Thread

So you think you could be an electrician?

456 points · 414 comments · zdw

dhosek · 1791081547 · focus · HN ↗
A few years back, we hired an electrician to do some relatively small things for us—things I could do like replacing light switches with timer switches and the like, but didn’t have time to do. The thing that really blew me away was when I asked him if he wanted me to shut off the power at the breaker box and he said no and did all the work with live current in the wires. Yes, I know, gloves, rubber soled shoes, he was fine, but it still was somewhat terrifying to watch.
1. koolba · 1791082864 · focus · HN ↗
  > Yes, I know, gloves, rubber soled shoes, he was fine, but it still was somewhat terrifying to watch.
  What gloves? For 110V? Bah!
  Unless you’re a complete idiot and try to cut both wires at once with a conductive cutter, nothing happens when you snip them one by one.
  And selection bias means we don’t see those guys around for long.
  1. mecsred · 1791085784 · focus · HN ↗
    1. you can definitely get electrocuted snipping a single wire with insulated ppe, just brushing up against a wall can form a circuit.
    2. You are thinking of survivorship bias, selection bias is a different thing.
    kazinator · 1791181293 · focus · HN ↗
    Survivorship bias is a kind or instance of selection bias. Only the survivors are selected for sampling, leading to a wrong conclusion about the population, which includes non-survivors.

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