Comments on: USB Wire Color Code: Nobody Will Ever Notice

By: Kill A Watt: IEC Adapters « The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Kill A Watt: IEC Adapters « The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:21:50 +0000

[...] IEC color code hint: brown = hot, blue = neutral (unless they cheat). [...]

By: Wouxun HT GPS+Voice Interface: Circuitry! « The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:18:22 +0000

[...] holes that press against the radio’s battery terminals. The cable in the lower right is the mis-color-coded USB cable that carries audio to & from the earbud & mic on the helmet. Not all the pads have [...]

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:12:48 +0000

the widest point of the foot for width measurement?

I vaguely recall that the shoe size you need depends on both the heel-to-toe length and the heel-to-ball distance. Something about putting the shoe's maximum width at the right location; if your toes are more forward than usual, you need a longer shoe. *searches with obvious keywords* Ah-ha! The Brannock Device instructions are online...

By: frenzie

frenzie — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 19:31:57 +0000

I really don’t recall; it’s been more than a decade and it was an infrequent activity to boot. I’m sure there were ways to measure all of that stuff, but it didn’t look like a massive chunk of metal; that’s all. In my mind it’s like what I linked to but with some kind of width measurer as well, but I couldn’t find a picture of something like that. Of course I don’t know if there’s a particular name other than “footmeter” for such a device.

Btw, what’s there to measure about where a toe attaches to the foot? Do you mean as the widest point of the foot for width measurement?

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 17:19:45 +0000

much simpler than that Brannock device

Ah, but that one doesn’t measure width or the ball of the big toe: obviously inferior technology! [grin]

I loved to play with Brannock Devices (without knowing the name!) when the family went shoe shopping, back in the day when you went to an actual shoe store where the Nice Man measured your feet and fetched appropriate boxes from the back room. I suppose there must still be stores like that around, but now that I just buy the same shoes all the time, I’ll never know.

What all this tells me is that standards really are important and everybody should have one!

By: frenzie

frenzie — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 12:17:27 +0000

I misunderstood. In that case I'm used to simple sliding scales that look much simpler than that Brannock device. The only real reason I see for a specialized foot measuring device is that we don't simply use centimeters or millimeters (or inches in the US, I suppose). My tape measurer tells me that my feet are both about 26cm or 10.5 inches in a matter of seconds. Add the 1cm to 2cm of toe wiggle room and you end up with my regular shoe size of 43-44 (aka size 10-10.5 US, but don't ask me about the difference between "regular" and "athletic"). Also note that I have no idea how much toe wiggle room is really required, since the most important factor is always the width available to my pinky toe. Having looked into this more than ever before, it seems all the more ridiculous that we're using these stupid French inches instead of Mondopoint or the Japanese system (there doesn't really seem to be much a difference between the two, except that mm is more of an engineering unit and cm something regular people use in daily life).

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 11:11:08 +0000

That rod would measure the length of the inside of an existing shoe, rather than the length & width of the outside of your foot, but I suppose there’s value in knowing “What size shoe am I wearing?” without converting from one bizarre system to another.

Yick!