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'Plugspreading' is an Abomination (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the somebody-had-to-say-it dept.

Mark Serrels, writing for CNET: A man [on a train], a human man as he lives and breathes, has put his bag, his stupid goddamn bag on the seat. He thinks his bag is more important than your buttcheeks. Than your tired legs. He is undermining your right to rest those legs, to plank those weary buttcheeks on a seat. This train is busy. He is a bad person. He doesn't care. This is a metaphor. In this metaphor the terrible man-person is a tech company. The bag is their terrible plug. A plug that is not content with taking up one slot on your powerboard, but needs two. Not for power, oh no. It just wants the space to... christ, I don't know. Mess with your day? Piss you off? Make your life worse? Stop you from plugging an extra device into your powerboard for no goddamn reason. Jesus wept. I call this phenomenon "plugspreading" and it's an abomination. [...] This is bad behaviour. This is a problem. That second socket was innocent man, it was collateral damage. He did nothing to deserve this. You ruined its life, starved that socket of its purpose, its reason for existing. Plugspreading is everywhere. It's a disease.

6 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. What the fuck are you talking about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you on drugs?

    1. Re:What the fuck are you talking about? by Travelsonic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He is talking about, I think, plugs whose designs are such where if you needed to plug it in to a power strip, you needed to fit it in on one end, or else you're covering up one or more other outlets in the strip (and as a result unable to use said plugs).

      Seriously, why couldn't they design the plug to take up vertical space, and not horizontal space?

      --
      If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
    2. Re:What the fuck are you talking about? by war4peace · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, why couldn't they design the plug to take up vertical space, and not horizontal space?

      They have. And it's equally bad. There's even an animation in TFA depincting that very situation.
      What needs to happen is to have a regular, small footprint plug continued with a wire which goes into the AC/DC converter itself. problem solved. Everyone's happy.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  2. I love 2018 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you can't tell anymore whether articles like this are satire or not you know why "millenial" has become an insult.

  3. Re:WTH? by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Newly invented term to describe a "wall-wart" to millennials.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  4. Re:Blocking the outlet? by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's not a solution. That's a work-around to design that does not bother to take even the slightest consideration of actual usage. Of course you can fix it. I can take the damn power supplies apart and internally connect longer wires and re-encase the transformers if I wanted to. I don't want to. I want to buy a power connector that takes these things into proper consideration. I shouldn't have to work around it. Somewhere, there was somebody actually "PAID" to "DESIGN" this crap. Don't you think they should be held accountable for their incompetence?