h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"People drop by all the time," sighs Don Roberto. "Just eight weeks ago I had a visitor."
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31558467

Yep, visitors every two months. Sounds about right In fact, that whole setup sounds really quite idyllic to me. And look at that scenery Not so sure about the 30C to minus 30C in a day thing though. It's bad enough here when it goes from the 70sF to the 30s in an afternoon when a cold front comes in, or if it's 80F one day and 40F the next, ditto a front. And I'd need a satellite internet feed too, of course

I had the most unexpected thought this morning. I really miss light pulls in bathrooms. American bathrooms don't have them - they have a normal light switch, on the wall, not a cord hanging from the ceiling.

The lovely "clonk" they make. The variety of possible pulls to go on the ends. The way the string gets dirty.

So many thoughts evoked by that post.

We don't have them in Germany either - light switches on the OUTSIDE of the bathroom. Yeah, so some idiot can switch them off and leave you in the bath in the dark.

As far as I remember, the reason for light pulls is so that condensation, which you get a lot of in bathrooms, obviously, can't build up inside the switch and fuse the lights. If it gets into a ceiling switch it drips out. And yet I've never fused the lights or given myself a belt off the mains in all the 15 or more years I've lived here

However, in every apartment I've lived in that has a walk-in closet, there's a light pull in there

You could always go to the hardware store and pick one up and install it in your bathroom.

However, I am not a proponent of pull switches. I've been frustrated by them too often. I had one for the light fixture of my bedroom ceiling fan that refused to work properly. I've also had closet light switches do the same. Then, if it does have a string rather than a chain there's the inevitable day that it will break leaving you in the dark until you get the flashlight(torch) and step ladder out. Then you have to find an alternate string or chain if you even have one on hand, probably not.

That said, I'm not sure I'm a big fan of the current trend of using remote controls for lighting and fan fixtures. Sure, they're easier to install than a permanent wall switch, but they need to find some universal design. One I have in the main area controls the fan speed with three separate buttons, one for each speed. The other in the bedroom, has a circle with sections numbered 0-5 and without the light on I can never remember where on the circle each number is. Also, it has timers and other functions I'll never understand or use, but inevitably I keep hitting these superfluous buttons causing my fan to turn off in the middle of the night and I really prefer to sleep in a breeze.

Yep, I guess I do miss the two pull switches I use to have on that ceiling fan, while they worked.

not sure how the management company for the complex (which has just changed hands, again ), would feel about me doing that.

Yeah, I know what you mean about closet switches. They're not the best quality. The one in my previous apartment (Fort Gosho) was a right royal pain in the fundament. The switches in bathrooms work much better. For years and years without a hitch, as I recall.

I've never known one break off or go wrong. Maybe a light bulb has gone occasionally, but that's very rare, too. In fact, on re-consideration, I can't remember a bathroom light bulb ever going.

I had to change the pull switch in my bathroom, It finally died after about 40 years.

It's the lack of quality control in modern hardware. Nothing is made to last. It's all crap. Even when they can make something properly, they'll cut corners to make it 10% cheaper and full of formaldehyde.
(Seriously, much of the laminate flooring available at a US flooring supplier is 2000 times as toxic as legally allowed.)

I'm so brassed off with the constant cost-cutting and degradation of quality in products these days, and for many years as a matter of fact. Companies making things to suit their manufacturing methods and costs rather than the item's usefulness and our ability to use it.

In the case of the bathroom switches though I don't think that's such an issue. If I remember rightly they have to measure up to a particular British Standard (do they still put the kite mark on anything with a B.S. number?) and are made more solidly than your average ceiling pull.

Probably what gives them that satisfying noise when you turn the light on and off

One of the saddest tales I've heard about product degradation, was from a friend who does fire investigation for a living. He tells of a a brand of household fan that is quite popular here in the US. For generations they made really good fans. Then they started selling them through the largest retailer in the US/World. Before long, that retailer was selling the majority of the companies fans and started making demands to lower their costs. For a while they resisted cutting quality, but after a few years, they just couldn't resist the demands of the great beast of a retailer and they shuddered most of their US operations and moved their manufacturing to China.

They're now a brand often associated with house fires.

Errata: company's, shuttered.
At least I got my "there/they're/theirs" write.

My first job was at a company that made sweets exclusively for one high street store. Don't mistake the word 'exclusively' for an intimation of quality though. There were several people who'd worked there for many a year, and they'd tell of when the place used to make its own sweets and how good they were. Then they were approached by the big retailer (or perhaps the owner approached them - I can see him doing that) to start making its own brand sweets, and eventually that's all they did. They weren't particularly awful sweets by the time I got there, but they weren't as good as the ones in tales I was told. They were... average. Unexceptional. Made to be sold in the pick'n'mix.

But that was before the time that big retailers began putting the thumbscrews on manufacturers to cut costs and cut quality like they do these days.

If I ever met Sheila Hancock I think I'd ask her to marry me, despite the age difference,

I appear to have been awake for 31 hours, barring a few little catnaps I almost don't want to go to bed - it's like I've crossed the International Dateline and gained an extra day

We all mis-type, make typos, but how can you possibly get the letters in an order so wrong that none of them are in the right place, like typing 'htye' instead of 'they'? Which I just did, a short while ago

Late onset dyslexia.

Oh btohre.

Oflia cours elalif sayoug loss scramit callble canat youthe lethen velbles sylla.




Of course, if you scramble at the level of syllables, then you can call it glossalalia.