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100th Anniversary of Air Conditioning
RealPerseus writes "The Buffalo News reports today in this article that the 100th annivsary of air conditioning is upon us. Who would have thought that air conditioning was invented in Buffalo?"
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Well, finally...an old-school hacker gets some credit. Some guy working in a factory, invents such an important device for modern society...bravo Mr. Carrier
From the article.
"Carrier graduated from both Angola High School and the old Hutchinson-Central High School in Buffalo."
How do you graduate from two high schools?
I read this story the other day. I found it quite interesting that they were using AC in airplanes several years before it was adopted in most buildings.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Anybody knows whether there are studies about the impact that air conditioning may have on the climate? expecially in cities/towns.
At least the microclimate near air conditioned buildings is influenced: sometimes you can't just pass near them because of hot air.
I know that there are some places around the world where you couldn't live without AC, and that there are places where you need it for computers and other sensible stuff, but I feel that in most places it is abused. (Things like 18C inside when outside there is only a perfectly tolerable 25C)
I've been tempted to explore the old abandoned plant, in the style of infiltration.org... but I have no real idea of what the security there is. When I was a kid in Buffalo, I used to hang around abandoned buildings, partly out of necessity. The old DL&W Terminal was a really cool place...
This space available.
Personally, I am looking forward to more widespread use of geothermal heat exchange systems (see this document and a few links at the bottom of that page for more info) to gain efficiency and save energy (and money). As every VW Bug owner knows, air is okay as a heat exchange medium, but it is not the best. Using the ground to move the energy around makes a whole lot of sense, and can be tacked on to an existing A/C setup (with a whole lot of digging, of course).
Living in Phoenix as I do, I can definitely appeciate this invention, and let's not forget Carnot.
Outdoors the sky would be turning darker as a shadowy purple became the predominant tint to the surroundings. The most prevalent sound was the synchronoized chatter of cicadas (locusts) with their bizarre rhythm of cyclic rattling. Oh, and of course their were the silent fireworks of the fireflies.
Now when you walk the street at dusk, you see no one, not even someone washing dishes, thanks to the ubiquitous dishwasher. Kids are nowhere to be seen. The steady drone of each and every house's air conditioning compressor fills the air, drowning out even the cicadas. You might as well be walking through a 24 hour per day widget factory. It is an industrial noise which blocks out all sounds of nature.
Sky watchers complain of light pollution; I would like to add to their complaint, the noise pollution of air conditioners which have helped to destroy the summer night.
Americans seem to be rather crazy about the air conditioners. Not that they are nice in a hot day, but why the hell do they have to turn their houses into freezers with them?
I mean, last time I was in Florida, I was shivering all the time I was indoors. Being indoors with shorts and a T-shirt was very unconfortable. In my hotel, the entire room was filled with a freezing gale from an enormous air conditioner. I tried to find some controls or a switch to turn it off, but couldn't. Luckily the beds had enough blankets to sleep in Siberian winter, so I didn't have to sleep outside.
After a few days, I got a bad cold, and had to end my conference&vacation trip early. I wasn't in a condition to be able to go to the Space Center, Epcot, or other sights in Orlando. Some other Finnish people I know tell that they get a cold every time they visit US.
What's the problem with you? Is it that the businessmen and others have to be able to wear a suit in hotels all the time, or what?
Ironically enough, the Philadelphia Inquirer had an article yesterday pointing out how AC is actually making cities up to 10 degrees hotter versus rural areas.
In summer, all that extra heat - as much as 25 times more than in suburbs - tends to get trapped close to the ground by high-pressure systems. The result can be a vicious cycle.
"It's hotter, so we use air-conditioning, which makes it hotter, so we use more air-conditioning," said J. Scott Greene, director of the environmental and verification analysis center at the University of Oklahoma.
A great read for anyone who's interested...
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AC was also an important feature of the U.S. Navy's fleet submarines in World War II
I was a crew member of one a few years ago. We could stay submerged for weeks or months. Air conditioning was pretty vital. We had two huge R-114 units. Man, it got hot during drills involving loss of non-vital electrical loads ...
I live in Minnesota now, but grew up in various parts of Arizona, and as long as you're not in Phoenix, you can get by just fine with swamp coolers, which I like a lot better, 'cos it keeps some moisture in the air. That doesn't work in Phoenix, which is way more humid than you'd think, so there you *need* airconditioning.
And so, by following a regimen that involves never being outside in the summer for more than a couple of minutes, driving from your airconditioned house with its irrigated lawn, to your airconditioned office park over by the golfcourse, or to the restaurant in the mall, you can move straight to Phoenix from Kansas and never realize you're in the desert at all. Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave up to someone less cranky than I feel at the moment.
-- 'intellectual property' is oxymoronic
While working at a General Motors truck plant last summer I noticed that nearly every truck we built had an air conditioner and a radio except for the ones we sent to Mexico. You would think somewhere as hot as mexico they would want A/C. At first I thought this was because nobody down there could afford it, but then I realized it's because they are more adapted to living in the heat than we are. IIRC most buildings in Mexico don't have A/C, but nobody really cares either.
Maybe all of us in the states like our A/C so much because most of us came from parts of Europe where it is a bit cooler most of the year than it is here.
What?
Disclaimer: I live in Florida
It's in the hotel's best interest to have you use as little air conditioning as possible. I have stayed lots of places around here, and NEVER found one that doesn't allow you to turn off the AC. Not to mention that if you open the windows/doors in most of them, a switch will turn off the AC. This is law (or at least some sort of regulation) in some counties in Florida.
So, the "I couldn't turn off the AC in my room" argument sounds a little bogus.
The reason that large conference rooms in hotels during conferences are often too cold has more to dealing with large numbers of people than a desire to have a room be too cold.
If you've ever set up at one of these shows you will know that it's freezing when there only a few people in the stadium-sized room, but still can get pretty hot when there are thousands in there. You must pre-cool the room for the max crowd well beforehand, due to the size of the room.
It's a limitation of the technology (and thermodynamics to some extent) that no number of windows being open or insulation will cure. Sorry...
Again, it's to the economic advantage of the bill-payers of the gigantic room, to keep it as warm as possible. They aren't trying to freeze you out.
Finally, who would be more used to the extremely warm temperatures here in the summer, residents or northern tourists? It's you lot that demand the "ideal" temperatures inside every building that relate to northern European climes. Don't piss on us for giving you what you want, unfortunately it's our job as a tourist mecca.
And coming from someplace like Finland (apparently) to the tropics and then blaming the AC being too cold (compared to Finland?) as the cause of your illness, shows a fair ignorance of Biology and international travel.
Speaking as someone who apparently has a brain the size of a walnut, I'm disappointed that you "large brained" foreigners couldn't whine better than that. You do it with olympic caliber when you come over here, that's for sure.
Ok Finland, we'll turn off the AC in the summer, you turn off the heat in winter!
(cultural bigots come from all over, not just the USA)
It's called the heat island effect, and it happens everywhere, not just Tokyo. If you live in any sort of urban area you know the temperature is always 5 degrees or so hotter than it is in the suburbs. It's not only due to A/C, but also greenhouse gases (in fact, I'll bet it's more the exhaust coming out of A/C units and the gases contained in them that's the problem, rather than the direct heating of the air).
The Japanese are always doing crazy, innovative things to solve problems, though, so more power to them if they want to use water pipes to cool the city. But it's not just a problem in Tokyo - it's just as much a problem in New York and elsewhere (and it's not just because of A/C).