Human generated heat actually warms the environment closer to the ground which exacerbates the need to run air conditioning.

Overall, it's safe to say all mammals are contributing heat to the planet, but humans are doing a much more extreme job of it..

So instead of warming the atmosphere, they're warming the seawater.

Cuts to the chase neatly that. Let's all of us dump our excess heat into the ocean and see how if works out better in the long haul.

No free lunch.

Not to assert one way or the other whether he's telling the truth, but...

It's much more sensible to record everything and keep it for a short while and then begin a process of attrition. If everything is accessible for 1 hour, that's pretty powerful because you can freeze data after an event happens and look for what you need. After one hour, maybe only certain things and certain people are tracked for up to a day... then a week... a month... a year...

It will smell like money to them if you can generate hype for the technology before they even see it.

Try posting an Ask Slashdot question where you can tease the technology, spilling plenty of detail without giving away the maths. That will whet the appetites of the digerati general population and start up the hype engine.

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Oh, and once you have it legally protected, post some before and after videos showing how miraculous the new tech is. Post links back to Slashdot again, and Reddit, lining back to the original Ask Slashdot question as well. Bonus points for using a TED Presenter style narrative, or a Steve Jobs "stunning" reality field distortion effect... or show several magical-appearing comparisons off with some kickass trendy electronica like Peace Orchestra's "Whom Am I?"

The inverse problem with A for Effort is that it unfairly penalizes people who can ace things without putting in apparent effort.

The trouble starts when all mac address's activity gets logged into big data and stays there.
Then later on, your mac address gets cross-referenced with your real name and phone number and personally identifying data some day (because, for example, you may frequent Starbucks or locations that feature free wifi).

Suddenly, without anyone really trying, your every movement throughout the day just became trackable and they know how to reach you.

You also lose quite a lot of heat when you breathe.

The bodyheat that is "lost" to the building is also trapped by the building walls and ceiling; it doesn't radiate into space very effectively. In fact, it's a part of our global warming problem that we give off so much heat into the atmosphere from our buildings and vehicles... faster than the heat can be radiated into space.

As long as the walls and ceiling remain a certain temperature, then the ambient temperature will remain stable. If the walls are cooled off though, they will absorb heat from the ambient at a faster rate, causing the ambient to decline in temperature. Then whatever is generating heat for the ambient will have to work harder just to maintain that same temperature, even if we're talking about barely detectable and highly distributed energy expenditures.

And so, my original point was basically academic and not specific to the building being discussed. The take-away I had hoped for is that this is not a solution that can just be applied as a mindless panacea around the world. There is no such thing as free energy and too many people assume that because one system is losing energy to another, that the solution is to trap that energy, which can have the perverse effect of simply forcing the first system to increase it's energy output.

In short, this idea can only ever be worthwhile if the building in question is well-insulated and too hot for the occupants. Only in those cases will you have excess heat that would have to be dumped or pumped outdoors, which would be energy wasted. Better to re-route that excess heat somewhere where it's needed.

And for those saying that people donning jackets makes this a self-regulating system: think! When you don a jacket you are insulating yourself and keeping your heat to yourself instead of radiating it to the ambient. That means less heat overall for the ambient, which is less heat for the building.

I of course agree wholeheartedly that if you have thousands of folk bustling about in parkas indoors somewhere, and they are sweating and too hot, then that certainly qualifies for the proposed solution. But consider this: why don't we just put the entire city under walls and ceilings then? Think of all the lost energy you could collect that is otherwise lost when people walk around in parkas outside. You might even make it so they don't need parkas.

Yes, I said that up front.
As long as you are doing this to avoid having to cool a space that you'd have to otherwise cool, then yes, it's a net win.

The problem is that if you pump the thermal energy out of the building where the "hot bodies" are without somehow knowing when to stop, there's nothing to keep the system from turning that comfortable space into something less comfortable and more like the winter temperature outside. That defeats the purpose because you're not going to save energy when that happens.

At the extreme, it means the temperature in the space could become cold enough people want you to turn the heat on. A little less extreme and it means that people are less comfortable than normal and dress to avoid sharing their heat (making the space colder and making less heat available to the system).

At the most subtle level, even a degree change of -1 degrees means that people will expend more personal energy to maintain their preferred body temperature. Conservation of energy demands that this personal energy come from _somewhere_.

So, is it more carbon friendly to:
- consume food and generate body heat?
  - or to heat a space by using traditional means that depend on centralized power generators?

Not too far off considering that this concept is only worthwhile when bodies are generating excess heat that is unwanted in a space. But if you take away all the bodyheat being generated, then the people in that space will feel cold. To make up for it they will either dress warmer (insulate to keep their heat instead of sharing it) or they will expend more calories (which they must make up for by eating more) to generate more heat.

So yes, kinda Matrix-like, this could easily turn into essentially draining a person's precious energy from them without their consent.

Why female skin is a more apt question.

Does it not work for guys or is it an assumption that guys aren't interested in looking younger?

EXACTLY

midranges (the low mids at least) are always muddy