…but i think it’s just a matter of keeping the conversation going. You know, long enough to…let me see how to put it. Oh yeah. Long enough to overwrite the end of your xanga feed. Now follow the mule.

howyadoin.

Of course there are cyclic climatic changes. The atmosphere does have a groove. But central to that groove is a subtle dynamic balance; life itself plays a central role in this balance. For example, the presence in our atmosphere of oxygen (a highly reactive atom, long locked-up on dead worlds) results solely from the transpiration of life. When exobiologists look to distant worlds to see if there is life on board, they’ll first search the atmosphere for life’s signature: oxygen. The Gaia hypothesis even conjectures that the atmosphere, combined with life, constitutes a meta-lifeform — with built-in feedback loops evolved to maintain optimally habitable conditions on Spaceship Earth. Whether or not Gaia is proven real (I tend to suspect it will be), we must certainly at least admit that the properties of our atmosphere owe a great deal to the biosphere.

Life matters to the atmosphere. Interestingly, everything we burn that comes from the ground was once alive. That’s why they call it FOSSIL fuel, and here’s the thing: we’re burning a LOT of previously-living fossil fuel. In fact, right now we’re engaged in voraciously burning a substantial fraction of everything that has ever lived – and throwing it into the atmosphere. What’s more, we’re doing so in scantly more than a hundred years — less than a flutter of Earth’s eye. If we think this isn’t going to leave a mark on the beautiful, delicate jewel we’re lucky to be hurtling through the blackness of space on, we ought to think again.

Please go to, appreciate, and RECOMMEND ryerye_zanguh‘s 2012 pumpkin carving contest post. He’s been doing these since 2004 and they really ought to be appreciated by more of us. You can also link to previous years’ contests from this year’s post.

…now back inside.

Thinking QuantumStorm might particularly enjoy this. By the way, a little back of the envelope calculation even non-science types might find interesting: Neglecting air resistance, and assuming g is constant over the fall (unlike throwing out air drag, the latter is a reasonable approximation), it would take just 230 seconds (3.7 minutes) to fall straight down from the height of the International Space Station (I think it’s orbiting at about 250km). Furthermore, when you hit the ground you’d be falling at the vaguely unnerving speed of 2.2km/sec (that’s nearly 13,000 miles an hour in more familiar units). It’s safe to say you would not “bounce”.

Went to The Great Minnesota Get Together today. Best Fair in the country. That’s right. Fried cheese curds and walleye cakes and much communion with farm animals; in particular goats (my favorite). Here’s a picture of yours truly mind-melding with a goat, and a few more – taken from the gondola. Oh, and a giant cow. Six hours. Too much sun, my legs are tired, and my feet are shot.

It was a grand day out.

it would have been nothing. you’d be like my dad and I’d call you daddy and from there things go to shit. -windoftheforest

I’ve gone without air-conditioning in my Explorer for a decade now. Bought it new in 1991; still less than a hundred thousand on the odometer. I love the thing, and dread the day when these Minnesota winters send it to a early grave. Great motor. But A/C?…not so much. Weak from the beginning, in fact, and it was no surprise when it finally kicked in 2002. Last week, having found a mechanic I trust and with a road trip to Florida in my Summer sights, I bit the bullet and had it repaired. Took pretty much an entire rebuild; retrofit for ozone-friendlier refrigerant, new compressor, new drier, new expansion valve….

Yesterday (coincidently the 100th anniversary of air-conditioning itself) I got my Explorer back and I’m happy to report that it allll works again. Really well. Including the A/C.

But that was just a preamble…or pre-ramble, if you like. Having all this work done, see – and it being the 100th anniversary of air-conditioning on the very day I resumed enjoying the comforts thereof – it got me thinking about Air-conditioning, the Universe, and Everything. 

Put simply, an air conditioner works by compressing the hell out of a liquid (known as a refrigerant) and then allowing that liquid to expand through a tiny hole (the expansion valve) and ultimately to evaporate into a region of lower pressure. It’s physics: the expanding refrigerant gets cold; quite cold indeed. Ultimately TEH POWAH of the cooled refrigerant chills a train of moving air which is then fanned onto the royal occupants of (in this case) my beloved Explorer.

Viola’!

It’s cool, it works, and it’s mine. Wow, dude. I live in an age where I can wrap a multi-ton hunk of metal around me and go anywhere I want, at speeds unthinkable on the day air-conditioning was invented. And for a few dollars more I can include a tiny little personal fountain of cool, effervescent liquid to keep me comfortable on even the hottest of globally warmed summer afternoons. Of course there’s more “heat” generated by the process than “cool” (physics again), but the miracle of air conditioning is that it lets us keep the cool part inside whilst shoving the hot part outside, where it belongs – with the rest of the global warming*.

So there I was today, driving along, windows rolled up, cool as a cucumber while the trees sweltered outside…when I noticed that if I listened very attentively, I could actually hear my own personal Fountain of Babylon, hissing and sputtering, deep within my own personal iron giant. I marveled at this for a moment or two. Surely I’d never take it for granted ever again. Eventually, however, I grew weary of the hissing and sputtering of my personal fountain and decided it to mask it with some music. With that, I pressed a button and turned a knob on a small piece of plastic and metal connected to the world’s smallest violin. And you know what? That violin played. Just for me.

It’s beautiful.

Here’s the thing: everything I described here (and for that matter pretty much everything else) runs on OIL, a notably finite resource.

So happy birthday, Air-Conditioning. May you have many more to come.

*punchline stolen from my dear friend ben

Because on Facebook no one “gets” this, that’s why.

The total July snowfall to date is zero point zero inches. The average snowfall for July is zero point zero inches; this compares to the record high of zero point zero inches and ties the record low of…

and yeah. it kinda goes on from there, but not for much longer.