All views are those of my employer. Ecclesiastes 8:15
Joined May 2023
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792 Photos and videos
TB retweeted
Jun 16
Your phone charger can electrocute a toddler who pokes a fork into the socket. The British plug cannot. That difference comes from a 1947 engineering project that refused every shortcut and turned a household plug into one of the most deliberately safe objects ever mass-produced.
Britain published BS 1363 in 1947, built for the post-war housing boom. The country was wiring millions of new homes at once and needed one standard that would work safely for everyone. They picked the most paranoid option available.
The earth pin (the large top prong) is longer than the other two. When you push a British plug in, the earth pin goes in first. Inside the socket, it presses a lever that opens two metal shutters covering the live and neutral slots. A fork pushed into an empty British socket hits only shutters. The shutters block it.
The two conducting pins are also coated in plastic for their lower half. A plug halfway out of the wall is still safe to touch. You would have to pull it completely clear before any live metal is exposed.
Inside every plug is its own fuse. UK homes wire their sockets in a loop called a ring circuit, which runs at 32 amps, enough to melt a lamp's cord if the cord fails. So each plug carries a fuse matched to the appliance: 3 amps for a lamp, 13 for a kettle. When something goes wrong in your appliance's wiring, only that plug's fuse blows.
The standard US plug (flat two-pin or three-pin) has none of the pin coating and no individual fuse. American building codes began requiring shuttered outlets in new construction in 2008, decades after Britain made shutters standard. Even those newer shuttered versions lack pin coating and plug-level fuses.
Britain's plug is bulky because a fuse, a shutter mechanism, insulated pins, and three contact prongs all need room. The plug looks the way it does because safety engineers refused to sacrifice any of those features to make it smaller, and that decision is now 79 years old.
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TB retweeted
Jun 16
Football was more fun when scoring two goals at a World Cup would have got Elijah Just a move to a mid-table Italian club. Now there's some algorithm jockey on a laptop somewhere looking at his final third regains for Motherwell spoiling it for everyone.
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TB retweeted
Jun 15
keep this up and Saudi Arabia will beheading for the round of 32
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TB retweeted
What a normal heartbeat really looks like. Calm down.
Jun 15
Here's what ~1.3C warming over 170 years during an interglacial really looks like. Calm down.
Community note
The chart distorts the ~1.1°C warming since 1880 by using an exaggerated y-axis range (-29°C to 49°C) that obscures the trend visible on appropriate scales. Standard NASA graphs use anomalies relative to 1951-1980 on scales highlighting recent changes. data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs… blog.ucs.org/michael-halper…
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Replacing the rainbow with something even gayer.. the French
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TB retweeted
Who's cutting onions man, our deported cousins making us so proud 🥹
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TB retweeted
Jun 15
I was just arrested for trying to make The Office today
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TB retweeted
Jun 15
I was so against the World Cup being extended to 48 teams but then you see Curacao score against Germany and then Cape Verde and Scotland both picking up points in the group stages and you half change your mind on it
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Jun 14
Every man I've dated wants to do the same thing to me in bed. It's revolting... but they're obsessed with it: DEAR JANE trib.al/WXjIpPv
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TB retweeted
Jun 15
“What’s my approval rating?”
- It’s bad Mr Prime Minister. It’s -43. It’s…it’s in the mud.
“Could it get lower?”
- I mean anything COULD happen but realistically-
“Kill the ponies.”
- Wha-
“The ponies. The cute little ponies. Kill them.”
- Sir, they’re endangered
“Fuck ‘em. Make the call.”
Jun 15
Exclusive from @oliver_wright
Dartmoor ponies could be subject to mass culling to reduce the impact on biodiversity after a controversial ruling by the government’s environmental quango
Natural England has demanded that all livestock grazing on the moor is reduced by about 75 per cent to protect other habitats, plants and species
The move looks set to result in the culling of up to nine in ten of the semi-wild ponies as farmers prioritise their own cattle and sheep to remain within Natural England’s limit to minimise the impact on their own livelihoods
Natural England argued that the move was necessary to protect the diversity of Dartmoor, which is a designated site of special scientific interest
However, the plan goes against a government commissioned review into the future of Dartmoor, published two years ago, which concluded that Natural England “should not take actions likely to result in a reduction in pony numbers”, adding they were “invaluable for conservation grazing”
The move has led to claims that the quango is acting as judge, jury and executioner of the ponies — a species which is itself seen as endangered
Dartmoor ponies could be put to death under biodiversity plans
thetimes.com/article/ba529f3…
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TB retweeted
Jun 15
Keir Starmer and I disagree on many things, but good people across the political spectrum will welcome today’s verdicts, condemn these appalling attacks which seem to have been sponsored by Russia, and wish the PM and his family well.
Whatever our political differences, no one should face intimidation, threats or attacks because they hold public office.
Democracy is settled at the ballot box, not through fear or violence and definitely not through foreign interference from hostile countries.
Jun 15
Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals bbc.in/4uv12VT
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Jun 15
Cape Verde news papers tomorrow
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Sad news for parents this, the Internet basically raised my kids. Especially after 6pm
BREAKING: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced a social media ban for under-16s.
Live updates: trib.al/AaXv2Tr
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TB retweeted
Jun 15
Pico Lopes, who was born in Ireland, received a Linkedin message in Portuguese asking if he wanted to play for Cape Verde.
Not understanding it, he ignored the message for nine months until he was sent the message again in English.
Now he’s kept a clean sheet vs Spain 👏
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TB retweeted
Expanding this World Cup to 48 teams was a mistake, now we got teams like Spain actively diluting this tournament for the worst
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Horrified to learn that Americans think cheesecake is cake with cheese😭
Jun 15
horrified to learn that Brits think caramelized onions are onions with caramel on them 😭
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Jun 15
What if a child is having dinner with their parent who is single mum and who has returned home from a long shift. Whilst enjoying their dinner the parent suddenly chokes. The child panics. They grab their iPhone 16 and open TikTok for assistance. But it’s blocked. What then?
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