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Comment by Gustomaximus | Hacker News Reader

If you haven't experienced high humidity its hard to understand how debilitating it can be. You can't cool down easily doing even mild physical work.

I'm in a subtropical zone (Brisbane) and in high humidity weather I do about 30-50% of the physical work I can on a non-humid day I'd estimate. OOften it's best to work outdoors for an hour then cool down for an hour in pool/aircon as if you overheat yourself itcan be hard to get back to normal that day.

That said its a good HN opportunity too for entrepreneurs. We see more and more kit like ice jackets that you freeze then wear outdoors etc for outdoor workers. Tech has to kick in here too.

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In Minneapolis, they have skyways between large buildings so you're not exposed to the elements in the winter when moving between buildings. I imagine we’ll see similar in hotter climates (underground where the geography supports it, aboveground where not), with folks avoiding the outdoors for significant part of each year.

TLDR It's an urban planning story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Skyway_System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_tunnel_system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_(Toronto)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_City,_Montreal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%2B15

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_Pedway

Of course the unintended consequence will be even higher rates of vitamin D deficiency and chronic low nitric oxide levels.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-11567-5

Diets will need to change accordingly. Vitamin D supplements are inexpensive.

And of course, it would not be difficult. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country, but I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.

Some southern cities in Europe like Barcelona have historical city centers with really narrow streets (enough to walk but no more) with tall buildings. This allows those streets to almost never directly receive sunlight. It's so impressively effective that you can sometimes even feel cold in summer, and in very hot days, heat doesn't accumulate.

http://hdr-photographer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/barce...

That cooler temperature has got to be compounded by the lack of cars pumping out heat as well. But I wonder how such a design would handle large snow falls. Old northern cities in Europe don't seem as compact.

Older parts of northern cities can be very compact. Never heard of snow being a problem there, they probably just use smaller plowers.

Yeah--my car has an outside air temp thermometer. Big streets are a few degrees warmer than small streets. The only reasonable cause I can see is the heat is coming from the other cars. (Note that this isn't even in heavy traffic.)

It's also the heat from the sun warming the asphalt/tarmac/concrete and that heat warming the air (which will continue long into the night -- "urban heat island" is I believe the name for the effect).

In the Phoenix metro, we moved to an area farther away from downtown that has more nature (there are large parks on two sides of our house). The temperature is regularly 5 degrees cooler here.

Sounds like the urban heat island effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island

Construction like this is now mostly illegal in the United States.

Barcelona is not a humid place in the summer, this wouldn't be as effective in humid places where shade doesn't effect temperatures as much

It's pretty humid at least compared to other cities in Spain like Toledo.

But yeah, being in the shade doesn't help that much either as the temperature is still high (and even remains high at night).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy:

Coober Pedy (/ˈkuːbər ˈpiːdi/) is a town in northern South Australia, 846 km (526 mi) north of Adelaide on the Stuart Highway. The town is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. Coober Pedy is renowned for its below-ground dwellings, called "dugouts", which are built in this fashion due to the scorching daytime heat.

Do people still build underground there?

Certainly a popular solution for harsh winters in Canada. Even some of the universities have tunnel systems. E.g. Carleton with 5KM of tunnels connecting almost every building.

I live in a very cold part of the US but for a couple years traveled frequently to the south of Israel for work. I think a lot of people don’t consider dressing or designing spaces for high heats because most people live in temperate climates. It wasn’t unusual to have 113+ days there in the summer and no one but me (the American) seemed phased by it.

If the predictions come to pass maybe Minneapolis can sell the skyways to super hot regions as they presumably won't need them anymore.

The predictions are that climate change will bring even more extremely cold winters to the Midwest as the polar vortex more often breaks through and moves south.

I lived for 2 years in Cancún and the climate was just horrible for me.

I spent like 8-10 months every year trapped indoors with AC. Just being a couple of minutes outside meant sweating _a lot_. Heck, after showering you had to dry yourself two times because you got way too sweaty unless you had AC in the bathroom.

No thanks. I really don't understand how people like living in tropical weathers.

Yeah, so long as it's not too extreme you can wrap up against cold. There's nothing you can do against heat. My idea of ideal weather is the coolest place where I don't need to contend with snow accumulation.

Have you moved to San Francisco? Haha, just a light joke.

Ironically, the cosplay space has this covered. They have portable battery powered air conditioners connected to astronaut-style onesies-with-coolant-pipes.

Unfortunately they're still manually assembled, so not quite readily available yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Ti4GP0ntE <- Adam savage building one for an astronaut cosplay suit.

The takeaway I see here is that we're looking at putting people, on Earth, in environmental suits, because we collectively haven't been able to agree on how (or whether, for that matter) to stop making it uninhabitable.

Technological solutions to discomfort can be done fairly easily at an individual level (though it may not be affordable to all). Solutions to our runaway climate change need to occur at corporate and government levels.

Once you identify which is easier (to implement and/or to monetize), it makes an unfortunate kind of sense.

The only lever we have as a society is regulation, and that is only because it has the capacity to change where people can make money. See what happens in countries where green energy is cheaper, it booms. It's not because they love the planet, it's because they can save or make money. There is zero chance corporations will suddenly have a long-term outlook on saving the planet and decide on their own to cut emissions, so we can forget that angle.

There was always a lot of talk about carbon taxes, but since we're somewhat past that point now, what about a carbon capture rebate as well? If you can make money from thin air, I'm sure carbon capture technology and industry would boom. If a company can't avoid carbon tax from it's process, which some products simply can't, it then has to offset that tax with carbon capture rebates to be profitable and exist in society. If the math doesn't make sense, they don't make the money, so sad, tears in the unseasonable rain.

Saying the only lever we have is regulation is just saying the only lever we have is violence but with an extra intermediary steps

The reason you don't litter, dump used oil down the toilet, buy conflict diamonds and complain when Nike gets caught using sweatshop labor isn't because some jackbooted thug will put you in a cage, it's because you know it's the right thing to do. Sure there might be some laws you begrudgingly put up with because of the risk vs reward but making a lot of people do that at scale that doesn't work well.

Convincing people to voluntarily do what you want is far cheaper than violence or threat of violence and it comes with a much lower risk of you being shot in the hole you just dug.

> you don't litter, dump used oil down the toilet, buy conflict diamonds and complain when Nike gets caught using sweatshop labor

Funny, the first three are covered by laws and regulations - local and international. I'm less certain about the conflict diamonds, but I believe there are regulations around those too.

> Saying the only lever we have is regulation is just saying the only lever we have is violence but with an extra intermediary steps

That's because there are enough people who value money and power that they will never do the right thing unless forced. The tragedy of the commons, as it is.

The Meditations on Moloch paper covers quite a bit of this.

I'm talking about regulating corporations, taxes, tariffs, trade restrictions, material bans and so on, maybe that wasn't clear in my argument or maybe I don't quite understand yours?

But even on an individual level, money is still a huge guiding factor for society in general, so taxing certain items even at the individual sale level could influence things. Putting fuel in your car? 10% carbon tax, both you and the corporation paid a tax, that goes into the coffer to pay for other kinds of more active carbon reduction programs.

> The reason you don't litter, dump used oil down the toilet, buy conflict diamonds and complain when Nike gets caught using sweatshop labor isn't because some jackbooted thug will put you in a cage, it's because you know it's the right thing to do.

People do all these things, knowingly ignoring all the externalities of their actions. The world is full of decent human beings, and yet the above is still true. Just look at the roads, we're all thoroughly aware that cars pollute our cities even in the immediate tense, let alone long term, yet the roads are still full.

Let's not blame the individual for industrial pollution anyway, since the majority of emissions are still from industrial activity. People have marginal agency on changing that. What's a consumer going to do about bunker fuel in shipping ships? How am I going to influence the processes used in steel mills?

Regulations on corporations are ultimately backed up by threats of violence too.

Not practically they're not. They would suffer fines, at worst you'd have the people running the company get fined, at an absolute extreme they'd go to jail (VW/dieselgate). You could argue that prison time is the point that it backed by violence, but I must admit I'm fairly surprised that we're discussing the validity of laws and regulation as a concept in general, in response to regulating industrial pollution.

I used to listen to Libertarian talk shows back in the day. Those people thought all laws, regulation, and taxation were violence (they only work because government will point a gun at you and throw you in prison). They're not exactly wrong, but I no longer find the argument very persuasive.

In the same sense, corporations are committing violence on us also, by destroying the planet that we all live on.

> so taxing certain items even at the individual sale level could influence things. Putting fuel in your car? 10% carbon tax, both you and the corporation paid a tax, that goes into the coffer to pay for other kinds of more active carbon reduction programs.

The issue is that there's no guarantee that the 10% extra burden is going to green initiatives. It ends up going to the ever ballooning government budget and pays for pension funds for underperforming government employees.

That is true, but it would still serve its main purpose of being a deterrent for high carbon activities/products I think.

No, because of the need to power such systems. Putting a long duration powerpack on an environmental suit is going to be a problem! There was a cave in Mexico (AFIAK now underwater) where they ended up using plain ice as the cooling medium for environmental suits.

In the Marine Corps I used to run 8 miles a few days a week in direct sunlight in southern california. It wasn't even particularly humid, and I'd still get perilously close to heat exhaustion. Then I realized I could put a large icepack under my close-fitting camelback. Instant portable AC. This hack alone made a shocking difference in my performance.

thanks this is a great idea - I discovered this last summer... This really does work - I had to keep an icepack in my bag to keep my emergency protein bar from melting on my all day bike rides and I realized how much cooler I was from just that tiny bit - but then I have the condensation issue.

Interesting idea! Hiking I fill my hydration bladder with ice cubes then add water and I slip the whole thing in an insulated bag, but I never thought of using an actual ice brick for cooling. (And in most situations I don't think I would, anyway--too much extra weight. The ice in my pack becomes drinking water later.)

The irony here being that technology won't save us all. It will only save the people who can afford the technology. Which, unfortunately, doesn't include the people responsible for manufacturing that technology.

I am done with this mindset. It is useless brow furrowing and knicker bunching that traps you in an endless doom cycle.

One of the few things that still works about capitalism is you make an expensive toy, it catches on, and then it gets cost reduced ruthlessly to the point that almost anyone can afford it.

See flat screen TVs and cell phones for two compelling examples of this phenomenon. See Corsi boxes for an example of how to build cheap alternatives to an expensive thing. In Beijing, they got as cheap as buying a $25 fan and strapping a HEPA filter to it in order to filter out small particles.

The outlook that nothing ever gets better and there's nothing we can do about it because the rich control everything is what will get us all killed. The rich will make money where they can even if they have to make it up with volume.

Has capitalism made iPhones cheap enough for the folks working in iPhone factories to afford them? Can the bean pickers working coffee plantations afford Starbucks? Is there zero wealth gap between people who shop at Walmart and the people who make the cheap crap that gets sold at Walmart?

No, no, and no. Capitalism does not fix this. Capitalism exploits this and forwards the profits to the executives and shareholders.

Have you ever been to East Asia? They don't have the latest iPhones but they have a better cell phone network than the United States and cheap Android phones from which they do just about everything. You'll get four bars in the middle of nowhere compared to the United States spotty coverage concentrated on population centers. But pay no attention to geopolitical competitors, what could they possibly know that we don't?

Or if you call capitalism a failure because only rich people can afford MacLarens, you're just being disingenuous. See also cheap perfectly serviceable 60" flat screen TVs versus a 85" Samsung Goliath.

I don't want a society with zero wealth gap. They tried that during the cultural revolution and it sucked every bit as badly as the libertarian dystopia Peter Thiel wants to make happen. We have a really serious inequality problem with fairly simple answers that are politically infeasible until we federalize all campaign funding.

> I don't want a society with zero wealth gap. They tried that during the cultural revolution and it sucked every bit as badly as the libertarian dystopia Peter Thiel wants to make happen.

No, they didn't. That was the story the masses were sold, but power and wealth were a function of the hierarchy rooted at Mao Zedong. But also, I don't believe that zero wealth gap is a reasonable goal, so kindly lay off the strawman. Nordic countries show that there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of inequality, without a blush of the totalitarianism that you fear.

Yes, that's exactly what happens when you try to create a zero wealth gap - people cheat. You are the one that brought up the zero wealth gap with "Is there zero wealth gap between people who shop at Walmart and the people who make the cheap crap that gets sold at Walmart", not me. So if you don't want to be contradicted on a subject, try not mentioning it in the first place, pro-tip even.

And libertarianism is just institutionalized cheating for all. Same result as communism in the long run - a tiny ruling class and a world full of peasants where it's good to be the king. I'll take neither.

But I'd love socialized healthcare, medicare for all even. Spoilers: a country infested with a bunch of temporarily embarrassed millionaires will never let that happen. And even in a global pandemic, if you don't get private money out of campaign financing, you'll never get a shot at convincing those temporarily embarrassed millionaires of anything else. But by all means, you be you.

What? People cheat in america constantly. Wasn't there a whole ton of fraud recently when it came to unemployment and the small business loans? People cheated for billions, capitalism definitely doesn't prevent thag

Yes, people cheat* because they are selfish, and any economic system has to take that into account which is where communism and libertarianism fall apart.

But I thought we were talking about how if we have to wear stillsuits in the future, no one will be able to afford stillsuits except the rich despite the historical evidence 100% to the contrary. The rich will get them first though, designer stillsuits even, deal with it. Can't have everything.

*But if you had any idea how many weird tricks the $100M+ class employs to avoid paying taxes, 100% legally ATM because our 2500+ page WTF tax code, you'd probably want to storm the Capitol again (or maybe not because you might have convinced yourself those weird tricks might come in handy some even though they probably won't).

When the government gives away money or makes loans with zero effort to qualify the recipients/borrowers, yes there will be cheating. That's not capitalism though.

My point was that capitalism has produced people and behaviors which do the cheating

Who would just cheat differently under any other system because cheaters gonna cheat. And that's why we still can't have nice things.

> Has capitalism made iPhones cheap enough for the folks working in iPhone factories to afford them?

Yes, they're called Android phones.

False. Come to China or Vietnam and see how everyone has a nice phone. Not an iPhone, but not everyone in the US has an iPhone.

Why can they afford it? Capitalism. Don’t forget they tried the alternative and it failed.

> Capitalism. Don’t forget they tried the alternative and it failed.

There isn't just one alternative to capitalism, and Leninist state capitalism isn't really an alternative to capitalism.

Neal Stephenson's latest novel "Termination Shock" has "earthsuits" that people wear in hot and humid locations.

> Neal Stephenson's latest novel "Termination Shock" has "earthsuits" that people wear in hot and humid locations.

Reminiscent of Frank Herbert's stillsuits in Dune (1965).

Producing ice is quite an energy intensive process. But I guess energy is cheap, damn the climate etc...

That’s why it absorbs so much energy when you wear it. If it didn’t take that much energy, it wouldn’t be that useful.

But heat pumps are actually extraordinarily efficient, so ice production isn’t bad compared to the cooling it would give the wearer.

Which is one of the reasons many buildings build up big blocks of ice at night and then use them to cool themselves throughout the day.

Building up big blocks of ice at night is inherently less efficient than cooling only as much as needed. The reason it's done is to take advantage of night time power being cheaper. On the scale those buildings operate at it's worth it.

From a naive perspective, energy is energy, so melting 1 kg of ice eats 300 kJ of energy, and heating 8 kg of water from 20 C to 30C also takes 300 kJ.

But if the ambient temperature is 30 C, how much did it take to make that 1 kg of ice or that 8 kg of 20C water?

With a heat pump, like your refrigerator or freezer, producing cool water is much easier with high efficiency multipliers, while producing ice is a lot harder.

If the outside temperature is 30 C, the the ice machine radiator must be at a higher temperature, say, at 40 C, to radiate heat, and the cold end must be below freezing to actually freeze the water. So, the radiator might be at 40C and the cooler at -10 C. So, the compressor must transport the 300 kJ of heat energy "against the grain" from cool to hot, a temperature difference of 50 C.

With the refrigerator, the hot end might be at 40 C and the cool end at 10 C, meaning the difference is only 30 C.

COP or Coefficient power is the amount of energy (J) the heat engine uses to transfer 1 Joule of energy.

Some formulas:

eff = 1 - T_cold / T_hot

Refrigerator:

T_cold = 10 C = 280 K, T_hot = 40 C = 310 K

eff = 1 - 280/310 = 0.0968

COP = 1/eff = 10

Freezer:

T_cold = -10 C = 260 K, T_hot = 40 C = 310 K

eff = 1- 260/310 = 0.161

COP = 1/eff = 6.2

You're right that it's mainly a power time shifting scheme. But there's no fundamental reason that I can see that it should be much less efficient than on-demand cooling - you can always insulate the ice storage well, and air tends to be cooler at night, so your heat pumps should be somewhat more efficient at radiating heat into the air than during the day.

I don’t like the idea of needing tech to be outside, but ice packs would be most needed in places and at times when there’s lot of sunlight, so solar probably will be the way to produce it.

> That said its a good HN opportunity too for entrepreneurs.

No, it isn't an opportunity for anybody, the only opportunity we get is to get off our asses and address the root cause instead of the symptoms to see if we can make money off the symptoms. That's what got us in this situation in the first place.

An interesting example of this was at the recent Summer Olympics in Tokyo. With the wide view of athletes everything looks fine, just another nice sunny day. But when the camera cuts in close many of the athletes look like they're about to pass out but they're barely sweating.

https://stacoolvest.com/

These are vests like you describe. You take ice packs from the freezer and fit them into pockets of the vest. Not very high tech but they work.

Hot, high-humidity days are the days I like to go out and run several miles. A lot depends on your fitness level. And Westerners are becoming decreasingly fit.

The average hackernews user probably never was ;) But yes, I agree. There is a worrying trend of people living increasingly unhealthy lifestyles calling for politicians to protect them from life.

Btw before you write angry replies accusing me of not knowing what I'm talking about I grew up in a part of Asia that gets extremely warm/humid in spring and summer. We're talking way above 80% average humidity for over 4 months, some days close to 100% and subtropical temperatures around 30-35 and above 40°C when it gets really hot.

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