Why is a mostly-incorrect* analysis of candles on the frontpage? Just because Carmack is saying it?
*: Wattage might be the same, but the effect on air quality is different. Humans don't exhale carbon monoxide and smoke.
*: Wattage might be the same, but the effect on air quality is different. Humans don't exhale carbon monoxide and smoke.
Both consume oxygen, which is certainly part of "air quality". But the lesson could've been narrowed down to just oxygen, "air quality" involves other things. Seems main takeaway is that one candle = one human, wrt. oxygen in the room. If the numbers are right.
To ignore the the central subject of the comment - air quality - in order to call it "not incorrect" is doing quite a bit of work.
> Seems main takeaway is that one candle = one human, wrt. oxygen in the room. If the numbers are right.
If we can ignore air quality, what is the difference between this and the comparison between 2 60lb dogs and a human in a room? Or any other animals of similar mass that respirate in the same way?
Clearly the comment was an overtly reductive missive targeted at recent concerns about air quality issues created by indoor combustion.
Then how is his comment topical or even interesting? It sure sounds like he's wading into the indoor air quality debate that ignited (pun intended) around gas stoves in the last week. But as others have noted, he's a "great man" so his opinions, well informed or not, get broadcast.
That surprised me. Reading this adds to that feeling of surprise, and gives a clearer idea of how much heat they emit.
I say it's a good post, if one reads it right. (It must be clear to most people that it's taking shortcuts in reasoning about air quality, so you must be mindful of the context you apply this to.)
If you ignore the numbers you can still easily feel the heat, but it's not so easy to translate into human equivalents.
You can get a large range of wattages for one socket size.
The average person, when asked how many watts that bulb is, is probably going to say "60" or "much less than 60 but I don't know how much".