Notes for Americans:
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@cstross Suspected it might be something like that. Deferring to the appliance/device purchaser is a fascinating approach.
I grew up during the conversion to grounded outlets and from Bell System to Modular phone jacks, so it's not like we didn't have plenty of connector weirdness on this side of the pond too.
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@cstross Gosh, is it really as long ago as 1992? I was just thinking the other day it had been a while since I last wired up a plug. How time flies.
@statsguy I can't remember when I last wrote a cheque, either!
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RE: https://nomenloony.com/@nomenloony/116019280517956996
Notes for Americans:
1. Until 1992 you had to wire your own plugs onto new electrical appliances in the UK (they were sold without pre-molded plugs).
2. Mains voltage is 230VAC, not 110VAC. It'll kill ya.
3. If you follow ChatGPT's advice *YOU WILL DIE*.
@cstross ...i hate to break the news but AI is a "tool" that has it's uses but also it's limitations, AI is great for several things but certainly not for this... The movement calling everything AI "slop", should be replaced by a serious discussion how and when to use AI (and when not).
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@TimWardCam @swetland The house I grew up in was only rewired with modern sockets and ring mains in 1974. Before then it was all round-pin sockets (two sizes, small ones for lamps only).
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@TimWardCam @swetland @cstross 5A lighting circuits use round pin plugs. We have a couple of those in our 2009 house to allow us switch on a couple of small table lights. So I have wired round pin plugs in a modern house.
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@TimWardCam @swetland The house I grew up in was only rewired with modern sockets and ring mains in 1974. Before then it was all round-pin sockets (two sizes, small ones for lamps only).
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@statsguy I can't remember when I last wrote a cheque, either!
@cstross Nor can I, now you come to mention it.
Though I was just discussing with someone recently about when I last sent a fax, which was sometime around 2013, give or take. Probably several years after the penultimate time I sent a fax, but I was communicating with my bank, and weirdly it was the only way they could accept correspondence about what I wanted to talk to them about.
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@cstross ...i hate to break the news but AI is a "tool" that has it's uses but also it's limitations, AI is great for several things but certainly not for this... The movement calling everything AI "slop", should be replaced by a serious discussion how and when to use AI (and when not).
@ErikJonker Shocking to you, I know, but I think the stuff currently sold as AI is bullshit.
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There are WORSE AI-generated images of how to wire a UK mains plug. Here's one I saved last year.
@cstross
Pretty though
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RE: https://nomenloony.com/@nomenloony/116019280517956996
Notes for Americans:
1. Until 1992 you had to wire your own plugs onto new electrical appliances in the UK (they were sold without pre-molded plugs).
2. Mains voltage is 230VAC, not 110VAC. It'll kill ya.
3. If you follow ChatGPT's advice *YOU WILL DIE*.
@cstross in the US a 220V appliance comes without plugs so you get to spend $120 on an electrician to wire one on
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@greem @cstross we have those already https://aidarwinawards.org/
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@mpjgregoire @jbayes They didn't fit plugs because doing so would have cost them money *and nobody else was doing so*. Plugs were sold separately to consumers. Every corner shop sold them!
@cstross how many do you keep around, "just in case"? (Me: two or three at least)
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RE: https://nomenloony.com/@nomenloony/116019280517956996
Notes for Americans:
1. Until 1992 you had to wire your own plugs onto new electrical appliances in the UK (they were sold without pre-molded plugs).
2. Mains voltage is 230VAC, not 110VAC. It'll kill ya.
3. If you follow ChatGPT's advice *YOU WILL DIE*.
@cstross out of curiosity, surely it spits out a slightly different thing every time? Have people replicated this? I'm sure it'd give similarly deadly results multiple times
which is why people really need to do better and learn what these things are (not) so they don't fking go to it for advice and how-tos in the first place
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@ErikJonker Shocking to you, I know, but I think the stuff currently sold as AI is bullshit.
@cstross I am fully aware of all it's limitations , there is an awful lot of AI bullshit around, but actually also a considerable amount of useful applications
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RE: https://nomenloony.com/@nomenloony/116019280517956996
Notes for Americans:
1. Until 1992 you had to wire your own plugs onto new electrical appliances in the UK (they were sold without pre-molded plugs).
2. Mains voltage is 230VAC, not 110VAC. It'll kill ya.
3. If you follow ChatGPT's advice *YOU WILL DIE*.
@cstross But a lot has changed in basic ability since 1992. Not in the positive sense either.
And people in China now wire the UK plugs on for you. -
@cstross how many do you keep around, "just in case"? (Me: two or three at least)
@tops @mpjgregoire @jbayes I don't any more. Used to keep a couple on hand until the mid-90s.
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@sotolf @cstross Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 uncovers 500 zero-day flaws in open-source code https://www.axios.com/2026/02/05/anthropic-claude-opus-46-software-hunting
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@TimWardCam @cstross @swetland
There were (and still are) three sizes of round three-pin plugs in UK: 2A, 5A and 15A. Because they don’t have fuses in the plug, the 5A and 15A outlets must be radially wired from a correspondingly-rated circuit breaker. (I’m not sure what the rules are for 2A; that’s almost exclusively used for lighting appliances, often controlled by light switches.) -
@sotolf @cstross Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 uncovers 500 zero-day flaws in open-source code https://www.axios.com/2026/02/05/anthropic-claude-opus-46-software-hunting
@sotolf @cstross or if you are into biology, AlphaFold — Google DeepMind https://deepmind.google/science/alphafold/ ,
