[OT] cold fill [Was: translate a pdf file from german to english]

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

Stan Goodman <stan.goodman at hashkedim.com> writes:

> the item is not marketed outside Israel (because nowhere else is it
> customary for washing machines to heat their own water).

Eh? You don't seriously think the world consists of US and Israel
only, I hope. ;-)

[Warning: what follows will not give you much information that you can
immediately utilize for OS development. It's very OT, in fact, but I
figure the engineering genes of some of us may stir a bit, anyway.]

AFAIK "cold fill" is the norm in most of the world except the US
(well, maybe except North America). There are multiple reasons for
that, including, but not limited to (a) energy-consciousness, (b)
costs, (c) hot+cold fill machines suffer from problems at least in
cases where the central heater is far away from the machine, so that
the hot inlet gets cold water in the beginning, (d) and (e) local
temperature control is gentler on fabric, and better for stain removal,
(f) standards and regulations (energy ratings - mandatory in Europe -
are determined on cold fill only), etc. 

Just about the only argument for hot+cold fill is that since water is
pre-heated centrally the cycle can start a little bit faster (but see
(c) above). The argument that central heating may be solar and
therefore "green" bumps its head into (c) again and into cloudy
weather (not much of a problem in Israel but a serious consideration
elsewhere).

This is way outside my normal field of expertise or interests, but I
had to buy a new washing machine just a few months ago, and since I
had both cold and hot taps available (and the ***ancient*** AEG that
had died had been connected to both) I wondered about the
subject. After reading up I concluded that hot+cold fill machines had
disappeared the way of the dodo in most corners of the globe, and good
riddance. I am sure the US will catch up eventually [cheap jibe, big
smiley implied, no offence meant, etc.] and patents will be filed on
cold fill with USPTO [this part is, sadly, serious]. I didn't even try
to look for a hot+cold fill - I am not sure one can find such machines
in Israel at all, but I saw no reason to make an effort.

I agree that translations of instruction manuals are usually
horrible. However, there is no reason to expect that English texts
would be any better...

And as for Wi-Fi-enabled dishwashers and refrigerators that order milk
over Internet when you run out - this is so 90ies... Am I too old? 

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org