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But Norilsk is at least designed for the cold, right down to schools with indoor playgrounds*. Here in the UK, -5C causes major problems. One year we had a snowfall in Hertfordshire of about 150mm overnight. No grit, no snowploughs. I was supposed to be visiting my dentist, ten miles away, so I set off on my trials bike. I met literally no other traffic. (Knobbly tyres in fresh snow work very well. Do not try this on ice!)
*And heated garages because electricity is virtually free. The Russian relation to cold is interesting, mainly because after every episode of utter military incompetence (1812, 1919, 1941) General Moroz ( Frost) comes along and rescues them in the nick of time.
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LOL!!!
Oh I need a tautaun now.
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Wooo! It’s going to get above freezing today, for a few hours. It’s been below freezing for four days now. But on Monday night it’s supposed to be 0 degrees F, F as in fuck thats’s cold.
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-5 here last night. Because this is part of the country that can vaguely cope with freezing weather, pavements are icy but otherwise things are ok, as we watch the news freak out because some people are getting snow in December.
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It’s also polluted as all get out.
By the end of a tour of the factory, I find I have developed a sudden cough. Locals here talk about the black or red snow, and the “blue fog” that causes an itch in the throat. “When gases are coming out of the pipes, you feel it,” says restaurant owner Eldar Aliyev. “From copper it has a sweet taste; from nickel, a different taste. Now, though, you taste it less.”
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Yes, but I was contrasting the ability of even the former Soviet Union to deal with intense cold, with the UK which basically packs up when water freezes. This thread is not about pollution.
I think we all know extraction industries are extremely dirty. Not far from here is a former mining town where there are places you cannot grow food in gardens due to selenium, arsenic and uranium pollution. Then there’s the uncountable curies of tritium the British government dumped in the Irish Sea. Canada, Australia and the US also have environmental horror stories, like the pollution of the Colorado River by radionucleides, Superfund sites, Flint, nickel mining and shale in Canada, you name it. Mostly we manage to poison “indigenous” peoples (or brown people in, say, Nigeria). Governments generally have a terrible environmental record, but the West has generally been quickest to clean up its act. The Soviet Union was at least as bad or perhaps considerably worse, modern Russia has financial constraints. But, as I say, this thread was about low temperatures.
[end rant mode]
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I pulled out this heated throw because I can’t get warm. I plugged it in to see if this is the broken one or the working one. It works. Sylvia won’t share, though…
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Just so everyone knows the correct way to stay warm is using chickens.
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why not use one of these?
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City I used to live in was aggressively annexing territory from the county. But there was a radioactive toxic waste site, and a neighborhood of poor people around it. The city’s response? Annex around it, but also leave out the poor people affected by it. Looking at the map of the city limits now, it’s ridiculous.
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Snowing and 3°F (16°C) here at the moment. 
I suppose a wee nip won’t hurt.
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'Tis the season.
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Snow Fell. Shovel Scrapes.
Do not use the snowblower.
The silence is pure.
exerpt from Zen and the Art of Snow Removal
-1°F, Sun shining and no wind to speak of. Perfect shoveling weather.
I did break out my strangest vendor giveaway though…
Warm as all get out. I believe that was from the last Microsoft Tech Ed that was in Houston. In the spring.
Thank you unknown Dell Projector PR guy. It may have been an Ironic Give away, but I thank you none the less
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After WW2 it was (briefly) seriously proposed that Pu-238 made in large quantities could be used for domestic heating, cooking and water heating. After all, it was only an alpha particle emitter. Put it in an AGA-type stove with a chimney to let out the alphas (as helium-4) what could possibly go wrong?
But then it was decided to use it in MOX reactors and instead produce electricity too cheap to meter.
Scientists: never tell civil servants or politicians anything. It will end badly.
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I heard about a type of home heating using microwave emitters located in the ceiling. Very efficient; only heats organic tissue (
) without wasting energy on heating the air, furniture, etc. I don’t think it caught on.
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But then every tone you sat down the seat would be cold. Blech!
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