Things you always wanted to know the answer to [Vol. 3]
Discussion
David87 said:
Why do many UK hotels use a combination of the usual UK sockets, but also the old type D ones for lamps and stuff? It's puzzled me for ages, but only just been reminded of it again as I'm currently in a hotel! Socket looks like this: 
Several possible reasons. These are used for lights as you say. A) The lighting circuit switches off when you take your card out of the slot. It's on a separate breaker and relay.
B) If it's on a separate circuit, then anything that you plug in that is dodgy (dryer/tongs/kettle/iron that have flaky cords don't knock out the lights.
C) one less place to steal their electricity.
MarshPhantom said:
Why is "Recession White" only ever popular when there's a Tory Government?
Is it because in times of recession people tend to soften their desire to help their fellow man and look after number 1, which tends to lead to a more Tory way of thinking / voting?Governments are like football managers, when things are going well their fans love them, their detractors usually ignore them and we all sort of assume they're busybodies, making fuss, doing little – when things go wrong we demand to know what the hell they were up to and they’re sacked at the first opportunity whether they’re to blame or not.
In actual fact though, and I’m no fashionista – the current trend for white stuff (clothes, cars, phones etc) started about 2005, a lot of people think it was the first iPods that started it, but for cars I think it was when people started to go on holiday in the Middle East in great numbers, white cars look great in the desert, but IMHO slightly tragic in the UK in February.
David87 said:
Why do many UK hotels use a combination of the usual UK sockets, but also the old type D ones for lamps and stuff? It's puzzled me for ages, but only just been reminded of it again as I'm currently in a hotel! Socket looks like this:
As said it's a lighting socket outlet, aka 5A socket. They're used to allow switching of standard lamps and the like through the lighting switches on the wall. They're powered from the lighting circuit which is normally protected by a 6A or 10A circuit breaker and can't be the usual 13A outlet as if you plugged something like the kettle in it would overload the circuit and trip the breaker. Basically there so you don't have to walk over to the lamp and switch it on, just do it via the wall switch on the entrance to the room. Many houses have them installed for the same purpose.
My wireless router has 4 ethernet ports on the back. I've got two currently used, for two desktops, but have just signed up for a VOIP phone service which needs three ethernet sockets. Do I just need to buy an ethernet switch and plug it in to one of the vacant ports to effectively make that port into five (which is how many the switch has) or do I need something else?
Tyre Smoke said:
My wireless router has 4 ethernet ports on the back. I've got two currently used, for two desktops, but have just signed up for a VOIP phone service which needs three ethernet sockets. Do I just need to buy an ethernet switch and plug it in to one of the vacant ports to effectively make that port into five (which is how many the switch has) or do I need something else?
Yes, another consideration is that most VOIP hansets allow pass-through to make cabling easier and the better ones offer gigabit pass-through. frg530 said:
David87 said:
Why do many UK hotels use a combination of the usual UK sockets, but also the old type D ones for lamps and stuff? It's puzzled me for ages, but only just been reminded of it again as I'm currently in a hotel! Socket looks like this:
As said it's a lighting socket outlet, aka 5A socket. They're used to allow switching of standard lamps and the like through the lighting switches on the wall. They're powered from the lighting circuit which is normally protected by a 6A or 10A circuit breaker and can't be the usual 13A outlet as if you plugged something like the kettle in it would overload the circuit and trip the breaker. Basically there so you don't have to walk over to the lamp and switch it on, just do it via the wall switch on the entrance to the room. Many houses have them installed for the same purpose.
They used to be part of the standard and were designed for low load appliances. Later it was decided that having two different size of common sockets is just inconvenient as you will always end up with the wrong one for what you need. In the same way that if you ever install a single socket, there will come a time you want to plug two different things into it.
MarshPhantom said:
Why is "Recession White" only ever popular when there's a Tory Government?
Have you seen that a number of manufacturers are now offering white paint as a cost option rather than the default?Company ordered some cheap lease Corsas and didn't tick any boxes at all, they turned up in what I can only describe as "stomach acid bile green" rather than white, which we had expected.
Why do some time-zone offsets work in 30 minute intervals, or, in three bizarre cases, 45 minute intervals, from UTC? It seems unusual to have them deemed as such?
Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Shakermaker said:
Why do some time-zone offsets work in 30 minute intervals, or, in three bizarre cases, 45 minute intervals, from UTC? It seems unusual to have them deemed as such?
Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Because any country or region can decide what their time zone is. There are some weird ones, like China being all in the time zone Beijing belongs in, so in western provinces sunrise can be after 10am.Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Weird ones seem to be for smaller states, maybe they want the time right for the capital or the bulk of the population without making it completely absurd in the extremities. It is impressive the world has agreed for them to be as uniform as they are. Somehow even the French agreed to make Greenwich the prime meridian and we didn't end up with every country a number of minutes apart from another.
Rostfritt said:
Because any country or region can decide what their time zone is. There are some weird ones, like China being all in the time zone Beijing belongs in, so in western provinces sunrise can be after 10am.
Weird ones seem to be for smaller states, maybe they want the time right for the capital or the bulk of the population without making it completely absurd in the extremities. It is impressive the world has agreed for them to be as uniform as they are. Somehow even the French agreed to make Greenwich the prime meridian and we didn't end up with every country a number of minutes apart from another.
Or because they're a bit mental: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33815049Weird ones seem to be for smaller states, maybe they want the time right for the capital or the bulk of the population without making it completely absurd in the extremities. It is impressive the world has agreed for them to be as uniform as they are. Somehow even the French agreed to make Greenwich the prime meridian and we didn't end up with every country a number of minutes apart from another.
fomb said:
Rostfritt said:
Because any country or region can decide what their time zone is. There are some weird ones, like China being all in the time zone Beijing belongs in, so in western provinces sunrise can be after 10am.
Weird ones seem to be for smaller states, maybe they want the time right for the capital or the bulk of the population without making it completely absurd in the extremities. It is impressive the world has agreed for them to be as uniform as they are. Somehow even the French agreed to make Greenwich the prime meridian and we didn't end up with every country a number of minutes apart from another.
Or because they're a bit mental: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-33815049Weird ones seem to be for smaller states, maybe they want the time right for the capital or the bulk of the population without making it completely absurd in the extremities. It is impressive the world has agreed for them to be as uniform as they are. Somehow even the French agreed to make Greenwich the prime meridian and we didn't end up with every country a number of minutes apart from another.
Shakermaker said:
Why do some time-zone offsets work in 30 minute intervals, or, in three bizarre cases, 45 minute intervals, from UTC? It seems unusual to have them deemed as such?
Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Some good stuff about time zones here - http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/here-are-some-w...Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
gregs656 said:
Shakermaker said:
Why do some time-zone offsets work in 30 minute intervals, or, in three bizarre cases, 45 minute intervals, from UTC? It seems unusual to have them deemed as such?
Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Some good stuff about time zones here - http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/here-are-some-w...Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
fomb said:
Shakermaker said:
Genuinely fascinating article to me. Thank you!
IMO everything should just run on UTC and be done with it.And everyone else can just adjust their work and life schedule to suit it. "Oh yeah, I work 2am-10am and have a takeaway at 11am" would be totally normal to someone in New Zealand!
gregs656 said:
Shakermaker said:
Why do some time-zone offsets work in 30 minute intervals, or, in three bizarre cases, 45 minute intervals, from UTC? It seems unusual to have them deemed as such?
Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Some good stuff about time zones here - http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/here-are-some-w...Am asking because I just realised that right now, it is concurrently Wednesday, Thursday AND Friday, depending where on Earth you are located, a pheneomena that occurs for 2 hours everyday between 11am and 1pm during British Summer Time.
Unfortunately when I arrived, no one told me that, so I was 15 mins late (well, maybe 10 mins as I was aiming for 5 mns early) for everything in the first day until someone did tell me! If it was an hour different it would have been obvious but 15 is small enough that people just assume you're a bit late!
Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff