And they’d have no idea what to do when the temperature reached -40 
Sounds like my office too. To be fair, if I was outside, in the shade, not having to work, I’d be ok, its just that 30+ C temperatures, plus computers, plus lack of decent ventilation = not very pleasant. 
Ack! Yeah, I remember that from when I was in New Mexico about this time two years ago. But then, everything was air-conditioned, so it was only when out that it became a problem. And I burnt just walking from the lecture theatre to the canteen at New Mexico Tech.
Colophon, I’m probably the same age as your girlfriend, and I’m definitely in the “Celsius only” camp. I know that there exists a Farenheit scale, and I know what its freezing point is, and what body temperature is, but the rest of it becomes a bit hazy. A temperature in F means a lot less to me than a temperature in C does. We should all be using Kelvin anyway, temperatures of 300K, anyone? 
Death Valley is in California, not Nevada.
100 F is cool for Death Valley this time of year. Try 120, instead.
I was waiting for someone to pick that one up. Part of the national park is in Nevada, so nyah 
Yeah, we swept all the most uninteresting and desolate parts of the park together and dumped them into Nevada. 
I observe that most Californians think that once you pass Mono Lake going East, it’s desert all the way to St. Louis. This is something the rest of the US just doesn’t get; California really is another country with a somewhat vague affiliation to the United States.
You’re not even an American! You can’t possibly know that!
Before the Brits get too cranky about being indoors during warm weather with no A/C, I’d like to remind them of what I used to do. Some details that I omitted from my description of the photo linked to in that thread: You can’t see the two pre-heat ovens which were normally up to about 1400F, or the aluminum furnace which was at about 1800F when it was time to pour, and that tiny little steel furnace held 800 lbs of molten metal.
In amongst all the UK Health and Safety legislation dealing with the workplace there is no specific mention of a maximum temperature that a worker must endure. A minimum (16C) is specified , but all the law says is that the employer must provide a “reasonable” temperature. What is reasonable - 20C , 25C , 30C or 35C ? .
The law also states that “all reasonable steps should be taken to achieve a comfortable temperature” . So all the employer has to do is provide a couple of crappy fans and he is in the clear , even though these may do very little to lower the temperature.
IIRC, there used to also be a legal maximum, but it was impossible to enforce in practice. I guess part of it is that the ‘reasonableness’ depends on the type of work and the location - a tube driver or kitchen employee would reasonably be expected to deal with something warmer than an office worker.
If a legal minimum can be enforced why not a maximum ? you only need a thermometer. Regarding different temperatures for different jobs , that can be accommodated. This is already done for the minimum temperature. Although the limit is 16C there is a concession of 13C for those carrying out hard , manual labour.
Identifying places that exceed the maximum is one thing. Reducing those temperatures is quite another. ‘Install air conditioning’, you might say. Impossible to do so effectively in many buildings, particularly older ones. Not to mention the cost - remember the hoo-hah from ‘small businesses’ when it was suggested they might like to put in wheelchair access to comply with disability discrimination legislation?
I imagine the same arguments were used by employers when the minimum temperature legislation came into force. Of course everything costs money, but these costs have to be faced and I am sure the law can be worded to say “best efforts”. This is what the disability legislation says. In other words do the best you can, in your own particular circumstances.
The worst part of the heat is all the horseflies that are buzzing around, especially if you work outdoors. The stupid things won’t take “no” for an answer, and have to be batted away about five times before they’ll leave you alone.
There’s at least twice as many this year as there normally is in the North West. Last year it was squirrels, this year it’s horseflies.
The difference is that a maximum temperature was introduced, and then much later was abandoned because it proved, in practice, impossible to get anywhere close to enforcement. You need to make up your mind, whether ‘best efforts’ is closer to ‘reasonable efforts’ or complete compliance to a fixed limit. In all seriousness, for many buildings, the costs would actually mean demolition and rebuilding from scratch. And what do you do with historic and listed buildings?
No flies on us
Really? Where I work it sometimes gets cold enough in winter that you can see the customers’ breath. I’m not sure how hot it gets in summer though. Definitely over 25C if you’re by the ovens.
[nitpick]The only way to correctly measure temperature is in the shade. If you measure in the sun, all you’re getting is the temperature of the thermometer as heated by radiant energy from the sun. While the earth is heated in the same way (sun heats ground, then ground heats air,) the albedo of the thermometer is more than likely drastically different from that of the ground (albedo affects reflectivity, which affects the heating of a surface.) What you really want is to measure the temperature of the air, and the only way to accurately do that is in the shade. In other words, it’s entirely possible to have a nice sunny Spring day with highs in the 70’s, and a thermometer in the sun swearing up and down that it’s really 90 degrees out.[/nitpick]
Of course the only way to get a correct shade temperature is with a Stephenson Screen
That I didn’t know.
Which is to say that I know temperatures given on weather reports are shade temperatures but I didn’t know the rest of the detail you give.
A possibly naive question for you. When walking down the street in seriously hot weather I tend to make for the shady side because it seems cooler. Is there, in fact, little or no difference in the air temperature on both sides of the street?
It’s true that the air temperature is no different. However, you will be cooler on the shadier side, because when you’re not in a shadow, your body is also absorbing radiated heat direct from the sun.