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A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

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Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#91

Post by medstrom »

guntherhermann wrote: post #49
JohnBooty wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

constant doom and gloom rhetoric That's a take you share with many, without a doubt. I view it more like performance optimization. Clear correlation between CO2 levels and cognition. Clear correlation between "air quality" in general and health. I try to optimize for those things when possible. When I deviate from that I'd at least like it to be an informed decision. Do you think there's a happy middle ground between…

> Nobody is claiming that's bad or that you shouldn't use them, and certainly not Carmack in the linked tweet. Are you not reading all the other comments on this thread? Haha. They might not be outright saying "don't use them", but there are several comments in this thread that say 'if you use candles then you don't care about improving health safety.' I certainly get that vibe from a lot of the comments here, even i…

You got an example of such a post?

Only one I see is maybe dekhn's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34427789

But because someone says that "candles produce soot and other molecules which have been shown to be harmful", it doesn't mean the speaker is in a doom and gloom mindset: that's an interpretation you make.

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#92

Post by whateveracct »

aqme28 wrote: post #41

Why is a mostly-incorrect* analysis of candles on the frontpage? Just because Carmack is saying it? *: Wattage might be the same, but the effect on air quality is different. Humans don't exhale carbon monoxide and smoke.

"because Carmack is saying it" has been a guaranteed upvote party since HNers were still on Digg

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#93

Post by warinukraine »

josefresco wrote: post #2

Text for those who don't do the bird site: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human — 80 to 100 watts, also consuming about the same amount of oxygen and producing the same amount of CO2. In an enclosed area, adding candles is about like adding people from an air quality standpoint.

> Text for those who don't do the bird site:

Having the text here instead of linking to an appallingly bad website should always have been the norm. But nooo, we had to wait for Elon Musk to buy the thing.

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#94

Post by passwordoops »

Cyberdog wrote: post #50
fastball wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but seems to me like we paid a lot of attention to humans as a vector for poor health over the last 3 years...

Indeed. I think we can all agree now that humans are a dangerous vector for viruses, filth, and general unpleasantness, and the world would be a safer, more pleasant place if we eradicated them entirely.

And it was on that day a small company by the name of Skynet, who merged its LLM with a networked robotics center, loosed its AI to scan the internet for ideas on how to make the world a safer, more pleasant place

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#95

Post by dasv »

Cyberdog wrote: post #50
fastball wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but seems to me like we paid a lot of attention to humans as a vector for poor health over the last 3 years...

Indeed. I think we can all agree now that humans are a dangerous vector for viruses, filth, and general unpleasantness, and the world would be a safer, more pleasant place if we eradicated them entirely.

Do you frequently have problems with CAPTCHAs?

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#96

Post by jvm___ »

kijin wrote: post #68
jvm___ wrote: post #48

How bad does our bedroom air quality get? or how much CO2 do two adult humans produce in a 10x10 closed room overnight? Is it enough to push the CO2 high enough to have an effect? I've noticed I sleep better when I sleep separately from my wife. I'm the more violent sleeper, so it's not movement related, so I'm wondering if it's air quality related.

Back-of-napkin calculation using really rough estimates: The average person exhales about 1kg of CO2 per day. That's 542L per day. Let's say you produce 20% of your daily CO2 output during the night, since your metabolism is lower when you're asleep. That would be 108L per person per night, or 216L for two people. The average American bedroom is around 120-130sqft, or 11-12 square meters. Assuming a height of 8 feet,…

Thanks.

720 and 864ppm is probably the lower limit for a completely empty room.

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#97

Post by singularity2001 »

dekhn wrote: post #4
josefresco wrote: post #2

Text for those who don't do the bird site: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human — 80 to 100 watts, also consuming about the same amount of oxygen and producing the same amount of CO2. In an enclosed area, adding candles is about like adding people from an air quality standpoint.

except that candles don't just produce CO2, they produce soot and many other molecules which have been clearly associated with negative health outcomes.

"they produce soot and many other molecules"

welcome to my family

Also s/produce/release/g

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#98

Post by bell-cot »

bilsbie wrote: post #81

Is there such a thing as a clean burning candle? Produces only co2? Aren’t there some that actually produce oxygen?

Only CO2 would be a candle made of carbon, not wax (which also has plenty of hydrogen, producing H2O when it burns). And coming up with a cheap way to get 100%-clean combustion from a tiny fire would be a Nobel-prize-ish discovery.

Yes, oxygen candles are a thing. Check out the MSDS for one here: https://www.msdsdigital.com/system/files/85984.pdf Summary: It is neither particularly safe nor advisable to store oxygen candles around the house. Let alone use them.

Re: A candle produces roughly the same amount of energy as a resting human

#99

Post by medstrom »

danans wrote: post #72
medstrom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not incorrect, just misuse of "air quality". In principle it looks like candles and humans could have a very similar effect, because both work by the process of combustion. Humans even supply fat as fuel which is similar to the candle wax. But the details differ so of course different gases could come out as a side effect. Both consume oxygen, which is certainly part of "air quality". But the lesson could've bee…

> It's not incorrect, just misuse of "air quality". To ignore the the central subject of the comment - air quality - in order to call it "not incorrect" is doing quite a bit of work. > Seems main takeaway is that one candle = one human, wrt. oxygen in the room. If the numbers are right. If we can ignore air quality, what is the difference between this and the comparison between 2 60lb dogs and a human in a room? Or a…

I only said candle=human with regards to oxygen. Agree a candle is different because of byproduct gases. Strongly suspect that Carmack said "air quality" sloppily and meant specifically the oxygen aspect of it.
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