‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022) • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by namaria » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 7:37 PM UTC

mhandley wrote: post #345

atoav wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anyone would like to explain why that didn't kill me I'm all ears. What kills people is current, not voltage. With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock, but even that requires enough current to flow and cross your skin resistance. Go to ghe hospital even if you are alive and feel well after an electrical shock! Your heart may have suffer…

Way back when I was a student living in an old rented house in London, I went into the bathroom to find the bulb had blown. It was a pull cord switch, so I didn't know if it was on or off, but knew I wouldn't be so stupid as to stick my fingers in the bulb holder while changing the bulb, so no big deal if it was still live. Standing barefoot on the enamelled metal bath, I bent the cable so I could see how to screw th…

Safety guardrails won't work if you step around them... I'm glad you're fine, that sounds scary!

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

#462

Post by bb88 » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #430

bb88 wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kills people is current, not voltage. From an engineer here, let's not continue this dangerous trope. High voltage breaks down resistance and allows current to flow. Current can only flow in the presence of voltage. Proof: A 1V 1000A power supply won't kill any one and won't give a shock. A 2000V .001A power supply might give quite a shock on the other hand, and depending upon any capacitance in the supply mig…

> A 2000V .001A power supply might give quite a shock on the other hand, and depending upon any capacitance in the supply might just as well prove fatal. What does the capacitor supply, that the PSU can't? Could it be discharge current ? Before you accuse me of repeating dangerous tropes, please consider making sure to discuss it with the folks at VDE, because this is what it says in their (and the equivalent europea…

Your use of the pedantic trope is trying to win the argument, but destroys the causal effect of why people die which is high voltage. It's like saying "No, he didn't die because he jumped off the building. He died because his body hit the ground." Pedantic, sure, but completely ignores the cause of death.

That's why you see warning signs for "HIGH VOLTAGE" but not "HIGH CURRENT".

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

#463

Post by bb88 » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

atoav wrote: post #457

darken wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do see where the general objection to the "current kills" comes from, even if their reasoning got a bit muddled. All else equal, twice the voltage yields twice the current (and 4x the power). So while yes, it's the current that kills you, in the majority of circumstances high voltage = high current. Outside of explicitly current-limited setups (e.g. a Van de Graaff generator or a desktop ionizer), most higher volta…

> in the majority of circumstances high voltage = high current To be debated. Most of the visible (air-arcing) shocks I tend to get happen when I wear the wrong textile and given the length of the arc the voltage is well above 1 kV. So in most of the circumstances I personally encounter the current did not kill me. What kills you is the current flow through your body . Voltage and frequency helps to produce that flow…

Ohm's law says:

I = V/R

It's as simple as that. A high enough voltage will find a current path ionizing the air or whatever is in it's way. A high current doesn't doesn't do that by itself.

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

#464

Post by namaria » Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

P_I_Staker wrote: post #233

kkielhofner wrote: post #222

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.

What are SA cases?

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

#465

Post by naikrovek » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 2:52 AM UTC

afiori wrote: post #380

naikrovek wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you. there is always a car in front of you. always, unless you are the very first driver on the brand new road. keep enough distance from the car ahead of you that you can see the road surface far enough ahead that you can stop. if you need to see in front of the car ahead of you to have enough stopping time, you are following far too closely.

The boulder was likely moving far slower than the car ahead and reasonable stopping distance assumes that your obstacle is the car in front of you not an hidden stationary object on the road. I find it infuriating how much people ignore safe stopping distances but recommending excessively cautious behavior just introduces more chaos on the road.

Advocating for following at a safe distance introduces havok on the road? seriously?

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

#466

Post by hattmall » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 3:55 AM UTC

californical wrote: post #412

rootusrootus wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How big? Big enough to disregard? Yes, pretty much. 400 people are electrocuted in the US every year, usually in industrial situations. Thousands of people will get shocked today. The odds of a heart problem are low enough that suggesting people should be terrified of light sockets because it may stop their heart is just fearmongering, and reduces the effectiveness of other safety-related communication. This is lik…

I appreciate the point you’re making, but I’d like a source for > Thousands of people will get shocked today Before I come to any conclusions. According to [0], “There are also at least 30,000 shock incidents per year that are non-fatal” and “ In the United States, there are approximately 1000 deaths per year, as a result of electrical injuries” So about 1 in 30(ish) if we assume they accounted for nonreporting. If w…

That's 30,000 people getting shocked and it being serious, needing to go to the hospital. People doing work around houses get shocked all the time. 120v in typical US house is like mildly annoying. Definitely not trying to hold onto wires with bare hands or anything but getting "bit" while changing light switches or outlets isn't painful enough for many people to worry about finding the breaker box.

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

#467

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 7:10 AM UTC

13of40 wrote: post #104

bitexploder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couple of thoughts: Probably just leaking voltage, so not a full circuit shock, that is my first guess. Also, even wet your skin has high-ish resistance. It also may have traveled on the outside of your body to ground, path of least resistance? I have been bit by 120 and 240. When it is a full load it hekkin hurts.

Does it matter whether the light was switched on? It seems like the path of least resistance in that scenario would be the other copper wire leading out of the light socket rather than the high resistance person connecting to ground. I've had a similar experience, where (at the age of about 10) I touched an exposed 120v AC wire on a running water pump, while standing in a muddy field, and I only got a mild vibrating…

If you're touching the live end, it doesn't matter much.

Electricity doesn't take the path of least resistance. It takes all paths. Think of it as a resistor network:

    (+)---[R1]----[R2]-----(-)
               \--[R3]--/

R2 and R3 are parallel. R2 is you, R3 is the "path of least resistance".

If R1 is sufficiently high, e.g. the light was off but the switch interrupted the neutral side, and you touched the neutral side (i.e. the lamp was between mains and you), then the "path of least resistance" matters: R1 and the parallel set of R2/R3 form a voltage divider, and the smaller the combined resistance of the right part is, the lower the voltage across you.

That voltage is all that matters. If R1 is small enough to be insignificant, e.g. because you're touching mains and R3 isn't a short to ground, the voltage across you will be mains voltage.

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

#468

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

lairv wrote: post #336

Reading the blog and the comment section as a european, I realise how Europe feels nowhere near as dangerous as natural parks in the US, less extreme weather conditions, mostly no dangerous wildlife and less environment diversity (mostly moutains, no desert) I've done some hiking and camping in the Alps, and while some surprise thunder had me stop for 30 minutes, there never was sudden storms or weather change which…

Absolutely, this. Also, different standards when it comes to warnings.

Munich has a park with a nice "lazy river" style creek, which at some point downstream has a dangerous "artificial wave". It's perfectly safe under two conditions: You can swim, and you get out before it reaches the dangerous part. The best entrances to that creek and its pools, far from the dangerous part, where you will find dozens of people swimming, are marked with signs saying "DANGER TO LIFE. SWIMMING FORBIDDEN", complete with skulls and everything.

Meanwhile, the US is considered, perhaps unjustifiedly, as a country full of meaningless, exaggerated warnings. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to natural dangers.

Combine being used to the European level of excessive caution around nature, with the reputation the US has for exaggerated warnings, with the reality that nature-related warning signs in the US tend to not exaggerate, and you get dead people.

Imagine seeing a sign "Dangerous. Do not attempt to follow this abandoned trail" - no absolute prohibition, just a soft recommendation, not even "DANGER TO LIFE" just "dangerous" - with this background, and you can see why "Germans die in {death valley, yellowstone, ...}" is such a thing.

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

#469

Post by fennecfoxy » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

mhandley wrote: post #345

atoav wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anyone would like to explain why that didn't kill me I'm all ears. What kills people is current, not voltage. With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock, but even that requires enough current to flow and cross your skin resistance. Go to ghe hospital even if you are alive and feel well after an electrical shock! Your heart may have suffer…

Way back when I was a student living in an old rented house in London, I went into the bathroom to find the bulb had blown. It was a pull cord switch, so I didn't know if it was on or off, but knew I wouldn't be so stupid as to stick my fingers in the bulb holder while changing the bulb, so no big deal if it was still live. Standing barefoot on the enamelled metal bath, I bent the cable so I could see how to screw th…

As a Kiwi moved to the UK I think pull cords only exist because much fo the housing here was all built in the 60s-70s and hasn't been updated since.

In NZ I'd never seen a pull cord until I moved to the UK. All of our electrics in bathrooms are certified for use around water there, including proper breakers/multiple RCDs etc.

I think modernised UK homes that are now up to date often forgo the pull cords.

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

#470

Post by MrBuddyCasino » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

CadmiumYellow wrote: post #254

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lovely story! I can see how 110 is scary in a Trabi, especially so considering the state the roads were in. > there was also a strong camaraderie, 'us against the system' I think this is what gets lost in prosperity, and what causes some of the current spiritual misery. You simply don't need other people anymore if you have enough money, which in turn destroys community. Maybe the land of plenty is a dystopia, and we…

This is such an interesting point. When people have something to lose they turn inwards with the goal of protecting what they have. There's something to be said about how people can connect when nobody has resources to guard. Maybe this is part of why kids and college students can form such easy camaraderie compared to adults.

It all starts to make more sense once you see friendships as temporary alliances.