On 03/02/2016 16:56, NY wrote:

"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.

That's why designers often do 3D isometric views of their plans, because
many people can't look at 2D elevation drawings and visualise what
something will look like.

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 onwhereas
the hot is clockwise. ;-)

LPG screw fittings tend to do up anticlockwise. Its a deliberate
incompatibility thing, you can mix up gas and some other piped service
so easily.

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have been replaced by a newer one which happened to use the opposite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.

Its common with the mixer taps where the rotation of the handles is on
the horizontal axis perpendicular to the user. So with long levers for
controls they would both be "up" for off, and you would pull them down
toward you for on. So yes, the left hand one is working backwards, but
it feels more intuitive so long as you don't think about the actual
direction of rotation.

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.

Loads of places seem to use up for on. In fact in the UK we would use
terminology like the system is back up again, or the computer went down,
reflecting the US style switching convention.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/