Things you don't understand watch - have you got things you don't understand?

59 watchers

ChrisHB Nov 2023 12:41pm, 4 Nov 2023 22,752 posts	0 ChrisHB [ duplicated information purely for emphasis. definitely not carelessness ]
Diogenes Nov 2023 12:43pm, 4 Nov 2023 82,393 posts	0 Diogenes I didn’t get an A in my geography A-level for nothing.
Pou Pou LePhoõk Nov 2023 10:42pm, 5 Nov 2023 4,155 posts	0 Pou Pou LePhoõk This. Can it really not tell the difference?
rf_fozzy Nov 2023 10:47pm, 5 Nov 2023 21,047 posts	0 rf_fozzy Not if it is a smoke detector. Steam has a similar effect to smoke in both ionisation and optical detectors - they disrupt the particle/optical beam and set off the alarm. fireservice.co.uk
Badger Nov 2023 10:50pm, 5 Nov 2023 16,729 posts	0 Badger [TLDR: not 100% reliably because they don’t detect heat, just smoke. It'll be a VESDA, smoke detector looking for particles of a size and density where clouds of condensing water vapour can give false alarms. Not often but you don’t want to evacuate a whole building for no reason. We had heat sensors installed in a lab where we needed automatic extinguishers and didn’t want to risk setting them off every time we were working with liquid helium or nitrogen. Unfortunately they installed VESDAs as well so we need to bypass those every time we use cryogens. That way PhD students just set off the low oxygen alarms instead 🙄]
RunningRonnie Nov 2023 12:40pm, 9 Nov 2023 2,841 posts	0 RunningRonnie Why standard toasters don't fit standard bread. It's been a long time since square slices of bread were the norm.
ThorntonRunner Nov 2023 12:41pm, 9 Nov 2023 7,119 posts	0 ThorntonRunner +1 - really winds me up at breakfast time!
ChrisHB Nov 2023 10:52pm, 9 Nov 2023 22,774 posts	0 ChrisHB Why my wife is unable to prove her identity online for a DBS check by using her passport and driving licence, and why - after she was told to go to the post office to get it dealt with - the main post office for miles around does not have the technology to deal with this matter.
ChrisHB Nov 2023 9:19am, 10 Nov 2023 22,775 posts	0 ChrisHB Why there are such things as mosquito-proof trousers, and the implication that if a mosquito encounters ordinary trousers, it will just feed through them.
cackleberry Nov 2023 9:39am, 10 Nov 2023 3,278 posts	0 cackleberry Mosquitoes can bite through jodhpurs material, which is quite thick. Also, +1 for the toaster thing.