This is actually a serious problem in parts of China (Shenzhen, at least). You can never predict what kind of wall outlets will be in a building. Either the UK style (popular in nearby Hong Kong), American style (NEMA 5-15), or Europlug, and sometimes multiple types in one building. At the company I was mostly visiting, each conference room had universal power strips, which accepted all three styles of plugs as well as pinky fingers. I never figured out what the voltage/frequency was, and made sure to plug in only devices that could handle 120-240V.
The frequency is always Kenneth.
Is there still a lot lead in the air in america ? 🤔
Nah, we get it from the water now. And if you drink too much of the water as a kid, sometimes from snacking on old paint.
I bet this person rotates the square in tetris
Rotation buffering makes it fall just a bit slower so a good Tetris player would probably still do that.
Huh? I’m seeing those videos from the Tetris Gods and I see pieces falling down at a speed that my brain can’t even understand, this technique maybe is used by “entry level” Tetris professional players?
They said “good” at Tetris, not “God” at Tetris! Mostly a pun but yeah, there’s of course a difference between the best in the world and really good casual players.
Rotating the square in Tetris sounds like the start of a creepy pasta.
I rotated the square in Tetris and then suddenly the bricks became hyper-realistic with hyper-realistic blood and then they jumped out of my TV and I hyper-realistically died! The end.
And then something something something no clip backrooms.
Ooh ooh or,
Where do you think all those cleared lines in Tetris go? I twisted the square to the left enough that it loosened and popped out of my screen. What I saw inside was shocking…
i remember my first (and last) tetris game too
They’re right, it does sound really stupid, but it’s also actually really stupid.
A swiss plug will go into a German or french socket, a German plug will go into a french socket and visa-versa. A two pin German plug will fit in a swiss socket. There are probably more compatibilities with the EU, but these are off the top of my head.
Also, traveling to a different country within the EU isn’t the same as going to a different state in the US, so technically, we are better off in the EU plug wise.
Swiss plug with a grounding pin won’t fit into a Type-C or Type-F socket though unless it’s a multi type socket. And Italy has that weird Type-L socket that comes in two sizes. Though they also have Type-F (Schuko). Ireland uses the British standard so not Schuko or Type-C compatible.
I’ll tell you a story:
One summer, I went on vacation in Europe. I rented a car and hopped from friend to friend, touring around.
When I came back, one of my workmates asked me:
“So you drove quite a few miles! How did you cope?”
“What do you mean ‘cope’” I replied
“Well, Europeans drive on the left. Wasn’t it confusing?”
“W…What?”Turned out, the dude was totally convinced only Americans drove on the right.
Americans are fucking clueless about everything going on outside of their country, and largely clueless about what goes on inside of it too. They’re honestly shamefully ignorant.
I mean for one this is by design, so that they don’t know how fucked our country is, but also our country is the size of several European countries so it’s not exactly apples to apples. Even state to state you can have wildly different traditions, house styles, etc.
I’ve been around a bit, but never west of the Rockies. California might as well be another country.
I’ve lived my entire life on the west coast. Please come visit! You’ll love it, from the south of California to the north of Washington!
Gotta rotate the square, it’s like clicking the tongs.
It’s like accents. Did you know America is the only place that doesn’t have language accents? We just speak normal English here.
Interestingly, English does have a “reference” accent. “Queens English”.
Back in the days of the British empire, the aristocracy had a serious problem. When they traveled, the local population were difficult to understand, they all had accents. To solve this, the hired help were taught not just English but a clear “accentless” English. This meant the rich could go anywhere in the empire and not have to decode the local’s butchering of English.
While it’s used a lot less now, it was only a few decades back that the BBC stopped requiring it for news broadcasts. It’s the “classic” British accent you see on TV shows.
Fun fact it’s also the Coruscanti accent in Star Wars
I like accents. There’s a nugget of truth to that though. Accent variation in the UK is greater than across the whole of the US. You can drive the length of Britain in America and still hear less variation than you’d get in just 15 miles across parts of the UK, thanks to its highly localized linguistic evolution over centuries. Interestingly, some American accents are actually closer to 17th century English than many found in the UK today, and (comparatively) lack strong markers like rhotic dropping, vowel shifts, or intonation patterns that give it a ‘vanilla’ vibe.
I have a buddy in London who swears he can almost tell what neighborhood someone grew up in based solely on their accent. I don’t think it’s quite that bad but last time I was there he did point out several that were solely in London.
Yep I can tell apart different accents from around Glasgow. Most cities will look like this so easier than it sounds.
That map is Manchester. The clue is “scally” in the west and posh as you get towards Cheshire.
Yes I know it was an example hence ‘most’
Same for me, grew up in the countryside, there were at least 3-4 villages that had a distinctive enough accent that I could pick up on it.
I would imagine that this has similar root causes like Italian in South Tyrol. About 100 years ago in an attempt to forcefully italianize the german-speaking Tyroleans the fascists moved a lot of italians from all over Italy into South Tyrol, resulting in a very clean italian (somewhat “high-italian”) being spoken there, opposed to the various regional dialects all over Italy. The clean language is a more common ground between everyone, so it makes sense to default to that (and is a lot closer to the language foreigners learn)
That is because the size of an area has less importance to the development of dialects than time. Dialects developed in pre-industrial times in fairly small localised areas, when contact with other areas was sparse. European countries much smaller than the UK still have more dialects than the US because of this.
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Apparently Indonesian, Malay, Swahili, and Zulu also don’t have accents (among languages that use the Latin alphabet).
Except if you go to Boston, New York, or the South. They all speak adulterated English.
You watched this video too, didn’t you?
US electrical plugs are the worst.
I still regularly manage to electrocute myself on those death designed shit plugs that allow uounto touch love metal if you’re not very careful
Then the “Gravity will pull your plug out of the wall” design which is just amazing too.
Then the “bends by breathing at it” strength
I could go on, but you get it.
UK plugs are the best and can double up as non destructive landmines.
i know you meant live metal. But I love the concept of love metal. There’s a spark between us
That’s electro-cute!
Immediately Wings of a Butterfly starts playing in my head.
Electrocute means to be killed by electric shock. Unless you’re being reincarnated again and again I think you mean to say that you’ve managed to shock yourself regularly.
Electrocute means neon green and attractive. I will not be taking questions.
Collins and m-w both have “kill or [severely] injure”, whereas Cambridge has only “kill”. So I guess it can be used their way sometimes some places?
Aiiiight french academy
He was just being cute with the phrase.
And yet i haven’t had those problems. If your plugs fall out then the springs in your outlet are old, get a nee outlet.
Plus don’t just go for the cheapest ones. The ones I’ve seen like this are cheap outlets made in the 70s, so a combination of old and crappy, but older outlets can be more sturdy and non-crappy modern ones appear sturdy
That confirms the shitty design. Decent outlets don’t require springs to keep plugs from falling out.
the springs are also how the metal make contact. something has to hold them in place and make contact.
I’m not able to find the link right now, but Technology Connections did a fantastic breakdown of the designs for U.S. plugs/outlets compared to those in (I think) the U.K.
Unsurprisingly, our outlets in the U.S. feature several braindead design choices that make them more dangerous.
the fact that old sockets can’t handle the weight of a plug means the design was brain-dead from the beginning
The sockets were adequately designed for the plugs of the time. Then we started cramming transformers, capacitors and regulators into them to convert ~high voltage AC to low voltage DC.
The plugs changed, but the sockets took forever to barely catch up, if you can even say that much.
The more concerning thing is how they leave exposed live metal that you could touch while inserting/removing if you’re not careful.
I really like where some countries have the prongs partly insulated so you can’t electrocute yourself as easily. It seems like it could be cheaply and easily done in the US as well, if we cared to do so
We could just flip our outlet upside down and be sort of safer, but we don’t because the little face 😮
Funny thing is, the outlets in my house are installed with the ground prong up, unless they’re installed horizontally.
That’s probably because that’s the recommended way to install them for safety, and that’s why they’re installed that way in hospitals, but people install them upside down in houses because they like the face
Wel no fire code or even electrical safety standards mention the orientation of plug. Hospital codes are the one exception
Chicago–a city very paranoid about fire–has some relatively unique fire codes, like all electrical wiring in a structure must run through conduit, and outlets are either typically, or are required to be, installed horizontally.
I can see why Chicago might be.
The city that famously burned down that one time? There’s an outside chance that has something to do with it.
Tom Scott once upon a time made a video about why the UK plug is the superior overall design, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q
At this point you can get gfi plugs, abd chil proof plugs that block the live outlet. At this point all wr can add is plastic wrap at the base of the prongs
i once talked to an American who asked me how they celebrate 4th of July in Scotland.
I had English people ask Irish people why they don’t celebrate the 5th of November. These people are everywhere.
American education system is a joke
Surely there’s a joke about drinking on it to celebrate, like the Scots do on the 5th and 6th of July as well
I’ve had at least four Americans I met on separate occasions almost immediately bring up the Revolutionary War and ask me loads of questions about what we got taught about it at school. They always seem to want to try to use it as a weird kind of social status thing, like the guy wants me to acknowledge that he’s better than me because his country gained independence from mine two and a half centuries ago…
I’d like to take this oppurtunity to point out that UK plugs are, by a long shot, the best plugs.
They have ground. They slot in and stay in. The structure of the plug means that the wire comes out the bottom and not the back, which is better for plugging stuff in behind furniture.
Basically every other plug-type is ass compared to UK plugs.
The structure of the plug means that the wire comes out the bottom and not the back
… What? I have lots of right angle cables. The way the wire “comes out” of the plug is not limited by the plug itself.
there’s so much more to UK plugs, they are on another league compared to other plugs.
All sockets are childproof, the holes have like doors that block the socket unless the earth pin is inserted.
the plug pins are only half exposed, so there’s no live surfaces outside of the socket.
there’s a fuse in the plug.
no need for 2A in the UK, the plugs can double as a flail.
EU plugs designed in the past 50 years also have half-exposed pins and EU sockets from the past 30 years also have little rubber flaps that only open if they’re pressed both at the same time (I’ve tried it, it works really well, I couldn’t get a singular multimeter prong in my outlet until I used the second prong). There are no exposed live conductors anywhere in my house.
Nowadays the main practical difference between EU and UK plugs is the “lack” of a fuse, except any semi-modern appliance that could make use of a fuse should include one internally. In every other situation circuit breakers work fine, UK plugs have fuses because they historically couldn’t rely on the circuit breaker existing.
Nowadays the regulatory focus is not on plugs, which are fine, but on GFCI. Gotta put one 30 mA differential per electrical circuit in kitchens/bathrooms and a whole house 300 mA differential. That’s a much safer way to detect electrocution than wait until several amps have been going through the plug because all you’re getting by the time the fuse trips is a fried person sandwich.
EU sockets from the past 30 years also have little rubber flaps that only open if they’re pressed both at the same time
This looks like BS.
US required TR plugs starting in 2008, and it looks like a EU directive in 2001 recommended them but left it up to individual countries and says there’s still no eu-wide mandate. Unless the search ai is lying, US and EU did this at about the same time but US had a larger mandate
Anecdotally I haven’t seen a plug in Belgium that didn’t have them that also wasn’t ancient. Dunno if the RGIE requires it, I can’t be arsed to find out, but the risk/reward for manufacturers considering lawsuits probably tips it in favor of safety given how inexpensive the mechanism is.
Also it is worth noting that the plug hole is much smaller on EU outlets than NEMA, and recessed. Even with exposed conductors it would take a determined toddler to find something small enough to reach inside (basically a needle or small screwdriver which they should not be playing with to begin with).
I can see the recessed shape being a nice safety improvement, although I’m used to what I’ve lived with and haven’t killed myself that way yet, so I’d still probably err on the side of convenience, less bulk.
An interesting consequence of the flat faced outlet is so many shapes and sizes of plugs around the same standard prongs, and now I do nt want to do without them
Yeah, I swear Brits love regurgitating that Tom Scott video, even though it is massively hyperbolic and exaggerated and completely ignores that specific British context which made the fuse necessary.
All sockets are childproof, the holes have like doors that block the socket unless the earth pin is inserted.
US outlets are required to be “tamper resistant” since 2008. Same little doors.
However just like anything else, old installations are grandfathered in - you’re not forced to replace all your outlets.
I actually started replacing all my house’s outlets in 2005, as part of child-proofing. Maybe that’s over-zealous but when I was growing up my younger brother kept shocking himself. Anyway, I quickly ran into misjudging just how big a task it was, how many outlets there are, so focussed on most risky outlets like the kids rooms. Now the kids are in college and I never completed the task - there’s really only a couple years when kids are that stupid
The only disadvantage to UK plugs is that they turn into caltrops when unplugged
Their only real disadvantage is how comically large they can make normally small power bricks
And stepping on one makes Lego seem tame.
They have one fatal flaw, though: when lying on the ground, the prongs almost always face up, making it easier for you to stab yourself should you accidentally step on the plug.
That’s when another neat feature comes in, every UK outlet have a switch so you don’t have to unplug them and leave them a hazard on the floor.
There are American plugs that also put the wire out the side rather than perpendicular to the wall. diagonally down is most normal so that it wouldn’t block the lower outlet when installed in the upper outlet. I also have some six-gang outlet extenders with the sockets on the sides rather than the front.
The sad thing is that this person is probably eligible to vote.
They are correct though. In the US, it doesn’t matter where you go, every state uses the same plug.
In Europe, different countries use different plugs, even though they are all in Europe.
Ireland plug:
France plug:
Switzerland plug:
Italian plugs:
Congratulations, you’re just as dumb as the person in the post.
You should travel, see the world, open your mind. You’d find that traveling the EU is just like traveling the US, no borders, no checks, even my cell plan moves, all the same. It’s even called the European “Union”, you know, like how the States are a Union (pst, it’s in the name, the UNITED states). So yeah, it would be the correct comparison.
Maybe you should travel and then you’d know that Schuko works in most of Europe. Also if open borders are your argument you’re talking about Schengen, not the EU, which kinda highlights how ridiculous of an argument it is in the first place.
If the lack of compatibility was actually real then it’d be something that is less convenient when travelling the EU than it would be when travelling the US. Still not something the US does better, the EU isn’t a country, the question said “Europe” anyway, and the US isn’t a continent either.
It’s even called the European “Union”, you know, like how the States are a Union (pst, it’s in the name, the UNITED states).
Except they are not the same. One is and has been a federal state, with the majority of it’s constituent states not having ever been independent/sovereign states. Almost all have been part of it since electricity at home became a thing.
The other is a confederation of independent (for example, they can leave the union) states, all of which have existed as non EU members. They have also been either independent of part of different countries for centuries. They 've been electrified way before joining the EU.
However with the relatively low lifecycle of electrical appliances almost all plugs and devices are compatible, either being ‘true’ shuko or fitting in them. The exception being Ireland and the UK in the past.
States aren’t countries. The US isn’t a continent. If you go to a different state within a European country, it won’t have a different plug either.
You should travel, see the world, open your mind. You’d find that traveling the EU is just like traveling the US, no borders, no checks, even my cell plan moves, all the same. It’s even called the European “Union”, you know, like how the States are a Union (pst, it’s in the name, the UNITED states). So yeah, it would be the correct comparison.
If you go to a different state within a European country, it won’t have a different plug either.
You mean like in Italy, that is even shown in the picture to the comment your replying to?
You’re being awfully condescending for someone making such an incredibly weak defence. By your logic if the EU had stricter borders, the criticism of plug sockets would no longer be valid.
I’ve traveled to Italy many times, vacationing. I live in a country where schuko is dominant and I’ve never had to use an adapter. These are all old legacy plugs, I bet you can still buy them to replace existing plugs, I don’t know, but I’ve stayed in hotels and rented rooms (staying with people basically) and I haven’t even put any thought into it.
Only Ireland and Switzerland doesn’t accept Type-F aka Schuko which is the de facto EU standard. And the Swiss socket does accept Type-C, which is the two prong plug that fits everywhere in the EU except Ireland. And in Italy all hotels and homes have sockets that accept Type-L and Type-C/F
Also they are not correct, since they are implying that everyone in those countries uses adapters.
Can’t your union standardize this? Like, this feels like exactly what the EU is for, facilitating unified standards to increase trade and improve quality of life across Europe.
Oh, and please don’t copy us north Americans. Yeah the US, Canada, and Mexico (and japan for some insane reason though you still need an adapter because of the frequency if you’re in the half where it’s different) share an outlet type. But seriously, our polarized grounded plugs are fine enough but we have a lot of type A and yall can do better than that.
We have a standard it’s called Type-F aka Schuko. It’s cross compatible with the French plug and socket. Though a Danish three prong plug doesn’t fit in a Schuko socket but a Schuko plug does fit in a Danish socket. And in Italy it’s standard to install sockets that accept both Schuko and Type-L. Also type-C plugs aka Europlug (two prong, no grounding) are accepted in every European country except Ireland and UK.
The EU actually did regulate the voltage and standardized the acceptable tolerances for appliances, which is the difficult part. In the olden days, your French 220V appliance wasn’t necessarily guaranteed not to burn out if you put a British 240V through it.
That makes sense and is awesome. Since you went through that effort it’s weird you have different plugs
I suspect that the cost of refitting every single house, office and appliance in several countries would be many orders of magnitude higher than the cost of everyone just buying their own travel adapter. It’s not like they’re that big a problem. Most hotels will lend you them for free, or have universal sockets.
