Alfred Hitchcock’s "Rear Window:" See How Air Conditioning Changed Our World
/We seldom appreciate the transformative impact of technology if, for us, “it’s always been there.” And while we think of technology as smart phones, wifi, computers, etc., technology is anything that transforms inputs into outputs. Sewers and sewage treatment plants, for example, are technologies that eradicated Cholera by eliminating street drains that overflowed with human waste. Google the “big stink” or the “great stink” to see just how miserable London was in the 1850s before sewers. Here’s a start.
Air conditioning (A/C) is another taken-for-granted technology because for many of you, “it’s always been there.” Of course, it hasn’t. And like sewers and sewage treatment, A/C has dramatically changed how we live our lives.
Read More