Be Excellent To Each Other

WANT PADDLING POOL!

An electric one?

That *must* be a hoax. No one would be that stupid. Surely.

Surely.

SURELY.

Gosh, I'd hope so, but ten you can never underestimate the stupidity of some people. I wouldn't even joke about it, it's be my luck for someone to pick up the other end and think 'oh, this has been pulled out the wall - they'll be wanting that, I'll just pop it back in again...'

WAN PADDLING POOL TOO!

My cousin has a hot tub.. It's fun and is in a little shed type thing therfore it's not full of bugs.

It's just damned expensive to run and boring just sitting around getting hot.

Make your mind up!

Ok, if I was put on the spot and had to decide.. I'd say it's boring and not worth the money.

There... I said it.

I never thought a hot tub would be particularly fun. I can imagine it being quite relaxing to sit in with a nice book and a bottle of wine though.

It's relaxing for about 2 minutes, then the novelty wears off.. your book will get wet, the noise will annoy you (because it's very loud) and you'll start to shrivel up.

I dunno, maybe it's me.. I just haven't got time in my life to spend sitting around in water doing nothing.

Yeah, tell me about it.

I think a compulsory purchase would be a minimum of two attractive scantily clad women to go along with any hot tub.

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1386 ... orezv6.jpg

HEIGHT RESTRICTIONS ON IMAGES?

Oh gods, not again.

Maybe you're doing it wrong.

I think there's something a bit seedy about hot tubs, the sort of thing I'd imagine that swingers probably have.

Wouldn't they slip over a lot though?

What would happen if that electric thing on the table ( or even just the extension cable thing ) fell in the pool? Would it be like in the films where they all go frizzy haired with blue lightening and sparks everywhere? Or would they just die in a more mundane and everyday fashion?

I should hope the former.

I'd be more concerned about the fact they went to all that bother to put electricity in a pool, and then DIDN'T ADD A BEER COOLER. Yes, these people deserve to die (more or less).

But look at all the safety devices built in!

The power strip is held up by flip flops, which are amazingly buoyant, and the power connector on the side of the pool is taped to a wooden door wedge so that if it falls in it will float. Amazing forethought!

That might be the saddest thing actually, that they really HAVE thought it through and the obvious flaw never occured to any of them.

But they knew it was stupid enough to warrant taking a photo of.

I expect it would just go "click" and the equipment would stop working to be honest.

I think it's a hoax based on how well laid out it is. It's too elaborate, and too perfectly framed, to be real I think. Anyway, if there were an RCD in the circuit somewhere (and most modern consumer units have them built-in on the ring main) then it would actually be safeish, certainly no more dangerous than a camping power set. If any water got in the plugs it'd trip in less than a millisecond. Also, it's clearly American circuit anyway (look closely at the sockets in the gang plug) and hence only wussy I-can't-feel-it is-it-on-yet 110V. Life begins at 240v... and ends with three-phase industrial 440V, although I know people who are even quite blase about taking shocks off that.

I managed to electrocute myself with good, old-fashioned UK mains electricity a few years ago. I felt more than moderately impressed with myself after telling my electrician father, who expressed slight surprise that I was still alive afterwards.

Next week: I throw myself out of a fifth story window to see if I'm invulnerable to falling from heights.

And then jump into a volcano to prove that you're a god?

What did you do to electrocute yourself, Zio?

I knew a lad who was playing his gameboy in the garden on a hot day and for some reason completely unknown to him, he put the end of the recharger lead into his mouth.

He knocked himself out and saw everything in 'negative' for a while afterwards.

I got an electric shock off the back of my iPod when it was charging off the mains - should I be dead? The wiring in that house was very dodgy indeed. It didn't hurt much, just caused me to throw the iPod across the room and shout BASTARD! or something similar.

That's pretty awesome, to be honest.


I once lent on an electric fence and literally jumped about a foot in the air. It was fencing off a bull as well, so I guess it was towards the upper end of the power scale.

Well, to be fair, you'd have to be fairly unlucky to actually get a 440V shock (Especially as it's 415/400V anyway ), because any of the phases referenced to neutral or earth will be at 400/sqrt(3) which is 230V anyway.

But I agree, there really isn't much danger there compared to a hairdryer in the bath on an old-fashioned non-RCD supply.

Not that I recommend it of course.

BTW, camping power supplies are actually safer from the point of view of using mains equipment outdoors, because they have to have a TT earthing system. Domestic supplies are usually PME, which is just a bad idea all round IMHO.

I've had a proper 240v belt for a good second or so, into my hand. I was fiddling with a power lead that was loose on my desk (a two-pin figure-8 one, like you use some laptop chargers and a lot of games consoles) and it was a crappy low-end not-actually-safe one where the metal conductor was only about 1mm short of the plastic casing. I didn't notice this until I managed to get my palm across the two conductors. Bloody hurt, and left two neat little welts about 1cm apart.

That's very unfair - I had no such 'negative-vision' superpowers with my experience, I just screamed at the top of my lungs and spent the rest of the evening a bit shaken.

I use an electric shaver at home, which has a 2-pin euro style AC adaptor. I'd plugged it in, via a travel adaptor, to an extension lead behind the telly in my bedroom. Anyway, after it had finished charging I found I couldn't quite reach the plug to unplug it, so grabbed hold of a radiator to get more purchase. And then I touched one of the pins whilst it was still some way into the socket.

It was a very strange feeling. It didn't actually hurt as far as I remember. It was like being seriously roughed up, punched and kicked by an invisible force. For about a second.

I did this while I was pregnant with Sam and trying to fix some hedge trimmers. I also fell down stairs and came off the back of a motorbike during those 9 months, so it probably explains a lot...

<pedant> No, surely you managed to give yourself an electric shock? </pedant>

(to electrocute literally means to execute (i.e. kill) with electricity)

Simultaneously?

*That* would have been impressive!

Attaching myself to the mains for acouple of seconds rendered me mute for a few minutes. It was a bit disturbing.

Aha!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/xbox_teen/

I assure you I was anything but mute. I used some very naughty words.

I once got a shock at work, while changing a 60v bulb. I shook it off, thinking 'it's only 60V'... only to find out later that the bulbs were connected in groups of 4... in series. And, I should have gone to hospital, getting the rest of the day off (while still being paid) as a matter of policy. Bugger. To be honest, the shock didn't hurt much, it was the fact that the bulbs were in a machine in an awkward position, and the shock slammed my forearm into a metal strip that caused my swearing.

Does -cute mean to kill? If so, can you sexocute someone?

Zio, yesterday.

We wish.

Nah, she looks barely pubescent. Is she anyone I should know about?

Hayden Panettiere (I haven't checked that spelling so it's probably wrong), she plays Claire in Heroes. She's, umm, 18 if memory serves.

I thought the usual approach in Hollywood was for 16 year olds to be played by women in their late 20s with massive amounts of makeup and/or surgery.

Oh, television. That's why I know not. I've probably seen her in a lowbrow newspaper somewhere though.