@jk @Tom in my family it was a "four bar", regardless of how many sockets were on it. "have you got a four bar" we'd say. and oh we'd laugh

@envgen @Tom this sounds like you're asking them to hand you a golf club

@jk @Tom and lots of the more common names for these things are better names for other things. like "extension plug" and "power adaptor" are really common names for it, but aren't very good names at all

@envgen @jk @tom power strip...

@er1n @envgen @Tom yeah i call them power strips. idk whats wrong with jame

@jk @er1n @envgen @tom

Ever seen one of these? Weird that we don't have a name for them. My family always called them "swingy open boys". "Can you grab the swingy open boy for me?"

@jordyd @tom @envgen @er1n @jk funny how "open boys" looks like "oh boy", the famous music instrument.

@jk @er1n @envgen @tom

4/6 way adaptor/extension lead is common term for these in, "correct" electrical engineers terminology is 4/6/8 gang extension socket (which is what they are sold as at places like CPC/farnell), because the sockets are grouped or "ganged" together.

At least there are no Europlugs or even worse, Schukos jammed into there by pushing down the shutter on the earth pin (a cursed and dangerous practice)..

@jk @er1n @envgen @tom here in north america we normally call it a "power bar". It helps that our plugs are smaller, so the thing is slightly more bar-shaped.

In official regulatory language, it's called a "relocatable power tap" so 😕

@kepstin @jk @er1n @envgen @tom it's what thirsty electronics crave

@kepstin @jk @er1n @envgen @tom i,i "i'd tap that.... and extract 12VAC @ 60Hz." 🤔

@gdkar @kepstin @er1n @envgen @Tom think you may have accidentally put your toot thru a 10:1 transformer

@jk @kepstin @er1n @envgen @tom ..... that would explain a lot, actually......... 😣

@jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick

@envgen @tom @er1n @jk hgfhgfdj

@jk @er1n @tom @envgen incredible, the perfect sequel

@envgen @jk @tom @sickasfrick what were you wearing that he asked where your clothes were

@er1n @tom @jk @envgen did you walk in on him with your dick out

@sickasfrick @jk @Tom @er1n ethan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@envgen @er1n @tom @jk Don't shoot

@er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick ʀᴇᴅᴀᴄᴛᴇᴅ

@envgen @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick JAME

@envgen @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick also we have these things here and I think the form factor should probably change the terminology? though the base on ours is removable so they can also be used flat and aaaaaaa

@theoutrider @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick please tag your lewd

@theoutrider ugh. Rough living @envgen @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick

@envgen @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick

@theoutrider @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick aha!!!

@envgen @tom @er1n @jk @theoutrider currently confused cause if you google power strips there's an amazon link for power strips and the page it goes to says "surge protectors"

@sickasfrick @jk @er1n @Tom @envgen surge protectors are power strips with extra fuses rather than just wires with plugs

@theoutrider @sickasfrick @jk @er1n @tom @envgen

surge protectors are more often metal oxide varistors, avalanche diodes and thyristors that dump gross overvoltages (usually >3 times the normal incoming mains voltage) to protective earth.

Often these components "sacrifice themselves" to protect more costly equipment downstream so their action can be compared to that of fuses, but they act far quicker and in different methods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surge_protector

@envgen @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick friend of jameses is right - it's extension cable! (also I had one which was 4x2 with surge protection yeeeeeeah! and 2 of the sockets could rotate because I don't even know. wibbly sockets!)

@bentosmile @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick henceforth it is called a "wibbly socket"

@envgen @bentosmile @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick someone on Twitter recently talked about these things in the US which you just push plugs into and they just have solid copper strips along their entire body wired to the mains that the ends of the plugs make contact with and aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA

@theoutrider @bentosmile @jk @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick what the FUCK

@theoutrider @envgen @bentosmile @jk @tom @sickasfrick this was thankfully only a 70's thing

@er1n @envgen @bentosmile @jk @Tom @sickasfrick oh god that's good to know, rather less horrifying then

mind you electrical installations in the US are mindblowing to me anyway, vast swathes of Germany having been flattened in the early 20th century means that a lot of the country has nice modern installations for that kind of thing

@er1n @envgen @jk @Tom @sickasfrick when my dad found out that @bentosmile's old house had a fuse box with fuses you'd have to manually string a piece of bare wire through if they blew he demanded I send him a spare one because he couldn't believe those things are still in use here

@theoutrider @er1n @envgen @Tom @sickasfrick @bentosmile my mum's place has these, they're good imo. its really fun to get out the fuse wire in the dark when you cant see anything

@jk @er1n @envgen @Tom @sickasfrick @bentosmile at least the fuse sockets were modern enough that I could just buy plug-in circuit breakers to replace them because shitting christ

@theoutrider @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick @bentosmile i remember when we got our first circuit breaker put in. it was so excited. i couldn't wait for a bulb to blow just to see how fast we could run to the garage and flick the power back on. it was fast!! no fuses necessary

@theoutrider @er1n @envgen @jk @Tom @sickasfrick tbf it was a victorian house made for factory workers, and the landlady was cheap as hell. and the previous tenants had wound some of the fuses wrong, because yay let's not bother being safe with electricity!

@bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick actually if you just put a teaspoon in where the fuse should be, the power will never go out and you'll never have to replace a fuse again :)

electricians HATE this one weird trick

@envgen @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick so that was how uri geller did it

@jk @envgen @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @tom @sickasfrick

piece of chain link(!) in place of service head fuse in squatted building results in *this* - the meter board was *alight*, me and this German lad put out the fire (was in the late 90s rave era) and managed to make it safe (still illegal, but marginally dangerous)

ironically it was the "danger of death stick man" which burned first..

@vfrmedia @jk @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick amazed you had this fantastically relevant photo to hand. good story!!

@envgen @jk @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @tom @sickasfrick

part of my current day job involves making sure anything connected to 230V at work (servers, UPS etc that must run 24/7) is safe, I have kept the photo all these years as a warning to myself and others *why* this is important.

(in hindsight we were all bloody lucky, it was a large building and the fire in the meter cupboard wasn't immediately obvious, and toxic smoke was slowly filling the space)

@vfrmedia @envgen @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick I wonder is Bakelite smoke worse than ABS smoke.....

@vfrmedia @envgen @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick whether it is or not its probably more collectible on ebay

@vfrmedia @jk @envgen @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @Tom @sickasfrick He knew the dangers when he took the job.

@envgen @bentosmile @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick back before I moved to the UK I had also applied for a job with Capcom in Japan and researched the electrical system to see if I'd have to buy new electrical devices and half the country runs a 50Hz power grid and the other half a 60Hz one and aaaaaaa

@theoutrider @envgen @bentosmile @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick oh Lord this thread is wild. From memes to electricity talk.

When I was finishing my studies, I was living a at a place that had old plugs. So old that the holes were a bit too accept modern plugs, so you couldn't make use of them. Had to buy and replace them.

Am not talking of the switchea with the fuse out just under them. Bleh.

@theoutrider @envgen @bentosmile @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick

According to the University of Birmingham, it's an N-way, where N is the number of sockets. So a 4x2 arrangement would be called an "8 way".

Doing a degree there was like Catholic school, memorising the name of the priest's accessories, except for the kind of gear you need for putting up loads of speakers.

#BEAST

@celesteh @theoutrider @bentosmile @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick "four way" i hear a lot, v happy to accept this

@envgen @theoutrider @bentosmile @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick

The hardest part of rigging the BEAST system is not giggling when somebody asks for /offers a 3 way. When the urge to giggle dies entirely inside you, then you get your degree.

@envgen @bentosmile @theoutrider @er1n @jk @Tom @sickasfrick I talked with an industrial electrician once who said one of the first things he'd do when visiting a new site was check the wall opposite the fuse box for damage/craters caused by bolts and other items used to replace blown fuses getting shot across the room. The worse the damage to the wall the more paranoid he'd be in aiming unsafe practices.

@sickasfrick @Tom @jk @er1n @theoutrider @bentosmile @envgen Thank you so much autocorrupt: swap assuming for that aiming in the last sentence.