this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Nissan Motor Co. said it has developed a new type of paint that significantly reduces the temperature inside vehicles parked in direct sunlight.

The surface of a car coated with the innovative material remains up to 12 degrees cooler than that of a vehicle with standard paint, tests showed.

The company said the coating material can help rein in the temperature rise not only on the car's body but also in the vehicle when exposed to direct sunlight.

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[–] remer@lemmy.world 39 points 2 months ago (5 children)

And that’s 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 degrees Fahrenheit)! What kind of garbage article doesn’t include the units!?

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Or 53.6 degrees Fahrenheit if you believe whoever wrote the page for Nissan lmao. I guess they just typed it into a converter with no context, and the converter spat out an answer amounting to "if your thermometer says it's 12 degrees C, that would be 53.6 degrees F"... but without that context.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 3 points 2 months ago

There probably wasn't even anyone who actually wrote it. Fed it into some LLM to generate the page and no one actually edited it to make sure everything made sense

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

How would you know it’s wrong if you don’t know fahrenheit

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 7 points 2 months ago

Fair point, but I guess I would hope that the person being paid to write the copy would check it, since getting that right seems like it's part of their job description ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That’s why it’s a better choice to just clearly identify the units and not attempt to be clever about converting for a particular audience

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What kind of garbage article doesn’t include the units!?

What for? Almost no country uses Fahrenheit.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 33 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If that's how scientists did science, we'd have mountains of confusion. "Eh, most people will get it. Good enough."

Information like this is global. It's a single "C" for clarity. That's not an unreasonable ask.

[–] Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

You need the ° or else you're just making errybody mad. Or maybe that's just me.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 2 months ago

Maybe it's a mental reading thing. I always "hear" the word "degrees" in my head when I see °, so I like the extra effort to include that, but I also know that colloquially, people are a lot lazier.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is a news article, not a study, which would've more likely used Kelvin, which would be still 12 degrees. It's for everyday people, which almost all of which use Celsius to measure temperature. People outside of the few countries who use Fahrenheit don't get confused about it because it's literally the only measurement they use in their life. If you travel outside the US you will find that no one adds Fahrenheit conversations anywhere and that pretty much all temperatures are listed in Celsius.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're arguing that it's not worth the effort to be clear over a single letter, from a place of what appears to be some American-oriented xenophobia. Not a good look.

But to your point about travel, that isn't analogous. This isn't an American tourist going to another country, where the temperature context is Celsius. This is an article disseminated globally; by its very nature, the context should be agnostic of locale, and so it would behoove the authors to be clear (again, with a single letter) so that there is no confusion.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Calling out US entitlement isn't xenophobia. That self applied victim complex is just proving my point.

This is an article disseminated globally

Anything on the internet is inherently accessible globally, unless there's a geo-block in place. That does not mean that the things on the internet have to inherently be tailored to US standards or with US viewers in mind. The clearly not US sounding website "The Asahi Shimbun" even specifically has the subtitle "Asia & Japan Watch", which should make it more than obvious that this is not a US focused media. The only confusion coming up here is when you have to assume US units being used everywhere else, which simply is not the case.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Again, you're quibbling about the letter C for the sake of clarity and calling that US entitlement. You're welcome to die on that hill, but it seems like a silly one to die upon because you have some beef with Americans.

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Again, you're quibbling about the letter C for the sake of clarity

No, that's what you are doing. lol I'm telling you that the letter is irrelevant for the majority of people in the world because we all already assuming the correct units of temperature and you seem to take an issue with that fact.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Me: "We should be clear and add a C, so we know for sure what units we're dealing with and don't make assumptions."

You: "No, that's American-centrism! We don't need to include them! Most of the world already knows what they mean!"

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for proving my point. lol

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

TIL "inclusion" is ethnocentrism. 🤡

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 0 points 2 months ago

Yeah, that's totally what's been said. At least you already wear your clown badge proudly.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I’ve definitely seen some non-US news sources convert to US common units based on my locale. I’d much prefer they just clearly state what they’re using, especially like here where it’s just a matter of adding one character - similar to time where it’s adding three characters for the time zone.

It’s not even necessarily a US centric view asking for it - taking the high road here: anyone in the US interested in science is used to seeing both common and metric units. it’s really no big deal to switch back and forth. Just be aware there are multiple possibilities and indicate which you’re using.

[–] Zip2@feddit.uk 11 points 2 months ago (3 children)

You’re right. Everything should be in degrees kelvin by default. Problem solved.

[–] Throw_away_migrator@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I will not stand for this! Rankine will be the standard! It will confuse and infuriate everyone equally. Truly the fairest of outcomes.

[–] PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago
[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Kelvin and Celsius are the same scale with a different zero point anyway.

[–] remer@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I totally agree

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I agree clarification never hurts, but the entire world except for ~4% of highly entitled population will read that right.

[–] IamAnonymous@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

There’s no need for that attitude though.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Fair, my bad! Sorry if it was offensive.

I just got a little sick of all the Fahrenheit (and also Imperial) domination around here. This, in turn, is often left without clarification, despite the system being way less popular.

Lemmy as a platform is extremely America-centric, despite having tons of folks from everywhere else, which is aggravating in the long run. World really, really doesn't all revolve around land of the free.

[–] Zip2@feddit.uk 3 points 2 months ago

Metric ton of folks or colonial? Please clarify.

I agree though, that’s why I like posting conversions from time to time on other posts that are US defaults.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Being from Russia, I'm fine with people using the units they are more confident with or used to.

(Not specifying units may be a bit confusing, but then people here don't say\write "it's 20 degrees Celsius" either.)

[–] Allero@lemmy.today -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Russian-languaged media is not commonly consumed by someone living under imperial/Fahrenheit system, so it's only natural.

For English, it might make sense to at least always add Celsius in parentheses, unless it's highly regional news.

Also, привет российским леммиводам :D

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] cheddar@programming.dev -5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Given that a lot of English language media are either located in the US or target the US market, I'd expect the value to be expressed in Fahrenheit unless stated otherwise.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Original article is about Asia, and Lemmy is an international platform, so neither applies here

I don't mind some actually regional things presented in whatever system they use in there - although I'd much prefer if we'd all go metric already. C'mon!

[–] cheddar@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The original article is not about Asia, it's about a technical innovation. Regardless, although we're on an international platform, it's easy to see that many topics are US-centered, and many sources too - regardless of the subject.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"Asia&Japan Watch" is right under their name.

This topic is not centered in the US by any metric. It's just an example of a Lemmy bias.

[–] cheddar@programming.dev -1 points 2 months ago

a lot of English language media are either located in the US or target the US market

or target the US market

So regardless of the website's name or origin, it could be an English language outlet targeted at the US audience. Which is quite common. Which is why I explicitly added this remark to the comment you initially replied.

So why are we back here? What exactly are you trying to prove? All I said that I'd expect a value to be expressed in Fahrenheit unless stated otherwise. I didn't say that you should do that, or that's somewhat objective. I was simply arguing that despite only ~4% of population using Fahrenheit, it has much more influence due to the listed factors.

[–] ZealousSealion@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why would it be anything else?

It's clearly too low a number to be °K. And since the only two valid units of measurement for temperature are Kelvin and Celsius, it must be °C.

[–] remer@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A differential temperature of 12C is equal to a differential temperature of 12K….. You don’t take the offset into account for differential temperatures.