Notes for Americans:
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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'd kind of hope the government actually provides a guide for citizen on their websites and/or other convenient information outlets. -
But maybe if we let "AI" wire its own plugs...

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@cstross Ok I think I know who did the wiring in my house now. They literally painted the end of the wire when they used the wrong one.
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@cstross Blive implies the existence of a Bdead
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@cstross I figure at the rate of the Accelerando, we are no more than weeks away from "agentic AI" demanding access to people's financial accounts. Hopefully some of those people will be billionaires drinking their own Kool-Aid.
Don't worry, your bank will do it for you.
https://www.macquarie.com.au/digital-banking/q-ai-agent.html
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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'm leaning toward "boom" with these. But I'm not an electrician.
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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 Oh my god.
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@cstross Escher's Suicide Plug
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@cstross I do these threads every so often. My most recent one was on my Bluesky where I got four LLMs to draw maps progressively getting more zoomed in (the World, Europe, UK, Yorkshire, York).
Things got worse each time you zoomed in, sometimes with "memories" from the previous image. My favourite was the attached version of Yorkshire.
I'll do another one in a month or two.
@tautology @cstross Great map! Now you just have to ask AI to write the fantasy book to match it.
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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*.
But sure, let's become "an AI nation", build "AI gigafactories" in order "not to be left behind" ... /s
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@cstross You...you had to wire your own plugs? Seriously?
How many people killed themselves each year because they didn't know how to do it properly and were too impatient to wait for someone who did?
I learned to wire plugs from "Blue Peter". That TV program was very involved in the transition from the old round-pin system.
Details of electrical wiring have had many changes since then. My grandfather was a qualified electrician, trained before WW1. Many of the don't-kill-yourself rules that he taught me don't depend on colour-codes or the design of a screw-head.
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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@wandering.shop smh, kids today wouldn't know even what to hook the blive wire up to.
it's nice that they've labelled the neutral tone area of the picture, though. -
@tautology @cstross Great map! Now you just have to ask AI to write the fantasy book to match it.
@ssilvonen @cstross Ackroyd the Barbarian wi' 'is warsheep and scout ferret. 'e adjusts his warcap and lights his Woodbine. as 'e descends to cleanse the lands of rogue Lancastrians.
Wi' his warcry of "Yorkshire, Yorkshire, dust tha want braying"?
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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 at least in my secondary school, they were still teaching you how to do it in the early 00s
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@cstross only missing the enormous rat-penis
@uep You called, sir?
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@cstross I'd kind of hope the government actually provides a guide for citizen on their websites and/or other convenient information outlets.
@cstross @lispi314 It hasn't been relevant since websites entered the general public's consciousness. I became an adult a few years after the relevant change in the law and I've been a (mostly ...) perfectly functional adult for the three decades or so ever since without ever having bothered to learn how to wire a plug. Literally never needed that skill.
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@cstross at least in my secondary school, they were still teaching you how to do it in the early 00s
@cstross @shift_reset My A-level computing class in the late 1990s taught me about mainframes. I think curriculums tend to lag reality somewhat.
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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 Seems it would save time just to stick your fingers directly into the socket, no?
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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 Was (1) due to variation in outlet designs in different locales or some other reason?