America - The Official Thread
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- Bratvegas
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A trick I remember hearing was to donate your old trees to zoos. Many animals like eating them.
In Germanic cultures it was traditionally common to keep the tree up until the spring equinox in March, then the community has a bonfire festival with everyone burning their trees.
In Germanic cultures it was traditionally common to keep the tree up until the spring equinox in March, then the community has a bonfire festival with everyone burning their trees.
- 1,019
- Madison, WI
- FerrariF1GT
- FerrariFan24
I would guess that the circumstances (COVID etc.) have caused people to be more interested in getting a tree than usual. They might want something to cheer them/their family/other people up and have a sense of ‘normal’
Also, growing the trees could have been disrupted by COVID/lockdown and that there are fewer trees than usual this year but with similar demand as it was in the past.
Also, growing the trees could have been disrupted by COVID/lockdown and that there are fewer trees than usual this year but with similar demand as it was in the past.
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Danoff
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The smell is even stronger when it burns your house down. You mean I can destroy a beautiful tree, and do a bunch of extra work, and make a mess, and spend more money, and risk dying in a house fire? Sign me up!
Let's see... I have a dying tree which is shedding insanely flammable pine needles all over my house, sure, but I think it needs some electricity and heat!
Hang on, they're doing something unusual to give them a sense of "normal"? How does it cheer anyone up to have a real tree dying in your livingroom?
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- 31,544
- Buckwheat City
- Dennisch
Aren't we Mister Positive. The tree has a pot, so it keeps sucking up moisture, it hardly sheds needles, it's no more work to decorate a real tree compared to a fake one, and our electrical stuff, like the led lights in the tree have a quality check label. And the lights go out when we leave the house or go to bed.
And besides that, how many of your electricity sucking devices go on standy every night and day? 15 watts of leds won't raise the risk one bit.
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- 11,788
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I'm 55 years old now and I've never had a real tree. We had the same artificial tree from my earliest memories probably up until around 1990 or so. But the only time I've had a tree in my own household was 2004 to 2006 when the kids of the woman I was seeing at the time wanted one. So I bought another artificial tree for them. I've never had any kind of Christmas decorations since then.
Keef
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My Christmas tree is one of those classic ceramic ones with the translucent plugs on it and a light bulb inside. It's green with white snow details on it. I'm pretty sure it's older than me, and it's one of few things that I still feature from the house I grew up in. That alone is more important to me than a "tree" which just takes up space.
Danoff
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Watching Trump weaponize the power of the pardon is a bit unnerving, but it drives home a slightly different point. The President has a lot of power, and can do a lot of damage. Hamstringing the president is a knee-jerk reaction, because it seems like the only way to be safe - but the President does occasionally need power to lead the country, especially in emergencies. So what really needs to happen is that we need to not elect bad presidents.
Keef
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Partly because Congress simply isn't aggressive enough. They've got a long history of refusing to challenge the executive branch, using various methods they could at any moment, and in some cases actually legislating their power to the executive. I can't think of any specific examples but I know both parties are guilty of it.
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- ryzno
Only in bathrooms, kitchens and outdoor sockets.Good thing mankind invented & mandated by unholy decree GFCI
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Danoff
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Good thing mankind invented & mandated by unholy decree GFCI
GFCI and AFCI won't save you from a christmas tree going up.
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What on earth are you decorating your tree with?
https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Educati... U.S. fire,in direct property damage annually.
Danoff
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What on earth are you decorating your tree with?
https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/Seasonal-fire-causes/Winter-holidays/Holiday-fires-by-the-numbers#:~:text=Between 2013-2017, U.S. fire,in direct property damage annually.
A GFCI or AFCI detects a short. Tree fires are caused by other things (probably in addition to shorts) such as hot light bulbs (not necessarily LED), space heaters, and candles. If the wiring for lighting had a short, it's possible that an AFCI would stop it, but probably not before it sparked - which could still light the tree up. An arc fault which occurs inside your drywall or in an electrical box is not surrounded by tinder. The arc triggers the the shutoff, and one arc won't heat up your drywall, studs, or wiring insulation enough to catch fire. But one arc across a dry pine needle is a different story.
Sure, if you had tree lighting which had an exposed wire, you'd rather that the AFCI stopped the arcing than that it didn't stop the arcing - but then again my house, which wasn't built very long ago, doesn't have AFCIs.
If I had to guess, I'd guess that christmas tree fires were more common when smoking was more common, and for older tree lighting.
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- 20,681
- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
As I understand it the post-RCD age (or whatever the US calls their trip switches) Christmas tree fires continued because incandescent bulbs can still "legally" acquire enough power to generate the heat required for ignition. Now very few people use incandescents compared to LEDs I imagine the numbers will drop hugely, if they were huge to begin with.
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Just for reference, the ten deadliest days for the USA, in terms of American lives lost in a single 24hr period, are:
1. ~6,000 - September 8, 1900 - Galveston Hurricane
2. 3,650 - September 17, 1862 - Battle of Antietam/Civil War
3. ~3,000 - April 18, 1906 - San Francisco Earthquake
4. 2,977 - September 11, 2001 - 9/11
5. 2,769 - May 7, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
6. 2,733 - December 2, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
7. 2,706 - December 3, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
8. 2,661 - April 29, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
9. 2,622 - December 8, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
10. 2,653 - December 4, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
If you're interested, that knocked the Okeechobee Hurricane (2,511; September 28, 1928) into 12th, and Pearl Harbor (2,403; December 7, 1941) down to 17th, with COVID-19 also days in 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th.
1. ~6,000 - September 8, 1900 - Galveston Hurricane
2. 3,650 - September 17, 1862 - Battle of Antietam/Civil War
3. ~3,000 - April 18, 1906 - San Francisco Earthquake
4. 2,977 - September 11, 2001 - 9/11
5. 2,769 - May 7, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
6. 2,733 - December 2, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
7. 2,706 - December 3, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
8. 2,661 - April 29, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
9. 2,622 - December 8, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
10. 2,653 - December 4, 2020 - COVID-19 Pandemic
If you're interested, that knocked the Okeechobee Hurricane (2,511; September 28, 1928) into 12th, and Pearl Harbor (2,403; December 7, 1941) down to 17th, with COVID-19 also days in 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th.
Dotini
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To imagine that the toll of coronavirus on the physical and mental health and upon the economy of Americans is not going to be devastating in a broad if not universal sense is probably somewhat Pollyannish. Even so, I know people both young and old who don't really take it seriously and are more concerned about other things. I wasn't involved in the Civil War. But I was involved in Vietnam and caught up in the emotions of the JFK assassination and 9/11. The current crisis ranks as the most severe in my memory. But it's good to see we can still joke about it, cheer on the heroes and curse the villains. But for perspective, we should remember that on May 31, 1970, ~70,000 Peruvians perished in a single day. I have a special affinity for Peruvians, having spent 63 days traveling in that country in 1982.
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Back of envelope time... the 1918 pandemic killed about 675000 in the USA, and if we say that's over 15 months it averages out to about 1500 a day, an already terrible number. However, most deaths occured during the first two peaks in spring and autumn, making the likely average during those times about 3000 per day. Certainly there must have been some very grim days amongst those, even allowing for peaks happening at different times in different cities. It wouldn't surprise me if only Galveston remained in the top ten, and possibly not as the worst day.
And that's not allowing for population increase since then. It really was on another level, although there are parallels with COVID in so many ways (re. the Philadelphia parade and more).
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- TenEightyOne
- TenEightyOne
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