Shocking Rationalizations

Does a situation like a radio in the bathtub causing electrocution occur infrequently enough that people need to think about it and rationalize it to evaulate exactly what level of danger it represents? Does it really happen infrequently enough that it hovers on the divide between myth and reality?

Perhaps the commonest incidents involving water and electric power are those involving a AC radio or hair-dryer that falls in an occupied bathtub.  Occupant is in bathtub, where he is firmly connected to the neutral wire of the power line through the ground provided by the plumbing.

http://mmd.foxtail.com/Archives/Digests/200205/2002.05.30.08.html

illustration: http://www.nvrec.com/ground.htm

It’s Time: Genesis

When did the radio in the bathtub term originate? Since we know bathtubs have been around for a very long time, we can narrow down a start point by looking at when tabletop radios came into existence.

So first, a little radio history. These days we accept instant communication without wires as a given, but radio communication has been with us only a little more than 100 years, and significant amounts of broadcast radio maybe around 80 years.

The earliest radio experiments were performed by Hertz in 1887, with Marconi demonstrating transatlantic communication in 1901. But vacuum tube diodes and triodes for radio detection and amplification, key components to better radios, weren't available until 1904 and 1906.

Broadcast radio started on an experimental basis in San Jose California in 1909, but it wasn't until the late 1920's and early 1930's before listening to broadcast radio became a common pastime.

The earliest broadcast radios receivers were floorstanding consoles, and table top radios appeared in the the early 1920's. The roaring twenties and depression era thirties saw the rise of broadcast radio and radio became a daily part of life.

So very possibly somewhere in the late 1920's, for the very first time, the radio met the bathtub.

Swimming with the Shocks

The Red Cross has a pamplet about mixing electricity and swimming pools.

OK, so that's a big bathtub…

Where would I find electricity around pools, hot tubs, and spas?

• underwater lights
• electric pool equipment – pumps, filters, vacuum, etc.
• extension and power cords
• electrical outlets or switches
• radios, stereos, TVs and other electrical products
• overhead power lines

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/519.pdf

It’s the Bather, Not the Bathtub that Should Be Outlawed

Radios in the bathtubs are even the subject of debate in the august halls of legislative branches of governments. Witness this oratory from the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia… 

It's the criminal, not the guns that should be outlawed
I have a constituent from Burns Lake, and I'd like to read just a part of the letter he sent to the government of Canada. He says:

           "I have decided that I would like to register everything in my possession that could kill someone. It would take a good portion of the six months to compile a list to register. Included in my list of registrable weapons [ Page 7337 ] of a potentially lethal nature are my hands; my teeth; my dog; although they are tiny, all kitchen utensils that are pointed; scissors; hunting knives; pocket knives; all wood and metal objects with a weight in excess of two pounds.
           "I never thought about it before, but if someone dropped my electric radio in the bathtub while I was in it, it could become a lethal weapon and should therefore be registered. Electricity itself is dangerous, giving rise to the question of universal registration of kilowatts, extension cords."

The list goes on. It's a great letter.  [1115] In support of my motion, what we have to do, as government, is target individuals — individuals, not objects. So I encourage all members of this chamber to support my motion, to ask the federal government to scrap the gun registry and put that money back into policing and the court system to deal with what I consider to be a more than adequate existing policy.

http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/hansard/37th4th/h31020a.htm

Shock and Awe Art

Art can be viewed as a tool we use to stimulate our emotions, to give us new ideas and perspectives, or simply to remind us of things we thought we had forgotten.

It’s hard to explain, but I’m creating a photomanipulation and I’m going to use Flash to create an electrocution effect. Only thing is that there aren’t any real videos demonstrating the effects of throwing a radio into a bathtub to use as a reference to create the effect in flash. Like would the lights flicker, would the socket explode out of the wall, would the lightbulb in the bathroom burst? things like that which I would like to know to make this manip better and more real, instead of just having just a strobe effect.

http://forum.deviantart.com/galleries/flash/559494/

illustration: http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/images/skull-crossbones-pirate-fla.jpg

First Radios, then Hairdryers, What’s Next?

Things evolve. First we had problems with radios somehow falling into bathtubs. Then hairdryers also got into the picture. What'll it be next? There does seem to be an evolution to things, especially in the relationship of mankind to his environment.

While it has always seemed like inanimate objects sometimes had a life of their own, maybe now they really do.

Roomba may be excellent at vacuuming up after me, but I think mine developed some sort of conciousness because I noticed more and more that it wasn't vacuuming but using it's little sensors to memorize my daily patterns. I'd notice it just looking at me from the doorway and I started calling in to ask questions. Roomba didn't like this and disapeared for a few days. That's when weird stuff started happening. I noticed objects in the path of my daily routine, found little piles of dead bugs just left around the house like a warning, and I'd wake up to weird pounding sounds.

When roomba finally returned it was different. The little green activation light was red. I thought it needed to be plugged in. I noticed more and more that roomba would continually run into the table if I left sharp objects out. Seeming to try for hours to get it to fall onto the floor. I thought it was all very funny until one night, I was in the bath tub, listening to the radio. I heard a tapping sound, and looked over to see roomba trying to knock the radio into the tub. At that point I was worried, so I took out the batteries. The next morning Roomba and it's AC adapter were gone.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AQU5MTNJS867K/002-2823588-5701626?_encoding=UTF8

Penalty

In this true case, a radio in the bathtub is only one of the many abuses heaped upon a battered wife. But unlike the Texas incident, the penalty for her husband’s abuses were significantly higher than probation.

In Koss, the defendant was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the shooting death of her husband. Id. at 972. Testimony at trial revealed that he had beaten her on numerous occasions over the course of their marriage. Id. at 971. On one occasion, he tried to smother her. Id. On another, he threw a radio in the bathtub while she was bathing.

text: http://www3.uakron.edu/lawrev/shoaf2.html

illustration: www.mediabistro.com

Risky Business

A few years ago at a personal computer hardware review site a video clip of a particular computer CPU chip overheating and burning up was featured … a literal demonstration of the bad outcome of what's known in the trade as a "smoke test". The issue could occur if the electronic circuitry deployed around the computer chip did not detect a particular condition. The point of the graphic video demonstration was to emphasize the reviewers' opinion that, given the dire outcome, such circuitry ought to have been implemented as part of the original chip design.

But what level of risk should be considered acceptable in the products we use, and how far should one go in reviews? When does it stop being someone's advice and start being someone's agenda?

To the point of our radio in the bathtub thread: the phrase is regarded as an example of uncommonly unwise and unnecessarily risky behavior. In the review of the review below, the phrase is used as one example of over-the-top extremism, which it equates to the video journalism style of the original review.

Where do you draw the line between fairly pointing out a product's (or, if you're a vendor, a rival's) shortcomings and high-tech character assassination? In this week's EarthWeb Hardware & Systems exclusive, our columnist says he's the first to praise Intel's microPGA 478 heatsink/fan design, but notes that not even Consumer Reports takes its tests to the point of "smoking at gas stations, taking a radio into the bathtub, or sticking a fork in the toaster."

http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/opinions/3873/1/
http://www.earthwebhardware.com/chips/article.php/913261

Side Trip: Baplocution

As long as we’re taking a little side trip from the strict radio in the bathtub scenario, but still keeping with the theme of water and electricity, this item may be of some interest.

Tragedy befell the Waco religious community this fall with the death of a young preacher at a new-age Baptist Church. 33-year-old Kyle Lake stepped chest-high into a tub of water one October Sunday to baptize a new member of the flock. He then grabbed a microphone to share the moment with the members of University Baptist Church. It was a fatal mistake. Electric current flowed from the power grid, into the church building, through a cord and into Mr. Lake’s water-submerged body.

source: http://www.mikethemagazine.com/jan06/Columns/stuck1.shtml

illustration: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/opadhome/minown98/microphone.gif

The Hairdryer, the New Radio

At some point since they became common in households in the 1960's, and as radios have become transistorized and battery powered, hairdyers have replaced radios as the more likely deadly appliance to be found near the bathtub, with the same tragic results.

 

A 14 year old female was electrocuted when an electric hair dryer fell into the bathtub in which she was bathing. The accident occurred at the home of the victim

Columbus, Ohio
April 5, 1995

Is the creation of a law to mandate GFIs on hairdryers testimony that the number of hairdryer electrocution deaths exceeds the number of radio electrocution deaths? Or is it simply that hairdryers are more likely than radios to be found near water and too many radio buyers would complain if forced to pay for safety features they don't need? Or is it simply a matter of which squeaky wheels are loudest? Couldn't we make GFIs so cheap that they can be on all electrical devices?

In any case, if your hairdryer doesn't have a fat plug with a GFI in it, watch out!

http://www.productsafety.com/truestories/true_stories12.html