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Comment by s0rce | Hacker News Reader

In North America if the outlets are relatively new and in good shape there are springs inside that hold the plug in so things don't fall off. With older outlets the springs wear out/loosen and stuff can easily fall out, I've seen the plugs where the prongs are bent slightly outward (flared) so that they hold in the plug even in worn outlets. Most of these bricks can go in the lower plug and not block the upper port although thats not universally true.

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> Most of these bricks can go in the lower plug and not block the upper port although thats not universally true.

Can't you put it into the upper socket, upside down? Most bricks do not have grounding, where the third pin would prevent that (or do they in NA?).

Why does the orientation matter if the end result is the same? My point is your suggestion is no better than OPs, so who cares which way the brick points?

If the brick's plug is polarized it matters.

Though if it is polarized, it should be three-prong one, to physically prevent connecting it the other way.

But as Germans and their Schuko have shown, it doesn't really matter ;)

US polarized plugs have the neutral pin physically bigger than the line pin. They don't need the third prong to make it one-way, that's only needed for conductive-cased items to have a ground connection.

Nope, the neutral prong is wider on polarized plugs. Nearly all two-prong plugs are polarized, it's just stuff like transformers or soldering irons that aren't.

> Why does the orientation matter

So it doesn't cover the bottom port with it's mass.

> if the end result is the same?

It is not; the difference is, that you could connect another brick to the bottom port.

Sometimes you can but other times it isn't feasible because the mass of the brick in that configuration isn't pushing against the wall and is instead actively pulling the plugs out of the receptacle.

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