[8note]

But the speed at which the earth is approaching the sun makes a biggers difference than your flight of stairs?

[throwaway_4253]

Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it; I guess on my first read of the comments I saw it as a related rates problem where "the act of climbing the stairs adds a velocity away from the Sun", but yeah, the second comment makes the case that at certain times of year the sum of the Earth's velocity and your stairs could still be positive in the "towards sun" direction.

(Sigh) this is why I'm poorly suited for Twitter...