Readit NewsFor example, in a bilingual environment, it can be enough to understand two languages and to speak one.
A compressor based cooler gets a COP of about 4 in the real world. I'm pretty sure this is an apples to oranges comparison to an expert (I am not one of those) but a factor of 3+ increase in COP is fairly noteworthy -- if it holds up.
The dark/light situation never affected me that much. But I could definitely see it in people around me. People from further south have a hard time dealing with darkness. Insomnia is something to guard for.
The Finnish are famously one of the most happy people around. But they also have relatively high suicide rates that spike in spring when after a miserably long winter, the availability of light pushes some people over the edge. As I used to morbidly joke, "Finland is so happy because all the unhappy people keep killing themselves thus removing themselves from these surveils". The Finnish love dark humor like that. This got a chuckle out some of them.
Meanwhile, the fortunate outliers are more in the south: Cyprus, Greece, Liechtenstein, Türkiye, Italy and Luxembourg.
In any case, light sensitivity and sleep patterns are well linked. If you live far away from the equator, you are dealing with pretty short nights half of the year. I lived in Helsinki for a while. That can really mess up your sleep though some people manage to adapt. There's a reason coffee is popular in places like
I currently live in Berlin. I sleep about 2-3 hours less in the summer than in the winter. Somehow that works for me. But it's really annoying to be wide awake at 6 when you've set your alarm for 8. I'm literally typing this on my laptop early morning on a Sunday. But it's light very early this time of year.
I've experimented with wearing sleep masks. They really work. But I find them slightly uncomfortable. What works better is just doing sane things like trying to live healthy. Less alcohol, more sport. Etc. Work stress can cause all sorts of issues with that.
Btw, did you take a D vitamin supplement and use a light therapy lamp in the mornings?
this argument relies on the false-but-widely-held idea that "natural resources" are commercial wealth and if you don't hold them you are poor. Look at Japan, has very limited natural resources and not hippies but has built a world-class economy on knowledge work. Look at resource rich 3rd world countries, why are they poor?
If Europe needs oil, they can buy it, it's completely fungible and sold at auction in huge volumes every day. The reason for the switch to wind and solar is the global warming argument, not the "we don't have our own oil" fallacy.
I think we cannot buy oil and gas only from sane countries or we would already.
How can you regain sovereignty? Installing solar and heat pumps is part of this process.
A bit OT, but what a gorgeous whale of a sentence! As always, the literary prowess of NTSB writers does not disappoint.