a new plan!
Jul. 8th, 2007 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
healingmirthHow awful am I at journal keeping? This awful. I'm never going to be a blogger or a journal-writer for real, because I would simply rather do, even if "do" means play solitaire, than contemplate.
But occasionally, I wonder things, so I made a decision today that I would record some of my wonderings here.
I have a hypothesis that among the multitude of ways that one could classify people, that we (I had typed "they" there) fall into three categories - people who do not wonder things, people who wonder things and do nothing, and people who wonder things and then investigate. My lack of membership in the third class is why I am no longer (if I ever was) a scientist.
So, recent wonderings?
For most of the summer, and at various times in the past, I wonder about the impact of air conditioning on the environment. I don't even know if I can quantify the number of ways that's possible, much less try to quantify the cumulative effect, but to start: Manufacturing, of the units, for sure. Manufacturing of coolant (is there even coolant in air conditioning units?). Power to run the units. This though, is the thing that gets me - assuming for the moment that we neglect the previous three, what is the effect of the inefficiency of the unit? Of millions of units making things on one side of the wall cooler and therefore making things on the other side of the wall (literal, or on the other side of the production line, because I really have no idea how air conditioning units work) warmer. I really should look some stuff up around this, because its one wondering that just won't go away.
And new thought today - how would one go about writing (compiling?) a dictionary? Someone, or some group of people, more likely, wrote the first one. Whether its a definition or a translation dictionary, how do you go about compiling that list, particularly in the age before computers. Do you start with A and then write down every word you can think of? Scan through printed materials and record every new word you come across? At what threshold of diminishing returns for effort do you stop looking?
But occasionally, I wonder things, so I made a decision today that I would record some of my wonderings here.
I have a hypothesis that among the multitude of ways that one could classify people, that we (I had typed "they" there) fall into three categories - people who do not wonder things, people who wonder things and do nothing, and people who wonder things and then investigate. My lack of membership in the third class is why I am no longer (if I ever was) a scientist.
So, recent wonderings?
For most of the summer, and at various times in the past, I wonder about the impact of air conditioning on the environment. I don't even know if I can quantify the number of ways that's possible, much less try to quantify the cumulative effect, but to start: Manufacturing, of the units, for sure. Manufacturing of coolant (is there even coolant in air conditioning units?). Power to run the units. This though, is the thing that gets me - assuming for the moment that we neglect the previous three, what is the effect of the inefficiency of the unit? Of millions of units making things on one side of the wall cooler and therefore making things on the other side of the wall (literal, or on the other side of the production line, because I really have no idea how air conditioning units work) warmer. I really should look some stuff up around this, because its one wondering that just won't go away.
And new thought today - how would one go about writing (compiling?) a dictionary? Someone, or some group of people, more likely, wrote the first one. Whether its a definition or a translation dictionary, how do you go about compiling that list, particularly in the age before computers. Do you start with A and then write down every word you can think of? Scan through printed materials and record every new word you come across? At what threshold of diminishing returns for effort do you stop looking?
