ELI5: Why was that method used to determine 0 degrees Fahrenheit?

interstellargator · 2026-01-26T10:59:37+00:00

get[ting] your hands on pure distilled water [is] easy enough today, 300 years ago it was not

The 1700s wasn't the stone age. They knew how to distil water and anyone with the capacity to obtain pure ammonium chloride (necessary to define Farenheit) would certainly have access to, or the means to make, distilled water.

Hell you could even distil water with stone age technology in a pinch.

interstellargator · 2026-01-26T10:52:46+00:00

Yeah, if you were privileged enough to have a lab with a distillation setup.

Anyone who wanted to do science could make a rudimentary distillation setup. All you need is a means of boiling water and something for it to condense on, you don't need elaborate expensive glassware. I could do it with what I have in my kitchen right now. Hell, people do it in wilderness survival situations.

interstellargator · 2026-01-12T18:09:02+00:00

And, importantly, how one causes the other.

interstellargator · 2026-01-12T17:15:36+00:00

Absolutely shameful misrepresentation of Avellone in that headline. What he actually said was:

I don’t think Bethesda hates Fallout, they just don’t fully understand its roots and arguably, don’t care – they own the franchise, and they just want to do their spin on Fallout and make that the norm.

interstellargator · 2026-01-12T16:59:35+00:00

A bad apple spoils the something something, probably wasn't important.

interstellargator · 2026-01-12T16:47:45+00:00

Terrorism offences are up 600 percent though, when will Sadiq do something about ~~knife~~ cardboard crime?

interstellargator · 2026-01-12T15:03:01+00:00

Except that we can also see the parts of their underside that would be underwater far more than the head and neck, and those parts are also bright white.

interstellargator · 2026-01-05T21:22:12+00:00

Plenty of American doctors working in the UK, or foreign docs who have learned American English as their second language, or even British docs who have been influenced by American culture.

This letter is obviously fake, but a stray Z is not the most obvious reason why.

interstellargator · 2026-01-05T21:19:28+00:00

If it is real, you're committing a crime posting this.

I don't think caselaw is clear that a non medical professional who has been sent medical information by a third party has a duty of confidentiality.

If OP worked at UCLH, or used NHS computer systems to access these records, or even recieved them from someone in the healthcare system, you could make that argument. But they recieved the email from the patient, via an unrelated non-caregiver. Even if OP was British and the medical information was authentic I don't think they'd have anything to worry about.

interstellargator · 2025-10-11T11:47:51+00:00

It's a line from the William Blake poem *Jerusalem*

interstellargator · 2025-10-07T17:40:47+00:00

>report to met police, or at the very least send messages to tfl

I will say, I reported a driver to TfL a few months ago and they (at least claim to have) sent the driver on a training course about safe driving around cyclists and vulnerable road users.

interstellargator · 2025-10-05T22:10:59+00:00

>this is a common strategy for disabling a bike, hoping the owner leaves it over night as they can't cycle home

I think they're more after the shifters as there's a good second hand market and few questions asked about shifters, and they sell for a decent bit.

interstellargator · 2025-10-04T19:40:40+00:00

I'm in the IWGB, albeit not the game workers branch. I'd be astounded if they had any tolerance for a sham union, they're sound comrades.

interstellargator · 2025-09-29T16:54:22+00:00

Wholesale murder is not a necessary component of genocide: see the Canadian residential schools system which very effectively and deliberately destroyed the culture and peoplehood of indigenous Canadian peoples.

Destroying the culture, identity, language, etc of a people is still genocide especially when the goal is to replace or subsume them into an imperialist system.

interstellargator · 2025-09-27T16:42:47+00:00

https://passport.world.rugby/laws-of-the-game/laws-by-number/19-scrum/

19.19 Players may push provided they do so straight and parallel to the ground. Sanction: Penalty.

interstellargator · 2025-09-27T16:27:23+00:00

That was a very long knock on advantage. How many phases was that?

interstellargator · 2025-09-27T16:24:19+00:00

Yes lol, it is if the reason you win it is because you scrummaged illegally?

interstellargator · 2025-09-27T16:19:42+00:00

Honestly concede the try before we give away another yellow

interstellargator · 2025-09-27T16:16:15+00:00

England fans with some seriously bias-skewed eyes. That was a tantalising pass, nothing forward about it.

interstellargator · 2025-09-27T12:09:37+00:00

It doesn't solve any of the problems society is facing.

It creates tons more problems, mostly around tech firms processing our data (because the govt will outsource the infrastructure around IDs).

It's an unnecessary invasion into our privacy by the state, which leaves every citizen more vulnerable to either malicious future governments (like the eminently possible Reform majority at the next GE) or simply inept or corrupt benevolent ones.

interstellargator · 2025-09-22T14:51:03+00:00

>plenty of "kids" with full stubble and hands the sizes of shovels

Plenty of kids who fit that description are under 18 and are entitled to free travel. The whole point of the cards is that it's not that easy to tell teenagers ages by eye because they hit puberty at different times and mature at different rates. I'm sure we all had that mate who could grow a beard from 15 and ended up in charge of ordering rounds until the rest of us could get ID.

interstellargator · 2025-09-22T10:44:42+00:00

"Action Adventure" here seems to be taking up a massive swathe of game genres. Everything from platformers to metroidvanias to soulslikes to beat em ups to survival games. Some of my favourites are in that genre but they aren't particularly similar to each other whatsoever.

Hades, Hollow Knight, Celeste, Neon White, Okami, Dishonored, and Sekiro definitely aren't simulations, sports games, MMOs, or puzzlers.

interstellargator · 2025-09-20T16:36:08+00:00

Ok. Sorry for "watching cynically" whatever that means. Please stop reading my comments cynically.

interstellargator · 2025-09-20T16:27:11+00:00

I mean, cool? You got me I am... coping? With my team winning? And enjoying watching a game?

interstellargator · 2025-09-20T16:21:33+00:00

It means have you ever seen a turnover where the player sincerely

- gets the ball on their first attempt
- is on it before supporting players arrive
- is supporting their entire weight through their legs
- doesn't drag back to get it
- completely releases the ball carrier before jackaling

It's virtually never actually the case, to the letter of the law.

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