Switch off at the socket?

In article ,
says...

"Bambleweeny57" wrote in message
om...
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:40:29 +0000, Richard Tobin wrote:

so sooner or later every atom will have
decayed.

Unless you have a cat.

BW
We used to have a cat. One day I put it in a box with some poison. This
worked, and when I opened the box the cat was dead. There was no two ways
about it.


Yes, but you missed out the random event.

--
Halmyre

The more you know the less the better.

"R. Mark Clayton" wrote in message
...

"DVDfever" wrote in message
...

It's amazing that some people go, "Ooh, I'm so green that I unplug all
of my TVs, PC, Sky- whatever" but if you ask them to unplug their
fridge and freezer and nooooooooooooooooooo, they won't. Green, my
arse!

My ex boss bought some frozen sea food from a shop in Portugal that turned
their freezers off overnight. His family were very ill, prompting him to
discover why...



I suspect the sea food was not full dead or frozen if it managed to
crawl out of the freezer, switch it off, and then presumable crawl back into
the freezer.

"tim....." wrote in message
...

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Andrew
scribeth thus
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:43:54 -0700 (PDT), "alexander.keys1"
wrote:

There have been a lot of comments recently about the waste of energy
due to appliances being left on standby, and various gizmo's that are
on offer to turn them off automatically, or otherwise purporting to
save energy. What everybody seems to be forgetting is that an energy-
saving device comes with most UK socket outlets, it's called a
'switch', and when put into the 'off' position, power cosumption is
zero! None of my appliances, including computers, digital TV
receivers, etc. have come to harm through this practice, I always
switch off at the wall, back in the day when there were fewer
appliances this was standard procedure to avoid fire risk.

They can't switch the power stations off overnight, so they may as
well power the 1W my TV takes to be in standby.

I seem to remember that some hydro electric plant is powered down and
some gas fired .. but coal is rather long winded to slow down and
restart..

They use the spare overnight power to pump the water back up in a stored
hydro power station so that it's full in the morning when everyone turns
their kettles on, so it isn't wasted.

Wow all that effort to fill a kettle with water, I never realised
so much water was used in kettles in the morning that they had
to pump it up hill into resevoirs to meat the mornning demand.
Amazing you learn something everyday.


tim

"Java Jive" wrote in message
...

Of course, in practice, many dangerous radioactive substances have
sufficiently long half-lives that they will continue to be a danger for
far longer than we can foresee the future.

Which of course is the real point ...

Hardly..

If it has a long half life then it isn't very radio active.
The two are linked, either they decay rapidly and emit lots of radiation or
the decay slowly and emit very little radiation. Uranium for instance can be
safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.

"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
...


I didn't say all substances with long half lives are dangerous.
I said there are many dangerous substances with long half lives.

In what way?
Water has a very long half life but it is dangerous as in you can drown in
it.
Is this the type of danger you are talking about or do you misunderstand
radioactive decay?

One of the most dangerous substances are the dioxins produced by burning
wood in the presence of plastics but I don't see you campaigning to get rid
of wood or plastic.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:48:49 -0700 (PDT), stan wrote:

So; a question. Rather than fiddling around with CFLs etc.
.............. How many trees or other oxygen producing and carbon
containing plants/trees/bushes have 'you' planted.

About 800... Not that they have all survived, they had been out of
the ground to long when planted as not much more than large twigs.
Not to mention where they had been grown was considerably less
exposed and warmer. Probably about 500 left. Mostly Ash, Silver
Birch, Rowan, Larch and Sycamoor with a few Yew, Black Thorn and Dog
Rose. A few Elder have been added and we want to find some Juniper.

Still use CFLs though.

I must have put in about 250 of something or other. Not many will grow
to be trees though. Hedging mainly.

very sad that locally 50 rotting poplars have gone..oh well. one is a
years firewood.

Java Jive wrote:

I don't have costs or deaths for the UK alone, but there is a world
list of incidents with some immediate mortality figures he

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lear_accidents


Perhaps I miscounted, but apart from the Lenin and Chernobyl incidents -
both in the former Soviet Union, not a regime noted for great care of
its people - the world death toll appears to be a totally unsupportable
figure, one we couldn't possibly risk again, far worse than any... what?
Oh. Four actually. And even those two incidents don't seem to take
it over the number killed in the Aberfan disaster.

Andy

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:55:45 +0100, "Bill Wright"
wrote:

I see China has half-promised to use 15% non-fossil fuel energy generation
by 2020. Wow! Fantastic! They are going to lead the world into a carbon-less
future! Except that the 15% means they will be using 250% as much as they
use now instead of 275%. Big deal! Meanwhile we will wreck our economies
while the Third World and the Far East laugh at us.

If the Chinese did increase their energy use by 275% they would still
be using less than us.

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:43:33 +0100, [email protected] wrote:

Uranium for instance can be safely kept in a cardboard box under the bed.

And breathing in the radon gas is not a hazard?

You also forget that aside from the radioactive hazards of uranium,
it is a toxic metal.

On Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:05:35 +0100, Bill Wright wrote:

and when I opened the box the cat was dead.

But you only knew the cat was dead by opening the box.