Yesterday I was speaking with a close friend who bought a 1930's house in Chicago. She told me that suddenly summer has arrived, the temperature is in the 90's and it is uncomfortable inside and outside. "We want to put in central air conditioning, but that would entail a renovation of the house's electricity wiring and we can't afford that now." Today, taking a break from working on my research into insulation materials to reduce energy consumption for cooling, I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History, and there was an advertisement for Flashback. One of the three episodes mentioned was about Air Conditioning - an interesting lesson about how the cooling technology had a significant effect on the US Government, population changes in the USA and future political power. And today , I had composed a letter to real estate appraiser in the morning on how shed roofs above and disengaged from buildings are proven to keep them ...