Thursday 27 March 2008

Is this supposed to be that fucked?

If there is one piece of technology design that needs to be obliterated on pain of considerable amounts of pain, it is this: Power plugs that are too wide to fit next to other plugs. Has anyone worked this out? Some companies have avoided this by putting the big chunky transformer halfway along the cord, with perhaps another cord plugged into it to help with adapters for different countries. But this gets messy and most just give up, and give you something that takes up so much space that you need a four-socket power board just for two devices.

And then there's Samsung. My growing annoyance with this manufacturer was given a good boost this morning when I attempted to move the charger from where it was plugged into a mega-powerboard behind my computer to somewhere it could be both plugged in and get reception at the same time. The adapter is very neat and svelte and quite sexy. And goes off to the left. When sitting in the powerpoint, it takes a sharp left turn. I couldn't put it there because it would run into the wall. I couldn't put it in the right-hand side of that double powerpoint because it would block off the left-hand side. I tried putting it in a powerboard, but between the power pack for the cordless telephone and the plug for the digital clock, there wasn't enough room. I now have three devices plugged into two powerboards.

I have to wonder: What do the designers of these products do at home?

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