They're like that in this apartment we're renting and I keep seeing them elsewhere. I don't get it.
To turn them on and off.
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
325 points (94.3% liked)
No Stupid Questions
36638 readers
925 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Fair enough
To turn shit on or off
To turn things on and off.
Big if true.
Massive if correct
Large if accurate
Wee if wrong
I remember when I was young and bending down all the time was a thing you could do painlessly. Ah, youth.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I present to you my favorite YouTube person:
The GFCI/RCD, a simple but life saving protector:
https://youtu.be/ILBjnZq0n8s?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFU62mIGZNag5vQ0a6tDGBpO
In defense of the Switched Outlet:
Electrical topics playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFU62mIGZNag5vQ0a6tDGBpO
I could just watch this guy all day lol
A fellow human of great and distinguished taste I see
I expected Technology Connections or ElectroBOOM, was not disappointed.
One teaches what to do, the other teaches what not to do.
ElectroBOOM keeps me alive sometimes, and Technology Connections told me how to properly use a dishwasher.
UK household electricity is pretty spicy compared to many other places - it has more safety features as a result. (3 pinned fused plug, socket switches etc)
The rest of Europe has 220V as well and they don't have switches on their outlets.
Isn't it just 230v 50 Hz like most of the world?
Apparently around 65-70 % of the world population (with access to electricity) has 230v 50 Hz.
I have been with 110v plenty of times used to wire houses in my youth. Been hit once with 220v knocked me on my ass for 3 days. I stopped being so cavalier after that I wish they had those outlets vs the midevil outlets the US has.
How is it more "spicy" than anywhere else in Europe?
The many other places is the US
And Japan, and Canada, and Mexico, and the majority of South America, and a handful of countries in Africa and the Middle East.
I was mainly referring to almost all of the American continent(s), lots of Africa, China and a few other places too. I didn’t think I’d mentioned Europe.
Allows you to remove power from the plugged in device without unplugging it. This provides convenience to easily and quickly turn things on and off and prevents arcing when unplugging. 240V 13A can arc a bit, particularly if unplugged under load, or on older sockets where the contacts have worn. While a little arcing doesn't do much damage immediately, over time it will cause pitting and make a high resistance joint that will generate heat.
The switch only disconnects the live terminal, but the neutral terminal should be similar potential to earth (depending on how the building is wired).
Truly the king of plugs and sockets. The plugs are individually fused according to the device needs, ergonomic to use and exciting to stand on.
How many devices do you have that don't have a switch on the device itself?
load more comments
(11 replies)
the UK power grid is weird. mostly due to echoes of the war. used to be that, to save copper, the entire house and sometimes multiple houses on a street would be wired as one big loop of wire, no fuse box or anything. that's where the individually fused plugs and switched sockets come from. then, since it turned out to be quite a good idea for safety, they kept doing it.
load more comments
(26 replies)
So we can turn the power on and off.
Why else would you have a switch next to a power socket?
load more comments
(23 replies)
I like them, personally. You don't have to use them but they are sometimes handy. I just spent 30 seconds feeling around a TV to turn it off only to discover it doesn't have buttons. Killed it at the wall.
It's not a deal breaker, in any case. The weird foreign convention I would like to shame is doors that require a key to open from the inside.
load more comments
(18 replies)
As any cautious parent could tell you, these are helpful when the toddler starts sticking things in places where they don't belong. Such as metal cutlery. In the power sockets.
Don't toddlers start pressing buttons even earlier? Not sure this alone could protect them
load more comments
(4 replies)
This isn't the reason.
The switch is more likely to attract a toddlers attention. Some have little red lights even. It would be false sense of security at best. You can get those plastic blank plugs to stop your kid putting a fork in there.
The switch is so, if you kid is being electrocuted by putting their fork in the toaster, you can turn it off at the wall without having to touch the electrified kid.
view more: next ›