tea and toast

If you're dumping joules into water, the faster the better.

Slowly poaching bread isn't efficient either.

We heat our kettle with natural gas. And we heat the house with NG too, almost every day of the year. Any heat wasted from the kettle heats the house... at higher efficiency than the furnace, since there's no flue loss. The indoor plants like the CO2.

It's 7:45 PM, 59 F. I actually walked around outdoors today in a tee shirt.

Considering every new car now is GPS equipped, it seems it would be a trivial thing to check the GPS time, compare it to local sundown, and if automatic headlight control is enabled (by default), switch on the main lights based on that.

The EU might regulate what's sold within the EU. Manufacturers can build wh at they like for export markets. If you can make physically identical heati ng modules and plug different one's in for different markets you get almost all the advantages of pure high volume manufacturing.

That's a moot point - they are made in Far East anyway.

The chinese interpretation of the CE acceptance marking is 'China Export'.

What does needing headlights have to do with sundown? Most places require headlights when raining or anytime sight distance is limited. Just turning on the headlights at dusk is only part of the problem.

Anyone compare the TOTAL power used in each case?

That's surprising - here there are fixed measures for beer, wine and spirits sold in pubs which considerably pre-date the EU. Beer is a pint (20 fl oz), a half or (sometimes) a third, wine is 125ml 175ml or 250ml (small / medium / large) and spirits are 25ml or 35ml (homeopathic / barely discernible), the 25ml unit replacing the older slightly smaller

Cheers

EU standards are a useful method of disadvantaging imports and mimicks long-standing practices in Germany. The standards are typically based on valid engineering practice, but reflect local standards which may seem arbitrary to others.

They are introduced gradually, usually with sufficient warning, local discussion, amendment and grandfathering.

The philosophy is 'Get in front and stay in front', because this keeps trade balanced in a preferred manner, local consumer costs high enough to support local industry and the competition off-balance.

RL

You often quote UK media on this group, but you should be aware that pretty much all UK mainstream media news - both television and print - is Bullshit.

The truth regarding "EU Regulations on Kettles" can be found at the following link if you really are interested.

I agree. It is not much different from the results of elections. We get what we select. The news gives us what we are willing to watch.

the problem is power hungry bureaucracy... first they simply required labeling... no real objections to that

next comes performance requirements

and a certification process..

etc etc

it gradually changes from a benefit to a burden on society

the true purpose of any bureaucracy is to grow itself

Photonicinduction, our resident nutter, can toast a piece of bread in 10 seconds using about 3kW. This seems more efficient to me than it taking over 3 minutes at 900W?

Andy

It's been a problem since Babylon. We worked out how to keep them under control a long time ago. Modern solutions don't damage as many bureacrats.

Sure. But we prune it carefully, to keep the proper balance between utility and profusion.

I'm starting to understand the EU's motivation...

I also couldn't understand hardly a word that guy said. Anyone know what area he would have been from? Some of the Brit shows have a similar accent and I can't understand them either.

I think he is from the Dartford/Gravesend area in Kent (SE of London).

Andy

Ha. I just got a spot welder that has a 16 guage cord, 20 amp 240 volt plug and the manual says use a 30amp circuit. Power rating is 2.5kVA.

I spoke to a rep from the company in person and he laughed and clarified that the manual was the problem. It should say 30 amps MAX as the welder itself has no overcurrent protection in case of a fault. I was real curious about their ratings math on that one.

I find it strange that most people I hear say they can't understand english dialects are Americans, english isn't my first language and I usually have no problem understanding english dialects

I believe it is called dialect when it a regional thing, accent when it is because it is a language learned later in life

-Lasse

"Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country." --Alexis de Tocqueville, Ancien Regime and the Revolution

Cheers, James "reading Tocqueville" Arthur