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.

Yeah, it would be more interesting if the middle track were empty.

Ah, ok, so “control” and “backspace” don’t actually function as control or backspace keys. Then that makes more sense.

Wouldn’t a split spacebar be two different keys that both individually can be used to type a space? This keyboard requires that both keys be pressed together to insert a space because each individual key has a different function. Given the common occurrence of spaces, that seems needlessly difficult.

If A is false, A -> B is true regardless of what B is, so the two undefined terms in your truth table should be true.

So it is fairly easily translated into a shaded Venn Diagram. It’s simply everything shaded aside from Trick only.

Looking at a map with the current polls (and focusing on the toss-ups), it seems that the most viable path to victory for Harris is to pick up PA, MI, and WI. If she drops PA, she’d need MI, NV, WI or AZ, and GA or NC, but that seems like a big ask. If she wins PA, she could lose WI if she picks up AZ, GA, or NC and she could lose MI if she wins GA, NC, or AZ and NV. But winning PA and losing both WI and MI would require winning AZ and either GA or NC.

So there are a few paths to a Harris win, and a few don’t seem very farfetched, but none of them seem likely enough for comfort. Definitely not how I was hoping to be feeling at this point in the election.

It’s not physical damage to her brain. She has schizophrenia and developed symptoms of it at an abnormally young age. She didn’t have a clear grasp on what was and wasn’t real and that ultimately led her to stab her friend nineteen times. It’s clearly a condition that has presented itself as very dangerous for her, and it needs to be under control before she can be released.

That makes sense. I can definitely see that. Do you have a different name for Ursa Minor? We call it the Little Dipper here, but I’m assuming that’s not the case on your side of the pond.

When it comes to lead pipes, it is possible for them to safely carry water without the risk of leaching lead into the drinking water, but it relies on the pipes being properly maintained and the water being properly treated. This is where the issue came with Flint.

Prior to 2014, the Flint River was a backup source for drinking water with the primary source being Lake Huron. However, Flint was facing a financial crisis and decided to switch their water supply to the Flint River. When they switched, they also chose to save money by not treating the new water source with the additional anticorrosion materials that would be necessary for the different properties of this water. This caused the existing lead pipes to corrode through the protective layer that had naturally formed previously, allowing lead to leach into the water supply.

Aside from the dangers of lead contamination for the human body, there is another concern when it comes to water treatment. Lead reacts with chlorine, and chlorine is added to drinking water to protect against harmful bacteria. Since there was now a significant amount of lead leaching into the water, a notable portion of the chlorine was now bound to the lead and was not available to kill harmful bacteria. This created the initial problems that were identified by residents in Flint, MI, and it was later discovered that the water supply now had detectable levels of lead.

So Flint exemplifies the issue well. Lead pipes are dangerous and should not be used, but that danger isn’t absolute. Because lead pipes can be safe, we’ve let this problem fester for decades. However, it takes a lot of care and attention to keep using these pipes safely, and, as can be seen in Flint, it is very easy for those precautions to be tossed aside. When that happens, it becomes a major crisis very quickly.

A dipper is like a large ladle and is used more for transferring a large amount of liquid rather than serving. Oftentimes, the end will be more squared off with a flat bottom.

To me, these two constellations look very much like dippers and it’s difficult to see them as bears.

Your assertion is that Biden has not tried to contact DeSantis to offer help. You were provided with an article that says otherwise and dismissed it as false. What evidence do you hand that supports your claim that Biden has not attempted to contact DeSantis? Other Republican governors have said that Biden was quick to reach out in regards to Helene, so it’s hard to believe that he hasn’t tried to contact Florida.

Yep. The two main arguments were that the ACA would create death panels and that people would no longer have a choice in their healthcare providers. But both of those were, and still are, the status quo with private, for profit health insurance providers being involved in care.

That’s the big reason why I loved Diablo II, but was lukewarm on the following two. The skill tree was fixed and a had nice synergies between the skills. I used to keep a notebook with plans for different builds that seemed fun and was primarily interested in the skills rather than items.

In Diablo III, the skill tree was much more limited, and you could swap things out at any time. So planning out a build and starting a new character was pointless. You could just swap the active skills.

It also didn’t seem to have any hard spots. If you followed the main quests, your character improved just fast enough to keep the challenge throughout consistent. So I never really felt a need to grind. I mean, I hate games that are all grinding, but I also like it when there are walls that you have to spend some time and effort to move past.

Diablo IV was even worse for this as the areas adapt to your level. So no matter where you were, the challenge was the same.

Neither of the two were awful, in my opinion, but they dropped the parts that made Diablo so exceptional to me. So I really didn’t spend too much time with either of them whereas I played Diablo II for about 10 years.