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Ben Letham
Personal blog · lethalletham.com/postsculturewriting
Ben Letham's personal blog at lethalletham.com covers culture and writing. Since 2017, 5 different Hacker News readers have linked it 6 times, most often “In Defense of Fahrenheit”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ben Letham's post making the case for Fahrenheit over Celsius, including a data point that 0°F and 100°F match the 1st and 99th percentiles of continental US daily temperatures.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Ben Letham - Research Site
Most-linked posts?
- In Defense of Fahrenheit3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-05-25
What Hacker News says?
The argument for Fahrenheit over Celsius is actually relatively strong: http://lethalletham.com/posts/fahrenheit.html I also have a soft spot for fractional units and different bases (e.g. 12, 60, etc) over decimal, but I can admit the practical case is comparatively weak and inconsequential.
Comment linking /posts/fahrenheit.html
on “IPv4, IPv6, and a sudden change in attitude”Submitted In Defense of Fahrenheit as a story · 28 points
HN discussionThe steelman argument for Farenheit as it is, not necessarily the motivations behind it, has been fleshed out here: http://lethalletham.com/posts/fahrenheit.html TL;DR: "The remarkable result here is that 0℉ is nearly exactly the 1st percentile of daily lows, and 100℉ is nearly exactly the 99th percentile of daily highs." NB: The context is the continental US.
Comment linking /posts/fahrenheit.html
on “The super-slow conversion of the U.S. to metric (2025)”Submitted In Defense of Fahrenheit as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The best part of a lightsaber duel is the talking as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The best part of a lightsaber duel is the talking as a story · 2 points
HN discussion