22/05/2000
on the French obsession with darkness
Apparently the electricity costs a lot here -- I haven't bothered to
figure out exactly how much, but if it's anything like the relative
cost of gasoline stateside, it must cost a lot to keep lights on. In
that respect, the French dormitories I'm living in are very
energy-conscious.
Lights in the hallways are all on a non-defeatable 10 minute
timer. You hit a pushbutton as you enter the building, and the
lights come on. They go off after 10 minutes, unless another
pushbutton is pressed. Lights in bathrooms are always off unless
the room is in use, with no exceptions. People often turn the lights
in their office off after leaving only momentarily.
It's really not that hard, and I guess it makes a fair amount of
sense. I don't know what the turn-on cost for lights is, but for
periods of over 30 minutes or so I'd guess that it's more economical
to leave the lights off when not in use. (but this would have to do
with the initial power consumption during warmup as well as the
decreased lifespan of the bulb, so I don't know). Most of their
lights are fluorescent, though.
Shutters
I'm also obsessed with the exterior shutters
-- they're both a good and a bad thing. You can sleep all day without
ever seeing light, but you can also avoid a lot of the annoying heat
loss/gain as well as noises. I imagine that they're a little better
for security purposes too -- the metal is fairly stout.
If I ever build a house, it will have these kinds of shutters on
some of the windows (at least on the bedrooms). Perhaps they look
too "shut off" when you've got them down, but I think it makes
perfect sense.
Accuracy in Dispensation
The coke machine in our dining hall
gives you *exactly* 20cL of your beverage of choice (Coca-Cola, Fanta,
etc) per token. Extra tokens (jeton) can be purchased, but I haven't
yet figured out how or where. The actual nozzle has an electronic
valve that's controlled by a microprocessor - it actually reads out
the amount of fluid dispensed accurate to about 1cL as it goes. When
you've reached your limit, the little plastic bar stops actuating the
solenoid-driven valve dispensing soda. No more for you.
Same as in restaurants - you get a flask of coke, and that's it. It's
usually plenty of coke (heck, who needs to drink 1.5L of coke at a
sitting), but it's different nonetheless.
Wine
French wine is good (to my not-so-terribly cultured
tastes). I guess being brought up in a culture where teenagers mostly value
alcoholic beverages for their get-drunk-fast value, it's interesting
to taste lots of really good wines. I doubt I'll ever be really into
it (the collection or search for the perfect wine), but it's neat to
be able to spend only $5 on a bottle that came from a winery not too
far away and has its own distinct taste (which is actually
*good*). Definitely not the same as anything else.
Of course, the classes keep us honest. Not too much time for
wine-tasting, although it's a neat study experience to get a large
group of folks together over a bottle or two of something interesting.
cellphones make sense here
most American teens would spend
their allowances on phone bills here (due to the
There's-No-Such-Thing-As-A-Free-Phone-Call, almost) . Everyone under
the age of 25 has a cellphone, or at least all of the students I
know. It's quite amusing. Also, the billing structure is a fair bit
different -- you pay more to call a cell phone number than you do to
call a conventional number, but incoming calls on the cell phone are
free to the holder. The numbers make it obvious what kind of phone
something is (usually), so it works out fairly well.