How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#41

Post by mahyarm » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 4:21 PM UTC

Create wrote: post #17

The journalist completely misses the point: high level of urbanisation, high population density was allowed by skyscrapers. To have skyscrapers, you famously had to have 2-3 conditions: - solid rock for the base to hold the structure (hence no marsh, see NYC) - steel, steel concrete (look at any skyscraper photos) for the structure - no open windows above the hight of 2-3 floors because of the wind etc. (neither belo…

You can open windows in apartments higher than 3 stories. I remember opening windows on the 12th floor of apartments.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#42

Post by WildUtah » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 4:29 PM UTC

maw wrote: post #28

techiferous wrote: post #5

I've heard that air conditioning had an effect on culture, too. Before A/C, you'd sit out on your porch to cool off and as a consequence get to know your neighbors. After A/C, you'd retreat indoors and live a socially isolated life.

I live in a relatively wealthy part of Mexico City. I don't know my neighbors, and, for the most part, I don't think that they know each other either. Nobody here has air conditioning or proper heating. The climate is very benign, rarely getting hot or cold. There's little need for interior climate control, and even less insulation: windows are paper thin and don't shut very tight, among other things. (However, a lot…

When I lived in Colonia Roma (not wealthy but higher than average Mexico City income), I knew all my neighbors and I'm a typical programmer introvert. The air conditioning and heating situation was the same.

Knowing your neighbors has less to do with air conditioning and more to do with personal motorcar ownership. None of my neighbors owned cars.

Of course, really wealthy neighborhoods in Mexico have tall concrete walls with broken glass embedded in the top around every house. That keeps the neighbors from getting too friendly.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#43

Post by mkr-hn » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 4:43 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #7

>Minneapolis seems like an odd place for the first home air conditioner, but, hey, if you've got the cash, who's to stop you? I'm guessing the author hasn't lived in Minnesota. For one thing, the temperature differential is much higher than in Southern States. It may reach 110 degrees F in Phoenix, but it almost never drops below 32 F. In contrast, Minnesota gets temperatures from 0 F to 90 F. There's also the questi…

It's absolutely not a luxury in the south. You can stand up and walk around with the humidity, but you'll need a steady stream of fresh clothes if you sit to do anything without AC.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#44

Post by asdkl234890 » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #39

As a point of note, domestic air conditioning is close to universal in Japan ... but in the UK, less than 3% of dwellings have a/c. Even in parts of southern Europe that get pretty hot, such as Italy and Greece, domestic a/c is relatively uncommon (with penetration in the 20-40% level despite regular 32-42 celsius temperatures on summer). The nature of the housing stock is partly responsible, of course. The average B…

>Even in parts of southern Europe that get pretty hot

Mediterranean climate - dry heat, nothing like the American South.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#45

Post by ams6110 » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 5:30 PM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #32

gregpilling wrote: post #4

I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I own a few houses built before A/C became common. I have one house (a rental) made of mud adobe, which is essentially mudbricks made into 14" thick walls. It was built in 1919 and has the interesting feature that it takes a few days to change temperature. There is always a week here that it changes from a nice spring to a hot summer and the house takes a long time to make the transitio…

Its a dry heat. I live in the Tampa, Florida area, and once it gets past 84 degrees, I feel quite miserable. My current dwelling is a 50s ranchette with concrete block walls. The orginal Jalousie ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalousie_window ) windows have been replaced, but the house has no insulation in the attic. The house had several window A/Cs, one was from the early 80s. I replaced them with a 3-zone minispli…

So why don't you insulate the attic?

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#46

Post by lukeschlather » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #10

lukeschlather wrote: post #7

>Minneapolis seems like an odd place for the first home air conditioner, but, hey, if you've got the cash, who's to stop you? I'm guessing the author hasn't lived in Minnesota. For one thing, the temperature differential is much higher than in Southern States. It may reach 110 degrees F in Phoenix, but it almost never drops below 32 F. In contrast, Minnesota gets temperatures from 0 F to 90 F. There's also the questi…

Can you rephrase your last sentence? I've reread it a few times, and I just can't make heads or tails of it. Thanks!

Powered heating is a fundamental human need in Minnesota. You cannot survive without it. Even in antiquity I can't imagine people surviving without fire.

Passive cooling, by contrast, is pretty much adequate (though that's not to say the heat can't kill you if you're out in the sun.) But in any case, when you look at the amount of energy expended on heating, the modest amount expended on cooling is a natural expenditure. I think in general that's why a lot of colder countries like Norway are more rich and prosperous than their warmer counterparts. When it costs $30,000/year just to survive, luxuries start to become a lot less costly as a percentage of income.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#47

Post by mmagin » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:48 PM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #36

dhughes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use that sunshine to generate power?

Solar panels are expensive and not very efficient and require a decent amount of square footage. Plus, batteries are expensive too and can take up a decent amount of space.

Probably some kind of absorption chiller like this is a more sensible idea for solar powered airconditioning: http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/yazaki-solar-HVAC/

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#48

Post by mnutt » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 6:57 PM UTC

mahyarm wrote: post #41

Create wrote: post #17

The journalist completely misses the point: high level of urbanisation, high population density was allowed by skyscrapers. To have skyscrapers, you famously had to have 2-3 conditions: - solid rock for the base to hold the structure (hence no marsh, see NYC) - steel, steel concrete (look at any skyscraper photos) for the structure - no open windows above the hight of 2-3 floors because of the wind etc. (neither belo…

You can open windows in apartments higher than 3 stories. I remember opening windows on the 12th floor of apartments.

You can open windows on the 35th floor of my apartment building here in NYC. It was built in the early 1900s, so perhaps it's related to architecture choices / liability issues which weren't around back then.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#49

Post by maw » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 7:49 PM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #37

maw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a relatively wealthy part of Mexico City. I don't know my neighbors, and, for the most part, I don't think that they know each other either. Nobody here has air conditioning or proper heating. The climate is very benign, rarely getting hot or cold. There's little need for interior climate control, and even less insulation: windows are paper thin and don't shut very tight, among other things. (However, a lot…

What type of internet connectivity is available in your area? How much is housing/cost-of-living expenses?

It's adequate to work remotely, at least if you don't need to upload large amounts of data often.

As to cost of living in general, that's the kind of question that sounds very simple but turns out to have a rather complex answer. Get in touch (see the contact info in my profile) you're interested.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#50

Post by stan_rogers » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 7:59 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #31

fhars wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is approximately human body temperature. By design it should be slightly less, Farady intended 100 degrees to be the human body temperature but obviously suffered a light fever the day he took the measurment, so these days the human body has 96 degrees. 0 degrees Fahrenheit is defined to be the coldest it could conceivably ever be on the outside in winter, according to Faradays intuition when he decided that this…

> Faraday Fahrenheit. (It doesn't seem to be true that he intended 100 degrees to be human body temperature. It's possible that he specifically wanted the difference between body temperature and freezing point to be (a power of 2) degrees.)

Farenheit's "body temperature" was the axillary (armpit) temperature, and he set it to 96 degrees (on average) when creating his scale. And yes, your supposition about the divisibility of key numbers is right.