Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Adventures in a Seattle Summer

Each morning I wake up and look out the window, and it is a glorious day. And I think to myself, "damn!"

I love nice weather, and I love summer. If it's under 100 and above 70, I'm happy as... as a really happy thing.

So I see it's one of those days. I put on my long slacks, wear a half-inch-thick long-sleeved shirt, and toddle off to work. When I get there, I put on my writer's gloves and I'm thinking about adding a coat.

Why?

Because I sit Under the Vent. Therefore, you can take the real temperature, and subtract double the difference between it and room temperature, and that's the temperature it is in my cube. When it's fifty outside, I'm cheerfully warm. When it's eighty outside, my hands ache with cold and could draw the soul from a small child with their chill touch. I know from experience, and I keep them on my mantle.

You see, for the past two thousand years mankind has tried to master the art of cooling and warming their buildings. At some point we gave up on things like "insulation" and went to this brilliant idea of blowing air ten times more extreme and letting it "mingle" with the unconditioned air. This works great, except for anyone sitting too close or too far from the vents, who are frozen and broiled. That calculates out to... at least half the people.

We can go to the moon, but even in space, we use this vent system. Except in space, it's REALLY LOUD, which makes it even worse.

I think it's time for a revolution! Here's my suggestion:

When it's wintery, move to the other hemisphere.

Unfortunately, applying this new technology to our spacecraft has met with some difficulties. Still, I know our scientists are hard at work and will soon come up with a celestial version of this revolutionary new environmental management system.

To the future!

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