#1643: Degrees explain

[Cueball is looking at his smartphone while a friend calls to him from off-panel. Cueball is thinking as indicated with a thought bubble.]

Off-screen voice: Hey, what’s the temperature outside?

Cueball (thinking): Should I give it in °F or °C?

[Zoom in on Cueballs head with a list of reason to use Celsius above him:]

Degrees Celsius

* International standard

* Helps reduce America’s weird isolationism

* Nice how “negative” means below freezing

* Physics major loyalty

* Easier to spell

* We lost a Mars probe over this crap

[Same view of Cueballs head, but wider frame to accommodate a broader a list of reason to use Fahrenheit:]

Degrees Fahrenheit

* 0°F to 100°F good match for temperature range in which most humans live

* Rounds more usefully (70’s, 90’s)

* Unit-aware computing makes imperial less annoying

* SI prefixes are less relevant for temperatures

* Fahrenheit is likely more clear in this context

* Valuing unit standardization over being helpful possibly makes me a bad friend

[Cueball is holding his smartphone down while thinking as indicated with another thought bubble floating at the top. He then speaks and gets a reply from his off-panel friend.]

Cueball (thinking): Crap, gotta pick something. Uhh…

Cueball: …0.173 radians.

Off-screen voice: I’ll just go check myself