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from the would-you-like-fries-with-that? dept.
the Good Housekeeping Institute's recent publication of a dishwashing guide for all those young people (2 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK) who have never learned the ancient art of washing up. In a nutshell, use hot water and rubber gloves, pre-scrape and soak dirty pans, change your water halfway through, and wash in the following order: glasses, mugs, cups, saucers, side plates, dinner plates, cutlery, serving dishes, pans, roasting tins.
While not knowing how to wash dishes is kind of a big deal, it's the whole idea of not being to handle oneself as a versatile, independent adult that is most concerning. Young people lack a wide range of practical skills these days, as revealed in a recent study by YouGov. More than half of young people (18-24) do not know how to set up utility bills upon moving to a new place; 54 percent cannot replace a fuse in a plug; 34 percent can't reset the fuse box after a switch has tripped; 37 percent do not know how to defrost a freezer; and 11 percent is clueless when it comes to changing lightbulbs. (You can see the entire sad list here.)
So what? There's an app for that.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 06 2017, @06:28PM (8 children)
Well, as a certified geezer, I was around to learn both the old and the new.
Fuse boxes (screw in or plug) always gave me the willies. Especially after moving into an apartment, and noticing a year later that the fuse controlling the living room was burned out but everything in that room worked fine. I decided to investigate, unscrewed the 1940s era fuse and a penny came out of the socket as well, complete (with SPITZENSPARKE!). [wikipedia.org]
Old shit is still in use in a lot of old buildings and infrastructure. [mytpu.org] And there's more to the world than the strictly First World places you've apparently always occupied. Its occasionally useful to have more than a passing "google acquaintance" with some of this stuff. Gas powered refrigerators are still a thing in some places.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday October 06 2017, @08:05PM (7 children)
You think that's fun, I replaced a crumbling lightswitch only to find the previous homeowner had used the green wires for power return instead of ground. In the whole house. All the metal electrical boxes and conduits are hot.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 06 2017, @09:35PM (6 children)
Green wires?
The colors in normal house wiring [netdna-cdn.com] are white black and (brown-paper wrapped) copper.
Greens are only used inside devices and metal wiring enclosures, and are never long enough to "return" power.
Further, Ground and Neutral [iaeimagazine.org] are both tied together at the panel anyway.
So it was nonstandard, but not unsafe. Neutral (normally white) is not "hot".
But I have no actual idea what this "green" wire you refer to is.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @10:08PM
i interpreted as he was suggesting that the previous owner also had no clue, and as such people that did don't know what the hell the original guy was doing, because it sure wasn't the right way to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @01:34AM
They are tied together at the panel, however they are still isolated until that point. Otherwise there would be no reason for a separate ground at all. Imagine a fault were to form in the neutral conductor. Now, some sections may be hot due to the loss of a return path. If any of these now-hot neutral lines is connected as ground to the metal casing of other devices due to this kind of improper connection, these metal casings may then become hot, thus leading to electrocution of anyone unlucky enough to come into contact at this point. Additionally, grounding conductors in any cabling are often not insulated, as you yourself claim, which now leads to an uninsulated hot wire in these cables should the mentioned fault occur. Also, ground wires often have a larger wire gauge than neutrals, so even if you swap every instance of ground and neutral, your new ground is no longer oversized as it is running through the intended neutral wire.
(Score: 1) by Roo_Boy on Saturday October 07 2017, @05:06AM
Well, it does depend on where you live as to the colours. If I was to take off a wall plate I know I would find brown, blue and green/yellow (source: licenced electrician and I rewired the house).
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_wiring#Colour_coding_of_wiring_by_region/ [wikipedia.org]
--- The S.I. prototype "Average Punter" is kept in a tube of inert gas in Geneva.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:58AM
Plain copper and green insulated are both acceptable for ground in the US.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Saturday October 07 2017, @06:54PM
I've seen green wire in houses before. These were older houses, but still new enough that they had ground wiring.
My favorite was a light switch that appeared to do nothing. Not uncommon in older houses after a few remodelings, but taking off the plate revealed that the switch was switching the green wire. What....? Neither side was hot, and while it wasn't clear what that was all about, the most reasonable thing seemed to be to to connect them together and bypass the switch.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday October 08 2017, @09:28AM
Don't know where in the world you are (I am in the UK), but green or green-with-yellow is pretty standard for earth cores in most places, even in the USA according to this :-
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/reference/chpt-2/wiring-color-codes-infographic/ [allaboutcircuits.com]
I have seen USA flex and whoever decided black was a good colour for the live wire must have been either a nutter or a wannabe serial killer. Do you have black for "Stop" in your traffic lights too?
Ground and neutral should not be joined anywhere.
Neutral can easily become hot with a fault in the circuit or the device. It should be treated witht the same respect as the live core.