brianorca

In AC, diodes work half the time, every 1/60 second. The “good” LEDs will have circuitry to fully rectify the AC into DC, drop the voltage properly, and smooth the peaks and valleys, so they will be continuously lit. So the cheap LED Christmas lights might have a slight flicker, and the good ones are steady. (Or get fancy with chasing colors, etc.)

All of that happens inside each of the “bulb” enclosures, or sometimes in a box at one end, so it technically doesn’t matter which end they are getting electricity from, since the socket at the far end is still just connected in parallel to the plug at the near end. (Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to link them together.)

It’s just a really bad dangerous idea to reverse them.

It would still work. But it is VERY dangerous. 1. The far end of the light string will now have exposed metal prongs that are energized at 120v, which can be fatal. 2. If the other end gets plugged into a socket, there is a 50% chance it will be a different circuit on a different phase, which can create a 240v direct short, across a wire that has no properly sized circuit breaker. 3. Using it to plug a generator into your house during a power outage can kill electrical workers trying to fix the outage if you fail to open your circuit breakers.

If someone can’t make the own cord, what’s the chance they know how vital it is to flip the breaker?

Two things: 1: there’s a high chance you do cross live and neutral, or even live and live on different phases. 2: using it to plug in a generator to power your house can kill electrical workers who are trying to restore a power outage. (If you fail to open your circuit breaker.)

My guess is that’s how high it needs to be for the sewer to flow in the right direction.

Spoilers in Connect are not readable when I click them. (White on white) Unless I first select the post so the background in grey.

That sounds more like they are excluding most corporate internal systems, (which would also happen to cover the systems run by government.)

USB PD (Power Delivery) actually does use a higher voltage for more wattage. Standard USB is limited to 5V at 0.5A and sometimes up to 5V @ 2A on quick chargers. But PD chargers can give 20V and 3A for 60w or even 5A (100w) with properly rated cables. There’s even a proposal for up to 48V at 5A to get 240w. This is all determined by a negotiation between the charger, the cable (which does have a small chip for this purpose), and the device, therefore PD chargers must support multiple voltages.

I’m not sure there is any more the hermit kingdom can be sanctioned, other than getting Russia and China to actually honor the existing sanctions. (Ha!)

Ukraine doesn’t want to target Moscow. They are not like Russia, they go after actual military targets, not civilians. They have been using their homebuilt drones for long enough inside Russia to show their priorities.

TBH, all connected cars have security concerns, but cars built by an opposing superpower would have National Security concerns, too. The two concerns are related, but separate.

The whole point of a public key is it can be publicized. Use any public publishing method, the more public the better.

We knew the deal was changed, but not by who. (As far as I know.)

Replace NT in this list with ME and you have all the consumer versions. NT versions 3.5 and 4 were the business versions in parallel with 95, 98, and ME.

I do a lot of code. That means I often deal with three or four programs at the same time, and perhaps 10 loaded throughout the day and I want to see them all. So I have two monitors that are each 27" and 4k.

This means I can see a web browser sized to a full 1080 size, next to a database query, and still see the code that I’m working on, and keep an eye on any new emails or text chats. Without needing to Alt-tab to switch windows. It’s like spreading your work over a dining room table, instead of those little desks you got in high school.

Most apps don’t need to be larger than 1080. But some can be taller to see more code (maybe 160 lines, for example) without scrolling too much. And I hardly ever deal with just one window at a time.

Some of that may not be subjective, even if it is a personal difference. Some need glasses, some don’t get glasses because they just barely need them, and others have problems glasses can’t fix, especially as we age. Some eyes are just different, and that’s physical differences, not just a difference of preference.

Hair is hair. At least they didn’t use wall paint.

The problem is “unsafe websites” is actually a very broad category. Even popular, reputable websites have accidentally hosted malware in the advertisements, some of which can infect without a click.

Or a paintball filled with such liquid. A paintball would have more range than a liquid spray.

Air support.