What Air Conditioning Can Teach Us About Innovation and Laziness (vice.com) 117
In a think piece for Vice's Motherboard Ernie Smith argues that the invention of air conditioning in 1902 has had a big impact on the innovation we've made since. Smith, citing several studies and articles on the matter, states that it is because of air conditioners that we have things like skyscrapers, clean rooms for building advanced computer chips, shopping malls, and multiplexes. But on the other hand, air conditioners have somewhat limited our creativity in home and office designing. From the article:See, prior to the air conditioner reaching homes around the country, architects had to think more creatively about keeping people cool when options were more limited. This meant taking advantage of breezes, room design, and dimensional layout in a way that maximized the heat when it was necessary kept things cool when it wasn't. And it meant taking advantage of foliage around the home to build in some natural shade, as well as to build porches, which were often much cooler than the insides of homes during warm days.The article, among other things, also mentions that we are currently looking for ways to curtail the energy wastage that incurs because of ACs. But Smith points out that it took us a while -- generations, actually -- before we started to see a problem and began working on it. From the article:"One of the many ways in which we have become cognitively lazy is to accept our initial impression of the problem that [we encounter]. Once we settle on an initial perspective we don't seek alternative ways of looking at the problem," author Michael Michalko wrote. "Like our first impressions of people, our initial perspective on problems and situations are apt to be narrow and superficial. We see no more than we expect to see based on our past experiences in life, education and work." [...] It's hard to even get mad at architects who chose simple efficiency over complexity, or (to highlight a contemporary example) early carmakers that went with gasoline instead of something better for the environment. Because of human nature, it just makes sense that despite all the other advantages that came with air conditioning, the more challenging things that came with the invention -- the fact that conservation and efficiency still have their place -- didn't initially get their due.
Downside of Air Conditioning (Score:3, Insightful)
The US government used to pretty much shut down in the Summer months. Anyone who's experienced DC Summer weather will know why. With the advent of air conditioning, those weasels are around stirring up trouble for the taxpayers 12 months out of the year. It totalitarian government ever comes to the US, blame air conditioning.
Re: Downside of Air Conditioning (Score:1)
C'mon, give the AC a +1 Funny. With all the AC garbage that gets posted, this is harmless and funny. Nonetheless, I disagree with the AC's premise. Disapproval of Congress largely comes from the idea that Congress isn't doing anything to solve our problems. The AC said that in the past, Congress couldn't work in the summer. Nowadays, that's pretty much how Congress operates year round.
Re: Downside of Air Conditioning (Score:5, Insightful)
That's far from true, Congressmen are hard at work all year round. How else would they be able to raise enough money to get reelected?
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Appears to ignore market factors (Score:3)
Re:Buggy whips and horses required design too... (Score:5, Insightful)
as opposed to northern climates that might have to shut down due to whiteout conditions for days at a time. This is why businesses tend to move to more southern areas.
Wrong on both counts. Factories in northern climates very rarely close due to weather. Municipalities have equipment to plow snow and people who live there know how to drive in it. The reason factories moved south in the US was to escape unions; same reason they're moving to Mexico and China today.
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as opposed to northern climates that might have to shut down due to whiteout conditions for days at a time. This is why businesses tend to move to more southern areas.
Wrong on both counts. Factories in northern climates very rarely close due to weather. Municipalities have equipment to plow snow and people who live there know how to drive in it. The reason factories moved south in the US was to escape unions; same reason they're moving to Mexico and China today.
And there was me (in Finland), thinking it was just to escape mosquitos [xkcd.com]...
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and people who live there know how to drive in it.
Let's not get carried away... My observation has been that most people who live here have to learn every year, based on the way they drive when the snow first starts. Same goes for all forms of precipitation.
Weather (Score:4, Informative)
Areas of the world that couldn't really be habitable for the summers are now usable.
In some cases. In others that has more to do with hydro engineering than air conditioning. You could have all the air conditioning in the world and without vast water projects Las Vegas and Phoenix couldn't exist (and arguably shouldn't).
The more tropical latitudes tend to not have issues with snow piles closing roads, potholes, and such
I live in the north and we don't have problems with roads getting closed by snow. Not ever. Some mountainous areas do but they know how to deal with it. Potholes are genuinely not a big deal except in rare cases. Once in a while one causes a flat tire and even that is not super common. Biggest issue they cause is some expense for road maintenance.
as opposed to northern climates that might have to shut down due to whiteout conditions for days at a time.
You've never actually been to the north have you? Businesses in the north almost never shut down for any reason related to weather. I've lived in the Midwest much of my life and we just know how to deal with snow. We have the equipment and experience to deal with it. In fact we tend to think of those in the south as a bunch of pansies when it comes to dealing with bad weather. When I lived a bit further south they would shut the city down for a 1/4 inch of snowfall, or as those of us further north refer to it, no snow.
This is why businesses tend to move to more southern areas.
Manufacturing businesses have moved to southern climates for various reasons but weather is rarely one of them. Unions and labor costs are the biggest reason in most cases. Tax incentives can be another big one. Southern states have been aggressively courting manufacturing businesses. Weather doesn't really play into it.
Re:Weather (Score:5, Funny)
You've never actually been to the north have you? Businesses in the north almost never shut down for any reason related to weather. I've lived in the Midwest much of my life and we just know how to deal with snow.
Hey stop it! Sorry southern folks, the frozen tundra of anything north of Maryland is just nature trying to kill you. Did you know 80 percent of people up north only have two fingers and a thumb left on each hand, the rest are gone to frostbite.
If you are ourside the house during the daily 12 inch blizzard, if you don't get back inside in 5 minutes, you are dead - that's a fact.
Winter insurance costs ten times as much, because every car on the road skids out of control on the 8 months of the year the roads are covered with glare ice. You can look that up.
And do not attempt to pee outside, the subzero temps start freezing your wizz at ground level, and rapidly work it's way upwards, you can get a peesickle catheterization unless you stop really quick. Makes peeing on an electric fence look like a walk in the park.
So stay down south, good citizens - where you are safe and warm, and all is well. You have been warned.
Jeeze, here I am having to run damage control on you again sjbe!
New reality show based on extreme weather (Score:2)
New reality show based on extreme weather,
You expose people to the opposite weather they are accustomed to. Not sure if Rednecks would do better in the cold up North than Yankees down here in the summer when it is 95+ in the shade.
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New reality show based on extreme weather,
You expose people to the opposite weather they are accustomed to. Not sure if Rednecks would do better in the cold up North than Yankees down here in the summer when it is 95+ in the shade.
I went to Palm Coast, Florida some years ago in the summer to visit in-laws. They were older folks, and didn't like using the air conditioner. I thought I might die from lack of sleep. I suspect it would be an amusing show.
From TFA (Score:2, Insightful)
"Once we settle on an initial perspective we don't seek alternative ways of looking at the problem,"
You mean "if it ain't broke, dont fix it?" Sounds like reasonable advice to me. The article's line of thinking is how the world wound up with Walmart.
How people stayed cool before a/c (Score:5, Interesting)
.
However, before air conditioning existed, people had to be creative when trying to stay comfortable in sweltering conditions.
Here are five different ways [accuweather.com] that people across the United States beat the heat in the 1800s and early 1900s.
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Also, sitting in the shade near the ocean. (That was the main reason to have a Summer cottage.) And a practice taught to me by the elderly woman who rented a room from us when I was a child: spray oneself with "refresher", which was basically alcohol in a spray bottle with a bit of floral scent, then dry it with a hand fan. (Hand fans are surprisingly efficient!)
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Nice BuzzFeed-esque clickbait... What is advertising for 500, Alex?
Per your linked article, however, I do find most of those options to be non-solutions. Ice blocks have nothing to do with the design of a house, and as stated, those were not usually a per-house item, but more of a community thing. While I promote building community relations, this doesn't promote productivity in the home. The exact same statement applies also to the water fountains, and napping in the shade. As far as front porches go, I th
The Romans had air conditioning (Score:5, Interesting)
We're starting to adopt the same concept again in newer homes. Turns out dirt tends to stay cooler than the air in summer, and warmer than the air in winter. So you just bury a bunch of water pipes undergorund [wikipedia.org] and use that as your heat sink/source for your heat pump. In summer it cools the home by pumping the heat underground into the dirt, in winter it heats the home by pumping the heat out from the dirt underground.
Re:The Romans had air conditioning (Score:5, Informative)
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There are plenty of examples of indirect evaporative cooling throughout history as well. Persian wind catchers inducinging a draft to a wet well below, cooling the stone floor above.
There are inherent benefits to mechanical air conditioning and ventilation, but they do lead to some sloppy solutions such as air conditioning uninsulated buildings because electricity is cheap.
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There are plenty of examples of indirect evaporative cooling throughout history as well. Persian wind catchers inducinging a draft to a wet well below, cooling the stone floor above.
Linky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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So, 1. have the underground pipes on a slight downward angle with a drain at the lowest point, to stop pooling, and 2. use copper pipes. Better energy transfer than plastic, and microorganisms don't propagate on elemental Cu.
AC also causes condensation - on the "outside", admittedly, but it's still there, and must be dealt with, so systems are designed to mitigate. There's no reason why non-compressor systems can't also be designed to deal with it.
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I grew up in Phoenix. Most people could not afford AC until beginning in the late 80's. My parents did not have AC until the mid 90's and after I moved out (thanks mom). I remember sleeping on the livingroom floor in front of the open door with a fan blowing on me, it didn't seem like a big deal.
I was even working outside on the hottest day (50 C) when they had to shut the airport down. A lot of people were. The city didn't have to be shut down like in blizzard conditions, people weren't dying outside (abno
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On the internet, nobody knows you're a bat.
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I'm surprised you didn't use a swamp cooler. They've been around a good while and are a lot cheaper.
I had one in Albuquerque. Worked well.
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Exactly. The original AC said he grew up in Phoenix. I was visiting there in 1974 (I was 12)and noted how many of the houses had these weird looking brown boxes on top of them. I asked what they were and got the explanation.
Oddly enough, I have seen a large one installed here in Urbana, Illinois in the old make up air system for a restaurant. Nearly useless and hadn't been maintained for decades. (I was working on the attached gas fired heating unit at the time. Was really odd seeing a swamp cooler here. ;
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Creativity can only take you so far. The population of Houston, Texas was about 200,000 until air conditioning became economical in the 1940s. Today the Houston area has 6.7 million people and there are over 2 million within the city limits.
There just wouldn't be people in a lot of parts of the country if it wasn't for air conditioning. Hell, even the Anasazi left Arizona, but now
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As summer heat builds, more people will rely on air conditioning units to keep cool.
. However, before air conditioning existed, people had to be creative when trying to stay comfortable in sweltering conditions.
Sure - and for some reason or other air conditioning caught on.
The biggest need for air conditioning is in lowering the humidity in say the Northeast. It can be miserable at 70 degrees some times. And hitting a dew point is always fun.
I'm a little surprised I haven't seen any comments about server farms. Lose the temp control in one of them, and how we gonna check our Facebook? I'm not certain how we can run those without air conditioning. Perhaps digging deep pits to collect area average temp air, but
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A building with high ceilings and large windows was cooler in the summer, but very hard to heat in the winter (because warm air rises). A building with low ceilings and small windows was easier to heat in the winter but will be hot in the summer. Generous roof overhangs will shade the house in the summer when the Sun is higher but collect some heat through the windows in the winter. Same with deciduous shade trees. Many old houses had a summer kitchen out back so the cook stove wouldn't heat the house in th
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It'd difficult to parse because it's missing a conjunction, it should say:
"... in a way that maximized the heat when it was necessary and kept things cool when it wasn't."
AC is not the reason for bad design (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad design is mainly due to cost-cutting. There are numerous examples in contemporary design: A wall switch goes to an outlet for a standing lamp, to avoid running wire to a ceiling fixture and avoid the cost of the fixture. Rooms are smaller and shorter to save on materials costs; squarer to avoid expensive details. Wood trim around doors and windows is reduced in size or eliminated. Window area is kept to the legal minimum. Doors are hollow, providing no sound insulation. Those are all cases of cost-cutting, with no thought given to practicality or aesthetics. The result is people living in bland, dispiriting boxes.
Ideas like designing for cross-ventilation, large windows on the west side, and less windows on the north side in colder areas are good ideas for making a space livable, regardless of whether there's AC. Even people using central heat/AC can usually open windows throughout much of the year for fresh air. Arguably the laziness is on the part of the people who are willing to live in bland, stuffy boxes and rent hotel rooms with windows that don't open.
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Yea. You'd think you could combine the benefits of smart building design with the perks of AC/heat and have a very comfortable place year round that's energy efficient. But apparently we've decided that's generally foolish for some reason. Boggles my mind.
Re: AC is not the reason for bad design (Score:1)
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Technically, you want small windows upwind and large windows downwind to create a pressure gradient; large glass surfaces on the south with long overhangs to catch the winter sun, (ideally with passive thermal storage) and two-story buildings with living spaces upstairs in cold climates.
For hot climates, good design is often driven by the mean nighttime temperature and humidity. Hot, humid nights are pretty hard to deal with barring air conditioning; best design is usually small mini-split systems for the
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In the late 1960s / early 1970s, it was common to both have A/C and open the windows in the months when it was not needed. Today, so many buildings are designed with fixed glass, never opening windows... sure, it's more efficient when the A/C is running, but does running the A/C 365 days a year translate to better efficiency, or health of the building's occupants?
I've noticed in several cities that the older homes, especially those built in the 1930s and before, are well situated to get breezes and moderat
Re:AC is not the reason for bad design (Score:5, Insightful)
Most home buyers are only looking at the monthly payments. The only customers who know about home design (or who will hire someone else who does) are those that can put more than 20% down. The rest simply don't know, don't care, or won't pay for professional advice.
Most home sales are to uninformed customers; and the builders cater to them.
As of now, commercial and industrial construction are more amenable to new ideas.
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In other words... pretty much the same as it's always been unless you have the cash to pay for better details and larger houses.
Stupid article is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
We're not "cognitively lazy" because we didn't seek alternatives to AC.
We don't WANT alternatives to AC.
The simple fact is that one AC'd room is still cooler than a patio with a breeze in the summer.
Like lamps it allows us to be more productive in the hot months when generally people (in New York for example) would go to the Catskills where it was generally cooler weather.
AC isn't efficient. Well duh. Neither is heating but I don't see this cognitively lazy researcher arguing against reduced uses of heate
AC Hate (Score:1)
The article, among other things, also mentions that we are currently looking for ways to curtail the energy wastage that incurs because of ACs.
Come on, now, there is no evidence that we AC's waste more energy than logged-in users.
Hooray for the time in which we live! (Score:3)
But. One of the greatest lies ever told is that people need to be comfortable to be happy. It's what you're used to. We could, have, and do learn to live without the comforts of modern privilege.
It's not at all surprising these comforts come with some sort of downside.
Windcatchers (Score:4, Interesting)
Well people tried to deal with heat in architecture since like 1000 years B.C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Just look for clues in architecture of nations living in constantly hot climate.
AC is OK when you need it (in car f.e.) but I do prefer other cooling methods if it can be achieved.
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AC is OK when you need it (in car f.e.) but I do prefer other cooling methods if it can be achieved.
In the not-too-distant past, we used to wind down the car window in hot weather. Need more cooling? Depress accelerator further.
The past sucked, get over it (Score:2)
Also, sleeping (or trying) while soaked in sweat isn't particularly good for my creativity afterwards. So IMO thanks god for AC.
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My porches have screens - my bedrooms have fans - you'd be amazed how many months out of the year that A/C is not at all necessary, even in places like Miami.
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Given the abundance of mosquitoes where I live, I'm completely certain I prefer my AC to the "creativity" of sitting on the porch feeding the bloodsucking bastards.
Also, sleeping (or trying) while soaked in sweat isn't particularly good for my creativity afterwards. So IMO thanks god for AC.
Pretty much this. Lots of nights were too hot for sleep, and days could get severely nasty. You can only do so much cooling with fans and air circulation, especially when you are trying to circulate 100 degree air to cool the interior of a building.
Then there are computers. Everywhere in offices, and obviously in server rooms They tend to not work when they get too hot. and when you remove the heat they generate, they function pretty well as heaters.
Perhaps the authors of the story can give us hints a
Nonsense editorializing (Score:5, Insightful)
Once we settle on an initial perspective we don't seek alternative ways of looking at the problem," author Michael Michalko wrote. "Like our first impressions of people, our initial perspective on problems and situations are apt to be narrow and superficial. We see no more than we expect to see based on our past experiences in life, education and work." [...] (to highlight a contemporary example) early carmakers that went with gasoline instead of something better for the environment.
Early car designers tried all kinds of different power sources: electricity, steam, and internal combustion. It turned out that gasoline was the best alternative and hasn't (yet) been replaced by anything else. There was talk of using gas turbines for a while but they're too expensive and finicky. Maybe battery/electric will replace gasoline in the future when the technology advances to the point it's a viable alternative.
His point about air conditioning in building makes no sense either; architects design building for specific purposes - office space, retail shopping, manufacturing, whatever. New building techniques and materials are constantly being introduced. Could a building be designed for passive cooling today? Sure, but very few people would want it in place of central air conditioning. Being creative is one thing, building a product people actually want is something else entirely. And his rant about window unit air conditioners makes no sense at all; no building is designed to use window units, they're a hack. Sheesh
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There are LEED rated buildings designed to maximize air circulation in a building and minimize the use of air conditioning, but still allowing for air conditioning when the need demands it. One can have a building with good air circulation and also have air conditioning - the two are not mutually exclusively. His point perhaps is that some of the buildings built around air conditioning can only exist with active cooling - many of the modern glass buildings constructed would become uninhabitable greenhouses
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I dunno, look how many people on Slashdot claim that any reduction in energy consumption is a downgrade in living standards because it means less A/C and heating. They seem to have forgotten recent history and not noticed that many developed nations have found a better way, because to them temperature is controlled by a little knob on the wall.
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I dunno, look how many people on Slashdot claim that any reduction in energy consumption is a downgrade in living standards because it means less A/C and heating. They seem to have forgotten recent history and not noticed that many developed nations have found a better way, because to them temperature is controlled by a little knob on the wall.
I have a highly insulated house - which uses around 200 dollars of heating a year.in the northeast US. And that isn't a typo. I havehave a super efficient gas furnace that extracts so much heat, the chimney is made of PVC plastic. And I love to note that I have a real fireplace with a heat collector. All the better for the missus and me to snuggle up near on cold winter nights.
And I have some nice big windows as well. 2 inch air gap and they insulate very well.
I do have to run an AC in my home office b
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Maybe battery/electric will replace gasoline in the future when the technology advances to the point it's a viable alternative.
By viable alternative, do you mean the price point or the technology? Because unless I'm mistaken (and please correct me if I'm wrong) we've reached the point that battery/electric is, technologically speaking, a viable alternative.
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Re:Nonsense editorializing (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately some architects focus on the aesthetics and not practicalities. We had an architect from a colder climate re-design our community centre, and he refused to put in *any* active cooling - no AC, no fans, no ducted exhaust. He seemed to think that the high ceiling with louvres at the top, and more at the bottom, would provide sufficient ventilation during summer. He even removed the existing ceiling fans because they "obscured the decorative plasterwork". When some elderly folk started fainting during performances, the committee rapidly put the fans back in.
The point is, architects don't always design for practicality, and that can become expensive later. This guy didn't do any research about about how much heat 200+ bodies generate, how much heat stage lights generate (fortunately they were recently replaced by LED units), how much worse that feels during hot and humid weather, and what's needed to pump that heat away.
Our fault for choosing him, of course - I dare say the committee was blinded by his awards.
Architects? Look at how houses are sold (Score:2)
Great, the "good old days" argument (Score:3)
The advent of modern HVAC created freedom to design buildings any way we want now- we are no longer constrained by a small number of design parameters. Citing the large number of boring buildings as a sign of laziness and decline is just lazy thinking itself.
Sure, 90% of modern buildings are crap designs. That's because 90% of everything is crap- always has been, always will be. The good stuff now has a much wider variety and more innovative thinking.
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That's because 90% of everything is crap- always has been, always will be.
But the old 90% of crap is now gone. What old things remain in the present are the good 10% that survived.
That's why people get confused thinking about "good old days".
Backwards (Score:3)
The invention of A/C didn't damage creativity. Pre A/C, you were *limited and constrained* and had to build porches, limited placement of foliage, and more it less constrained you to do something to deal with the temperature extremes. With A/C, you can make the buildings any shape, any size, with any landscaping, etc. You can make the architecture *any way you like* without even considering the weather or sun. That enable unlimited creativity. Many of the large cities that current exist in North America would be either miserable or unlivable. Do you think you are going to get a city like Phoenix with natural cooling?
Easy solution (Score:3)
If you want to use less air conditioning, don't live in Dallas. Or Phoenix. Or Las Vegas.
...laura
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The point of this article is:
Before there was air conditioning people also did live in Dallas, Phoenix or Las Vegas.
However people in the west want to live in concrete buildings (that are badly formed) instead of clay buildings that cool themselves as in most other former third world deserts.
Solar Powered Air Conditioning (Score:1)
I'm not an engineer, and while I could do my research, this is slashdot.
How viable is solar powered air conditioning? The more sunny, hotter area's and times of year would benefit from such a device as it takes the load off the grid, and peak sun output times tend to be the hottest part of the day, which also coincides with the peak power usage of the day.
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Solar water heating is certainly one of the most efficient uses of the sun. But solar refrigeration is doable.
There are 2 primary ways to get cold from the sun. One is basically the same way that conventional refrigerators do it. Heat a gas, it builds pressure. Let the pressure out via a small opening and the temperature drops. Pass it around to suck heat of of the desired space and dump it somewhere else. Conventionally, this is done via motor power, but anything that will cause gas pressure to increase is
Household solar (Score:2)
How viable is solar powered air conditioning?
Hard to power an AC system solely from solar (needs a lot of panels) economically but it can pretty readily offset the cost and amount of grid energy needed even with just a few. Even better it tends to provide the most power precisely when it is hottest. A lot of places already use solar for hot water tanks and I suspect as the price of solar continues to fall you'll start to see it more for AC and other household power needs. There are some businesses like grocery stores which have put solar panels on
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You need a lot of panels to power an AC compressor, plus those compressors have a huge starting surge, so you need to over-build to cope with that. Look at the specification plate of an AC compressor for the average run-time current draw, then multiply that by 4 or 5 for the startup surge. Your inverter must be able to supply that current for a second or two, plus the run-time current for hours and hours. The panels are not going to be able to do that outside the 9am-3pm window, so you need either the grid
Ouch, bad post (Score:1)
Who Cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Most people even today won't want to buy a home designed so that you need to turn on the lights in the middle of the day. A home that cools poorly is a much less obvious defect which costs the owner more in utility bills.
Greens are the new Amish (Score:2)
If you don't believe in the green religion, then your Air Conditioner isn't sinful and you don't need to look backward.
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Precisely. Modern inventions are intrinsically evil and it was better 100 years ago. Sure, you had widespread polio, malaria, yellow fever, flu pandemics, and most of the human population lived on the edge of starvation as it had for 10,000 years, but at least you weren't adding microscopically to pollution.
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If you don't believe in the green religion, then your Air Conditioner isn't sinful and you don't need to look backward.
Pah! You'd call my house green - super insulated with the most efficient gas furnace on the market. All paid back and we're banking the payoff in investments.
And just between us chachalacas, I'm spending a hellava lot less money than most people who seem to find that they'd rather bitch about those commie treehugging fuckers and their socialist insulation than save a little money. That Pink pather insulation? More like Pinko Panther!
But go ahead - it's good to see the people with the courage of their c
Nonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
"Cognitive Laziness" isn't the same thing as "refusing to waste time on problems you don't need to solve because there's a ready solution at-hand".
You might as well say that we've become 'cognitively lazy' because we don't bother going out to stalk, hunt, and kill game, instead just 'lazily' going to pick up food from the grocery store.
In other words, this whole 'cognitive laziness' thing is a weakly warmed-over Victorian social Darwinistic argument that "modern conveniences make humans lazy".
brain damage on a stick (Score:2)
If this constitutes "news for nerds", I can't even comprehend what an active embrace of ignorance would look like.
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If this constitutes "news for nerds", I can't even comprehend what an active embrace of ignorance would look like.
Tell me of a good way to run server farms without air conditioning.
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Google already solved this one. Pipe in enough outside air to draw off the heat at a reasonable cpu temperature.
So it just takes a fan? Do not think so. Hot air from the servers is moved to a cooling unit using cold water. Depending on the location it might be machine chilled waters, or in Finland they use the gulf of Finland waters for cooling http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci... [dailymail.co.uk]
Check out the photo of the Dulles Oregon server farm - see the mist? Guess what that is? This isn't the typical air conditioners we are used to but they are air conditioning none the less.
Their cooling ponds do grow nice gators though ht [slashdot.org]
Security, Security, Security (Score:1)
I don't about you, but security is very important to me. Without A/C my domicile would be much less secure.
context (Score:2)
In the context of +AC we get a lot more work done in a lot more condensed brain power spaces in all weather but true design for natural cooling or heat dissipation is less valuable in that context. Not surprising. All powerful innovation changes the context and thus what is of relative value compared to what else. So?
The South and window units (Score:2)
Typical Vice slop - not worth the adblocking (Score:2)
Cart, Horse, Rearrange.