Here's one for you what's Concorde , TSR-2 and the Avro Vulcan got in common ??

It was becoming uneconomical to run at the time anyway.

It was operationally uneconomical from day one, and only survived as long as it did because the development costs had been subsidised by the two governments, the ongoing political breast-beating, and the sky-high fares paid by the vainglorious few (or their customers).

The Sunday Telegraph

And every time you bought a cinema ticket for one of her films, or bought one of her books (I forget - deliberately - exactly what she was famous for), you subsidised her concorde lifestyle.

Bristol Sidney (later Rolls Royce) Olympus engines.
Although each had a different versions with very little in common between them. Concorde's 593 were nearer those used in TSR-2 (320) than those used in the Vulcan (102, 104, 201 or 301)

Bristol Sidney (later Rolls Royce) Olympus engines.

Rob got it :-) who cares if they were slightly different all the same engine family ( and still BRITISH ) hows that feel BMW ;-) ;-) ;-) hehe

It was the Paris crash that did Concorde in, but it was becoming uneconomical to run at the time anyway

Also after Concorde got refitted with all that carbon fibre stuff around the fuel tanks in her wings , one of the B.A Concorde's was returning from the USA and the twin towers occurred on 11 / 09 / 2001 when she was on the return of her trials for the modifications after the Paris crash .
( sorry know people say 9/11 but to me that's the 9th of November , Day , Month then the year !!! )

Day , Month then the year !!! )

Wrong, it has to be year,month,day or it won't sort correctly.

Neither of the two versions is the standard form. The international standard is ISO 8601, 1988, writing the date is YYYY-MM-DD

America just has to do things differently than everyone else, upsidedown light switches, not using metric, etc. Even the US military uses the European way.

World use

No, switches should have the easiest quickest operation of a switch to be for the OFF function.
Therefore our switches are orientated wrongly.

No, switches should have the easiest quickest operation of a switch to be for the OFF function.
Therefore our switches are orientated wrongly.

Correct, fail mode should be to the most protective position, off.

The question then becomes are things more likely to drop or be shoved up?

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Eye posted this over at Seti and it should be here too.

@betreger: We'd get too embarrassed if we pointed them at other species on the same planet as us and the truth got out. And we're probably hoping that any intelligent species elsewhere might be fooled by our equipment into briefly thinking we're brighter than we are. That's my theory anyway :)


@chris: except the red bit is utterly meaningless in the dark, and whoever wired up the switches in my house, proved it by getting three light switches upside down (in British terms) and two plug sockets too - so I know what I'm talking about when I talk about useless red bits :) It's how I went from being on a ladder in the hallway - to being sprawled over my son's bunk bed with shards of light fitting sticking out my hand - and still in the dark, with my son pointing a torch at where I had been a moment beforehand.

Here we go



Fixed.

Can you show me where it says in BS1363 that the sockets have to have a switch and that the switch has to be coloured to show it is in the ON position.

If there has to be an indicator wouldn't it be better to have indicator lights, like this extension socket.


Quick question, do you know what the fuse in the plug is designed to protect?

The device it's connected to by any chance?

The device it's connected to by any chance?

Partly that, and also the ring-main wiring embedded in your walls. If that starts smouldering because of extended over-current (possibly aided and abetted by an elderly high-resistance joint - i.e. a hotspot), things get very nasty.

Can you show me where it says in BS1363 that the sockets have to have a switch and that the switch has to be coloured to show it is in the ON position.

Simple answer no.

The current standard is

BS 1363-1:1995+A4:2012
BS 1363-2:1995+A4:2012
Status - superceded

The new standard is
BS 1363-1:2016
BS 1363-2:2016
Status- Current - work in hand

The new 2016 standard may require colour coding, but I haven't seen it. Nevertheless most manufacturers are supplying sockets with a coloured rocker switch as standard.

So there is no standard, and there never will be.
BS 1363 will always be "Status- Current - work in hand"

Because it still covers the old round pin plugs and sockets, which can still be found in a few odd places, like this house when I first bought it. In the garage there was a 15A round socket with a present day 13A extension connected to it.

For Sirius and Richard.

The device it's connected to by any chance?

Partly that, and also the ring-main wiring embedded in your walls.

Neither.
It is to solely to protect the cable, and any cable faults (short circuits) between the plug and the device.

Strictly speaking if the device needs protection it should have it's own protection device, and that doesn't have to be a fuse, as we know it.
SMPS and DC/DC convertors frequently use a resistor as a protection device because it blows quicker than a fuse. These resistor are often encased it tubing because they tend to explode.

You can still find round pin stuff in shop lighting displays

Also you get round plugs in workshops
Yellow for 110 v 16a and 32 amps
Blue for 240 v 16 & 32 amp being the most common
Red for 415 v 16 & 32 amps there ( 3 phase )
All my electric welders Arc & M.I.G are wired in on 240v 32 amp plug and sockets with the plasma cutter and Air compressor just for ease of use .
Try using 13 amp plug on my M.I.G , good luck with that hehe let alone the arc even if it's just arc brazing ;-) angle grinders etc a mix of 16 amp 240 and 110 ( off a 5kv transformer , big very yellow box you Don't wanna drop on your foot even if you're wearing steel toe caps )

HSE ?? you know what I think there , what's wrong with common sence apart from most people these days DON'T have any ;-);-)

I just thought that construction site work was 110V only.

That's where 110v is most used but it is used in some workshops , all depends what's being done , if you have trailing extention cables 110 is safer in case something is dropped on the cable , lot safer than 240 or 415 for that matter if some numpty goes to pick up what's been dropped and happens to be conductive lie metal .
one example where 110 is used where there's shipping containers being repaired or " site " work

Nice place Gibraltar, was there earlier today :-)

I need to ask a strange question. I tried asking the internet, but I didn't particularly like the answer so I stopped.

Is there another internet...?