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

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 4:16:57 PM UTC+11, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 13:46:56 -0000, Max Demian <max_d...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
On 28/02/2023 11:38, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2023 12:47:36 -0000, Max Demian <max_d...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
On 18/02/2023 21:48, NY wrote:
On 18/02/2023 12:43, Max Demian wrote:
On 18/02/2023 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:

You are littering the user group with ostensibly new threads which are just your brain dead reactions to stuff posted to earlier threads.

Read the manual for you new newsreader and work out what you are doing wrong. Or just shut up. Your contributions are totally worthless anyway. Down there with a a, Flyguy and Skybuck Flying.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Peeler]

On 7 Mar 2023 03:43:25 GMT, lowbrowwoman, the endlessly driveling,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blabbered again:


> Modesty, a forgotten concept...

HILAIRIOUS! This coming from the biggest bigmouth and self-admiring
grandiloquent braggart these groups have ever seen!

<FLUSH the rest of the inevitable verbose senile crap unread>

--
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>

 

[NY]

On 07/03/2023 05:13, Commander Kinsey wrote:

When the front of car A hits the back of car B, car B is damaged 10
times less then car A.  Might cost you a little bit, but it costs them a
lot.

True. When a car ran into the back of me at a roundabout (he thought it
was safe for me to set off, I didn\'t!) my tailgate was dented and the
lock didn\'t quite engage with the striker plate, though my tow rope
round the inside metalwork of the tailgate made the car safe to drive
until I took it to a garage.

His car suffered a ruptured radiator. I couldn\'t work out which bit of
my car had punctured his radiator - it\'s not even as if I had a tow bar.
So he was stranded.

 

[NY]

On 07/03/2023 05:07, Commander Kinsey wrote:

A speed limit for a bicycle is beyond a joke.  Most of the weight of a
bicycle is the rider.  Are you going to have speed limits for people
running too?  Perhaps police monitoring if you lift two feet off the
ground at once?

My feeling is that *all* wheeled vehicles should be subject to the same
rules and the same penalties for failing to obey them: speed limits,
stopping at red traffic lights and occupied zebra crossings, going the
wrong way on one-way streets. The fact that bicycles are lighter than
cars is irrelevant: one rule for all, no favouritism. The only
get-out-clause is that bikes can be wheeled on a pavement to get round a
queue of traffic or to go the wrong way down a one-way street - done
that many times, been shouted at by pedestrians even for *wheeling* my
bike on a pavement, probably slower than I would walk :-(

But I believe that the concept of a speed limit for bicycles doesn\'t
exist, beyond an offence of (IIRC) \"furious cycling\" or some such wording.

I find that when I\'m going downhill I wimp out before I reach the speed
limit: even 30 mph seems bloody fast on a road that has imperfections in
the surface - and the sort of roads that have steep hills tend to be
those outside a town, so with a 60 limit.

About the only limit that I might be able to break is a 20 mph limit -
and that is harder to do on my new electric bike than a \"manual\" bike
because the electrical assistance stops when you reach 17 mph and the
electric bike is heavier and is lower-geared in top gear than my manual
bike. It\'s a great shame that electric bikes don\'t have an extra higher
gear (equivalent of top gear on both the front and rear cogs on a manual
bike) for use when supplying a bit more power than gravity alone
provides when going down a moderate hill.

 

[NY]

On 07/03/2023 01:52, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 19:01:00 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com
Another example is \"soft rinse\".  It was always called that, everyone
called it that, now hardly anyone remembers it and thinks it was always
fabric conditioner.

I\'ve never know it by any other name than \"fabric conditioner\". I must
be too young to remember \"soft rinse\". I wonder when the change occurred
- I realise that it will have been a gradual change in *usage* even if
the labelling on all bottles had changed on the same date.

There\'s a BBC Radio comedy programme

Now there\'s a Frog spelling.

True: quite a few British-English spellings are derived from French
spellings - maybe dating back to the Norman Conquest, or maybe just
pretentious-French spelling

Programme versus Program
Theatre versus Theater
Colour / Honour versus Color / Honor

They are daft spellings, and hard to justify. But... they are how we
spell them, and I will resist attempts to Americanise them.

The only exception is \"program\" in the sense of computer instructions,
as opposed to what is shown on TV.

OK, so some British-English spellings have mutated over the years: few
people uses \"gaol\" instead of \"jail\", and \"disk\" is becoming common as
an alternative to \"disc\" - and not just in computing. Of course CD is
\"compact disc\" with a C, so British spelling rules there ;-)


The one difference that works the opposite way round is the
pronunciation of \"herb\". British pronounces the H whereas American often
omits the H sound \"erb\" as if it were French.

Do other English-speaking counties than the UK have the absurd \"an
historic event\" where \"an\" is used even though the H in \"historic\" is
sounded? I would normally say \"a historic event\", \"a hotel\" just like \"a
hedge\" or \"a helmet\". If I wanted to be pretentious I suppose \"an
\'istoric event\" or \"an \'otel\" are acceptable, but never \"an\" with a
consonant or consonant-sound, nor \"a\" with a vowel or vowel-sound.

 

[NY]

On 07/03/2023 01:55, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 19:14:14 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 14:46:08 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

The point is they\'re shit, the chain falls off.  The whole basis of it
is about knocking the chain off and hoping it catches the next cog and
not somewhere inbetween.  Then hoping you have all the the little
grubscrews just right so it doesn\'t fall off the end.  A typically
French so what it sort of works design.

When the Japanese, chiefly Shimano, got through with the basic design it
works rather well.

When I bought my first bike with derailleur gears, having been used to
riding a bike with 3-speed Sturmey Archer, the one thing that always
caught me out was approaching a junction in high gear and forgetting to
change down as I was coasting to a stop. Changing from high gear to low
gear when stationary and about to set off doesn\'t work well :-(

I\'ve not had the chain come off many times, and when it does, it\'s
usually off the front cog which is not being changed, rather than the
rear one which is changing from one sprocket to another.

They do not, the chains is always falling off, usually when you\'re stood
up on the pedals, and end up with your groin on the crossbar.

There\'s another thing, why do women\'s bikes have a lower crossbar?  It\'s
the men who don\'t want to land on it!

I suppose a higher crossbar was thought to be stronger, and men don\'t
mind cocking their leg higher whereas women in skirts don\'t want to
flash their knickers (if worn).

The hot new thing is 12 speed cassettes with 1 chain
wheel. It was getting rather ridiculous with 3X10 setups where many of
the
30 speeds were redundant. However they still are slightly more efficient
since you can minimize the chain angle.

How does 1 to 12 work then?  The angle must be absurd.

I suppose it relies on a long enough reach from the pedal cog to the
rear wheel cog that the angle is not too great.

You could go with a fixed gear for ultimate simplicity.

They should have a gearbox like a car or motorbike.

Miniaturising a synchromesh gearbox with lay shaft or designing a
planetary gearbox (like an automatic) with enough gears might be the
stumbling block.

A single-speed bike would not be much use: the ratio would be too high
to make it easy to climb a hill, whereas it would be much too low to be
able to pedal fast enough at a high speed. As with all vehicles (except
those with electric motors) you have to match a very limited range of
engine/pedal speeds to a very wide range of road speeds, in some cases
needing the torque magnification of a low gear.

I wish my electric bike had an extra really high-ratio gear: I find the
highest gear still has my legs whizzing round uncomfortably fast when
pedalling down a gentle hill to supplement gravity. But when I bought
mine, the extra gears of the higher-spec models were all at the
low-ratio end.

 

[Max Demian]

On 07/03/2023 05:14, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 02:18:38 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Mon, 27 Feb 2023 20:21:41 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:36:18 -0000, NY <me@privacy.invalid> wrote:

Japanese didn\'t have a word for green for a long time: vegetables and
grass are called \"blue\" as well.

So they couldn\'t explain the difference in colour of a lettuce and the
sky?  WTF?

I smell bullshit. The ancient Greeks supposedly couldn\'t see blue because
there was no word recognized as \'blue\' in extant texts. The white statues
furthered the idea until someone noticed the very colorful paint jobs had
worn off a couple of thousand years ago.

I think the old statues mainly encouraged the Renaissance sculptors to
make pure white statues with their oddly looking sightless eyes.

> Nobody realised paint wears off? [facepalm]

They didn\'t realise that the statues would have been painted as it
wasn\'t the current practice.

--
Max Demian

 

[Max Demian]

On 07/03/2023 05:16, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 13:46:56 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com
wrote:

On 28/02/2023 11:38, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2023 12:47:36 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com
wrote:
On 18/02/2023 21:48, NY 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).

I knew that mains was sometimes DC, but I didn\'t know that it was
sometimes as low as 120 V. I that, AC or DC, it was always around
240 V
(actual for DC, or RMS for AC).

Old mains radios had a switch at the back to set the voltage. Easier
with AC than DC as it just switched the tap on the mains transformer.
For DC there was a dropper resistor. If it had to work on 120V AC/DC
the
set was designed for the lower voltage and had to dissipate the extra
power in a resistor, often built into the mains lead.

What no buck convertors?

I don\'t suppose they had been invented. Anyway, they need transistors.

Don\'t valves do the same job?

You tell me. I\'d never heard of \"buck convertors\". Anyway, valve things
are more complicated than solid state due to power requirements, heat
produced and a shorter lifespan.

--
Max Demian

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 07/03/2023 12:42, Max Demian wrote:

On 07/03/2023 05:16, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Tue, 28 Feb 2023 13:46:56 -0000, Max Demian
max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

On 28/02/2023 11:38, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2023 12:47:36 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com
wrote:
On 18/02/2023 21:48, NY 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).

I knew that mains was sometimes DC, but I didn\'t know that it was
sometimes as low as 120 V. I that, AC or DC, it was always around
240 V
(actual for DC, or RMS for AC).

Old mains radios had a switch at the back to set the voltage. Easier
with AC than DC as it just switched the tap on the mains transformer.
For DC there was a dropper resistor. If it had to work on 120V
AC/DC the
set was designed for the lower voltage and had to dissipate the extra
power in a resistor, often built into the mains lead.

What no buck convertors?

I don\'t suppose they had been invented. Anyway, they need transistors.

Don\'t valves do the same job?

You tell me. I\'d never heard of \"buck convertors\". Anyway, valve things
are more complicated than solid state due to power requirements, heat
produced and a shorter lifespan.

Valve circuits are usually far simpler. Due to the high energy short
lifetime and capital cost of valves.

Tommy Flowers just about managed to make a crude computer out of them...

--
\"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted
man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest
thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly
persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid
before him.\"

- Leo Tolstoy

 

[jim.gm4dhj]

On 06/03/2023 03:48, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 12:42:41 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-21 14:01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 21/02/2023 12:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Wrap a strand of copper wire between the two screws. That\'s the fuse.

In my youth, that\'s how we detonated our home made explosives. a short
length of fuse wire or a strand from a multicore flex, , a battery -
often just a lantern battery,  and some match heads...

Never tried that, but I wanted to do it. I knew it should work.

Best to buy 100 fireworks and make them into one firework.

or buy a Ludlow Kissel dago bomb

 

[Peeler]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 12:40:24 +0000, Max Dumbian, the REAL dumb, notorious,
trolling and troll-feeding senile idiot, blathered again:

I think the old statues mainly encouraged the Renaissance sculptors to
make pure white statues with their oddly looking sightless eyes.

Keep your off topic sick senile shit out of these ngs, you idiotic
troll-feeding senile shithead!

--
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 Tue, 7 Mar 2023 12:42:48 +0000, Max Dumbian, the REAL dumb, notorious,
troll-feeding senile idiot, blathered again:


> You tell me. I\'d never heard of \"buck convertors\".

Ever heard of \"troll-feeding senile assholes\" on Usenet, senile shithead?
YOU are one! <BG>

--
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 Tue, 7 Mar 2023 11:06:28 +0000, NY, the really endlessly blathering,
notorious, troll-feeding, senile asshole, blathered, yet again:


> True. When a car ran into the back of me

You got fucked by a car, troll-feeding senile blabbermouth? Well, now you
get fucked by the trolling gay Scottish wanker, you endlessly driveling
senile bullshit artist! <G>

 

[Peeler]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 13:21:24 +0000, dim.gm4dhj, the brain dead,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blathered again:



> or buy a Ludlow Kissel dago bomb

Or still better: keep your idiotic sick shit out of these groups!

 

[Peeler]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 11:35:58 +0000, NY, the really endlessly blathering,
notorious, troll-feeding, senile asshole, blathered, yet again:


> When I bought my first bike

Oh, no! Not yet ANOTHER useless lonely senile asshole who can\'t but keep
talking on Usenet about his useless idiotic life! LOL

 

[Peeler]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 11:23:13 +0000, NY, the really endlessly blathering,
notorious, troll-feeding, senile asshole, blathered, yet again:


> I\'ve never know it by any other name

Ever wondered why you keep telling a TROLL on Usenet so many boring details
about your idiotic boring life, troll-feeding senile asshole? Think about
it, if it doesn\'t hurt you too much!

<FLUSH another load of the usual lengthy diatribe unread again>

 

[Peeler]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 11:06:32 +0000, NY, the really endlessly blathering,
notorious, troll-feeding, senile asshole, blathered, yet again:

<FLUSH another load of the inevitable lengthy senile diatribe unread again>

Can\'t you find someone in real life who will listen to your always endless
blather? No? I guessed so! LMAO

 

[Rod Speed]

On Tue, 07 Mar 2023 22:23:13 +1100, NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

On 07/03/2023 01:52, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 19:01:00 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com
Another example is \"soft rinse\". It was always called that, everyone
called it that, now hardly anyone remembers it and thinks it was always
fabric conditioner.

I\'ve never know it by any other name than \"fabric conditioner\". I must
be too young to remember \"soft rinse\". I wonder when the change occurred
- I realise that it will have been a gradual change in *usage* even if
the labelling on all bottles had changed on the same date.

There\'s a BBC Radio comedy programme
Now there\'s a Frog spelling.

True: quite a few British-English spellings are derived from French
spellings - maybe dating back to the Norman Conquest, or maybe just
pretentious-French spelling

Programme versus Program
Theatre versus Theater
Colour / Honour versus Color / Honor

They are daft spellings, and hard to justify. But... they are how we
spell them, and I will resist attempts to Americanise them.

The only exception is \"program\" in the sense of computer instructions,
as opposed to what is shown on TV.

OK, so some British-English spellings have mutated over the years: few
people uses \"gaol\" instead of \"jail\", and \"disk\" is becoming common as
an alternative to \"disc\" - and not just in computing. Of course CD is
\"compact disc\" with a C, so British spelling rules there ;-)


The one difference that works the opposite way round is the
pronunciation of \"herb\". British pronounces the H whereas American often
omits the H sound \"erb\" as if it were French.

And the weird \'sodering\' instead of \'soldering\'

Do other English-speaking counties than the UK have the absurd \"an
historic event\" where \"an\" is used even though the H in \"historic\" is
sounded?

Yes, we do.

I would normally say \"a historic event\", \"a hotel\" just like \"a hedge\"
or \"a helmet\".

I wouln\'t with the first two.

If I wanted to be pretentious I suppose \"an \'istoric event\" or \"an
\'otel\" are acceptable, but never \"an\" with a consonant or
consonant-sound, nor \"a\" with a vowel or vowel-sound.

 

[Rod Speed]

On Tue, 07 Mar 2023 22:35:58 +1100, NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

On 07/03/2023 01:55, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 19:14:14 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2023 14:46:08 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

The point is they\'re shit, the chain falls off. The whole basis of it
is about knocking the chain off and hoping it catches the next cog and
not somewhere inbetween. Then hoping you have all the the little
grubscrews just right so it doesn\'t fall off the end. A typically
French so what it sort of works design.

When the Japanese, chiefly Shimano, got through with the basic design
it
works rather well.

When I bought my first bike with derailleur gears, having been used to
riding a bike with 3-speed Sturmey Archer, the one thing that always
caught me out was approaching a junction in high gear and forgetting to
change down as I was coasting to a stop. Changing from high gear to low
gear when stationary and about to set off doesn\'t work well :-(

I\'ve not had the chain come off many times, and when it does, it\'s
usually off the front cog which is not being changed, rather than the
rear one which is changing from one sprocket to another.


They do not, the chains is always falling off, usually when you\'re
stood up on the pedals, and end up with your groin on the crossbar.
There\'s another thing, why do women\'s bikes have a lower crossbar?
It\'s the men who don\'t want to land on it!

I suppose a higher crossbar was thought to be stronger, and men don\'t
mind cocking their leg higher whereas women in skirts don\'t want to
flash their knickers (if worn).

And can\'t with tighter skirts

The hot new thing is 12 speed cassettes with 1 chain
wheel. It was getting rather ridiculous with 3X10 setups where many of
the
30 speeds were redundant. However they still are slightly more
efficient
since you can minimize the chain angle.
How does 1 to 12 work then? The angle must be absurd.

I suppose it relies on a long enough reach from the pedal cog to the
rear wheel cog that the angle is not too great.

You could go with a fixed gear for ultimate simplicity.
They should have a gearbox like a car or motorbike.

Miniaturising a synchromesh gearbox with lay shaft or designing a
planetary gearbox (like an automatic) with enough gears might be the
stumbling block.

A single-speed bike would not be much use:

I only ever rode one as a teenager.

the ratio would be too high to make it easy to climb a hill, whereas it
would be much too low to be able to pedal fast enough at a high speed.
As with all vehicles (except those with electric motors) you have to
match a very limited range of engine/pedal speeds to a very wide range
of road speeds, in some cases needing the torque magnification of a low
gear.

I wish my electric bike had an extra really high-ratio gear: I find the
highest gear still has my legs whizzing round uncomfortably fast when
pedalling down a gentle hill to supplement gravity. But when I bought
mine, the extra gears of the higher-spec models were all at the
low-ratio end.

 

[Peeler]

\"Who or What is Rod Speed?

Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod Speed
is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered he can
enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing \"the big, hard
man\" on the InterNet.\"

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/rod-speed-faq.2973853/

--
williamwright addressing Rodent Speed:
\"This is getting beyond ridiculous now. You\'re trying to prove black\'s
white. You\'re arguing with someone who has been involved with the issues all
his working life when you clearly have no knowledge at all. I think you\'re
just being a pillock for the sake of it. You clearly don\'t actually believe
your own words. You must have a very empty life, and a sad embittered soul.
MID: <j08o6bFeqc1U1@mid.individual.net>