Taking Measures

If you still have one, or only reluctantly got rid of one, you may be interested in this post about "The Sort of Sad Death of the Mercury Thermometer."

It explains that while most of the ones you can buy for personal use these days don't contain mercury anymore, thermometers for scientific measurements have continued to use it.

I admit, I still have a mercury thermometer somewhere. I bought it while I was in college, and missed my chance, years ago now, to trade it in for a digital one at one of the pharmacies around here.

I could have upgraded to a nifty modern version, for free!

But I never got around to it. Besides, I was kind of suspicious of the digital versions. I recall them being newish at the time, and I wasn't sure they would work as well.

I also thought "what about when the battery wears out? I'll just have to buy a new one!" I don't know how long the batteries last on those things, but it's probably been 10 years by now, so it's certainly possible a battery would have worn out by this time.

While, as I said, I still have the mercury thermometer in the cabinet. Always thinking ahead, that's me.

I'm not saying this is a brilliant move on my part, though. As the article notes,

There's no secret reason NIST (and partners like the Environmental Protection Agency and United Nations) have pushed scientists away from mercury. It's a neurotoxin—exposure can cause tremors, partial blindness, deafness, memory loss, and many, many other problems—and, if mercury does spill, it's very hard to clean up.

So, yeah, it's not really something most people would necessarily want around their home. I keep it right next to my rat poison and lead-based paint.

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Brr, Cold...Ahg, Hot!

I want studies on whether or not it's unhealthy to spend all day shivering in an overly chilly air conditioned office and then walk out into what, by comparison, feels like a tropical steam bath.

I swear it can't be good for you, but I lack the research to back me up and give me the evidence I need to forcefully argue in favor of moderation in the climate control. Naturally I went to PubMed, but in my cold/heat-addled state I couldn't formulate an effective search strategy, so I was no good there.

In fairness, I'm sure it's very difficult to maintain any kind of constant temperature over 14 floors in a drafty 50-year-old building. They would probably do it if they could, just to stop people like me from whining. But fairness is no fun, is it?

Not nearly as much as whining, anyway.

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