"T i m" wrote in message
...
Interesting. I was watching a program on TV the other day that
suggested that some people can't 'visualise' something when given a
description by someone else.

While I can get *some* idea from a description, a diagram or artist's
impression photo/drawing would always be a better way of understanding. And
a 3D mockup that I could actually use would be an even better way of
checking for problems.

Take this example: My wife and I went to look round a show house for a
development of new houses. The kitchen sink was unusual in that it did not
face an outside window; instead it was on a low internal wall above which
there was an archway into the living room. Unusual, but nothing inherently
wrong. Except... the mixer tap head was able to swivel through 360 degrees
(without a restraining interlock to keep its jet within the bounds of the
sink and draining board). In fact if it was rotated through 180 degrees, it
directed its jet to the far side of the archway onto the living room carpet!
Now imagine what "fun" a five-year-old could have when mummy and daddy
weren't looking...

Someone hadn't thought that on through, had they?


Like if you were describing a kitchen
layout then actually supplied it ... they would only realise what it
was going to look like when it was finished? I (most of us?), given a
suitable description to the point where they might even question
something before work starts (like 'won't that then overlap the window
or foul the boiler' etc) or question when finished how it wasn't as
they thought they understood it would be.

But don't water and gas tapes turn in the opposite direction.

I'm not sure mate? Most gas taps I've come across are actually
stopcocks so 'on' could be a quarter turn clockwise which would indeed
be opposite a std water tap. goes and checks something. Yes, the
cold ceramic tap on our kitchen mixer is anticlockwise for on whereas
the hot is clockwise. ;-)

That's unusual. Normal (British) convention is anticlockwise to unscrew a
thread towards you so as to open the tap, and clockwise to screw it away
from you and close it. Are the taps a matching pair or could one have been
replaced by a newer one which happened to use the opposite convention?

That's assuming that they are on separate parallel axes - as if they were
two separate taps which happen to feed a common output. If they are opposite
each other on a common axis, on either side of the head, then I can see
sense in making them turn in opposite directions so you move the side-lobe
from the vertical off position through 1/4 turn to the on position, so both
lobes face towards you, whereas if they rotated in opposite senses the lobe
of would be towards you and the other would be away from you.


Then there's the convention for light switches: in the UK you press the
lower half of a rocker switch or move the lobe to the downward position to
turn a switch on, whereas in the US it's the opposite way round.