this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Amazon could soon be on the hook for safety of third-party products it sells and ships — Government order could classify it as a distributor, potentially exposing it to more legal claims::undefined

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[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (20 children)

I've seen these used in low income homes where the basement electricity is paid by the landlord for coin operated washers. Then someone gets their electricity cut (lack of payment) so they use these cables to jump the outlets and steal electricity from the landlord.

The dude just went to a hardware store and bought an extension cable and a replacement plug head. Snipped the female end and added the male in like 5 minutes.

The only practical usage of those things is jumping a generator to a house during a blackout.

Edit: yes please bring on the down votes for me sharing a story about how the poor use these scary cables. Real nice.

[–] fkn@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago (19 children)

And that "practical use" kills linemen.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (13 children)

I keep hearing this as the "Reason" but never backed by anything that makes sense. I've never needed to jump my generator to my house, and don't particularly care to even in the event of "disaster" so don't attack me like I'm doing this...

If you successfully suicide jumper your generator to the grid. Wouldn't the collective load of all your neighbors stuff kill the generator? (eg bog it down to the point that it turns off? [if it has no breaker]) Also wouldn't the load of literally your whole neighborhood trip off the breaker in the generator(or in the panel)? Doesn't this leave it as the only "risk" is if you happen to turn on the generator as the lineman themselves are specifically holding a live wire with an active connection to a ground/neutral before the previous stuff can happen? Or only if they happen to isolate you and then you turn on the genny after? Wouldn't you agree that this last thing would be an incredibly rare?

And I can never find an article where a cable was determined to be the cause of an electrocution...

Now because the internet is the internet... I'm not advocating for using suicide cables... There's much easier reasons why this is a terrible idea (exposed live contacts being literally the primary one). But I just never understood the "lineman" argument with all the stuff that would have to go specifically "right" in order to do that kind of harm to a lineman.

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