Spectre
The Deported
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2007
- Messages
- 36,832
- Location
- Dallas, Texas
- Car(s)
- 00 4Runner | 02 919 | 87 XJ6 | 86 CB700SC
That's interesting Spectre, good to know I have it as backup. The outlet is pretty far from the tub though.
As far as smiley face outlets go, I had never even realized ours looked so weird. If you look at my picture you'll see the two prongs aren't even the same size, so it really does look like a startled face.
The Danish one is great too, we should do some captions or something.
The reason why one prong is larger than the other is because about 20 years ago, the UL altered its standards to make the two flat prongs "polarized" or one larger than the other so you can only stick a two prong plug in one way. You can still stick an older-style unpolarized plug into a polarized outlet, of course.
The reason why the UL changed to polarized is to make sure that you orient the plug into the outlet only one way - this make sure that when you turn the power switch off on a UL-listed appliance, the electricity does not pass the power switch and enter the appliance (similar logic to why foreign outlets have switches on them.) Otherwise, the appliance can have electricity inside even though the switch is not on. This is superior to the outlet switch because it's automatic and it does not require one to go hunting behind furniture to turn the power on to an appliance.