T&T: 12 volt interior lights

[W. J. McWilliams]

Many thanks to Keith for those net refs on lighting. Lots of good lighting
info contained in that digest. When, if ever, should we expect to see
dimmable (?) LED lighting?

I was checking out http://www.sailorssolutions.com/ and got curious about a
link labeled "Trivia". Would it be "lighting" trivia or trivia trivia? Well,
it was the latter, and here for your amusement is one that I thought
particularly good:

snip/ Brass Monkey - In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many
freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon
balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon, but prevent
them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a
square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine
which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be
stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one
problem - how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under
the others? The solution was a metal plate called a, "Monkey," with sixteen
round indentations. If this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would
quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make, "Brass
Monkeys."

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than
iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the
brass indentations would shrink so much that the cannon balls would roll
right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze
the balls off a brass monkey!"/end snip

Perhaps readers of Patrick O'Brian would know about things like that, but it
was an interesting new one on me.

Bill McWilliams
Potluck
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