Draconian vacation policies for US slave workers
in [Europe]
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From: TOliver on 22 Jul 2006 11:24 "Iceman" <oneofcold(a)yahoo.com> wrote .... > > Dave Frightens Me wrote: >> On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 02:49:50 +0200, Mxsmanic <mxsmanic(a)gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> >Dave Frightens Me writes: >> > >> >> Your logic is broken. No-one said anything about heating. >> > >> >You say that education can compensate for excessive heat. Logically, >> >then, education can also compensate for excessive cold. Thus, there's >> >no more need for heating systems than there is for air conditioning >> >systems. >> >> As cold does not mean hot, your logic is broken. >> >> Believe it or not, they are two very different things. > > Heating is a necessity. Air conditioning is a luxury. > For much of the world's populatiuon, "heating" is a long way from a necessity. While it increases the comfort level, in South Florida and South Texas, entire Winters go by in which the temperature rarely bips below 32F and only stays blow 50F for very short periods. A bit of insulation anda sweater or, pewrish the thought a warm jacket and long johns under your shorts overcomes the discomfort. South to the Equator and South of that to 30S or so, unless one lives at high altitude, a majority of the world's population could function without heating (although in very low income households, the "cook fire" does form an adjunct source of heat. For those of us who grew up in the era before residential air conditioning was available to any but the "severely rich" and for whom air conditioned businesses were limited to banks and movie theaters, what was once a luxury has certainly become a necessity, as much from the changes in lifestyles and how commercial buildings are built and used. Before AC, the "Big Barn" retail outlets were largely non-existent. "Department stores" were multi-story with many large operable windows. Houses depended on windows, and in much of the Southern US, screened sleeping porches were common (and used!). The first auto AC with which I was familiar was a "FrigiKing" under-dash addon to our family 1952 Ford station, and my first personal car with AC didn't come until my last year in college, 1961, a '57 Plymouth "Spote" Fury, and I drove cars without AC much later, a '64VW from '64 until '66, and later a '67GMC pickup, a '72 Kharman Ghia and a '72 VW Convegitatable. By 1980 or so, very few vehicles other than basic stripped pickups and Japanese "minicars" as we called them came without AC ater area dealerships. Certainly, even though the temp drops into the low teens here and snow falls now and then (if rarely), if you required me to remove either the heating system of the AC from my home, I'd hand over the heat first (especially if I could keep the fireplace for the illusion of heat. Part of that equation is the fact that from last Friday until this Thursday, the temperature was over 100F every afternoon, topping out at 105 or so, and didn't drop below 78F at night, not very "cool" when the humidity remains above 50%. With the computers shut down and the banks of windows on three sides open and the ceiling fan on, I could have spent the night in my upstairs office in only moderate "pillow-wetting" discomfort, but the lack of ventilation downstairs, even with several fans, would have been marginally intolerable for an old geezer. TMO
From: Mxsmanic on 22 Jul 2006 12:01 des small writes: > I get 42 days (i.e., more than 8 weeks) at my brand new company in the > Netherlands. Of course, the higher reaches of USAian leave are widely > rumoured to be largely fictional anyway, since it is allegedly not > considered "team-spirited" to take them. And because, in today's world, one's job is likely to be eliminated or outsourced long before one reaches the necessary level of seniority. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
From: Mxsmanic on 22 Jul 2006 12:03 Iceman writes: > Heating is a necessity. Air conditioning is a luxury. Just as heating is a necessity when the temperature is 4 C, A/C is a necessity when the temperature is 36 C. In fact, however, A/C is more necessary than heating, because it is possible to diminish the need for heating by dressing warmly and simply conserving body heat; whereas the need for cooling cannot be diminished by any type of dress, since the human body generates heat constantly, which must be removed. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
From: Mxsmanic on 22 Jul 2006 12:06 TOliver writes: > For much of the world's populatiuon, "heating" is a long way from a > necessity. And conversely, for those same populations, air conditioning is a necessity, at least if they wish to form productive societies. > While it increases the comfort level, in South Florida and South > Texas, entire Winters go by in which the temperature rarely bips below 32F > and only stays blow 50F for very short periods. This is increasingly true for parts of Europe as well. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.
From: Mxsmanic on 22 Jul 2006 12:07
Jim Ley writes: > So if the pollution was captured and stored, there'd be no problem > with them? They would still be exhausted eventually, but the main problem with using them would be eliminated. Society really needs to concentrate on alternative sources of energy. Unfortunately, wind and solar power are too dispersed to be much more than a joke in most locations, but there is still the option of nuclear power, and if fusion can be tamed, that would be better still. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |