Seriously, why don't you just post "Nothing happened today" in big letters on the front page?

UK plugs are about double the size, have significantly thicker pins and have a fuse built in.

Worst pick-up line ever.

Oh yes, that switch, the fuse in the plug and the protective plastic cover over the live socket must add something like 1p to each socket in whatever Chinese prison they're being made in this week. Sure, they last forever and save lives, but it's just too much of an expense for me.

And they leak oil.

Man up.

If you can't handle a bit of unprotected metal carrying 110V and fake grounded adaptors you're not cut out for this continent.

"I'd rather have the option than even more regulation": how stereotypically American.

Then how is it that Americans created Mac OS X while a Finn created Linux?

I haven't been able to read the article yet, but one thing which is definitely different between the US and UK plugs is that no US plug has a fuse in it.

Also, the US plugs are woefully inadequate for inflicting really serious injuries when stood on with bare feet.

Well, maybe the ones who are still alive...

How many Americans have been killed, per year, by the 2" long plastic guns attached to those plastic GI Joe soldiers? Those are routinely confiscated at airports.

It must make you feel a great deal safer, knowing that plastic soldiers are not going to attack you during your next flight with their 2" long rifles.

Bah! Brits are just pissy because you all know that you would be speaking German if it wasn't for the big and bad USA saving your tea swilling Limey butts. Oh, and Monty sucked! if Ike would have let the great General Patton off the leash he would have taken the whole damned thing, but Ike was a politician and was trying to make it a "coalition effort", even though the USA didn't need the tea swillers anyway. Oh, and they are called FRIES dammit! Chips come in a bag that says Lay's on the side!

So you tea swilling, hot beer drinking, uppity Limeys just stay the hell away from our power cords! And keep your damned dirty metric system to yourselves! You can just keep that crap along with your baby cars that go on the wrong side of the road! How in the hell does anybody fit in a damned mini anyway? That ain't a vehicle, it is a fricking go-cart! It is a commie plot, that's what it is! You're trying to take away our freedom to drive really fast and get shitty gas mileage, which is in our constitution! What is a matter, don't you believe in freedom?

This twit is annoying and incorrect! I have a 6.3L V8 in my daily driver. My wife has a 7.3L Turbo Diesel in her Excursion.

Damn Brits! Get it right and drive on the Right as well!!

If you take a few inches of the super-fine wire that's found in the coils of small speakers (close to hair-thickness) and scrape enough of the insulation off to make decent contact, you can wrap about two turns of it around the pins on a standard US plug. Almost invisible, even if you look, but when you plug it in it goes off like a firecracker – a bang and a bright flash. Best part is, the wire vaporizes, so other than perhaps a bit of black reside there's nothing left to indicate what just happened...

P.S. Not responsible for stupid people trying this and managing to somehow hurt themselves in what should be a simple and relatively non-dangerous process.

And they missed out this fantastic example [twitpic.com] which I saw in a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi.

Cuter than the Danish smiley? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:K_plug.jpg [wikipedia.org] ...didn't think so.

Sockets don't kill people, electricity does!

Americans bagging Brits. As an Australian, I'm torn as to which side to take. I guess I'll just have to bag the New Zealanders instead.

I like the switch on Aussie sockets, but you have to be real careful to switch off unused sockets or a lot of electricity leaks out costing you $$$.

So, we're all in agreement then?

Yeah, now you know how we feel when somebody bring up Australia! on the one hand you gave us Mad Max, one of the best damned movies ever created in the history of everything, well that's good. But on the other hand you sent over Yahoo Serious and Paul Hogan, which should have been considered a war crime or something. I mean, what did we ever do to you?

Hogan was bad enough, especially when he just kept hitting that snooze alarm on his 15 minutes, but Yahoo Serious? That is like WMD level of evil there pal, and you guys didn't even say you were sorry. It is bad enough we got those damned Canucks letting their evil spill over the border, like that harpy Celine Dion, but what in the hell did the USA ever do to Australia to deserve the unleashing of Yahoo Serious? Didn't us helping you out against the Japs in WWII count for anything?

everything you need for an all night hack! Thanks America!

That's because Aussie plugs are for real men.

"The classic "baby sticking a fork in the socket and dying a sizzly death" scenario seems remarkably thin on the ground."

At the age of two, my son became infatuated with wall sockets (American). Despite putting plastic adapters and other security precautions, he managed to stick tweezers into a wall socket. He did not die but he never played with wall sockets again. :)

strike