My Grandmother's Cooling System
Sun Jun 27, 2010 6:14:25 pm

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My grandmother didn't have an air conditioner and she seldom used an electric fan. She did things the old way. She had an old Chinese bamboo fan which was also sometimes used as a giant fly swatter. I always avoided the air stream of her fan, because I worried about maggots being flung at me. When her arm got tired from fanning, she sat next to the window and called the wind. I didn't know anything about confirmation bias when I was 5. I believed in her magic. It always worked. When the wind didn't cool her enough, she soaked a cloth in alcohol and rubbed it on her skin. Not understanding specific heat and evaporative cooling, I also believed that this was magic.