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

[rbowman]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 08:09:31 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

How can people remember all those numbers? I only remember the
emergency number, and the slightly less emergency number. But I can
never decide how much of an emergency it is. If your neighbour is
keeping you awake at 4am and you want to phone the police, do you dial
999 or 101? It\'s not life and death, but it does need responded to now,
not after he\'s stopped doing it.

At least in the US the default is to dial 911. The pizza was cold when the
guy delivered it? Dial 911. Working in a PSAP (public-safety answering
point) is not a job I would want. Interspersed with calls from assholes,
you deal with violent crimes in process, mass casualty incidents, hostage
situations, and family members watching Pop die. You never know until you
pick up the damn phone.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 19:48:20 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 18:28:02 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\"
CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 17:03:34 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:

On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 09:38:47 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\"
CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

Too much health and softy nowadays. But they always get it wrong. For example they fuss about silly little things in cars, but allow 3 door cars where the rear passengers can\'t get out in a crash. And no mudguards so on a wet motorway nobody can see where they\'re going.

In America, they are crazy about GFCI (their name for ELCB) to compensate for their stupid plugs and sockets. The sockets have no switch, and the plugs have no sleeves on the pins, so you\'re always exposing live (sorry, hot, yes they really call it that) and neutral to your fingers.

I can\'t tease my US plug such that I can get shocked,

Yes you can, unless you have enormously thick farmer\'s fingers.

and 120 would only tickle anyhow.

So why fuss over breakers?

GFCI outlets are required here in kitchens and bathrooms, near faucets
and tubs, and in places like garages where one might stand barefoot on
wet concrete.

Required by who?

The city electrical code.

Regulations. Code implies encryption, if Merkins are to socialise with the rest of the world, they need to learn to use English correctly.

Are the police at your door right now checking up on you?

New construction and repairs require permits and inspection.

But afterwards you can change it and modify it and add to it, just don\'t tell them.

Some things like commercial buildings get annual inspections, mostly
for fire safety.

Which is pointless, as they still catch fire.

One in our kitchen sometimes false-trips when certain appliances are
used, especially my immersion blender which probably has sparky
brushes. I should replace that outlet with a plain one.

Why have health and softy devices if you just remove them when they\'re no good?

I can elect to take risks if I want to.

Aren\'t you breaking your precious code?

A non-GFD outlet 9 feet away
from a faucet doesn\'t seem very risky to me.

I\'ve got one 2 feet away, am I a naughty boy? Makes the kettle easier to fill without unplugging it.

> You can be tribal and snarky if you want to.

WTF has tribal to do with it?

 

[Carlos E. R.]

On 2023-02-17 19:01, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Tue, 14 Feb 2023 17:41:36 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:
On Tue, 14 Feb 2023 09:14:30 +0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 13/02/2023 23:30, John Larkin wrote:
One chemical was banned in the US, at a cost of about a billion
dollars, the ban expected to save about 0.001 lives.

I am not sure if this trumps that.

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter12.html

\"In 1978, the DOE set about deciding what to do about this waste tank.
The simplest solution would be to pour cement mix into the tank to
convert its contents into a large block of cement. This would eliminate
any danger of leakage. The principal danger would then be that
groundwater could somehow penetrate successively through the clay
barrier, the concrete vault, and the stainless steel tank wall to
dissolve away some of this cement. Each of these steps would require a
very long time period. For example, although the sides of swimming pools
and dams are cement, we note that they aren\'t noticeably leached away in
many years even by the soaking in water to which they are exposed;
moreover, groundwater contact is more like a dampness than a soaking. If
the material did become dissolved in groundwater, all the barriers to
getting into Lake Erie outlined above would still be in place and would
have to be surmounted before any harm could be done. Even this remote
danger could be removed by maintaining surveillance — periodically
checking for water in the concrete vault and pumping it out if any
should accumulate. The cost of converting to cement would be about $20
million, and a $15 million trust fund could easily provide all the
surveillance one might desire for as long as anyone would want to
maintain it.

If this were done, what would the expected health consequences be? I
have tried to do risk analyses by assigning probabilities, and I find it
difficult to obtain a credible estimate higher than 0.01 eventual
deaths. It would be very easy to support numbers hundreds or thousands
of times smaller.

However, this management option is not being taken. Instead the DOE has
decided to remove the waste from the tank, convert it to glass, and bury
it deep underground in accordance with plans for future commercial
high-level waste. This program will cost about $1 billion. Spending $1
billion to avert 0.01 deaths corresponds to $100 billion per life saved!
This is going on at a time when the same government is turning down
projects that would save a life for every $100,000 spent! That is our
real waste problem.

One last item deserves mention here — the radiation exposure to workers
in executing the plans described above. It turns out that exposure is
greater in the billion-dollar plan that was adopted than in the plan for
conversion to cement, by an amount that would cause 0.02 deaths (i.e., a
2% chance of a single death) among the workers. Since this is more than
0.01 deaths to the public from the conversion to cement, the
billion-dollar plan is actually more dangerous.

I have met the government officials who chose the billion-dollar plan,
and have discussed these questions with them. They are intelligent
people trying to do their jobs well. But they don\'t view saving lives as
the relevant question. In their view, their jobs are to respond to
public concern and political pressures. A few irrational zealots in the
Buffalo area stirred up the public there with the cry \"We want that
dangerous waste out of our area.\" Why should any local people oppose
them? Their congressional representatives took that message to
Washington — what would they have to gain by doing otherwise? The DOE
officials responded to that pressure by asking for the billion-dollar
program. It wasn\'t hurting them; in fact, having a new billion-dollar
program to administer is a feather in their caps. Congress was told that
a billion dollars was needed to discharge the government\'s
responsibility in protecting the public from this dangerous waste — how
could it fail to respond?

That is how a few people with little knowledge or understanding of the
problem induced the United States Government to pour a billion dollars
\"down a rathole.\" I watched every step of the process as it went off as
smooth as glass. And the perpetrators of this mess have become local
heroes to boot.\"

I rest your case for you.

If we don\'t assume that an American life is somehow more valuable than
an African or Asian one, we can save lives for a few dollars each.

We can fund a cataract surgery in Africa for about $20, or a fistula
repair for about $400. I\'ve funded over 100 fistula fixes so far.

https://fistulafoundation.org/

Send them something.

What I want to know is how they can do that so cheap, but not over
here.  Why don\'t we get the African doctors to come fix
Americans/Europeans for that price?

Because if they come here, they can\'t buy their lunch with what they
earn, but over there they are rich.

You should know this.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

 

[rbowman]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2023 15:12:42 -0800, Bob F wrote:

I was just going to say that the pic reminded me of the motor in my
erector set when I was 5 yo. I remember building a crane a few feet tall
powered by that motor/gearbox.

The fun project was a device to electrocute your friends. I\'m working from
memory but you build a box to hold a couple of D cells, that had a crank
with a gear at one end. Then you constructed a set of points with two flat
metal pieces and an insulating strip that would make and break as you
turned the crank and two girder type pieces for the electrodes. Then you
wired it up to the motor and used the inductance of the motor coil.

It was sort of a DIY TENS system.

 

[rbowman]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 08:07:43 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

> How can you confuse a 4 and a 9?

A room temperature IQ helps. All them numbers is just white supremacy.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 20:02:42 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-12 20:48, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 18:28:02 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\"
CK1@nospam.com> wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 17:03:34 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 09:38:47 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

Too much health and softy nowadays. But they always get it wrong. For example they fuss about silly little things in cars, but allow 3 door cars where the rear passengers can\'t get out in a crash. And no mudguards so on a wet motorway nobody can see where they\'re going.

In America, they are crazy about GFCI (their name for ELCB) to compensate for their stupid plugs and sockets. The sockets have no switch, and the plugs have no sleeves on the pins, so you\'re always exposing live (sorry, hot, yes they really call it that) and neutral to your fingers.

I can\'t tease my US plug such that I can get shocked,

Yes you can, unless you have enormously thick farmer\'s fingers.

and 120 would only tickle anyhow.

So why fuss over breakers?

GFCI outlets are required here in kitchens and bathrooms, near faucets
and tubs, and in places like garages where one might stand barefoot on
wet concrete.

Required by who?

The city electrical code.

Are the police at your door right now checking up on you?

New construction and repairs require permits and inspection.

Some things like commercial buildings get annual inspections, mostly
for fire safety.

Some countries have an inspection before electricity is provided for the
first time.

Some countries have periodical inspections.

Also, if there is an incident, like a fire, or an electrocution, the
insurance people can refuse to pay if there is no RCS.

Who gives a fuck about the theiving insurance? They refuse to pay out because it was a Wednesday, or an act of god, or whatever.

 

[Carlos E. R.]

On 2023-02-17 20:12, Rod Speed wrote:

On Sat, 18 Feb 2023 03:05:55 +1100, Carlos E. R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-17 04:52, Rod Speed wrote:
On Fri, 17 Feb 2023 12:45:30 +1100, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2023-02-16 16:26, Scott Lurndal wrote:
micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> writes:
In alt.home.repair, on Thu, 16 Feb 2023 13:30:34 +0100, \"Carlos
E.R.\" <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2023-02-16 05:45, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Wed, 15 Feb 2023 23:32:44 +0100, \"Carlos
E.R.\" <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:


I think all houses have circuit breakers, but that doesn\'t mean they
have a fully compliant installation.

I don\'t think they\'ve ever ordered that here.  Althought some people
remodel and upgrade on their own.  A friend bought a 100-year old
farmhouse about 10 years ago and it still had knob and tube
wiring.  I
think it was connected and in use.
 A lot of insurance companies will exclude electric-caused issues
from the policy if the home has knob and tube here in the states.

I had to look it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob-and-tube_wiring

I\'ve never seen it here. Maybe, just maybe, something related from
before I was born. But we don\'t build houses with wood, like in the
photos. All brick, mortar, stone, concrete.
 Bullshit.
https://www.google.com/search?q=wooden+houses+spain&tbm=isch

Did you check the percent?

You said DON\'T and ALL.

Less than a 0.01% error, probably.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

 

[rbowman]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 08:00:33 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:42:13 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:37:43 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Rotary took fucking ages to dial long distance. And a very long time
to dial the UK emergency 999. Should have been 111.

That was designed to prevent cats from dialing the emergency services.
At least the US went for 911.

It would be very unlikely for a cat to happen to dial 1 repeatedly.

Never had a cat, did you?

 

[NY]

On 15/02/2023 10:12, Dan Purgert wrote:

[\"Followup-To:\" header set to sci.electronics.design.]
On 2023-02-14, Carlos E.R. wrote:
[...]
For instance, the book I started learning English taught the expression
\"it is raining cats and dogs\". Most of the times I tried to use it,
nobody understood it and I had to explain :-D

That\'s a very common idiom in American English (uh, well, at least
around here anyway). Where were you trying to use the phrase?

A few years ago I bought a weather station. I was amused to see a
message on the console, alongside the numerical rain rate, during heavy
rain: \"It\'s raining cats and dogs\" - someone with a sense of humour.

I would have said that it was a fairly standard idiom in British
English, and I\'ve have guessed also in American and Australian English.

 

[Carlos E. R.]

On 2023-02-15 18:21, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 15 Feb 2023 14:54:25 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:
On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 19:48:20 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:
On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 18:28:02 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 17:03:34 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:
On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 09:38:47 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

Too much health and softy nowadays. But they always get it wrong. For example they fuss about silly little things in cars, but allow 3 door cars where the rear passengers can\'t get out in a crash. And no mudguards so on a wet motorway nobody can see where they\'re going.

In America, they are crazy about GFCI (their name for ELCB) to compensate for their stupid plugs and sockets. The sockets have no switch, and the plugs have no sleeves on the pins, so you\'re always exposing live (sorry, hot, yes they really call it that) and neutral to your fingers.

I can\'t tease my US plug such that I can get shocked,

Yes you can, unless you have enormously thick farmer\'s fingers.

and 120 would only tickle anyhow.

So why fuss over breakers?

GFCI outlets are required here in kitchens and bathrooms, near faucets
and tubs, and in places like garages where one might stand barefoot on
wet concrete.

Required by who?

The city electrical code.

Regulations. Code implies encryption, if Merkins are to socialise with the rest of the world, they need to learn to use English correctly.

We own the language now. Tiny old monarchies and former empires don\'t
matter much any more.

:-DD


--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

 

[rbowman]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 09:23:56 -0000, NY wrote:

Nasty. A teacher at my school, 40 years ago, had a blotchy face and bald
patches in his hair. He told us that he\'d been working on his car some
years before and a spanner slipped and shorted across the battery
terminals. The battery exploded, showering him with acid.

Like many companies we sometimes had summer employees that happened to be
related to someone up the hierarchy. One managed to explode the battery on
a forklift trying to jump start it. Fortunately he wasn\'t injured.
Returning a vice president\'s favorite son worse for the wear isn\'t a good
career move.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2023 20:38:43 -0000, Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid> wrote:

On 2/11/23 04:56, Ian Jackson wrote:

[snip]

Yes. I always understood that down for OFF was safer, because in an
emergency it was a more-natural human action to swipe a switch downwards.

That \"natural\" could be only because that\'s what you\'re familiar with.

There is only one correct answer here. Down for on. Think about it. Read a book. You start from the top of the page and go to the bottom as you read more. Down is always more. Right is always more (accelerator/brake).

On that topic, Mac and Linux are correct with their dialog boxes, and Windows is wrong. (Only time I prefer a Mac (kid\'s toy) or Linux (geek\'s toy) to Windows).

 

[micky]

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 14 Feb 2023 23:25:06 +0100, \"Carlos E.R.\"
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

For instance, the book I started learning English taught the expression
\"it is raining cats and dogs\". Most of the times I tried to use it,
nobody understood it and I had to explain :-D

It certainly was raining cats and dogs last week. I know because I
stepped in a poodle.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-02-20 00:58, Dan Purgert wrote:

On 2023-02-19, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-02-19 19:31, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net> writes:
[...]
10 and 12 were also used out west. And don\'t forget the articulated
options that had 12 or 16 (6 or 8 total drive axles). I think one of
the eastern roads went with a triplex design of 2-6-6-6-2 or something
like that; but it didn\'t work all that well (too steam hungry).

My favorite (At the California Railway Museum in Sacramento):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-8-8-2

It\'s much larger than it appears in the picture (look for the
placcard holders alongside for a sense of scale).

The cab was forward of the stack to avoid suffocating the drivers
in the long sierra tunnels.



Wow. I don\'t remember ever seeing that one.
¿How was the coal fed, maybe automatic? Wait, the article says the
firebox is at the front, too. But the tender is behind. Weird.

They were oil burners.

Ah, of course, then it is very easy.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Tue, 14 Feb 2023 18:28:14 -0000, SteveW <steve@walker-family.me.uk> wrote:

On 14/02/2023 14:28, Anass Luca wrote:
In sci.electronics.design rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:37:43 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Rotary took fucking ages to dial long distance. And a very long
time to dial the UK emergency 999. Should have been 111.

That was designed to prevent cats from dialing the emergency
services. At least the US went for 911.

Yes, and then every maker of business phone exchanges also decided to
then use \"9\" to begin the dial sequence of an outside line.

Many years ago, we used to have 4-digit office extensions; 1nnn

From the rest of the UK, they could dial direct to an extension on 061
902 1nnn (061 being the Manchester area code and 902 being the local
exchange).

In the 061 area, just dialling 902 1nnn worked.

One guy left, but his desk phone regularly rang. The company had a
policy of someone answering any phone within 3 rings, but we just
ignored that phone.

One day a manager was passing as I ignored the phone and questioned me
about not answering. I said it\'s for the NatWest bank. The manager
looked at me oddly, picked up the phone and yes, it was a call for a
branch of the NatWest Bank in Birmingham. He then looked at me even more
oddly.

People all over the 061 area dialled a 9 for an outside line,

Why do any offices require this? Ours didn\'t. If you dialled 4 digits you got an internal line. If you dialled anything else it went externally. I programmed it that way, but I\'m sure pre-digital office exchanges could be made to do the same. Starting with a 0 would be the first clue.

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 17:38:10 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> writes:
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. 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.

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.

The US screw type fuses, basically a light bulb socket, were
interchangable. Older houses around here still have them. One only
needs to keep a stock of 30 amp spares around.


There are two types of screw fuses, \"T\" and \"S\".

\"A type T fuse looks a lot like a lightbulb and screws into the
sockets of old fuse boxes. Conversely, the type S fuse requires
an adapter base to work with Edison type sockets. Type S fuses
are designed to be tamperproof. They help homeowners not
accidentally use the wrong fuse for their circuits.

A type S fuse has an adapter base with a unique size and thread
so you don\\u2019t mismatch the fuses. In other words, the size and
thread of the base prevent you from putting a 15-amp fuse in a 20-amp
circuit. However, a type T fuse will work with any Edison socket
irrespective of the amperage of the circuit. If your home has an
old fuse box that uses Edison sockets, talk to the technicians at
[company_name] about making the switch to socket adapters that use
S fuses. This can make your panel a lot safer.

I\'m an electrical engineer, so I can make my own judgements. I talk to
electricians and few if any actually understand basic electrical
principles. I have read the local electric codes but never met an
electrician who has.

Most houses around here have breakers now.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 17:38:10 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> writes:
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. 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.

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.

The US screw type fuses, basically a light bulb socket, were
interchangable. Older houses around here still have them. One only
needs to keep a stock of 30 amp spares around.


There are two types of screw fuses, \"T\" and \"S\".

\"A type T fuse looks a lot like a lightbulb and screws into the
sockets of old fuse boxes. Conversely, the type S fuse requires
an adapter base to work with Edison type sockets. Type S fuses
are designed to be tamperproof. They help homeowners not
accidentally use the wrong fuse for their circuits.

Or intentionally. Or by putting a US penny (made of copper then) in
the fuse holder, bypassing the fuse.

A type S fuse has an adapter base with a unique size and thread
so you don\'t mismatch the fuses. In other words, the size and
thread of the base prevent you from putting a 15-amp fuse in a 20-amp
circuit. However, a type T fuse will work with any Edison socket
irrespective of the amperage of the circuit. If your home has an
old fuse box that uses Edison sockets, talk to the technicians at
[company_name] about making the switch to socket adapters that use
S fuses. This can make your panel a lot safer.

The other requirement was that a US penny not fit in the fuse holder.

Joe Gwinn

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-02-22 09:06, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Tue, 14 Feb 2023 18:28:14 -0000, SteveW <steve@walker-family.me.uk
wrote:

On 14/02/2023 14:28, Anass Luca wrote:
In sci.electronics.design rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 20:37:43 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Rotary took fucking ages to dial long distance.  And a very long
time to dial the UK emergency 999.  Should have been 111.

That was designed to prevent cats from dialing the emergency
services.  At least the US went for 911.

Yes, and then every maker of business phone exchanges also decided to
then use \"9\" to begin the dial sequence of an outside line.

Many years ago, we used to have 4-digit office extensions; 1nnn

 From the rest of the UK, they could dial direct to an extension on 061
902 1nnn (061 being the Manchester area code and 902 being the local
exchange).

In the 061 area, just dialling 902 1nnn worked.

One guy left, but his desk phone regularly rang. The company had a
policy of someone answering any phone within 3 rings, but we just
ignored that phone.

One day a manager was passing as I ignored the phone and questioned me
about not answering. I said it\'s for the NatWest bank. The manager
looked at me oddly, picked up the phone and yes, it was a call for a
branch of the NatWest Bank in Birmingham. He then looked at me even more
oddly.

People all over the 061 area dialled a 9 for an outside line, when they
didn\'t need to, then 021 for Birmingham and then nnn nnnn, effectively
dialing the local number 902 1xxx, plus some extra, ignored digits

Why didn\'t you unplug the phone?  Or change the number on your phone
exchange?

Couple that stupid choice with \"dial 1 for long distance\" and every long
distance call begins as \"9 1\" -- two thirds of the 911 emergency
number.

I\'ve known folks who accidentally dialed an additional \"1\" after the
\"long distance + outside line\" prefix and had to explain that no, they
really were not trying to contact emergency services.

Even worse were some of the mobile phones with buttons. With mine,
pressing * and # together locked the keypad to prevent accidental (butt)
dialling in your pocket - except that some bright spark had decided that
to make emergency calls easier, pressing and holding the 9 key would
call the emergency number, even when locked ... which of course was even
more likely to happen than if you left the keypad unlocked and randomly
dialled numbers!

My smartphone allows (as I think they all do) anyone to dial an
emergency number without unlocking the phone.  I\'ve denied them that
priveledge by replacing the standard lock screen.  If you want to phone
the emergency services, use your own fucking phone.

What if you are dying, and the person near you doesn\'t have a phone and
yours doesn\'t work because you blocked it?

You will deserve what happens next.

....

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-02-22 05:25, rbowman wrote:

On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:46:21 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

just touch the other end of the battery with your wet finger. The tongue
test works fine.


Sort of, I guess. I stick with my meter for diagnosing AA batteries. The
JND* between the wet finger circuit and just licking the positive terminal
is minute.

Oh, I stopped using the tongue test when I got my first multimeter.
Maybe earlier, I had a car voltmeter/ammeter. I wonder where it is now.

* https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-just-noticeable-
difference-2795306

heh.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Peeler]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 22:53:05 +0100, cretinous Carlos E.R., another brain
dead troll-feeding senile ASSHOLE, blathered:

What if you are dying, and the person near you doesn\'t have a phone and
yours doesn\'t work because you blocked it?

You will deserve what happens next.

Are you ready for another retarded \"answer\" from the clinically insane
sociopath, you brain dead troll-feeding senile asshole? <BG>