kids to read the Christmas strips
When Bubbles said "the protective cover is missing" I thought we were talking about the sweatshirt at first.
Same. But it also made me think of masks in the... Modern unpleasantness IRL.
With every single one of these situations I am reminded of the struggle of Canadian engineers such as Angela Melick, where computations have to be performed in metric, by law, while inputs and outputs have to be provided in imperial, given how often they work with U.S. customers/partners/suppliers…
Murica really needs to get with the program. I don't care if some guy's car gets 40 rods to the hogshead of kerosene, and that's just the way he likes it.
Metric system ftw!
Oh no!
THEY WERE WEARING A LONG SLEEVE SHIRT UNDERNEATH A HOODIE!!!!
I mean, I do that... Of course, right now it's 8C around here not 27.
Where in Canada Emmet is from could have a huge impact here. Growing up in Vancouver is very different from growing up in Yellowknife in terms of climate.
By those estimates the math works out, assuming a 90 day long summer, each QC comic would be approximately 1/23rd of a day long. For nice rounding purposes we could easily say each comic is a 1 hour glimpse into the world and then it works for the last 8 real world years all being the same QC summer.
A day in QC lasts anywhere from a one-off comic to a 50-comic arc. IIRC, the day Clinton and Elliot hooked up was the longest day in QC history.
Speaking as a Canadian, Emmet not understanding fahrenheit is entirely accurate, but feet and meters are both commonly used here.
*laughs in Australian* where we regularly get 30-40 degree weather
I thought Emmet was fainting because of the unnecessary precision in the number...
Wearing long sleeves...under a sweater...in 80 degree weather. I hope they have a REALLY good antiperspirant.
26C is what I have my aircon set to, because its freakin 38C outside.
SAME
_ships some snow to Quebec_ here, Buffalo has extra
Is there an xkcd for this? Yes! Of course there is! There is always an xkcd! https://xkcd.com/1643/
A friend of mine who, like me, has a meteorology degree said he liked ℉ because the degrees are narrower than in ℃. It’s funny because meteorology is all about using Kelvin because there’s no negative numbers.
While I recognize that Emmitt is not to be blamed for their reaction to the temperature, I need to point out that in my area, 80 F is, well, sweater weather. Last summer we had several days of 108 F or hotter. (Over 42 C, if you use a real measurement system.)
Zonie?
I give Beeps credit for noticing, considering she's a robot and her thermostatic and general homeostatic systems very, very different from our own.
Wonder if Emmitt is more into curling than hockey?
If so, maybe the Ocelots have a junior team they could join.
25.9c (feels like 22.2) here. Also 3 feet = 0.9144 metres
That reminds me of my pet theory, which is that one reason the US failed to switch to metric was that everyone at the time insisted on writing equivalencies to three or four decimal places—which meant, SCARY MATH. I mean, most everyday measurements are approximate (how tall are you? how far is it to the store from here? and so on). I think things would have worked a lot better if we'd all just tried to get used to the scale of metric units, in practical terms. Instead of implying that one has to multiply by 9.144, say, just say "yeah, a meter's a little longer than a yard." So if you see someone and they're a little over 6 feet tall, you'd mentally recalibrate and say, yeah, they're about 2 meters tall.
0.91, or almost 1 meter for 3 feet. ~<3
I can't tell if Emmett just so happened to succumb to the heat as Beepatrice brought it up or if Emmett didn't realize the heat was affecting them until it was pointed out Whiley Coyote style.
Why not both?
Robot voice incoming!
I don't get it. How can she become hot just because she realized it's warm? Like some people are crazy about temp but that's next level.
Do you ask the same questions about Roadrunner cartoons?
By “protective cover” does she mean the fan housing or the hoodie? :-p
What's that in the old money?
Shillings or farthings?
We use feet for smaller regular day measuring, such as height or how far you should stay from the fan. Metric is for when you want to measure more than like 10 feet
Where is this? I'm curious.
Serious Question: How much time actually has passed in-comic? Like since it all started.
A few years, maybe.
Okay but, we need some of those QC hockey tarps asap, ferda.
QC is apparently a Looney Tunes cartoon where heat and gravity don't work till you remember they do.
26.6 degrees Celsius? Warm, but not hot. Probably still a bit warm for a hoodie though.
26.6 in Celsius is unbearable
I'm in Orlando, too. I have to remember to pull the blanket out of the closet tonight so my feet don't get too cool.
So global warming already hit QC?
Global warming, dontcha know.
You betcha!
I was promised a glorious metric utopia as a child, where is it?
Buncha crusty old farts in congress got their knickers all in a knot and chickened out. I got the same promise, learned MKS/CGS up through middle school, then... pfffffft.
I love Emmett so much 😭
Meanwhile here I am in Orlando watching my outdoor thermometer fall to 11°C and cackling madly, attempting to push the dial lower by force of mental willpower.
Over in Melbourne - same thing. Went for a walk after dark and actually got to wear a hoodie!!!
"I'm not that into hockey" So Emmett is a fugitive who came to the US for asylum?
No, that would be if they prefer New York bagels over Montréal bagels or absolutely does not like Poutine.
Beeps hesitated in her answer not because she had to convert from Fahrenheit, but because she had to go back to the Kelvins any self respecting AI's builtin temperature sensor is calibrated to
The actual conversion didn't take all that long, it was properly rounding up each decimal place to be as accurate as possible that took the most time.
It was a bit of a culture shock when I was chatting with an friend in Australia, and they said it was 30 degrees out and the AC wasn’t much help. “I would imagine so, that’s freezing!”, I said. Then they snapped back saying that was like 100 degrees Fahrenheit, followed by “Sheesh, ya uncultured yank”. Then we talked about air conditioning (I’m pretty sure it’s required by law here in Florida) for an hour.
Willis Carrier is basically the state hero of Florida.
Bubbles is like, "Oh, they speak metric. Excellent. I too speak metric."
must protect Emmett at all costs
Ever look at a scratch and realize it feels worse now that you’ve seen the blood? That’s Emmett
As an Australian, I sit here in 39c (102.2f) wishing it was 26c
My initial thought was, "Wow, it gets up to 39 in Australia!" And then I remembered the Midnight Oil song that mentions a desert temperature of 45 degrees...
I do this. I'll be sitting around in a big sweater being just fine, and then someone says "it is 26 degrees in here" and I am suddenly unbearably hot.
confirmed
I love Emmett so much. Not fully understanding the environment you're in until someone else points it out. Too relatable.
Growing up in Canada, we would visit family over the border a few times a year. I got pretty good at doing all the conversions - distance, temperature, currency, liquids. What I liked about the Interstate system was that whenever you saw the 'miles to' sign, the number of miles was roughly the number of minutes to that city, no conversion needed, since the speed limit was around 60mph. After I moved to the US, I find I think in Imperial units here, but metric units back home. It feels a little weird when I try to use metric units here or imperial units in Canada.
I was wondering about that. I've only visited Canada a couple times and England once and didn't find the change over too jarring. A meter's three feet and small change and temperature is just subtract 32 and cut it in half. I always figured people who lived close to the US kept that sort of stored away when necessary.
Emmett is precious, poor little shy bean.
Oh yeah, now in units they understand. Instant heat stroke. I love Emmett.
giggles in Australian. I have my aircon set to COLD at 22 degrees celsius today
Yeah, I was going to say - 26 might be a bit warm for a hoodie, and certainly a hoodie over a jumper, but I wouldn't say it's *that* hot.
I am so glad that inner top exists from a “Canadian person who needs this” standpoint, but I’m terrified of the thermals.
Thanks for the reminder to go back through my spreadsheet and add weather for each strip.
Your spreadsheet sounds epic. Is it a shareable google doc?
... Emmettric system
LH OH MY GOD
For anyone curious, 3ft is about a meter
Ten feet is almost exactly three metres - useful to know for Dungeons and Dragons purposes :)
Love their shirt.
*Their