two questions after returning from a trip

[da]

1) Why do airplanes need a separate kind of headphone plug? If they didn't, people would be more inclined to use their own headphones, and the airline wouldn't have to hand out disposable headphones on the flight. (They are disposable; if you give them back, they go straight into the trash). This bugs me. Why does it make sense to them? Economically: say 300 pair x $0.50 cost to the airline = $150 could be saved on each long-haul flight. How much would it cost to retrofit the planes for regular 3.5mm stereo headphone jacks? Say a highball $100 a seat- it would pay for itself in 200 flights. I remember when the airlines used to sell the headphones, but now they just give them away. I'm sure it's not an image thing; it sure isn't glamorous to rip into a packet of headphone.

2) Why do washing machines have a separate dial for clothing colour when they already have a setting for temperature? If I set "hot/cold" and "colours" does it modulate the hot temperature downward? I don't tend to think it does, since the water feels just the same whether it's on "whites" or "colours."

To tie these two questions together, if I'm going to accidentally send a piece of electronics through the wash, I'm really happy it was my headphone airplane adapter.

Comments

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

1) Used to be so they could charge for the earphones, and yes, I remember the ones that had the "stethoscope"-like tubes too.

2) Not all washers do that, I believe that Maytag and possibly Whirlpool tried that in US. Some things are not as apparent as the water temperature and, if I remember right, the *real* difference was that "whites" was actually a cottons cycle and "colors" was a permanent-press cycle. If that's the case, there may or may not be a cool-down phase before rinse begins (all real permanent-press cycle should have that at least if one is washing in hot water) and the spin speed will be slower (which is great so it won't set creases in permanent-press clothing), which is a bad choice energy-efficiency-wise if one really does have stuff that holds water, like cotton, in the load. I can't really explain *why* they thought that the change would be better for the consumer, maybe they thought most consumers had synthetic-fiber clothing that was colored and all cotton would be white, which even then doesn't correlate. Anyway, usually cottons has a long wash with high speed agitation and high speed spin, no cool-down; permanent-press a medium wash with high speed agitation and low speed spins with a cool-down phase; a delicate cycle would have a short wash at low speed (or, and inexpensive machines without 2- or 3-speed motor, a wash cycle that is composed of agitate/soak periods), a cool-down phase and low-speed spins; if you have a wool cycle, it's usually a brief wash at low speed, *no* cool-down phase and medium- or high-speed spins (wool felts if you agitate it too much or if it suffers a thermal shock, which is the reason it's usually washed in cold water, but if the cycle can guarantee warm wash and rinses, it can go on that too, which explains the "warm/warm" settings too).

Hm... it's a bummer when one is about 12 days behind on LJ. But at least the answer to (2) is the rumors I got from the appliance-related websites a few years ago.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks. :)