How to Kill a Mockingbird

My last post (ho-ho) prompted a veritable flurry of two comments from my dedicated readership.

In one of these, Dave took it upon himself to point out the error of my ways and, in the ensuing exchange of wordy emails, we arrived at two agreed conclusions:

1. Humans definitely can't be anything other than subjective, and...
2. I was talking pish about most of the other stuff

OK, not ALL criticism is a waste of time AND, yes, there really is an objective universe outside of human existence AND Descartes wasn't all bad. And he wasn't Belgian either. Humph.

So, for the physicists out there, here's a little curio. I have a thing.

It's an air ioniser thing. It takes the form of a small column of plastic, into which are placed two batteries and a cartridge of nice-smelling liquid, the idea being that it emits an ionised vapour on a regular basis. It's approved by lots of worthies and actually seems to work, as it has dramatically decreased both the volume and incidence of my snoring, which usually makes it sound like a distressed walrus is lurking under the bed.

There it sits on top of the shelves at the other end of the room, winking away with it's little LED on an occasional basis and producing a gentle waft of apparently harmless perfume (I say this because perfume things usually make me gag).

But I'm worried. It works off two AA batteries, right? And it has an on-off switch, and it's switched off during the day. So how come,when you pick it up or feel it, it's cold to the touch? Always?

Where's the heat exchange? One end is room-temperature, and the other is cold. No part is warmer than ambient.

The only thing that I can come up with is that this bizarre machine is dumping heat through a tiny black hole at it's core, although so far I have not noticed any ornaments sliding towards it. It does tend to draw you to it though....

Have I installed a monster?

Thoughts, please.