Units of measurement
Now, here's something I picked up via The Devil's Kitchen
The Royal College of Art's graduate show has opened, and this year, the show-stopper was a plug. Min-Kyu Choi impressed every passer by with his neat, apparently market-ready plug that folds down to the width [FNS: surely you mean 'thickness'] of an Apple MacBook Air. "The MacBook Air is the world's thinnest laptop ever. However, here in the UK, we still use the world's biggest three-pin plug," says Choi.
I'm so glad that the thickness (10mm) is expressed in terms of Apple Macbook Air™-Thicknesses; I would find it incredibly hard to visualise the extreme super-cool sleekness of such a plug without the universal yardstick of a Macbook Air™ to compare it to. I have at least a dozen Macbook Airs™ on my desk, on hand in case I need to measure something about half an inch thick*. Although, I have heard of a fantastic new invention that can be as little as 1/4 of a Macbook Air™-Thickness, which surely must make it at least 4x as super cool as a super cool Macbook Air™.
I'm also incredibly glad that someone has tackled the decidedly uncool and un-"now" unfreasibly large BS1363 UK 240v plug. I often look at the plugs I have in my life and think "to hell with safety and practicality- I want plugs to look cool, yeah!". Indeed, a flimsy sleek fold out plug will come in useful to me every time I'm lugging electrical appliances or chargers around and could use the extra few cubic centimetres of space so freed up to carry, I dunno, one of my fleet of measuring Macbook Airs™?
PS: They could give the plug a super-cool "now" name like iPlug, or something. That would make it absolutely perfect.
*or just to have a wank over the sleek perfection that is absolutely anything with a fucking Apple™ logo on it. Fuck yeah.