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[McTraveller]

So when I was younger, 25 years ago, I'd play outside often with temps in the 90sF all summer long. I don't recall the humidity, but the baseline was hot.  We just wore shorts, went in the shade, and drank lots of water and literal Kool-Aid.  I recall 5-mile runs to train for cross country in the mid 1990s, when it was in the 90s (central South Carolina in August).  Sure I guess I was a teenager then, and was in pretty good shape...  Heck my middle school would close if it hit 90 before 12noon, because we had one of the few facilities that didn't have AC installed... and we had several days that the school closed, in multiple years.

What's different now that causes so much concern?  Is the humidity different (the temps themselves aren't...)? Has human physiology changed? How much is it psychological - that is, how much is because we have the internet in our pockets now, and we didn't in 1995, so we're just more aware of when people have issues?

Yes this is partially a "people today just need to have some grit" rant.  It's also partially a "what am I missing?" plea... because I feel like I'm really missing something here.

[EuchreJack]

What you're missing is that the temperatures are now reaching 100 and the humidity is worse...

[McTraveller]

Note that I'm not claiming anything here about temperature or climate. I'm only commenting on what seems to be a higher public sensationalism of heat today compared to 30 years ago - that is, people are like "wow it's dangerous heat!" when back then it was like "it's gonna be hot. Drink water."

[EuchreJack]

I thought it was somewhat alarmist to make a Tornado warning in the Northeast USA, until we actually got a few tornadoes up here.
So maybe not alarmist.

[Frumple]

Note that I'm not claiming anything here about temperature or climate. I'm only commenting on what seems to be a higher public sensationalism of heat today compared to 30 years ago - that is, people are like "wow it's dangerous heat!" when back then it was like "it's gonna be hot. Drink water."

They also smoked like lung cancer was their favorite lover, so... it's not like there's good evidence they were particularly astute when it came to threat assessment back then, heh. Rather the opposite, really.

Pointedly, that gonna' be hot was, in fact, dangerous. Folks died to overheating pretty regularly -- still do, but at least there's more acknowledgement that there really is a risk, these days.

Wouldn't call it sensationalism, though. The "drink water" bit is still very prevalent, there's just more of a note of "drink water or it's way too likely to kill your ass". Because, y'know. It's hot enough if you don't drink water it's pretty likely to kill your ass. Yesteryear they cared a lot less if the indigents or whoever died in a heat wave, ha.

[hector13]

Heck, I’m struggling with low 80s and ~60% humidity. I’m sweating my balls off walking around my house (no central air) and I’m only in shorts!

[Eric Blank]

Just as bad here too. Can't run the generator more than 10 minutes before it overheats, so we're almost out of power to run the fans/fridge.

[femmelf]

Wet bulb temperatures are worse with climate change, which we were lied to about in the past (it exists, but I remember being told it was a hoax as a kid by all the adults around me). Depending on humidity and temperature, being outside during wet bulb temperature can kill you. Your body cannot cool itself effectively then. Things are hotter. It doesn't snow in October anymore. It is worse.

You may be right to the extent that there is more notice of it today, although I would not call it sensationalism. It is real.
People got lied to a lot by well funded industry groups who just wanted to pollute. Right now, there  are record breaking temperatures. I also do not remember large swaths of the country being out of power for multiple days repeatedly, like Texas is now.... They have 100 degree heat and no power right now. That is a problem.

I do not remember things being in the 100s in summer. Maybe, maybe high 90s.

[nenjin]

I remember 100s growing up but they were rare. Rather than "is it going to be 100 this week."

And yes, the humidity matters. There are parts of India that, over time, the humidity has risen to the point people can no longer sweat due to the lack of moisture differential between their sweat on their skin and the outside air, and are dying of heatstroke. Sweat only cools you if it can evaporate. If it doesn't evaporate, all you're really doing is stewing in your sweat that then eventually reaches the temperature of the ambient air.

When faced with these conditions, our bodies call upon a well-known mechanism to keep us from overheating: sweating. As perspiration evaporates from the skin, it cools the body’s temperature. But if the air is not only hot but also already filled with moisture, less sweat can evaporate, and this safety feature fails. In India, high temperatures and humidity are increasingly combining to pose a deadly threat—one the country isn’t prepared for.

https://www.wired.com/story/india-deadly-combination-heat-humidity/

[McTraveller]

I just watched a clip from Aeon Flux with Charlize Theron... why does it look so bad?  By that I mean - who thought it looked acceptable enough to release?

It's awful.

I think a lot of it is the clip looks oversampled, so it has "soap opera effect" qualities. Like the props clearly look fake. And the CGI looks worse than it should.  Film grain covers a lot of sins.

[ggamer]

Living in Georgia I can say it's one of the hottest June-July I can remember, though I've definitely experience hotter that I weathered with working AC in my Truck. The rain, though... It's rained every week since the start of summer. It's not like that's never happened but the last time it did to my memory was around either Sandy or Katrina. I keep seeing flood warnings in Atlanta and I'm sure back home all the usual landmarks I'd use as flood markers are showing the usual red flags. It's been very unrelentingly humid. In the South people don't really get global warming unless they have to spend time outside and a lot of them don't spend very much time at all outside climate controlled vehicles and buildings. No strangers to heat but the 100+ degree heat waves for 50-60 days during the summer used to be a rarity now it's every summer or every other summer. This has the usual consequences it's fucking with everybody's body. Me personally my acid reflux has been hitting overdrive (so barely any food for weeks at a time and when I do eat I binge for a day) and literally a couple days ago every single person I knew or talked to either got sick or had family get sick from COVID/flu, have some unhappy occurence as a consequence from heat wave, or in worst cases coworkers from Eastside that have family that have been shot. It's not hyperbole to say people get heated and others in Cali know this well when it gets hot hot for long periods of time and you don't have consistent access to AC or any way to control ur temp either because of having to work or not having AC at home or not having a home it makes people fucking crazy. At my partner's job a homeless person stole a gun out of someone's car, and they're well outside the big urban concentration areas that would justify that kind of thing to liberal society. It's driving people a little more crazy every summer. Having things like neck fans constant cold water air conditioned building units is literally life or death if you want to do anything but sit in a building or a car during the summer down here. But fuck it while people argue from pleasant room temperature offices we'll learn how to live, and we'll see how fucking funny it all is when we all have to go through a summer with no power. When you have to deal with discretionary rolling brownouts during heat waves you learn lots of tricks to save digital work and keep life rocking along steadily even when it's 100+ degrees out and the lights are off

https://youtu.be/GyEe-atCzRQ?si=S1tPwtG8ioQ0QBK1

[Kagus]

I just watched a clip from Aeon Flux with Charlize Theron... why does it look so bad?  By that I mean - who thought it looked acceptable enough to release?

It's awful.

I think a lot of it is the clip looks oversampled, so it has "soap opera effect" qualities. Like the props clearly look fake. And the CGI looks worse than it should.  Film grain covers a lot of sins.

It's a hot girl action sci-fi shovelware from nearly 20 years ago, of course it looks awful. Its main redeeming factor in my book was when I rented the DVD from the local library, and they'd put the library sticker in the absolute perfect spot over the film's tagline of "The perfect world. The perfect ass[assin]."

[Frumple]

for what it's worth, there's extremely good odds that was very, very intentional

[Kagus]

for what it's worth, there's extremely good odds that was very, very intentional

I was hoping you'd confirm that. The act was certainly appreciated!

[Frumple]

Yeah, we don't tend to be overt about it, but if our processing standards let us slip something like that through, well, uh. It's just one of those things, hohoho.

Make no mistake, though, when a librarian has an excuse to slap ASS on the side of a book or somethin' there's solid odds we will, and we will laugh about it if the patrons aren't in hearing range :V

... not hypothetical, incidentally, my joint uses first three letters as our (fiction, partial nonfiction) call number, and we've put ASS on the side of a book going to the kid's section before. No hesitation, some merriment.