[MP-Ryan]

So, my wife, kid, and I have been staying with her aunt/uncle in Newcastle for the last week and a half, venturing afield to take in some sights as this is my first time in the UK.  I've made a few observations that I felt worth sharing.

1.  I love what passes for local women's fashion - tights/leggings/stockings with a skirt, long shirt, or (on the brave girls) short shirt is an absolute gift to the eyes, particulalry as most Canadian women wear jeans or shorts.  Honestly, you British men have no idea how good you have it.  I told my (origininally British) wife that I'm going to serve her with a petition to dress like a British girl.

2.  Trains are a superior mode of transportation.  Why North America can't figure this out is beyond me.

3.  I now understand why England is not renowned for any non-deep fried foods.  While we've had some good food at some of the pubs, by and large it is more expensive, has smaller portions, and is generally much blander than other countries.  Sorry my Brit friends, but the only thing I'll concede is better eating out than making your own here is perhaps the fish and chips.

4.  Cobbled streets are so cool.  Cobbled streets flanked by buildings 400 years old or older are downright awesome.  We ate in a pub in York (which was decent) that was 600 years old, across from the second largest cathedral in the world which is 1003 years old.  I'm a history buff and that just made me giddy.

5.  The plumbing and electrical, even in new buildings, feel and act like they are also 400 years old.  This 220-240 V **** is just ridiculous.  And maybe London manages decent water pressure, but nowherev between York and Edinburgh can.

6.  Given the chance, I suspect Marks&Spencer and Tesco would take over the world.  They both appear to be successfully running the UK.  I think Parliament is just a front...

7.  Edinburgh was fantastic, and the accent was perfectly understandable.  Glaswegians are incomprehensible.  Geordies don't actually appear to speak English.  Though I find it both peculiar and strangely practical that you can tell a person's social status from not only how they say something, as in most countries, but also the accent they have.

8.  Brits are an odd mixture of aloof and friendly.  I know Canadians have a reputation for being overly polite, but Brits seem to be comfortable with conversation with just about anyone... And people seem to have no barriers to approaching other people's babies (our son is 10 months).  On the other hand, there appears to be no leaving a gap for the poor sod with the baby stroller to get off the bus or train...

9.  Brits cannot distinguish Canadians from Americans unless you tell them.  Not a fault, just something I'm being very cognizant of.

10.  It's very wet.  The wife's family says all this rain is unusual but I'm not sure I believe them.

11.  Have I mentioned the way the women dress here...

Seriously though, you have a beautiful island here, folks, it's been a great trip.   

[Luis Dias]

Ah come on the 220V thing is pretty much european standard. You americans are the ones with ridiculous plugs.

[Ghostavo]

[Phantom Hoover]

The funny thing is, UK plugs are actually a lot more advanced than US ones. They all have to have a structural ground prong, the plug has an integral fuse, the line and neutral prongs have plastic sheaths so only the tip is actually conductive,  there are shutters in the socket so the ground prong has to be in place before any current-carrying parts are exposed, the line wire is designed to carry the tension so it disconnects first if the cord is yanked... I was mildly disturbed at the two bits of metal sticking out of a lump of plastic when I visited the US recently.

[SpardaSon21]

I was preparing to post something about the entire UK being babies if they need their plugs to be that safe but then I remembered you guys run at over double our voltage so perhaps a little caution is necessary.

[Pred the Penguin]

Old old old streets and buildings are common in the rest of Europe, too.

[Luis Dias]

YOU DONT SAY

[Mongoose]

I was preparing to post something about the entire UK being babies if they need their plugs to be that safe but then I remembered you guys run at over double our voltage so perhaps a little caution is necessary.

Meh, it's not the volts you need to watch, it's the amps.

[Pred the Penguin]

YOU DONT SAY

I just felt like stating the obvious.

[haloboy100]

I love britain. So, so much.

Those girls...oh man. I'm so ****ing tired of skinny jeans and cameltoe short-shorts.

[Klaustrophobia]

i live at the beach.  i win at the women's clothing game.

then again, i work in a shipyard with the navy, so i loose at the same time.

[Nuke]

Ah come on the 220V thing is pretty much european standard. You americans are the ones with ridiculous plugs.

**** the plugs* whats with that 50 hz bull****?

*not to be taken literally, i cannot be held responsible for your sexual shenanigans with wall outlets.

I was preparing to post something about the entire UK being babies if they need their plugs to be that safe but then I remembered you guys run at over double our voltage so perhaps a little caution is necessary.

double the voltage means half the current at a given wattage.

I was preparing to post something about the entire UK being babies if they need their plugs to be that safe but then I remembered you guys run at over double our voltage so perhaps a little caution is necessary.

Meh, it's not the volts you need to watch, it's the amps.

WRONG
also heres what you can do with 2.3 volts

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I know, Ohm's Law kind of disproves that statement when you're dealing with a legitimate power supply.  It was interesting to see the actual values for the human body being used in those calculations, though.  It's been a few years since I've had to work on capacitor problems, and for some bizarre reason I never really got decent coverage of basic circuits in any of my classes.

[Nuke]

thats why i like digital circuits, its either ground or whatever your power rail is, and sometimes voltages in between. when it comes to ac anything, or building switch mode supplies, i usually get stumped or get values way off from where they should theoretically be. so i mostly just buy those circuits in modules with few pins so they are easy to configure.

old skool electronics is still interesting. back in the old days before cheap and accurate crystal oscillators, we used to just take the mains frequency and clock multiply/divide it up/down to whatever we needed. old tvs and radios used this technique to provide internal reference signals needed to get the timing right. both ntcs and pal tv signals, both used this technique (a divide by two) for their vertical sync, which is why we have 25 and 30 hz framerates, and also why we have the two different video formats in the first place (which have all been replaced more or less).

[SpardaSon21]

Well then, thanks for correcting my misinformation, guys.

You in the UK are a bunch of pussies for being so scared of 220 volts.

[deathfun]

Ah come on the 220V thing is pretty much european standard. You americans are the ones with ridiculous plugs.

9.  Brits cannot distinguish Canadians from Americans unless you tell them.  Not a fault, just something I'm being very cognizant of.

*Cough*

[Scotty]

I was half a second away from pointing out the same, but then I remembered Canada is on the same North American continent that the United States is.

[Phantom Hoover]

The accents are pretty similar though, although I could probably distinguish them given enough time or if they said 'how now brown cow'

[Wobble73]

The accents are pretty similar though, although I could probably distinguish them given enough time or if they said 'how now brown cow'

I thought you could tell the difference if they said aboot instead of about? 

Back on topic, I'm glad you're enjoying these green isles of ours MP-Ryan. You should try and come over to Liverpool there are some good tourist sites here you know, and yes although we do have very wet weather, this current weather we have been having has been unusually wet (although things seem to be drying up a little bit).

[Davros]

about the u.k's power supply
go read a U.S computer magazine in it you will find many adverts for Un-interruptible Power Supplies
in a U.K magazine you will see none

why ? our supply just works all the time....