Why....

[Davey]

Agreed. And there is no mention of orange in the documentation, either. The 'Standby' colour seems to be whatever it was when it shut off.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Don't like to say it, but in the days of toggle switches (like a circuit breaker) down for off is safer. As it is more likely to get knocked down than up.

[Max Demian]

Sorry; I was referring to my HDR-Fox T2.

[Max Demian]

Is that a euphemism?

[Ray]

That's how A&E knew the model of the car you had crashed, from the pattern of the switches in your forehead.

[Ray]

But there is no gravity helping one side.

[ARW]

There is a book by Desmond Bagley called The Tightrope Men.

From memory of the book a British man awakes in a strange room and he knew he was not in Britain by the orientation of the light switches.

[Steve Walker]

Some (maybe all?) BC lampholders these days don't energise the pins until they are pushed down when you insert a lamp. Obviously you can push them with a finger, but they are dead with a normal, accidental touch.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

But the convention would have been set when people used toggle switches. I did hear, but it may be a myth, that the idea was that if stumbling when reaching for a lightswitch in the dark, you'd tend to pull it down and therefore on, so you'd have the light come on at least. The other way up, you'd be switching the light off, leaving you, possibly injured and disorientated, in the dark.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

But they used to have rockers. Even then, the conventions applied - a MK5 Ford Cortina and a MK5 Ford Taunus were pretty well indistinguishable without their badges, but the fog-light and hazard light switches operated the opposite way up.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

If it's like our (pretty well unused now) one (FVP-4000T), it actually goes slightly purple when it is on and recording at the same time. However, as the LED is on the bottom and it is stood on top of the (black) DVD player, you can't see what colour it is at all unless you walk over and crouch down enough :( We got fed up of the clunky, slow interface and having to reboot it regularly as it locked up. We also hated the even slower H3 that streamed from it in the kitchen, but locked up or jumped to the start of a programme every time you tried to pause or rewind and failed to see the main box without a reboot of both every few days.

These days we use Linux satellite boxes, running OpenVix, with the one one in the kitchen and the old one in the conservatory sharing the hard-disk of the one in the living room - rather like SKY-Q.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

If you build a kit-car, toggle switches aren't permitted (except in the safe area behind the wheel) unless they are guarded - typically by having U-bolts bolted hoop side out either side of the switch. The same idea was used in the BMW Mini at one time.

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

Because some things you only want turned on some of the time and flicking a switch is easier than pulling-out or plugging-in a plug. Not to mention that leaving the plug out is an invitation for someone to stand on it!

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

For many things, yes, but for light switches, down for on means that you are slightly less likely to accidentally know it off accidentally or even while stumbling and ending up in a (possibly injured) heap on the floor AND in the dark!

SteveW

[Steve Walker]

One of my favourite books.

SteveW

[Chris J Dixon]

I still have trouble remembering which graphic represents front fogs, and which the rear ones.

Chris

[Steve Walker]

Yes. I've got to grips with demisting the front or rear screens though.

SteveW

[RayL12]

Love it.

...Ray.

[Jethro_uk]

There's (are probably a few) a video on Youtube about things USians find disproportionately different in the UK (things we take for granted). They find plastic money "awesome", but our plugs are a work of genius. No matter how they land, they're primed for pain :)

Incidentally, they also note that most UK plugs have switches - unlike US ones - and to make sure it's DOWN before ringing reception and complaining :)

Caltrop ....

[Jethro_uk]

Not a bad - if slightly formulaic - writer. The BBC did a cracking adaptation of "Running Blind" in the late 70s. Made me want to visit Iceland ever since (and I did, but Keflavik air base is long gone :( )