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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

Trip on the cable, and the lamp falls off the table? Better? "Sparks"? Are you kidding?

Lamps seem very prevalent in the US. Why do most apartments I've been in not have ceiling lights? WTF? When I lived in the US I'd go in a room and spend a while finding 4 lamps and turning them on. Same in hotels.

Also, when you decide to put a lamp somewhere, you typically make sure the cable is not somewhere that can be tripped up.

But as I say, all rooms in the UK come with a fitted ceiling light, and a light switch by the door. So lamps are less common.

Even though I currently live in a U.S. apartment where the main rooms have no light fixtures (though they do have switched outlets), past experience hasn't shown a trend of not having light fixtures. Additionally, newer construction seems to have more fixtures, not less. This thread seems to be a circus of alternately overstating and understating problems though, so I'd take it with a huge grain of salt.

Way to miss the point.

Ok, the alarm clock. or the hair dryer (into the bathtub! Yay!) or the wireless access point...

So you're saying that if you trip over the cord while your hair dryer is plugged into an American socket, it doesn't fall off of whatever ledge it's on? Do you use an industrial hair dryer or something?

Gravity works differently in the US.

Sockets do not exist in bathrooms. If they do, they're special 'shaver' sockets purely for electric razors.

Hairdryers are usually used in bedrooms.

The last time I tripped over a cable was..... years ago. I can't even remember doing it. It's not an issue we have.

> Sockets do not exist in bathrooms.

Yes, they do. (The UK, or even Europe, is not the whole world.)

> Hairdryers are usually used in bedrooms.

Hairdryers are used in bathrooms if there's a plug in the bathroom.

Yes, I have been talking about the UK for this thread. Perhaps I should have been clearer.

Sockets do not exist in bathrooms in the UK.

Just FYI, the US NEC requires each entryway of a room in a dwelling to have a switch which can control a light.

It is usually, but does not have to be, an overhead light.

An alternative that is also code-conforming is to have the switch control a socket (typically, the bottom plug in several duplex receptacles in the room) where a lamp is plugged in. Sometimes people don't actually plug a lamp in there, so the switch does nothing, and maybe that's what you've been irritated by.

If the wiring is done this way -- e.g., bedrooms and living rooms -- it can be quite flexible if you want to rearrange the room layout. You move the furniture and plug the lamp into the bottom receptacle where-ever it is convenient and sensible.

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