Plunging Into Celsius

“What is that in Celsius?” asked my European coworker on the other end of an international conference call.  We had started the call by saying how cold it was in the Northeast, -21°F exactly, so I was already asking Google to convert it for me.

“About -30°C,” I replied, not missing a beat.

That’s when I asked myself, “Why do I still use the Fahrenheit temperature scale?”  I decided to switch the units on my favorite weather app and take the plunge to Celsius.

“Isn’t switching to Celsius hard for an old person like you?” you might ask.  Well, I know that water freezes at about 0°C and boils at about 100°C.  Also, I was already accustomed to using Celsius at work, so I knew that room temperature is about 25°C, at least for a warm room.  (I allow my house to stay much cooler in Winter.)

Given these three F-C equivalents, it’s easy to deduce temperatures that lie between 32°F (0°C) and 77°F (25°C) by using ratios.  For example, 12°C, a temperature that is halfway between 0°C and 25°C, is also halfway between 32°F and 77°F, and that’s 55°F.  Likewise, the “quarter points” are 6°C (44°F) and 18°C (66°F), a typical room temperature in Winter.

Below 0°C, I rely on the fact that for every one degree change in Celsius, there is a 1.8° change in Fahrenheit.  As well, for every 2°C change, we experience a 3.6°F change.  So -4°C would be about 7°F below 32°F, or 25°F.

On the upper end of the weather temperature scale, you might get a 35°C forecast, which is 10°C higher than room temperature, or 18°F above 77°F, or 95°F, which (unfortunately) my European coworkers experienced recently.

Have you guessed that I dislike warm weather?

I’m not sure I’ll bother using Celsius in cooking or baking.  First, if I change the units on the oven, my wife will be very upset.  But then I’d also have to convert all the recipes we’ve accumulated.  I don’t see any point in that.

So will you also switch the units in your weather app from Fahrenheit to Celsius?

Pandora Music Streaming Tweak -- Change the Station Image

I've been a Pandora subscriber since 2006, and I have a couple of well-tweaked stations.  But one of my favorite stations was stuck with the ugly album art of the song that was used as the station seed.  I couldn't find a way to replace the image, and Pandora help had nothing to offer.  So here's how I changed the image:

1. Log in to Pandora.
2. Select the station from your collection.
3. Click the icon to edit the station. (At this time, it looks like a pencil.)
4. From here you can change the station Name, Description, and Thumb History, but most importantly, the "Seed" that the station evolved from, which is in the section called "Station Created From."
5. (If there are multiple "seeds" in this section you can skip this step.)  Click "+ Add Variety" to add a new "seed" and choose a favorite song whose album cover you prefer.
6. Delete the top-most "seed" to set the album cover from the next "seed" as the station image.
7. You can continue this process until the "seed" that has your favorite album art occupies the top spot.
8. At this point, you can add back the deleted "seeds" as described in step 5.  But for a mature station, you probably don't need to do this, especially if you've been diligent with the thumbs up button.