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‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

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Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#231
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it matter whether the light was switched on? Depends on how it is wired. Sometimes lights are wired so that the switch comes before the fixture, sometimes after. One of several reasons you should always turn power off at the breaker when fiddling with the wiring, instead of assuming it won't be hot if the switch is off.

No, I mean if the switch is closed... [hot wire]---[switch]---[load]---. | [neutral wire]-------------------+ | [person] | [ground] In this situation would the current "prefer" to go to neutral or to ground? Edit: Or this one... [neutral wire]---[load]---[switch]---. | [hot wire]---------------------------+ | [person] | [ground] ...where "load" is like a 20 watt LED bulb or something.

this is the wrong way to think about it; the current will prefer to flow through both paths, which is why you can have a 20-watt lightbulb and a 10-watt lightbulb on the same circuit

the parallel resistance is lower

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't light fixtures typically direct mains power?

Yes but we can only speculate what happened. My speculation: most of the power went through the light and only a part of it shocked the OP.

this is nonsense, and potentially deadly nonsense at that

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#233

I think it's important to note poor planning, unawareness, and frankly stupid, naive, or ignorant decisions can make nearly any environment or activity dangerous. As an example I once got in a car with people I'd just met. After driving a few blocks one of them held a gun to my head. The driver then drove us out to the middle of nowhere... I was convinced I was going to be killed. I couldn't say how long the drive wa…

Victim blaming does NOT just happen with SA cases. I know someone that was mugged in a small town. When he reported to the police it was recommended for him not to file an official report, because they would be forced to arrest him for underage drinking.

P.S. Arrest doesn't mean taken away in cuffs, so it was probably gonna be a ticket. Still, this is utterly ridiculous.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#234
The Ranger suggested an average one one hotel staffer a year would get themselves killed.

If there were say 60 staff in that hotel, that gives Park employees a half-life of around 40 years.

Don't stay in that industry too long! The demographics are terrible.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It only takes 80ma across your heart to stop it In a lab, sure. In reality you need a lot of amps going into the body to get enough amps across the heart to screw with it. Defibrillators wouldn't be chock full of capacitors if that wasn't the case. Constantly repeating these sorts of misleading DARE-esque talking points is why nobody takes what the safety preachers have to say seriously. People find out through life…

Defibrillators are full of capacitors to boost the voltage, not current. They also use carefully located electrodes, and come with a razor to remove body hair to create the ideal conditions to affect the heart because they need to work every time . That has nothing to do with whether residential power is dangerous or not. I said mains voltage won't kill you every time but it definitely can. We wouldn't put it in resi…

Portraying the 80ma number as anything other than what can happen in a freak accident is misleading and dishonest and is counterproductive if the goal is to get people to respect electricity because it is in contradiction to the lived experience of basically everybody.

>The problem is that the conditions that can lead to a deadly accident don't trigger any of our ape-brain fear response.

No. The problem here is that you are peddling fear to get the reaction you want out of people. Potential energy, electric or otherwise is potentially dangerous. Pretending like it's more dangerous than it is to scare people straight is bad. Just because reality doesn't scare people into behaving how you like doesn't entitle you to be dishonest.

>If you think any of the things you listed are fine and safe just because they don't result in "instant death" then I would say we have very different ideas about risk management.

If you think it's ok to just lie to people because you think the end goal is noble I don't care what your ideas are.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#236
post #70

Winter Storm Elliott was a good reminder that even in urban areas sometimes nature is going to make a solid effort to kill you. Nature deserves our respect, and everyone should do some basic preparation for the potential hazards where they live. How many people have road flares in their car? Or blankets? Or some sort of emergency heat source? These things don't take up much space, are cheap to acquire, and easy to ma…

Or some sort of emergency heat source? Any automobile with adequate fuel is a fine source of heat. As long as you're not parked inside.

The engine is your primary heat source. Your primary heat source failing is the emergency. Thus the need for an emergency source as a backup. Or at least a bivy sack or some other way to not freeze.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#237
Many years ago, my wife and I were driving from Phoenix to Flagstaff AZ USA on the I-70 expressway. We encountered a blizzard about halfway there. Driving conditions were bad, so we turned around and headed back to Phoenix. We're from a snowy climate, so understand the dynamics of driving in slippery, snowy conditions -- you need to a) stay away from other vehicles and b) not slide off the road.

Driving through the storm in darkness, we saw through heavy snowfall the lights of a vehicle that was obviously off the road. I immediately started to slow down and we were both watching the vehicle, which had its backup lights on, to see what it might do.

Just as we arrived near the vehicle, my wife called out and I narrowly avoided hitting someone who was standing in the middle of the freeway trying to prevent vehicles from going behind their car.

That's the closest I've ever come to killing someone with my car.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really silly take. Parent post didn't say YOU WILL DIE IF YOU EVER GET SHOCKED, FULL STOP. They said that you can die if you're shocked. If you have a substantial chance of death doing something it's common sense to avoid that thing, especially when it's trivial to do so. If you want to be a manly man who don't need no safety, go for it, but you're setting up a straw man in OP's post and safety awareness in…

[flagged]

I'm not sure why you're so determined to be outraged about something.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#239
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I almost drowned on a beach without surveillance, jumping into the surf waist high, for fun, until suddenly the receding water pulled me just a few meters further away and now I couldn't touch the floor anymore, and was slowly being pulled further and further away from the beach. My girlfriend of the time was on the beach far enough away that she couldn't hear or grasp that I was struggling. By luck and after perhaps…

Sounds like you encountered a "rip" [0]; usually letting it take you out and then swimming after the current eases is the safest thing to do. At school (Oceania) we get taught this as part of water safety, but I suppose it would be a foreign concept to many people, particularly those not living near the coast. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current

I was taught to immediately start swimming parallel to the beach. Some rip tides can take you very far away very quickly, enough that nobody would be able to get to you without a boat, and that is if they were looking at you. Best advice is to swim parallel to the beach, while remaining calm and swiming at a pace you can hold. Do not sprint-swim due to fear.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not the full voltage, just a leak. 230V is quite an experience. 120V is a mere annoyance by comparison, even if you touch live terminals directly. Even 120V is more than vibrating, though.

For context, a modern defibrillator is about 3,000 volts and 15 amps.

It seems a bit too much, but in any case it's direct current. Compared to AC there's almost an order of magnitude difference.
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