Everybody talks about air conditioning more but most cooling in the world is done by fans. Fans are kinda amazing. Artificial wind.
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Was listening to some people talking about cooling heavy wattage server racks with fans recently and thinking about how much heat transfer is a function of air movement rather than temperature. There’s probably a tradeoff curve the industry uses.
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Weirdly the US has given up on ceiling fans even though HVAC ducted fans are still all over the place, just hidden from view.
The thermostat needs to be reinvented into a 2 variable control loop — speed and temperature. Or perhaps windchill adjusted temperature.
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We’re rarely in perfectly still air, and it feels uncomfortable. I think the ideal is a very gentle breeze, barely perceptible.
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I guess that’s just a specialized rack server. What’s special about that case?
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Electricity isn't even required, you can run a fan on lamp oil with a Stirling engine:
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They're amazing until the humidity gets high enough that they do fuck all (can even make it worse when you get close to wet bulb temp)
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