captain_aggravated

So, the oldest cordless drill I have is this old Black & Decker 12v thing, my dad bought it in like, 2002. It has a quick detaching chuck, and under the chuck is a 1/4" hex collet. So you can load a phillips or torx driver bit in that, then mount the chuck over it and chuck in a drill bit, then you can drill your pilot holes, pop the chuck off and drive screws.

And other than that minor innovative feature it's crap. The build quality on even consumer-grade power tools has increased a lot since I was in high school; I've got some of the new SB&D Craftsman tools that are a lot nicer to handle; that old B&D creaks and squeaks as it flexes in your hand, it's not overmolded and the bare ABS slips around in your grip, the controls feel like you're twisting lego bricks, the batteries are long out of production and it's the only tool I have that takes that standard, and it's a 20 year old brushed motor 12 volt tool; it's the size of my 20v drills but less powerful than my little 12v mini Bosch drill.

You know, we're talking about how pointless a riddle it is. "Why can't I walk into the room more than once?" I've heard similar hiring riddles about things like "You've got ten ethernet cables that run the length of a long hallway. They're not marked at either end, what's the most efficient way of finding out which is which?"

And you know what? If I'm hiring a networking guy, I don't want him to deliver me an "ooh I know this one" answer to that, I want him to tell me he's got a cable tester with several remote probes so he can figure that out in a small number of trips. Maybe show me how he can hook a couple together with a coupler and use the cable length function to shave a couple of trips off. Not recite a memorized brain teaser answer.

The "premise" is detecting that a now dark light was recently turned on by feeling for residual heat. "Hot" is a relative term.

well, sounds like a skill issue on her part at this point.

I don't need four power drills, I want four power drills.

You are correct; the point of gold plated contacts is anti-corrosion and long service life not for absolute highest conductivity.

I'm a ham radio operator; I have some silver-plated antenna connectors, because antenna feedlines are dealing with extremely weak signals on receive, so any loss you can eliminate in the connector the better. Problem is they corrode to hell everywhere they aren't tightly screwed together. For consumer AV equipment the signals are basically never weak enough to bother with that.

I would think most audiophiles know this?

They're not marketing to audiophiles. They're marketing to dudes and dads. They aren't trying to get the guy hooking a manual turntable up to a tube amplifier, they're trying to get the guy attaching a PS5 to an LG TV to a Sonos soundbar. They're going for the guy who is spending middle class money on AV equipment without bothering to understand it.

Wish I'd thought of it.

I remember hearing something about Ogg vorbis being outmoded by some other Ogg? I don't know I've moved from mp3 to FLAC personally.

Why?

220v isn't achieved via two phases; we get 110v out of a single phase by center tapping the transformer. The center tap wire is called the "neutral" and is at ground potential, and then the two "hot" wires. There's 110v between the neutral and either one of the hots, and the hots are 220v apart. It's still one phase.

Note I used 110/220v here and 120/240 above. peak-to-peak, root-mean-square, ask an actual electrician, I'm just an asshole on the internet.

Some of those belong to the person in the background.

A couple days a year typically, between hurricanes, tornadoes and winter ice storms.

Honest answer: Induction stoves aren't shit in the US. They don't run at a lower voltage because our homes are wired for 240V same as Europe.

Honest explanation: The American power grid closely remembles anyone else's, we've got the big long distance power lines up on those big pylons that transmit power in the megavolts, those get stepped down at substations to a dozen kilovolts to snake into neighborhoods, and then those pole mounted transformers step it down to 240V to make the couple hundred foot trip from the pole to a few houses. The difference is that in America, the transformer is connected to the house with three wires, not two. The third wire is a center tap, so you have the two outer wires and a center wire.

Measure the voltage between the outer two wires, you find 240V. Measure between the center wire and either of the outer two, you find 120V.

Most of the normal outlets throughout an American home or business are wired between one of the outers and the center, to deliver 120V. But, we routinely wire some circuits across the two outer wires for 240V, we even have special plugs for this to make sure you don't plug a 120V appliance into a 240V outlet. Things such as electric water heaters, HVAC units, clothes dryers, electric car chargers and electric stoves are indeed wired for 240V here.

Induction cooktops took on a low reputation in the US because early models were hilariously expensive (Westinghouse was selling an induction range in the 70's for $1500, that's about $10,000 in today's money) and not particularly reliable. Another factor was all the trendy cookware from the 60's on. CorningWare and Pyrex (ceramic and borosilicate glass) was huge in the 70's, Calphalon (anodized aluminum) and Revere Ware (high-nickel stainless steel) was on all the wedding registries in the 80's, and solid copper was big in the early 90's. None of which work on induction stoves. Which means, for decades, Americans perceived induction ranges as gimmicky crap that required "special" cookware, that to buy into an induction range would require throwing away all your pots and pans. Americans continued preferring resistive coil electric or natural gas stoves.

Well, we arrived into the 21st century, teflon-coated steel and tri-ply stainless pans come into vogue, Corning stops making consumer ceramic and glass products, Revere changes their stainless formula, and now we find that most cookware on the market is induction compatible. Induction stoves are the fastest growing market segment in kitchen appliances in the US, everybody wants one.