Sam
@sam@cablespaghetti.dev
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https://cablespaghetti.dev/hosting-a-fediverse-instance-on-an-original-raspberry-pi.html
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: 75F/24C.
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...
R.L. Dane
🍵
[he/him/my good fellow] » 🌐
@rl_dane@polymaths.social
#UK residents only:
In the middle of summer, what do you set your air conditioning to?
#AirConditioning #AirCon #AC #Poll
| 95°F / 35°C: | 0 |
| 90°F / 32°C: | 0 |
| 85°F / 29°C: | 0 |
| 80°F / 27°C: | 2 |
| 75°F / 24°C: | 8 |
| 72°F / 22°C: | 11 |
| 70°F / 21°C: | 5 |
| 65°F / 18°C: | 2 |
| 60°F / 16°C: | 1 |
| I don't have/don't use aircon: | 43 |
Closed
@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.
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…
@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.
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
My own impression of why 'muricans complain about summer:
WAIT, it's 30 AND HUMID, and you don't have AC? 😱
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
I have it but don't use it. AC is expensive
That makes sense.
@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.
Oooof, bro's living in an AC desert 😭
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi
Not sure I understand your meaning?
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).
@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
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
@rl_dane @Tattooed_Mummy @sheddi 20?? We are like a 17 or 18 in winter 🙃
@rl_dane
67°F / 19°C
@rl_dane@polymaths.social
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha... Home air conditioning in the UK? 🤣
(I'm aware some city based high-rise premium accomodation _may_ have air con, but generally it only exists in cars and offices here)
Really! I was aware that it wasn't necessarily widespread, but I assumed that at least newer homes would have it. Yikes!
How hot does it typically get in the summer, then?
You've reminded me of a trip to Victoria, BC in 2005 when it was getting "a little warm" in the hotel room, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to turn on the AC unit.
Of course, there WAS no AC unit. 😄
Wow, that's a crazy increase.
I don't think I've noticed the summers getting hotter, because once it's over 40°C, it's just HOT.
I have noticed the winters becoming more irregular, though. A lot less snow, but occasional snowmageddon.
2021 was a horrible winter for us in Texas, and this winter may be the same.
@rl_dane@polymaths.social
To answer from the original post what I would set air con to if I had it or when I'm in a hotel room, it's about 17°C
Was going to say I'm a bit weird, but turns out other people have said 18 so perhaps I'm not as weird as I thought.
@rl_dane Hey :¬) I voted 24 because I remember that being the most used setting. 24 seemed to be fine indoors when compared to the hot temps outside. On the odd occasion, this year, we set 22.
Sorry I didn't see the UK thing and since I saw f I figured it was for backwards non metric Americans
@rl_dane That’s a very fine grained set of options no one is going to tap on. (I have never set foot in a private residence here in the UK with air con).
Wow, I just noticed that more people voted that they don't have/use aircon than all of the others put together.
Ouch. :(
@rl_dane Honestly, I’m surprised you got that many votes for aircon. I reckon most of those must’ve voted without noticing the UK restriction 😉
@rl_dane I would assume anything below 23°C would make it very unpleasant to go outside?
I mean, it can be unpleasant to go outside, no matter what you set the aircon to, but yeah. ;)
@rl_dane if you are already used to it being hot, 30°C isn't that bad, but your body takes days to fully adjust
@rl_dane
No air-conditioning in the house but the car climate control is usually set between 15° and 16.5°... except this year when it was broken for the hottest couple of months.
@rl_dane Having grown up in Guatemala (way up in the mountains), I never knew anyone who had A/C in their home. The only time we encountered it was when we would vacation at a resort hotel down near the coast. That’s why it would always be such a shock when we’d drive up to Dallas in August.
Our temps (at elevation 1900m/6200 feet) generally were in the 60s–70s Fahrenheit. We would get three or four winter mornings every year when there would be frost on the grass, and a few summer afternoons when it crept up into the upper 80s — but that was a fairly dry heat.
@rl_dane nothing to do with the poll, but when I holidayed in Egypt they had the air con set so cold it was like a fridge, every day we returned to the cruise boat and had to reset it lest we froze!
I think if I had air con, and I don't, i would set it to a normal temp for a cool uk day. Maybe 16-18 degrees
Man, I can't imagine having the AC set so low, but... I can't imagine not having AC, either!! 😄
@rl_dane 75!? Really? That sounds a little high to me (AC is the one context in which I understand fahrenheit lol)
I unironically prefer Fahrenheit for weather, and that's the only time I prefer imperial.
The thing with AC temps is that it will feel different depending on the strength of the AC unit, the humidity, the size (and insulation) of the home, etc.
75°F is a little on the warm side, but it's easily mitigated with a ceiling fan.
When things get a little cooler (like they are now), I'll bring it down to 73°F for more comfort. ;)
@rl_dane I pretty much use celsius for everything, but my dad used fahrenheit (Canada officially made the switch in his lifetime) so 72F is my reference point for room temperature because that was what our thermostat was set to at all times.
I always found it kinda funny that the thermostat was to be set at the same spot at all times, but that never seemed to stop him from having reasons to fiddle with it. Some stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason I guess lol
@rl_dane
Remember that a UK heatwave, because of the humidity, doesn't have to be as high as a US heatwave to have a worse effect.
@rl_dane I spent two nights in London last summer. In July the highs were around 70 F.
Can you imagine?
@rl_dane We keep ours at 74 max, 62 min; flips between heating and cooling as needed. This summer we had multiple weeks of extreme heat warnings with genuinely dangerous temperatures.
This part of the US has air conditioning because it's life support. With so many of us watching our energy bills so closely, it's keeping us alive, not comfortable.
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I didn’t want to read any of the posts anyone else has written about #emfcamp 26 until I’d written my own. Now I’m free to read them and discover how much better they captured the indescribable than I was able:
I’ve got no venue or anything at this point. Need to find some helpers. I’ll process all the information you’ve sent when I’m home and have had a proper sleep. 🙂
I’ve got a gap 3-4 if you want to head to the pub about then? Going home at 7 so not much time for pubbing today…
Thanks for the info. I will process properly and come up with a plan when not at EMF.
I’ve been inspired to start a local Repair Cafe. Unfortunately the repair cafe organisation don’t provide any tools to actually find local like minded people.
Might be a poster on lamp post job…
Here's one anyway: https://github.com/cablespaghetti/emfdash
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