Yeah. I think it might be more reasonable if Dr. Strangelove cited to an article in Discover or something more aimed at a general audience, than phys.org.
Back before my brain cells started dying I won many bottles of wine at restaurants with trivia contests, ruled at Trivial Pursuit, and got on Jeopardy my first try. Not that interested in sports trivia, but as others have said, don’t disdain it. I just haven’t spent time reading the sports pages to bone up on it. Early baseball I’m good at because I read lots of baseball books as a kid.
My trivia expertise just comes from a good memory and wide reading.
My trivia knowledge is pretty broad – when I did trivia* I can say I was the MVP. Sports is what I am worst at (though I was the only one on my team had any clue about Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak**)
I don’t disdain anyone who knows more about stuff.
Brian
* My every other week trivia died with Covid. I tried once to restart with no luck
** I knew it was 50-something but this wasn’t a multiple choice question ans: 56
I’m good in some areas of trivia and I suck at others, but it’s not like I really disdain the areas I suck in.
That being said, we get a lot of one-day special quizzes in the online trivia league I’m in, between seasons of the main competition, written by players on specific topics. While I look at every quiz and see if I know at least one question, regardless of whether I actually take the whole thing, sometimes it’s a niche topic I know nothing about with questions that sound like complete nonsense. Sports writer and talk show host Tony Kornheiser, Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive book series…
(Of course, I assume there are niche quizzes I’ve taken that sound equally nonsensical to people unfamiliar with the topic. C’est la vie.)
I swear to god, all I did was search their site for “MPa” (megapascal) and it came up with this:
Which contains the lovely sentence:
Simulated vomitus matrices at low (6.24 mPa*s) and high (177.5 mPa*s) viscosities were inoculated with low (108 PFU/mL) and high (1010 PFU/mL) concentrations of bacteriophage MS2 and placed in the artificial “stomach” of the device, which was then subjected to scaled physiologically relevant pressures associated with vomiting.
Well, even I learned a new phrase today. I’ll have to work “vomitus matrices” into my speech from now on.
Regardless, that turns out to be millipascal-seconds. And–I had to look this up because I actually didn’t have the figure at my command–room temperature water is at just about 1 mPa-s. So their simulated vomitus is anywhere from 6x to 177x as viscous as water! Aren’t you glad you learned something?
A “close enough” way to do C to F that is easier to remember is F = 2*C + 30. I learned this from Bob and Doug Mckenzie.
Why does the average person need to convert temperatures from C to F?
I’m genius level at comic book trivia. I’d kind of rather be a genius about music, literature or finance.
Thank you.
There is so much popular culture that has passed me by.
“Genius at trivia” doesn’t really work, does it?
When we Murricans read technical stuff, all the temps are in C. Which numbers mean nothing to us until F-ified. The rest of the planet is smart enough to already think in C, so has no reason to ever mess with F at all.
Except when reading the informal drivel of Murricans in places like the Dope.
I don’t know about the average person, but whenever I’m traveling abroad and see the local weather reports, I have to do this calculation. And I do a lot of traveling.
I just kind of know it by feel, without needing to remember an exact formula. 20 is room temp. 0 is obviously freezing. 50 is about as hot as it gets anywhere on earth, and you can just kinda guess in between. (I also remember 30 is about 85, so that fills in a blank.)
Fill in your °F numbers as appropriate to the entries in this handy dandy guide:
-10°C = Extremely Cold
0°C = Cold
10°C = Chilly
20°C = Nice
30°C = Hot
40°C = Unpleasantly Hot
50°C = Complete Insanity
I’ve never experienced any temps colder than -10, but most other temperate and polar-adjacent countries do get quite a bit colder than that.
Like you and me? Put 'em up, Comic Noob!
I make a point to watch Marvel flicks with our minister, who’ll notice minutae in the background, and identify characters who’ll be important later.
Thanks, GuanoLad, for the “How ºC Numbers Feel” list.
I love this, too! I had a Short Story Party once. I’d love to have a Tell Us About Something We Don’t Care About (Yet) party…
.
Reminds me of teaching a design class that was half-asleep. So I walked in, went right to the board and intoned:
The Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887 was awesome. It totally disproved everyone who thought the Earth swam through a Luminiferous Aether…
The students woke up, got into it, and one of them said “If we knew you were smart, we would’ve listened more all semester.”
I have a slightly different scale:
-40 C = Huddle under the blankets
-30 C = Work from home day
-20 C = I hope the car starts
-10°C = Getting nippy out
-5 C = Maybe time to get out the gloves and toque
0°C = Chilly
10°C = Nice day for a walk
20°C = Getting hot
30°C = Hot
40°C = Unpleasantly Hot
50°C = Complete Insanity
I had a VW with a Celsius thermometer. I can do it in my head 30 years later.
In my biz we worked in C & thought in F. Lotta conversions.
As to your chart I’ll offer mine:
- <30C = move someplace warmer
30-35C = perfection
>35C = time to go swimming or get another iced cocktail. Or both.
Toxylon
“Genius at trivia” doesn’t really work, does it?
Well, it sure doesn’t pay…