Why do circuit breakers go up for on and down for off?...

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 13:13:10 -0000, SteveW <steve@walker-family.me.uk> wrote:

On 12/02/2023 00:50, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 20:39:06 +0000, Graham. wrote:

Telephone vs calculator keypad layout. How did that happen?

I never realized they were. I\'m left handed and never use the keypad on
the right of the keyboard nor do I use calculators often enough to think
about it.

It\'s a double whammie - not only has it been proven that the telephone
style, rather than the computer style keypad is more accurate and faster
for data entry,

Bollocks. It makes more sense to have them 0-9, not 0 then 9 to 1.

> but also that for maximum efficiency (for the majority who are right handed),

We\'re not actually right handed. Right handed is as rare as left handed. Most of the population is ambidextrous, but since we\'re taught to write with the right hand, ambidextrous people use the right hand and get used to it.

the numeric pad should be on the left, allowing
the right hand to remain available for mouse movements and the
occasional letter or punctuation key.

Indeed, it\'s like the keyboard was invented before the mouse existed. Maybe it was, but it should be easy to change it round. But then designers have a 2 digit IQ and all went to art school.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 14:30:25 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

On 12/02/2023 13:13, SteveW wrote:
On 12/02/2023 00:50, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 20:39:06 +0000, Graham. wrote:

Telephone vs calculator keypad layout. How did that happen?

I never realized they were. I\'m left handed and never use the keypad on
the right of the keyboard nor do I use calculators often enough to think
about it.

It\'s a double whammie - not only has it been proven that the telephone
style, rather than the computer style keypad is more accurate and faster
for data entry, but also that for maximum efficiency (for the majority
who are right handed), the numeric pad should be on the left, allowing
the right hand to remain available for mouse movements and the
occasional letter or punctuation key.

I thought it might be useful to use the mouse with my left hand, leaving
my right hand for typing, but gave up after a time.

It\'s quicker to type with two hands and move one hand to the mouse when required. The mouse on the left would be closer since we have the numeric keypad in the wrong place.

I astonished a left handed person by using their mouse with my left hand when they knew I was \"right handed\". I astonished a carpenter when I used a hammer with my left hand. The nail happened to be on my left, so why move?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 23:49:15 -0000, NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

On 12/02/2023 14:26, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
I use the mouse right-handed because my first experience at using
a mouse was at other people\'s desks and I was reluctant to move
stuff around on someone else\'s turf. I\'m pretty ambidextrous at
most tasks, except for writing.

Interesting that you say you\'re left-handed and pretty ambidextrous
except for writing, because my impression is that left-handed people
seem to be more strongly polarised (less ambidextrous) than right-handed
people.

It\'s not interesting at all. You\'re not right handed, you\'re ambidextrous like the majority of the population. There are the same small number of right handed freaks as there are left handed. You just think you\'re right handed because you were taught to write with your right hand and managed it.

I\'m right-handed (I can barely make a mark on the paper, let alone write
legibly with my left hand). But for most other tasks I\'m fairly
ambidextrous: I can hammer or tighten a screw with either hand, and
often alternate to give one hand a rest. I tend to pour with my left
hand, mainly so I can stir/mix with my right hand as a pour in with my left.

I\'m \"right handed\" and wear my watch on my right hand, because I prefer to move my right hand to look at it. I don\'t understand the common idea of wearing the watch on the left hand.

I worked with a woman who was so strongly left-handed that she could not
open a door with her right hand if the handle happened to be on the
right as she approached it: she would always turn sideways so her left
hand was next to the handle. I remember her ranting that some of the
doors were \"right handed\" and this discriminated against people like
her. She was a bit flummoxed when I pointed out that every door which
had the handle on the right when you approached from one direction had
it on the left when you approached from the other direction (and vice
versa).

Of course she was flummoxed, she was a woman.

For me, it is only precision tasks like writing that I can only do with
my right hand. Everything else (\"non-precision tasks\" such as pushing
and pulling) I use whichever hand is closer - and maybe, less tired!

I automatically do non-precision tasks with my left hand, so my right hand is free for the precision ones.

My mum is left-handed but is of the generation when children were
encouraged to do as much as possible right-handed, so as \"not to be
different\". So she uses a knife and fork in the conventional hands (fork
in left, knife in right).

I use a spoon. My Uncle (who is very posh) can\'t understand me using a spoon to eat peas. I scoffed at him taking 10 times longer to push them onto his fork.

She started out using a mouse left-handed but
eventually got so fed up with the rest of us leaving her mouse on the
right hand side

Is that like leaving the toilet seat up? Don\'t women understand it\'s just as annoying to us when they leave it down?

when we\'d been helping her, that she got used to using
it right handed. I offered to swap the mouse buttons over but she said
that this was more trouble than it was worth: just because she held her
mouse in her left hand, she didn\'t see why she should want to left-click
with her right (index) finger and right-click with her left (middle)
finger. This is just as well: I find that I can use a mouse almost as
well with my left hand as my right, but what really stops me dead in my
tracks is if the buttons are swapped.

M\'colleague can write with either hand, and at the same time, and not necessarily the same words. And either of them can be in mirror language or normal. I guess she has a dual core CPU in her head.

The one thing I\'ve noticed with a lot of left-handed people is the
really awkward and painful-looking way they hold a pen when they are
writing. I realise that with a fountain pen, where the ink takes a
little time to dry, there is the added problem for a left-handed person
than they have to take care not to smudge the ink with their little
finger as it *trails* their writing hand that they are resting on the
little finger, whereas a right-handed person has their little finger
*ahead of* what they are writing. But even allowing for that, a lot of
lefties seem to hold their pen in an awkward contortion so it is at the
same angle as a rigthtie would hold it in, rather than a mirror-image.

It\'s so they can see where they\'re writing so they write in a straight line. They\'re just broken.

And often with their wrist covering the previous line, so their hand is
bent back on itself, often gripping the pen between the knuckles of
their index and middle fingers, rather than having it below the line
that they are writing which looks more comfortable. I wonder how much is
finding out for themselves they most comfortable position and home much
is \"even though you are left handed, you must try to hold your pen like
a right-handed person\".

I\'m sure they could write right handed if they were forced. School teachers ought to prevent these freaks from being different. We write from left to right, you need the hand out of the way of the written text.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 09:34:19 -0000, Cindy Hamilton <hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2023-02-12, NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

The one thing I\'ve noticed with a lot of left-handed people is the
really awkward and painful-looking way they hold a pen when they are
writing.

I\'m not one of those. I just drag my hand across the text. That\'s
probably one of the reasons I favor fine-point ballpoint pens: less
ink to smear.

I favour ballpoint over fountain because every time I\'ve used a (very expensive) fountain pen belonging to someone else, I immediately snapped the end off. They\'re fragile pieces of outdated shit.

It does take a little more effort to push the hand
across the paper than pull it. It\'s a little academic these days;
I haven\'t done much handwriting in several decades.

I am, however, inclined to use spiral-bound notebooks from back to front
to keep my hand away from the spiral.

Awww did you have a bad experience with one attacking you?

I realise that with a fountain pen, where the ink takes a

I\'ve never used a fountain pen.

little time to dry, there is the added problem for a left-handed person
than they have to take care not to smudge the ink with their little
finger as it *trails* their writing hand that they are resting on the
little finger, whereas a right-handed person has their little finger
*ahead of* what they are writing. But even allowing for that, a lot of
lefties seem to hold their pen in an awkward contortion so it is at the
same angle as a rigthtie would hold it in, rather than a mirror-image.
And often with their wrist covering the previous line, so their hand is
bent back on itself, often gripping the pen between the knuckles of
their index and middle fingers, rather than having it below the line
that they are writing which looks more comfortable. I wonder how much is
finding out for themselves they most comfortable position and home much
is \"even though you are left handed, you must try to hold your pen like
a right-handed person\".

Some of it probably depends on what the teacher demanded of them. By
the time I went to school, they had pretty much stopped trying to
turn lefties into righties.

I went to school in the good old days when they didn\'t accept freaks. My friend had a strong Glaswegian accent. He was given a speech therapist so he could speak and have people know what the fuck he was saying.

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 15 Feb 2023 16:24:54 +0000, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 15/02/2023 10:48, Mike Monett VE3BTI wrote:
Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

The remaining big power hog is the garage lights.

Your fridge is a big power hog. Set the refrigerator temperature to the
highest setting, usually around 45 degrees F or 7 degrees C. This is an
excellent temperature for keeping vegetables, especially potatoes.

UK fridges are much less of a power hog than US ones. The power it takes
to keep cool depends mostly on how often it gets opened and how full it
is.

How does fullness affect required cooling power?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 09:24:14 -0000, NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

\"Commander Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote in message
newsp.10pblzyxmvhs6z@ryzen.home...
How annoying. The British fuses you could stick any in any socket, and
you could put any fusewire in each too. My house, I put in what I want.
Complete:
https://maintenance-service.co.uk/_webedit/cached-images/165-0-0-0-10000-10000-708.jpg
Without
fuses:https://flameport.com/electric_museum/old_equipment/white_wylex_reverse_switch_open.jpg
Without covers:https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qp4AAOSw3N9fNcsE/s-l300.jpg
(I have one like this, got it 2nd hand). It takes fuses or breakers, no
covers, just have to be careful inserting them. And no I never turn off
the whole bloody thing just to change one fuse.
Can\'t find a picture of the actual fuses seperate.

I was always surprised that all the fuse-wire holders in a UK fuse box were
interchangeable - there was nothing to stop you inserting a 15 A
lighting-circuit fuse in the slot for a 30 A ring-main.

Yes there was (is, I still use them). The plastic slot covering the socket contacts, to stop you sticking your finger in there, has different sized holes for different amperages. Of course you can put any fusewire you wish into the cartridge. I see no point in trying to prevent people using the wrong fuse. Anything can be got around if you want to.

Everything would be
fine until someone turned on both a kettle and and electric fire on the same
ring main (thereby drawing more than 13A) and the 15 A fuse would blow.

Oh, you think it\'s dangerous to have a smaller fuse? Well it isn\'t. The socket I mentioned above limits the size you can plug in.

It would have been better if the fuse holders had been designed to have
different size pins to avoid this. Of course there would still be nothing to
stop someone wiring 30 A wire into a 15 A holder, but that is (probably)
less likely than someone pulling out several fuses and then putting them
back in the wrong locations. At least the fuse holders and sockets in the
fuse box were colour-coded with domino spots which had to match.

 

[Brian Gregory]

On 14/02/2023 21:55, Don Y wrote:

A colleague sent along a copy of an article espousing a 2KW/hr/person
energy consumption rate as if it was a practical goal.

I think they mean 2kW/person.

The hour in there does not make sense.

Or maybe they meant to say in in this rather weird way:

2kWh/h/person

--
Brian Gregory (in England).

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/02/2023 14:06, SteveW wrote:

On 18/02/2023 12:58, Max Demian wrote:
On 18/02/2023 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:33:36 -0000, Max Demian
max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:
On 13/02/2023 03:59, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:08:57 +0100, \"Carlos E.R.\"
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

Radios of that era had a setting named \"phone\". And a socket. You
connected the output of the \"electric gramophone\" pickup to the phone

Every mains valve radio had a \"Gram\" or \"PU\" socket with switching,
usually combined with the waveband switch.

Did valve radios use Cockcroft-Walton multipliers?

No, transformers for AC mains, dropper resistors for DC, HT/LT
batteries for portables and vibrator power packs for car radios. (Or
valves with 12V HT and a power transistor for hybrids.)

Mine has no output jacks or cords.  Just a small nice wooden cabinet
with no holes, no jacks, maybe one 12\" wire as a transmitting
antenna (I
have to go look again.  Not sure if there\'s a wire.)

Maybe 14 or 16\" square and 5\" high.

It might be from the 30\'s after my mother got married in 1929.

input of the radio, which was actually the audio amplifier section.

The radio could have a switch to disable the radio section or not, in
which case you would have to \"tune out\" the stations.

I have been lucky enough that there was no strong station at the
frequency.  I left a note inside so I or the next owner doesn\'t
have to
hunt for it.

I don\'t think that would have been legal, certainly not in the UK.

I doubt it was illegal at that short a distance.   You can (or could
recently) buy a transmitter to convert something (mp3?) into FM to go
to your car stereo.  It wouldn\'t get far outside the car.

The low power FM transmitters came later. Recently I bought Thomson
wireless headphones that use UHF and reach out into the car park: much
better than Bluetooth and with no latency.

They used to be very stuffy about home transmitters in the past: If
you learnt Morse code you could become a radio ham.

There were at least two classes of licence - you needed to learn morse
for the higher licence that permitted more options and made for long
range communications.

I think you could have a radio controlled toy running at 27 MHz,
though might have needed a licence.

27MHz AM radio control had been around for a long time and I don\'t think
a licence was required. 35MHz FM came in later, again no licence required.

In the 1960s it required a license. The advent of CB \"good buddy,
there\'s a bear up your rear\' types more or less destroyed the band.

RC moved up to 35Mhz and 40Mhz. 27 is now cars and toys only. No
licenses were required

People imported 27 MHz walkie-talkies but they were illegal to use. I
think they eventually made CB radios legal.

They did.

Imported CBs were 27MHz AM and caused problems with ambulance service
communications IIRC.
Not really.

When CBs were legalised, it was on 27MHz FM, with

the AM sets remaining illegal and the FM sets being limited to 4 Watts.
Only 40 channels were legal, although some imported sets could access 80.

Not sure that is correct. 27 was always AM. I dont think there were more
than about 10 channels either



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.
-- Yogi Berra

 

[Peeler]

On 23 Feb 2023 02:36:46 GMT, lowbrowwoman, the endlessly driveling,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blabbered again:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/04/19/911-
dispatcher-jailed-houston-woman-hung-up-on-thousands-of-callers/

....and the senile GOSSIPING continues. <BG>

--
Gossiping \"lowbrowwoman\" about herself:
\"Usenet is my blog... I don\'t give a damn if anyone ever reads my posts
but they are useful in marshaling [sic] my thoughts.\"
MID: <iteioiF60jmU1@mid.individual.net>

 

[Don Y]

On 2/15/2023 9:12 PM, Brian Gregory wrote:

On 14/02/2023 21:55, Don Y wrote:
A colleague sent along a copy of an article espousing a 2KW/hr/person
energy consumption rate as if it was a practical goal.

----------------------^^^^

I think they mean 2kW/person.

The hour in there does not make sense.

Or maybe they meant to say in in this rather weird way:

2kWh/h/person

That was my intent. It seems more natural, IMO.

An amount of power (KWHr) used at an average rate (/Hr)
per individual consumer (/person). This is consistent with
the PDFs referenced in my original post which describe
energy used per household, not *rate* of energy use
(which the \"2000 Watt challenge\" directly references).

I figured that would be obvious to anyone thinking about
it and, thus, didn\'t bother to correct the typo.

 

[Peeler]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 15:13:02 -0800, John Larkin, another obviously brain
dead, senile BIGMOUTH, blathered:

Never heard of chirps? It\'s a mathematical transform of an impulse,
but doesn\'t need the big peak power. Big radars do it so they don\'t
ionize the air near the antenna.

Most critters, humans included, use some form of echolocation.

Look it up. It\'s interesting.

No shit, senile blabbermouth! You, TOO, like many other senile shitheads
here, must do something about this pathological senile blathering of yours!
BTW, it\'s not interesting. It\'s ridiculous! LOL

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 16 Feb 2023 04:12:55 +0000, Brian Gregory
<void-invalid-dead-dontuse@email.invalid> wrote:

On 14/02/2023 21:55, Don Y wrote:
A colleague sent along a copy of an article espousing a 2KW/hr/person
energy consumption rate as if it was a practical goal.

I think they mean 2kW/person.

The hour in there does not make sense.

Or maybe they meant to say in in this rather weird way:

2kWh/h/person

The average US household uses an average of about 1200 watts
electrical. So a \"goal\" of 2 KW per person would be strange.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/02/2023 15:05, Max Demian wrote:

On 18/02/2023 13:14, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 18/02/2023 12:43, Max Demian wrote:
On 18/02/2023 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Mains was always AC wasn\'t it?

If course it wasn\'t (in the UK). Mains was AC or DC, and 120V (or so)
to 250V (or so).


Mains was always AC post WWII and probably post the advent of consumer
tube radios and IIRC was always 240VAC post WWII.

\"The Electricity (Supply) Act 1919 merged the 600-odd local generating
companies into area boards, who in turn were centralised into the
Central Electricity Board by the Electricity Supply Act 1925. That is
when the voltage was standardised at 240V, and the National Grid created.

And then the EU stole ten of our good, English volts!

Have we got them back yet?

(But DC persisted, in some areas as late as the mid 60s.
Refrigerators, Vacuum Cleaners, Sewing Machines, Electric Drills,
Radios and TVs were available with universal input. They would all
work on AC or DC 240V (one or two DC areas were only 180V, like Dundee
or Exeter))\"

That rather contradicts your first para.

DC and non 240V was highly localised and never part of the National Grid.

--
\"And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch\".

Gospel of St. Mathew 15:14

 

[Peeler]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 12:02:44 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

<FLUSH the abnormal trolling senile cretin\'s latest trollshit unread>

 

[micky]

In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 23:32:44 +0100, \"Carlos E.R.\"
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

In the site you can move to the inside photo:

https://es.wallapop.com/item/portafusibles-de-porcelana-con-fusible-doble-de-la-854489168

Did I mention that I can read Spanish. Esp. technical and scientfific
Spabish Those wires are the equivalent of putting a penny in the
fusebox. And btw, another big advantage of Fustats is that you can\'t
use a penny that way. The bottom has one connector, but the other one
is under the lip of the fustat and it conacts the top of the adapter.
The inside wall of the adapter is non-conductive.

The rationale is that if you put one strand of wire, it will fuse before
the 10 strands of the whole cable

Well that\'s better than a penny. That used to be a famous remedy when
the fuse kept blowing, putting a penny in the fuse socket. I\'m sure it
started many a fire.

Fustat was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, and the
historical centre of modern Cairo -- oops, wrong link.

https://www.amazon.com/Bussmann-Fustat-Buss-Fuse-Pack/dp/B01DWBTZOA
$70 for 4?!. They weren\'t anywhere near this expensive in the 70\'s,
even allowing for 70\'s prices. They only sell this one size, which
seems to be 8 amps. What kind of a value is 8 amps? The ones that
never sold out?

Menards has Cooper Bussmann® Tamper-Proof Fustat Heavy Duty Plug Fuse
6.25 amps for $4.88 each. What kind of a value is 6.25 amps?

Maybe when multiplied by the voltage it gives a nice power figure.

No. I\'m sure now these are the ones that never got sold when they were
under production. The ones people bought were the same sizes as circuit
breakers are now 15, 20, 30, 40, 50?. There are no home circuits that
use 6.25. -- One page I saw still sold the adapters for 15, 20,30**.
Those have to be left-overs too. guess those **But not the fustats
that fit those adapters.

6.25A * 127 ≈ 800W

127 was a standard voltage here some time...

But afaik we never had 6.25 circuits or 800W circuits. My building in
Brooklyn was built in 1930 and it used 15 and 20 amp circuits, 14 and 12
gauge wire. 6.25 must have been made for some special purpose.

Oh, I just noticed the smiley.

I think circuit breakers must have driven fustat out of business,
although I don\'t see how that can happen and what will all the buildings
that use them do. Not everyone is ready to put in breakers. Big
expense. (And the adapters are designed with barbs so they can\'t be
screwed out....

No idea.

Here all houses have circuit breakers.

Even the ones built bfore 1955? 1930?

I panicked for nothing. When I googled Fustat I found very little but
when I googled Type-s fuse there is more:
https://www.amazon.com/Bussmann-S-15-Time-Delay-Dual-Element-Rejection/dp/B000BPIM7C
$16 for four. Besides Type-S, they are also called \"rejection base\",
maybe because of the different threads. This one:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GD2BLU/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3 uses both
names, Bussman and Fustat. I don\'t understand why others don\'t use the
word Fustat.


BTW, I\'ve also seen for sale little circuit breakers that screw into the
socket meant for a fuse. They have a little reset button in the middle.
Because they seem uncommon, I\'ve always assumed thay weren\'t that good.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Cooper-Bussmann-15-Amp-Plug-Type-Circuit-Breaker-BP-MB-15/100348278
Also made by Cooper Bussmann.

Makes sense.



I used to, had to power the whole 6-room apartments, including sometimes
the last couple years a small air conditioner, on 20 amps. Only blew
the fuse about 4 times.


My air conditioning unit is \"inverter\" type. Max power I think is
800Watts, not sure now. Say 1 KW. When the room has reached a stable
temp, it draws as little as 200 watts.

I\'ll hve to learn about inverters some time.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

Igualmente, Micky

 

[Peeler]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:37:53 +0000, Max Dumbian, the REAL dumb, notorious,
troll-feeding senile idiot, blathered again:

If there were no friction between train wheels and track acceleration
and braking wouldn\'t happen.

Poor driveling useless prize idiots! LOL

--
Max Dumb having another senile moment:
\"It\'s the consistency of the shit that counts. Sometimes I don\'t need to
wipe, but I have to do so to tell. Also humans have buttocks to get
smeared due to our bipedalism.\"
Message-ID: <6vydnWiYDoV1VUrDnZ2dnUU78QednZ2d@brightview.co.uk>

 

[Peeler]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 12:01:29 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

<FLUSH the abnormal trolling senile cretin\'s latest trollshit unread>

--
Pomegranate Bastard addressing the trolling senile cretin from Oz:
\"Surely you can find an Australian group to pollute rather than posting
your unwanted guff here.\"
MID: <c1pqvgte5ldlo1rn3fpl7igtg4h8i9mk7p@4ax.com>

 

[Peeler]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:43:26 +0000, Max Dumbian, the REAL dumb, notorious,
troll-feeding senile idiot, blathered again:

If course it wasn\'t (in the UK). Mains was AC or DC, and 120V (or so) to
250V (or so).

So. for HOW long will you senile shithead still go on like this, you idiotic
troll-feedig senile cretin?

--
Max Dumb having another senile moment:
\"It\'s the consistency of the shit that counts. Sometimes I don\'t need to
wipe, but I have to do so to tell. Also humans have buttocks to get
smeared due to our bipedalism.\"
Message-ID: <6vydnWiYDoV1VUrDnZ2dnUU78QednZ2d@brightview.co.uk>

 

[Peeler]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 11:58:07 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

<FLUSH the two subnormal sociopathic cretins\' endless absolutely idiotic
blather>

--
TYPICAL retarded \"conversation\" between sociopath Rodent and sociopath
Birdbrain from August 26th 2018:

Birdbrain: \"I have one head but 5 fingers.\"

Senile Rodent: \"Obvious lie. You hairy legged cross dressers are so inbred
that you all have two heads.\"

Birdbrain: \"You\'re the one that likes hairy legs remember?\"

Senile Rodent: \"The problem isnt the hairy legs, it\'s the gross inbreeding
that
produces two headed unemployables like you.\"

Birdbrain: \"So why did you mention hairy legs?\"

Senile Rodent: \"Because that\'s what those who arent actually stupid enough
to shave their legs have.\"

Birdbrain: \"You only have hairy legs if both of the following are true:
1) You\'re quite far back on the evolutionary scale.
2) You haven\'t learned what a razor is for.\"

Senile Rodent: \"Only a terminal fuckwit or a woman shaves their legs.\"

Birdbrain: \"There is literally zero point in having hair all over your
body.\"

Senile Rodent: \"There is even less point in wasting your time changing what
you are born with.\"

MID: <fugfg5Fu49kU1@mid.individual.net>

 

[Jan Panteltje]

On a sunny day (Wed, 15 Feb 2023 16:24:54 +0000) it happened Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote in <tsj10n$2u7lg$1@dont-email.me>:

UK fridges are much less of a power hog than US ones. The power it takes
to keep cool depends mostly on how often it gets opened and how full it
is. 4C is a widely recognised safe temperature for storing uncooked meat
and fish much above that and you are asking for trouble.

Same here, fridge comes on every now and then, on average not much power.
Washer is an other beast, runs for 2 hours at the time.
Water boiler 2 kW a few minutes and microwave with grill perhaps 2 kW a bit longer
and cooking plate 2 kW also minutes
and vacuum cleaner.. All that stuff is not on for very long time,
unlike TV that may be one for hours.
I have had 4 kW on at the same time no problem,
There are many fuses and possibly divided over 3 phases here.

Set the freezer to -14 F or -10 C. Once the temerature is below freezing, it
doesn\'t matter how cold it is.

Yes it does! Frozen stuff keeps much longer at -18C than at -10C.

Also -18C gives you some leeway when there is a powercut provided you
keep the freezer door shut. I can see the power consumption in realtime
from fridge and freezer when they are on. They would only be a problem
if the insulation gets compromised (as happened to a previous unit).
Then the compressor is on almost permanently fighting a thermal bridge.

Replace filament bulbs with LEDs. The power savings is amazing. For example,
a 100 W LED bulb only draws 12 watts. A 60 W LED bulb only draws 9 watts.

LED bulbs are a win but they have been a win for nearly a decade now. I
doubt if anyone has a significant number of filament bulbs in use today.
Even so the lighting circuits are trivial when compared to cookers and
water heaters (which is our single biggest heavy load if the central
heating isn\'t on).

This is low enough that I keep the one in the bathroom turned on all the
time. The main switch is in an awkward location, and I hate having to search
for it in the dark.

That sounds like a very good reason to move the switch or install a
proper night light! You can even get motion activated ones - no switch
at all.

I have a battery powered one on my front door - it lasts about a year on
3xC cells in regular use.

I have street light next to my front door, and the garden door has a PIR movement sensor with light.
I got some RF motion sensor for burglar alarm that could also be used switch on lights
The LED lights are programmable with some Microchip PIC based thing I designed
and can create the impression that I am home when I am not, to deter burglars..
Switch off and on at specific times, and even when enough day light has a light sensor
that switches it off.
Been working for for >10 years now.
If all else fails I can in minutes switch to my 250 Ah Lifepo4 battery pack
with 2000 W pure sine wave 230 V 50 Hz converter and lay out some flexible
solar panels in the garden to charge it again.
I all that fails I have a small USB charger with flashlight and a handle you can turn
to make light and charge stuff, if things are so bad I likely need my battery powered radiation meter too
and hide under the table...

I did note Nikki Haley (Hope I spelled it right) is now also running for US president
I watched her talk at the UN some time ago and think she has a brain issue ..
So to make a point if elected she will violently and repeatedly press that red button.. so the table and crank light may
be needed after all..
Have a fire starter too, although it may all well be on fire by then.
Rubbing 2 pieces of wood to make fire is a lot of work...