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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 06 2017, @09:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the chilling-effect dept.

Ever since our ancestors mastered fire, humans have been able to warm themselves. Cooling down when it's hot has been more challenging.

The eccentric Roman emperor Elagabulus sent slaves to bring snow down from the mountains and pile it in his garden, where breezes would carry the cooler air inside.

[...] Needless to say, this was not a scalable solution. At least, not until the 19th century, when Boston entrepreneur Frederic Tudor amassed an unlikely fortune doing something similar.

He took blocks of ice from frozen New England lakes in winter, insulated them in sawdust, and shipped them to warmer climes for summer.

Until artificial ice-making took off, mild New England winters caused panic about an "ice famine".

Air conditioning as we know it began in 1902, but it had nothing to do with human comfort.

New York's Sackett & Wilhelms Lithographing and Printing Company became frustrated with varying humidity levels when trying to print in colour.

The same paper had to be printed four times in four colours, and if the humidity changed between print runs, the paper would slightly expand or contract. Even a millimetre's misalignment looked awful.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:49AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @01:49AM (#521697)

    It's also the most dangerous invention in the history of the world, responsible for slaughtering countless lives. More dangerous than ISIS.

    No, really.

    Secretary of State John Kerry said in Vienna on Friday that air conditioners and refrigerators are as big of a threat to life as the threat of terrorism posed by groups like the Islamic State.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @12:09PM (#521852)

    countless lives

    Countless?

    I thought the threat of death by terrorism is on the order of lightning strikes or on the order of affecting a similar rate of the population as $100,000 lottery winners?