re: #14 A Cranky One

From the previous thread:

One reason these are a bad idea is easy to explain.

Imagine sticking two bare wires into a wall socket and leaving them hanging. Obviously, touching them would result in a severe electric shock. Now image what happens when you plug such a cord into the wall socket. On the other end of the cord, you have the plug energized (essentially the same as the bare wire case). Touching the prongs will result in the same shock as the bare wire case.

So besides all the other problems mentioned, this is one reason these are called suicide cords.

When I was about 10 years old I read about coper plating and decided that I wanted to do some. I had a goldfish bowl and some copper sulphate and reasoned that if a small trickle charge would take days or weeks that strong power would make it faster.

So I stuck a wire coat hanger in each hole in the wall outlet, very carefully of course, put the bowl of loaded water below the two ends and carefully, I thought, dropped them into the bowl.

I woke up across the room against the wall and my parents never figured out what had happened to the ruined power outlet.