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Disrespecting Authorities That Cry Wolf
Having the trifecta of a conservative temperament, theology, and political outlook, I am the kind of guy who generally respects authorities. This is getting harder to do. One of the recurrent problems is authorities who “cry wolf.” I received the following warning over my iPhone, accompanied by an emergency audio signal vaguely reminiscent of a Star Trek red alert:
Emergency Alert
National Weather Service: A FLASH FLOOD WARNING is in effect for this area until 3:45 PM MST. This is a dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.
I’m in Tucson, Arizona. I’ve lived here, more or less continuously, for almost 50 years now. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a rainstorm that presented a dangerous and life-threatening situation. Not, at least, if you exercise a lick of common sense, like staying out of washes.
I received two of these messages over the weekend, too, but being among the oldest of Gen X, I pressed a button on my phone that deleted the message before I could transcribe it and couldn’t get it back. (Isn’t that helpful, too?)
I’ve noticed this strange trend for quite a long time now, but it seems to be getting worse. Many people seem paranoid, panicked, phobic. Risks seem to be wildly overstated. It sometimes seems as if the whole world is composed of the type of hysterical teenaged girl who gave us the witch trials once upon a time.
The examples are legion, and are not confined to one side of the political spectrum:
- Dying of Covid
- Getting shot by the cops
- Mass extinction, apparently, because the temperature may be warming up a bit
- A variety of catastrophes if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan (again)
- Russian troops invading the US if not stopped at the Ukrainian border, or something like that
And oh, by the way, it’s a life-threatening emergency every time it rains in Tucson.
This is getting a bit old.
Published in General
Crap like that exceeds my ability to suspend disbelief, and for very good reason.
If they just wanted some yucks, they could have beamed him into the women’s showers or something.
You probably hated Jar-Jar, too.
Well sure, Jar-Jar Abrams has done many awful things. Although “Alias” was pretty good. But everything else seems to be a rip-off from things far better than he’s made, that were made by far better people than him.
Centigrades freak me out with all their legs. I prefer tardigrades.
I think I have a fever. My thermometer reads 0.000013. Is that high?
So, not the kid with the stuffed tiger.
Kelvin and Higgs?
That’s a bit impractical.
Maximum heat happened in the big bang at t=0 and T=infinity° in any scale.
Meaning any real temperature is 0°.
Then I must have a fever.
And hypothermia.
Simultaneously.
I can’t top that.
That would not be very useful.
mnemonic device:
30 is warm
20 is nice
10 is chilly
0 is ice.
And I point out the same problem with Celsius, really. For example with thermostats, a Celsius thermostat has to allow for fractions otherwise you only have half the “discrimination” available to F thermostats. Since one degree C is about equal to two degrees F. So, roughly, for example, without fractions you can’t adjust a C thermostat to what might be 72 F. You can have 71 or 73, but not 72.
Try the Rankine.
Unless you have an analogue thermostat! Old fashioned I know, but it is infinitely variable, at least to the quantum level. I include my Celtic Woman calendar because it is beautiful.
Also, most modern thermostats allow one to set which scale one wants.
Which reminds me, it is August now.
I think we have officially broken the thread.
Are those the magnetic/spring type thermostats? Those are the worst, due to hysteresis in operation.
Yes, but unless the C scale allows for fractional settings – and so far I haven’t seen one that does – you lose half of your “granularity.”
It was broken until I restored it with my post on the hysterical heat warning here in BC. Admittedly I have since broken it again, probably irretrievably. But the Celtic Women are lovely and talented!
Some folks would complain if ya hanged ’em with a new rope.
True.
It’s the hanging that matters, not the age of the rope.
Hysterics are why only dads are allowed to touch them.
~cancels self~
“[M]ost modern thermostats allow one to set which scale one wants” — not in Scotland, perhaps.
I was staying in a hotel in Glasgow, during a cold summer some years ago, and every evening the temperature in my room would be comfortable, but by morning it would be too cold. With pen and paper, I did my Fahrenheit to Celsius conversions; but I always seemed to be setting the thermostat wrong.*
After several days I learned that the heating was shut off, so it didn’t matter how I set the thermostat. The hotel loaned me a space heater, but by that time I had already caught a cold.
Not telling people things they need to know may be a Scottish trait. On another visit, it was only when I tried to change trains in the underground that I discovered the branch to the convention center had flooded that spring and was still shut down.
*The thermostat lacked a Fahrenheit option, presumably because advocates for metrication enjoy imposing that extra bit of coercion.
Was it digital, or analog?
A digital thermostat in Celsius, without fractional settings, could only be set to the equivalent of like 71 or 73. The equivalent of the intermediate temp of 72 F would not be available because 1 degree C is about the same as 2 degrees F.
Analog, as best I can recall.