Switch Temperatures

Whichever system you use, try switching to the other one.¹ Metric v.s. imperial is an argument with a correct answer, but that's an issue for another day. You cannot change an entire country around yourself, so you'll be stuck with whatever you've got for better and worse.

So why use a system from a part of the world you may never visit? Why make the weather forecast less intuitive and cooking more finnicky than it already is?

Even if you don't plan to travel now, you might meet people who use the other system or be forced to interact with a system in the world which defaults to the other one. Why wouldn't you want to have a basic intuition for it? It's a form of literacy, and quite an easy one compared to learning a whole other language.

You train your intuition for what the temperature means in a practical sense every single day. But whatever your native system is, you've long since hit diminishing returns on learning it. Why not put that automatic effort elsewhere?

Depending how often you reference temperature, it'll take a few months to get used to the new numbers and several more to switch to thinking in them by default. That seems long, but that's the cost of redoing years of pattern matching. The first time is the worst time. At least unlike the rest of the major measuring and formatting differences in the world, temperatures are pretty well supported.

Quick tip to get you started. Roughly, F to C is subtract thirty and halve, C to F is double and add thirty.

You'll have to do it in your head a while. It gets easier.

- Rew

Nightly Notes

I'm actually debating switching back because I've been switched for so long I have to pause and convert when the temperature comes up in casual conversation. It's always easier to go back and forth after you've built an intuition for both.

Anyway.

I recently went through what I can best describe as a holistic test of knowledge. Nothing particularly rigorous or formal, but structured enough to reveal what kinds of problems and knowledge I tend to pull from. I did well, but I still feel I'm still severely lacking.

I don't know how to articulate that, as I've just exhausted most of my energy and analytical skills to getting through said test. So you get this.

This is that in microcosm. I want to learn how to do both in more things. Open up the options that you don't plan to use, because it'll come up around you regardless.

I'm so tired, but I'm also so ready to start patching those holes.

- Rew