electricity

In rebuilding their website Alasdair Smith has programmed a feature that renders based on the sources of electricity from your power grid. In their words:

Grid aware websites change their content and user experience based on the user’s electricity grid. The concept was originally developed by Branch magazine and later by the Green Web Foundation’s Grid-aware websites project.

CSS animations get disabled and images use alt-text among other changes based on the cleanliness of the electricity. From what I could see my power grid is indeed clean!

It was my first time hearing about this, the implementation details are interesting and Alasdair links to some follow-up resources.

The Europlug, a two-pronged AC power plug for regular household appliances, is surprisingly compatible with most of the world's plugs. The Wikipedia map, I discovered via Jiu on Mastodon, highlights this. I knew the British Type G plug with three flat poles could still technically be used, although not recommended(!), by pulling down the ground shutter and shoving a Europlug in.

In some types of BS 1363 [Type G] socket (but not all) the safety mechanism can be tampered with so that a Europlug may then be forced into the open line and neutral ports. The UK Electrical Safety Council has drawn attention to the fire risk associated with forcing Europlugs into BS 1363 [Type G] sockets.

I've seen this used quite a lot in the Middle East as appliances come with both the British and Europlug whereas all wall sockets are British. Looking at the map I was not aware of how much of world actually used Type G plugs.