The quest for the well-labeled inn

You must be English.

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This is why I always have my old samsung phone that features an IR port in my bag when travelling – occasionally you can actually get one of those tvs to do what you want…

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Hey, that was cool. Thanks!

Mixing valves in the shower and bath were commonplace in the USA for a generation before anyone bothered to put one on a sink. People wonder about this, so I asked some old people about it.

They said it’s because the way sinks were used in the 19th century was different from today. You plugged the sink, filled it with water to exactly the right temperature, then bathed your face and hands in it, then drained the fouled water. Everyone did it that way, so there was no need for mixing valves.

Single-valve showers are designed to protect you from scalding, these days. But they can fail in a way that causes your hot and cold to cross-feed, which is bad if you have an on-demand water heater. I prefer a three-valve shower bath, personally, and use my nifty human brain to prevent scalding.

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Ha ha ha. Good luck.

One of my employees is a locksport competitor. He can pick the locks that use those kinds of keys but he says it is actually non-trivial for most people.

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“Thy TV shall not default to fat-head mode.” I’m not asking them to even stop distributing standard def programming, just to stop making every body look like Stewie Griffin.

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Thou shalt not offer a minibar nor a tiny refrigerator such that, in the event you wish to cool thine own sandwiches or drinks, so much as jostling the preloaded snacks wilt cause the overly sensitive detector to charge thine credit card for the most expensive thing in the bar. Repeatedly.

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My brain interprets it as “linebacker mode.” It also cements the phenomena of everyone being just a bit overweight.

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I’m not talking about two separate faucets, just two tap handles to individually control hot and cold flows - exactly like the mixer tap you see at the start of that video.

I only dislike the one lever that is supposed to control both amount and temperature with motion through two axes. We have one in our shower at home, and it is a neverending pain in the butt - our hot water pressure isn’t great, so there’s a range of motion (just shy of all the way hot) of about two millimeters between too hot and too cold. With two separate proper multi-turn valves, that same range of comfortable temperatures would occupy at least a quarter turn of the hot tap.

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I went to a hotel with the insert card for coloumbs system. Luckily they gave me two cards so one to charge one to leave.

I’ve been mildly curious about how interactive keys work-- I noticed the ball bearing.

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If you have your own well, an on-demand water heater, or low water pressure, you want two separate taps feeding a common shower head. And if it’s a shower bath, why not a separate diverter valve for a total of three?

Unfortunately these days you have to pay around $1200 for a really high quality set. So I salvage old Speakman valve sets from the 1950s and earlier, that cost $50 new and are pretty much identical to the $1000+ sets made today, and replace the seats, washers and trim. Voila! Just like a $1600 set from Sign of the Crab, for under a hundred bucks.

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I don’t know about any RFID component but security keys with the pits on the side are common in Europe for more secure locks.

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I stayed at a large hotel in Las Vegas (Which shall remain nameless because I can’t remember which one it was.) that had a shower knob clearly labeled with H and C that had been plumbed backwards. What kind of plumber mixes up the hot and cold water feed?

Mul-T-Lock: Design and Security

interesting reading. And surprisingly, bumping the lock is mentioned.

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I know this one!

A drunk plumber.

Surprisingly common in the US today, and getting moreso.

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Have you found the british plugs are the best video.

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I use one of those clothes hangers that has two clamps to keep the curtains together. Works pretty well.

Good question. It was fascinating to see how quickly the green revolution spread in hotels, once they figured out they could save money raise ecologicalness by reusing towels. My sister once had a receptionist say “would you like to have the room cleaned everyday? It’s an extra charge.” I think she killed them right there, but I’m not sure.

The most weirdness for me was in a Japanese hotel I stayed quite a while back. There was a sign in the bathroom that showed a stick figure with a man peeing, to show that the seat should be up. Good to know. A sign by the TV stated that there was a “pornography” channel available.

Edit: I accidentally replied to a post. Whoops.

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A better question may be: What kind of person swaps the H and C caps on the shower knobs in a hotel?

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That’s the toilet sterility band. It got placed on the bed by mistake.

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I have now. :slight_smile: