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Admin
Admin
I have been shocked multiple times with the current never leaving one hand.
The current, as others have stated, is not that bad that merely having it go 1 inch through your body will kill you.
Admin
Don't underestimate the Permanent Record. Somewhere, in a dark government records vault is a folder with my name on it. In it, there is surely a report concerning the incident in which I received a sticker for a perfect score on a spelling test in third grade, which read "Have a ducky day!" I proceeded to scratch out the d in "ducky" and replace it with an f, and some nameless classmate ratted me out. The fallout from this act has overshadowed my life for decades. I'm certain that's why the FBI never called me for an interview when I sent them my application.
Admin
TRWTF is that a "one-hand shock" isn't a one-hand shock... Your body completes a path to ground, whether it be through your other hand touching the pipe (two-hand!) or through some other part of your body touching ground. If you're properly insulated from ground, touching a live wire isn't going to shock you. Usually rubber-soled shoes on a vinyl floor should be sufficient. A "one-hand shock" would mean that the path to ground goes entirely through your hand, and you'd be touching both a live wire and ground with the same hand. I would think that people complete a path to ground through some other part of their body much more frequently (in this case the guy's arm was probably touching the case of the enclosure... it's a good thing, too, otherwise that very well could've been a zap across the heart).
Admin
That "its the amps that kill" thing is so misleading. Voltage provides the force that makes current fatal.
To use the analogy of a gun. Voltage = the gases expanding and pushing the slug. Current = the momentum of the slug. Unless there is a great voltage, the current will not exist. I cannot throw a .222 slug hard enough to hurt someone seriously. I fire that same slug out of a gun and I can tear off limbs.
So yes, the current does do the killing, just like the momentum of the slug, but you have to have the force(voltage) present first.
Admin
Yes but...
I'm not aware of exact numbers relating to the human body, but low voltage does not have the potential difference necessary to induce a large current "arm-to-arm". 50VAC may indeed be (relatively) safe, even if the circuit is capable of 10A or more as long as the resistance "arm-to-arm" is greater than 2Kohm. I = V/R
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Beaten like a naughty puppy.
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And let's not even get started on those !@#$ who cured things like dysentery! Ah, the good old days...
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Thumbs up for the persistent employee.
Admin
That's not so clear, though you have to use an integral form of Kirchkoff's Law to see why. As a simple example, consider a meter long sealed steel pipe with a resistance of 1 Ohm. Suppose it is full of salt water, which (for simplicity's sake) has a resistance of 2 Ohms. What happens if we put a volt across the pipe?
Current is going to flow through both the pipe and the water. Indeed, this simple case can be modeled as a simple parallel circuit. Excluding slightly-hard-to-model boundary effects, you will have 1.5 A of current going through the wire, with about 1 A going through the pipe and .5 A going through the water. Note that the water is not 'grounded' -- at least not in the sense of having a separate path to ground. It simply provides more conductivity.
I hope you see that bare skin and wire can (and does) provide more conductivity than wire alone.
Edit: sealed
Admin
Are you sure you aren't quoting some Monty Python's sketch?
Admin
I hate unions with a passion. But you make a point. SOME of those rules exist for a reason. The problem is that unions have gone too far with many of them. The balance between efficiency and safety has been lost.
I can see the point behind a union rep saying "Hey boss, can we put a cage over that there cotton loom so no one looses an arm this week?". However, they've gone far beyond that. In some cases, religiously extreme adherence to safety protocols makes people LESS safe (as others have mentioned).
In my case, back when I was in college, I did a short gig as a contractor at a union place. As I was setting up some servers I noticed a long Ethernet cable lying on the floor in a doorway. Anyone walking into the room could easily get his foot snagged underneath the cable and trip badly. The rest of the cable would've brought down a bookshelf over the poor sucker. It was as if someone built that setup as a trap. Being the naive student that I was, I walked over and picked up the cable so I could tape it to the wall around and over the doorway. BIG mistake.
"That's a union job. You have to fill out a workorder to have the electrician move that cable!". The drone proceeded to chew me out on how I wasn't to touch any cables aside from the ones at my workstation.
There were some older women there who were very frail. Too bad there's no safety protocol about preventing old people from falling to their death.
Needless to say, the moment I got my check I was out of there. They wanted me back for plenty more work. As a student I needed the money, but not that badly. And that's just ONE story I have from that rathole of thoughtless goons.
Admin
In my younger days I worked at an auto repair shop. The owner was installing a new air compressor and his father, a retired electrician, was doing the wiring.
He attempted to use this method.
He neglected to check with a meter, with unfortunate results. Instead of fingering one leg of a 240v line (netting 120v), he fingered one leg of a three-phase 460v line.
Ouch.
Admin
There's no such thing as a supply 'with 1A current': current flow varies, depending on the load. Unless you've constructed some kind of mad current-regulated power supply, or something.
For common combinations of supply and load, the current can be determined by dividing the supply voltage by the sum of the load resistance, and the 'internal resistance' of the supply, which isn't really real, but a helpful approximation that makes the equations work.
For example, let's take a 240v-rated kettle, which has a resistance of around 25 ohms, and behaves like a wire because it is one. When we attach it to the National Grid, which we'll give a nominal IR of an ohm or so, we get 240/26 = 9.2 amps; this translates to 2.2kw of power. Now let's power it off 160 AA batteries, connected in series. Each battery has an IR of 0.2 ohms, for a total IR of 32 ohms. The system has a resistance of 57 ohms, and thus the current is 4.2 amps, and the power 1kw.
This demonstrates that two supplies can have the same voltage and the same load, yet provide a different current and power.
We can do the same thing by hooking up two kettles at once: plugging them in in parallel with a four-bar creates a device with a resistance of 12.5 ohms, which will draw 18 amps off the grid, and use 4.4kw of power. Or 1.3 kw from the batteries.
This shows that the same supply delivers a different current and power to different loads.
Thusly, current is a function of both the supply and the load, and there's no such thing as a '1A supply'.
For loads that don't behave like wires, you need to be/borrow an electrical engineer.
Admin
A .22 LR round will kill a rabbit, or just piss off a human. But no one's losing a limb, only getting pissed off.
Are you referring to a .223 round (similar to NATO 5.56 mm M-16)? That's another story.
Admin
Why should the union care about balance? The corporation never has. Read a for-profit corporation's charter some time. The organization is there to FULLY exploit its workers.
The workers SHOULD exercise their right to organize and negotiate with a repressive and exploitative organization.
The example you cite sucks, but that's what happens when two opposing organizations play at hard-ball negotiation. Detente. Better that than slavery. I really don't understand so-called libertarians who have a problem with workers acting rationally and organizing to negotiate with a powerful organization to promote their interests. It really is no better or worse than a group of people forming an organization to negotiate their best interests commercially -- that is, forming a corporation.
Admin
Kinda funny but not where I used to work - a power plant. Team I worked with was in charge of process control systems (not the main digital control system but workstations and servers that interconnected with them). You did have to have workorders that had to be signed off by Operations and possibly some guys from maintenance (specifically Instrumentation guys) that was union.
It's when other things happen that is near you. One time I was in a part of the plant installing a workstation, in that same cabinet a cable (that wasn't properly screwed in ...) came loose and caused all kinds of I/O problems. No I didn't have a workorder... and yes I sure did get reamed. And from then on, I had to have a workorder just to enter the area.
Admin
A .223 round isn't "similar" to 5.56 NATO, it's the exact same thing. And "M-16" isn't part of the caliber designation, it's a rifle (and an old one at that). A .22 LR will kill a human, if the bullet is put in the right place. Reagan nearly died from a .22 round.
Don't bother talking about stuff you know nothing about.
Admin
Still need a large (relative) current though. I have been shocked by 5000VDC@3mA a number of times. I'm still here :p
Creates some impressive sparks between metal sheets though, and charges your body. Could attract tin foil to hand from ~1 inch away
Admin
I would guess it was a union guy that left the cover off. I was probably time for his break.
Admin
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How about this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokela_school_shooting then. Nine dead with a .22 LR.
Admin
Also, lots of unions aren't organized by secret-ballot, in which the employees secretly vote on whether they want one formed. They do it by "card check," in which the union boss walks from person to person, which a few big burly men behind him, asking him if you want to be in the union. You do, right?
Admin
Thanks for the correction oh wise one. Yes, I know my calibers and rifles. It's another story when I'm trying to type out a random comment while rushing to get back to work though. Cut people some slack and you'll get further in life.
And even a pinprick can kill a human if in the "right place". My point was that a .22 is not an effective killing round. I sure as hell don't carry my .22 LR pistol for concealed carry, and neither would any reasonable person.
Admin
More people are killed by .22LR than any other round. They're cheap, common, and if it gets into a body cavity, it doesn't come out, it just bounces around inside.
That said, .222 (which is what the original poster typed) is an entirely different round, a predecessor to the .223 (5.56 NATO).
And to add something of value, I was shocked just last year, hand-to-hand, with 110 AC. 20 minutes later, left arm and chest pain, light-headedness, shortness of breath, and extreme anxiety. 7 hours later I got out of the hospital after multiple electrocardiograms.
Those of you saying "what a wimp" are WAAAAAAAAY too casual about electrical shocks, IMO. Even 110 can cause 3rd degree burns, depending on when and where it hits you. Not to mention the possibility of messing up your hand as you rip it out of the cabinet involuntarily.
We have to report ALL injuries, no matter how small. It's totally reasonable that this would result in an injury report, and possibly a comp claim.
Admin
.223 Remington and 5.56 NATO are not the same thing. The 5.56 NATO spec is derived from the .223 remington, but due to longer throat and thicker case walls it generates much higher pressures than .223 Remington in the SAAMI chamber. If you fire a 5.56 NATO in a .223 chamber, you risk potential injury to yourself and damage to your rifle. [http://www.winchester.com/lawenforcement/news/newsview.aspx?storyid=11]
Admin
And yet, 22lr is the most common bullet used in gunshot killings.
a .223 is similar to 5.56, but not the same. 5.56 has a fair bit more powder in it, so it hits harder. Any 5.56 rifle can fire .223, but not the other way round.
Admin
Bah, beat me to it!
Admin
As a "so-called" Libertarian, I have no problem with what you just described. My biggest concern is when government gets involved. A private business and it's employees can do whatever they want and under whatever arrangements they decide on. That's a far cry from the government involvement in today's unions. It's involvement causes a distortion in an otherwise mutually agreed upon arrangement.
Captcha: eros - what?
Admin
Ya learn somethin' new every day. (If you don't, why bother getting out of bed?)
Admin
You do realize that unions exist because the relationship between an employer and worker is inherently unbalanced, right? Anyway, back to bitching about moronic policies and the diff between .223 and 5.56
Admin
Admin
And what exactly does the government do? Labor law only provides very specific protections for unions. It says that a company cannot prohibit striking through federal court action, for example. But it does not say that the company cannot fire striking employees.
There is no substantive distortion. Union employees are still "At Will" employees in "At Will" states. The reason unions have a strong bargaining position is that companies don't want to fire their experienced workforce.
Admin
Admin
I'm just pissed off that I didn't figure this out until I was in college.
Admin
Perhaps. So let me narrow my definition. What about public school teachers? It's not just a cliche that they can be impossible to fire.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338 This should come as no surprise if you remember that public education in the United States is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse.
In New York City, it's "just about impossible" to fire a bad teacher, says Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. The new union contract offers some relief, but it's still about 200 pages of bureaucracy. "We tolerate mediocrity," said Klein, because "people get paid the same, whether they're outstanding, average or way below average."
Here's just one example from New York City: It took years to fire a teacher who sent sexually oriented e-mails to "Cutie 101," a 16-year-old student. Klein said, "He hasn't taught, but we have had to pay him, because that's what's required under the contract."
Only after six years of litigation were they able to fire him. In the meantime, they paid the teacher more than $300,000. Klein said he employs dozens of teachers who he's afraid to let near the kids, so he has them sit in what are called rubber rooms. This year he will spend $20 million dollars to warehouse teachers in five rubber rooms. It's an alternative to firing them. In the last four years, only two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence. Klein's office says the new contract will make it easier to get rid of sex offenders, but it will still be difficult to fire incompetent teachers.
When I confronted Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, she said, "They [the NYC school board] just don't want to do the work that's entailed." But the "work that's entailed" is so onerous that most principals just have just given up, or gotten bad teachers to transfer to another school. They even have a name for it: "the dance of the lemons."
Admin
Nothing like some mass worker activism to put the unions in their place!
Admin
That has got to be one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.
Admin
That's always the most humorous way to resolve these situations. Columnist and professor Mike Adams uses his university's rules against them. His philosophy is to not silence your critics, but rather, to expose them.
Once, his school used school funds to fund a real trashy gay porn magazine. It was way out of bounds. He could've tried to get it shut down, or at least stop it from getting school funding. Instead, he waited till an annual "Visit your kids" day for parents. It's a big event on campus where parents come to see their kids, inspect the buildings, and take tours of campus.
He had students print out a thousand copies of the cover of the magazine and post them all over the school. Brilliant!
Needless to say, it did the trick.
Admin
Oh, BTW, the flyers had more than just the magazine cover on them. That would just make it seem like some raunchy prank. Below the graphic it mentioned that student tuition money was being spent to fund the magazine.
Admin
Nothing like preventing the current generation from expressing themselves by exploiting the prejudices of the previous one.
Admin
Gustavo is my hero. Awesome story of giving it to the man.
Admin
Shawn G is my hero, I mean. Got the stories mixed in my RSS reader.
Admin
Please. If it were a hetero pr0n mag, it never would have seen the light of day. It's reverse discrimination at its finest. The real WTF was a school funding pr0n, no matter what kind. Nothing like playing the protected species card.
Admin
I don't get your comment - the kids are the current generation and their parents are the previous? Or are the parents the current and the grandparents the previous?
Since his anecdote had the school funding the gay porn, the kids helping to put up the posters, and the parents stopping the funding, I really don't see where you are coming from, except that you may like to express yourself through gay porn?
Admin
But I like how "not funding their magazine" becomes "preventing [them] from expressing themselves."
Admin
Admin
I'd love to quote all that, but it's just too messy.
Governments can be good or bad.
Unions can be good or bad.
I'm personally glad that I live under a constitutional and democratic government, however fucked-up it is. I'm personally glad that I have the option of joining a union (and I'd love to go into 1920s and 1930s American history here, but that's for another time). I haven't because I don't need one. I'm lucky.
There are many varieties of libertarians. There are right-wing ones, who I respect. There are left-wing ones, and that would probably be me. Then there are Ayn Rand ones, who run the Zionist World Conspiracy via the Federal Bank and the Iranian Nuclear Not For Armageddon Purposes Honestly Shi'ite Supremacy Because We're Worth It Campaign.
I don't respect those people, and I imagine that they write terrible code.
But, this thing about the New York teachers' union? Pfft.
You should be glad that you've got the best educational standards in the country, even including the morons.
Admin
Ah, no. If the grid has a resistance of one ohm, it's going to drop by I * R or 9.2 volts, so the kettle will only get 230.8 volts and 2139 watts.
same thing, the kettle will get only 105 volts, or 446 watts.
Admin
There's a big luck factor too.
I'm usually the person with the most shocks in a group. All the big ones were when I was much younger. The most memorable ones are:
High School: Had a 15Kv 60ma neon-sign transformer. Took numerous shocks, some across my body. Most painful, left hand on ground (cement) right hand using stick to move HV wires, stick too short. The moisture in cement makes it a conductor at those voltages.
Air Force: Worked on generator systems. Left hand holding my weight on unit case, right hand grabbed stud that was live with 440AC, breaker rated at 100 amps, didn't go off, so probably under an amp.
Just out of AF: Left hand, steading myself (see common point about left hand here?) right hand, index finger, touched 600VDC power for a 50HP motor (at least 60 amp). I'm REALLY glad I just brushed it, was definitively the most painful shock I've received.
As you can guess, I don't even count 110V shocks.
So you CAN live though these (all of those are way above the minimum killing power) especially if they are brief. I'm reasonably certain the 600VDC locked my heart for the fraction of a second it was on me, but my heart started back up immediately.
I'm more careful now, especially about where my left hand is when I'm messing with power.