When men were real men

[JimC]

It won't short circuit the system but it may cause there to be an excess of current (amperage) drawn through the socket due to all the presumed devices plugged into the splitters.

Which could short circuit the system as the wires melt and fuse together.

In a properly wired house, all it would do is trip the circuit breaker for that particular power circuit, which would then refuse to go back to the "on" position until the load has been reduced below the maximum current draw permitted in that circuit.

[pErvinalia]

Not necessarily. If the wires used in the device are of a smaller capacity than the circuit breaker, then they will potentially melt before the circuit breaker goes off.

[JimC]

Not necessarily. If the wires used in the device are of a smaller capacity than the circuit breaker, then they will potentially melt before the circuit breaker goes off.

That would be a most improperly wired device. A current surge strong enough to melt standard copper wiring will quickly trip a correctly installed circuit breaker, well before the wires would melt. Or, would melt an old-fashioned fuse, thus also breaking the circuit (That, BTW, is the reason why circuit breakers are safer than fuses - pea-brained idiots sick of replacing fuses were known to replace them with something like a nail, which removed their ability to break the circuit when current was excessive...)

[pErvinalia]

The cheap ones are almost certainly not over engineered. I've seen heat damage on a number of ones I've owned, and they aren't even as cheap as the ones MM is talking about. The simple fact is that the circuit breaker will only trip if current goes over a certain amount. That says nothing about the wiring of an individual device. That is entirely separate and if the wiring is not up to the level of the circuit (most are 10 amp, but you can get 15 amp ones), then the wiring will fail before the safety breaker trips. And of course it's not just about total failures. Wires can heat up if they are under-gauge and used for long periods of heavy use, and that heat can lead to fires. Hence why we still see electrical fires even in this age of almost universal safety switches.

[JimC]

The cheap ones are almost certainly not over engineered. I've seen heat damage on a number of ones I've owned, and they aren't even as cheap as the ones MM is talking about. The simple fact is that the circuit breaker will only trip if current goes over a certain amount. That says nothing about the wiring of an individual device. That is entirely separate and if the wiring is not up to the level of the circuit (most are 10 amp, but you can get 15 amp ones), then the wiring will fail before the safety breaker trips. And of course it's not just about total failures. Wires can heat up if they are under-gauge and used for long periods of heavy use, and that heat can lead to fires. Hence why we still see electrical fires even in this age of almost universal safety switches.

Do you mean power outlets, or other sorts of devices?

I've certainly had the odd old-fashioned double adapter get partly roasted - I never use 'em now, and only use good quality power boards, with built in safety switches, and only for relatively low powered devices. Any device of more than 100 W gets its own dedicated outlet, and all the outlets in my workshop have their own safety switches...

[mistermack]

I remember once, years ago, a bunch of seven or eight of us were drinking and yakking together in the living room of a shared house in winter.
A faint smell of fish started wafting around, but nobody said anything. ( we were in our early 20s, a mixture of males and females ).
The smell of fish got stronger and stronger, but nobody said anything. But some of us were giving each other funny looks. Eventually, some guy said ''what the fuck is that smell'' and we went through the ''well it's not me'' routine, and established that it wasn't one of us. (relief).

Then we went round every corner of the room, and tracked it down to a two-way adapter, that the 3kw electric fire was plugged into. It was red hot.

I found out later that some of the plastics in those days were bulked out with whale bone.
(This was about 1976, but it was a very old adapter).

The smell of fish was so perfect, it was like you were in the market, at a fish stall.

[DaveDodo007]

Can we do a little experiment Robert S forget that you are a fence sitter a diplomat. You are tasked with walking a mile in someone elses moccasins. Put your
self in the shoes of the MRA and you have to counter lies and propaganda about the MRAs promoting violence against women ( feel free to show me this is what
the MRA does ) Show me were the MRAs have claimed men are entitled to sex. Show me were the MRM are full of hatred against women. For once leave your
comfort zone and answer this as if you were an MRA and not Robert S lets see how you would react if most of the main stream media were quoting you ( the MRA
remember ) as hating women and not as a group who care about men and boys ( who are falling behind in education by the way and being denied due process in
the university courts ) So go on Robert S how would you respond to being demonized in the national press and everywhere online were the left wing media do not
bother fact checking and go for witchhunt status. So Robert what would you do in the same circumstances ?

Well here is what I do Dave : I avoid tribalism of all kinds as the only club I really belong to is the human race and that one is all inclusive so no problem there
For all others I try to keep my distance even if I qualify for membership. No one has a monopoly on wisdom so I take from all and reject nothing less it has been demonstrated to be either illogical or immoral. This principle works for all tribalism and so applies to the feminism / misogyny dichotomy as much as any other
[ and I use misogyny here to simply mean the opposite of feminism and not a term of abuse as it is generally employed ] And one finds valid points on both sides
well as invalid ones too. Nothing is ever set in stone at least in theory and one is constantly moulding and shaping an informed opinion on the subject to come to
the best possible position with the available information. So that is mine both in relation to this and all other topics. You may call it fence sitting but I prefer to
think of it as open mindedness [ see my sig ] It may not work for you but it does for me which is why I use it [ obviously ]

Well you are wrong out of the gate for a start you are tribalistic from the get go. You can no more relate to 150 people whether you live in a town of thousands or a city of millions. This is simple evolutionary biology and your brain can only cope with society when it imposses its own boundaries. Your brain was not evolved to cope with towns
or cities and is doing the best it can. I was asking Robert S what his response would be if he found himself having to defend a view that is at odds with the mainstream media
and the current paradigm / mores. I never once asked him to become an MRA just how he would response if a group he was a member once and had to watch while they were demonized and lied about how would he go about setting things straight

The opinions I hold are not necessarily the same ones the mainstream media do and so if those two positions are incompatible it does not bother me. As I would much rather be right than be popular and I do not form opinions on the basis of how many agree with them anyway. I think for myself right or wrong and so do not let others do it for me. The only things one should need to defend a particular opinion are logic or reason and evidence or proof and everything else is superfluous to requirement including how popular or unpopular it is. For that says absolutely nothing about its validity. A popular opinion which is wrong is less valid than an unpopular one which is right. So I would actually remove popularity from the equation altogether and just focus on validity instead

I do agree with you here I just get angry when I see a group unfairly demonized especially as it happened to us atheists not so long ago and that alone should give people pause for though. Anyway enough off topic crap from me.

[Jason]

I remember once, years ago, a bunch of seven or eight of us were drinking and yakking together in the living room of a shared house in winter.
A faint smell of fish started wafting around, but nobody said anything. ( we were in our early 20s, a mixture of males and females ).
The smell of fish got stronger and stronger, but nobody said anything. But some of us were giving each other funny looks. Eventually, some guy said ''what the fuck is that smell'' and we went through the ''well it's not me'' routine, and established that it wasn't one of us. (relief).

Then we went round every corner of the room, and tracked it down to a two-way adapter, that the 3kw electric fire was plugged into. It was red hot.

I found out later that some of the plastics in those days were bulked out with whale bone.
(This was about 1976, but it was a very old adapter).

The smell of fish was so perfect, it was like you were in the market, at a fish stall.

Ah for the heady days when whale bone was more plentiful and cheap than plastic.

[DaveDodo007]

I remember once, years ago, a bunch of seven or eight of us were drinking and yakking together in the living room of a shared house in winter.
A faint smell of fish started wafting around, but nobody said anything. ( we were in our early 20s, a mixture of males and females ).
The smell of fish got stronger and stronger, but nobody said anything. But some of us were giving each other funny looks. Eventually, some guy said ''what the fuck is that smell'' and we went through the ''well it's not me'' routine, and established that it wasn't one of us. (relief).

Then we went round every corner of the room, and tracked it down to a two-way adapter, that the 3kw electric fire was plugged into. It was red hot.

I found out later that some of the plastics in those days were bulked out with whale bone.
(This was about 1976, but it was a very old adapter).

The smell of fish was so perfect, it was like you were in the market, at a fish stall.

Ah for the heady days when whale bone was more plentiful and cheap than plastic.

It all went downhill when Capt Ahab lost his mind. How are you suppose to harpoon plastic?

[pErvinalia]

I remember once, years ago, a bunch of seven or eight of us were drinking and yakking together in the living room of a shared house in winter.
A faint smell of fish started wafting around, but nobody said anything. ( we were in our early 20s, a mixture of males and females ).
The smell of fish got stronger and stronger, but nobody said anything. But some of us were giving each other funny looks. Eventually, some guy said ''what the fuck is that smell'' and we went through the ''well it's not me'' routine, and established that it wasn't one of us. (relief).

Then we went round every corner of the room, and tracked it down to a two-way adapter, that the 3kw electric fire was plugged into. It was red hot.

I found out later that some of the plastics in those days were bulked out with whale bone.
(This was about 1976, but it was a very old adapter).

The smell of fish was so perfect, it was like you were in the market, at a fish stall.

Ah for the heady days when whale bone was more plentiful and cheap than plastic.

I reckon MM meant to write 1876, not 1976...

[laklak]

I got yer whale bone right here.

[MiM]

I don't think you have been able to by anything like that over here for more than 20 years.

The buzzword there was "over here", so I used a general "you". Could of course have used clearer language. Sorry for any confusion.

[mistermack]

I reckon MM meant to write 1876, not 1976...

Maybe. It was a very old farm cottage, but I don't know when the electrics dated from.
They were VERY old, in 1976.

I've never checked it out, what they made early plastics from. That was just what an electrician told me, he said he'd come across it before.
I know that they used to boil up farm animal and fish bones, to make glue in the early days. Could have been part of that process.

It certainly smelt exactly like fish.

[Svartalf]

British chicken smells like fish too, but is not used in wiring insulation...

[mistermack]

British chicken smells like fish too, but is not used in wiring insulation...

I wouldn't be surprised. Maybe they get fed fish protein.
There was a time in the early days of plastic when they made plastic buttons out of milk.
There was a place not far from me that was a big producer of milk based plastic.