You could be driving home from the office on a hot summer day and with a simple tweet or post to Facebook, you are able to turn on the central air conditioning in your home to ensure a comfortable 72 degrees when you arrive back.

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Entering the lobby, which was decorated with Christmas lights at the height of the desert summer, a stranger gets the feeling that amphetamines might be pumped through the central air-conditioning.

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It doesn't hurt that the rooms have central air-conditioning, and you can always retreat to the spa, which offers two treatment areas overlooking the wild, sandy terrain.

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Plants release moisture into the air alleviating the dry atmosphere generated by air-conditioning and central heating units, as well as computers.

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For all the tension and discomfort of the scene in the movie that takes place at the Plaza it's the one where Gatsby reveals his relationship with Daisy to her glowering husband Tom on a sweltering summer afternoon in the days before air-conditioning at least they had Central Park views.

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Inmates - or rather 'guests', as the Dubai prison chief has insisted they should be called - will be housed in double rooms with "televisions, proper toilets, central air conditioning and other top class facilities", prison chief Brigadier Abbas Ali told the BBC.

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Not central air-conditioning, mind you, but window units that one could leave off if the idea of being comfortable in summer were despicable.

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Heating and cooling experts say central air-conditioning systems should be serviced annually to remove dirt, change filters and check the level of Freon, a refrigerant.

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