Post by @amin@polymaths.social
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Watched a YT video last night that confused me a little.
It was a Brit living in the U.S., and he was saying that the reason people in the U.S. complain about summer, even though they have air conditioning, is that they set the aircon to a temperature that would be considered very high by U.K. standards: 75°F/24°C.
That doesn't make sense to me, because I was under the impression that Americans are the most liberal with their use of air conditioning, because of the relatively low price of energy here.
So, if you're in the #UK, poll to follow in a reply to this toot...
([here])
(Wow, some of y'all set yours lower than me. 😂)
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#UK residents only:
In the middle of summer, what do you set your air conditioning to?
@rl_dane so I've voted for 21C but that's because I've only got a single portable Aircon for my entire (small) house and setting it to that temperature means that it can cool most of the house to 24-25C.
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Ah, this is interesting to me. People seem to be more careful/miserly with heating than cooling.
68°F/20°C is what I set it to when I go to bed in the winter. I'll usually have it set to 72°F/22°C during the day.
Also, my home isn't very well insulated. Being by the windows can be a bit unpleasant.
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
meanwhile, where I live (not the UK), it's ~30°C every day year round and I do not use AC. ;)
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
When I was in the US, though, about the coldest I can be for extended periods of time is 20°C. Unless, perhaps, I'm piled under heaps of covers and stuffed animals…
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
My own impression of why 'muricans complain about summer:
- the ubiquitous controlled indoor climate doesn't allow anyone's bodies to actually adapt to the outdoor climate. I read at some point that it takes the body a few weeks in a certain climate to really adjust to being comfortable in it, which tracks with my own experience when entering and leaving the tropics.
- so many 'muricans do not know the magic that is ceiling fans
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I have ceiling fans. They can help a little, but I still can't imagine being without AC.
Also, one of the funniest things I've ever seen is an outdoor cieling fans where the blades were semi-melted and drooping downwards by about 45°.
TEXAS!!!! 😆
@amin @rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi What? we normally change to shorts and t-shirt when it goes over 14 degrees, also just because some people are more comfortable with head or cold that others don't mean they are "doing it wrong". Everything over 23 degrees is feeling uncomfortably warm for me, just like I probably am more comfortable with cold than someone not growing up over the 58th latitude.
@Tattooed_Mummy @amin @rl_dane @sheddi Yeah, that seems pretty analogue to what we have here in austria at the time, back home it's around 4-11 degrees around this time.
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
That was a condition of me getting my own bedroom back in middle school or whatever, that I wouldn't run the AC at night, because that would increase our electricity bill by like 50% to have another room running AC all night. XD
(Each room has individual units, it's not central cooling.)
So, yeah, the rest of my family still uses AC.
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I mean that there's AC in the house, but you don't have it/can't use it.
Like an island of no-AC among other AC users/enjoyers.
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
Ah.
That restriction isn't exactly enforced anymore, I'm used to it now. Those were the original terms and I was fine with them at the time, too. :)
Also, I will say that AC is less of a constant in this house than it was before my dad shed fifty kilos (he's now under [half-joking] doctor's orders to butter his toast).
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Does your GenX dad have any tips for this GenXer trying to shed about 20 kilos? ;)
@rl_dane nope, just a fan. But this summer was the hottest for a while and it seems to be getting hotter so we might invest in a portable unit. The problem is we only had a few days over about 25 in the past, so it wasn't worth the expense just for a couple of days
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Yeah, this year was nuts:
rld@Intrepid:~$ weathersummary
Weather summary for days over 100°F:
year days readings year range data range
---- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
2024 0 0 10/10 - 12/31
2025 5 94 01/01 - 12/31 07/25 - 08/19
2026 49 751 01/01 - 10/09 07/08 - 09/15
(That's 37.7°C)
rld@Intrepid:~$ ctof 40
104.0
rld@Intrepid:~$ weathersummary 104
Weather summary for days over 104°F:
year days readings year range data range
---- ---- -------- ------------- -------------
2024 0 0 10/10 - 12/31
2025 1 2 01/01 - 12/31 07/31 - 07/31
2026 10 141 01/01 - 10/09 07/21 - 08/24