Cheap, Dollar Store Cords/Surges in Electricity/AI Data Centers - Aug 29, 2026

0:00This is Tricks of the Trade on Saturday morning. Last Saturday in the month of August 2026. We're about done with this month. I'm glad it's been a hot one. It's been a hot one. If they're saying now we got another five to six days of hot and there's no predicted rain, you may get a passing shower, but you know how that works. Well, I don't care what they say. The way this moon and sun and all this stuff is supposed to revolve around in the sky. Uh-huh. It's going to get cooler eventually. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Within 30 days, I'm going to at least get out of the 90s. I hope. I hope so. At least for a minute or two. That's right. Yeah. Absolutely. Phone line is blinking as we speak. Ready to get this one? Yeah, let's go for it. Good morning. Welcome to Tricks of the Trade. Oh, he did more than all. Yeah, I was, you know how you don't want to string together old branches, cheap dollar store, you know, you're likely to burn your place down if you lead those things unattended.

1:03You put too much of a load on them. And I'm just wondering. As we're learning about these AI data centers, but you know if they're unusual surges that are going on through the systems. Because I'm just wondering with these cheap dollar store extension cords. Surges through the systems could really be a lot of things. Surges through the systems could really affect them, right? Well, you got me. I don't know. I don't really know anything about data centers. Other than they seem to be the topic of everything right now. And with the power and water consumption and noise and whatever, I'm just not that well versed on things like that right now. If what he is, and it craked me from wrong color, but if there was a surge that was put on the line,

2:03it came back through your house system with having a bunch of cheap extension cords be more of a danger than normal. I doubt that. You know, the extension cords are rated to handle voltage and amperage. And unless you have a tremendous amount of voltage that spiked that, a doubt that you're going to have that much of a concern of it back feeding that is. Now, when you're on the other end of it, and you've got things plugged into it, and using those cords that exceed the ratings, then you're going to have a lot of deal on that. But what will happen when things like that spike? It's kind of like a lightning strike. If you have a large amount of voltage that backs in,

3:03it kind of blows the insulation off the wires. And it would cause things to bubble and break down. That's about the only way I can explain that. The cords... I don't know. I don't want to say anything that's not exactly right, but that would be my concern right there. But you do have a restures in all that you can put in your device that will keep that from happening, from forgetting surges and things like that, that will break things down and trip your breakers in all. So you might want to look into some kind of an arrestor that you can put in line to keep that from, you know, back feeding and mess up what all you got plugged into it. Well, right. Yeah, I've got... I'm familiar with like power strips, you know, and you've got a fuse on them. And so you can kind of prevent that.

4:03I've got a nephew of him, he's just as cheap, he goes to the dollar stores, and you know, those cords don't have underwriter label stickers on them, prove that the pass underwriter label are underwriter rating. And for listeners that aren't familiar with it, it'll say you will, right? It's like embossed in the plastic. Right, you're right. And the lot of this dollar store stuff you see, it won't have it in there. And so you don't know if it's rated for anything, if it's done, you get what you get for a dollar. And in my nephew, man, I'll tell you, he ran it through a long stretch of a big room, and he had trash piled on top of it. You know, they say don't step on him any way where amount and make him short. But actually, I had a sister of his mother. She had a good quality cord, and she had it bound up though.

5:06And she had like a 25 foot cord. She only needed 10 foot of it, so she kept it bound up and tucked it behind a door. Let them caught fire eventually and burned out about a quarter of her house. And that went under a right-air raided wound. So you don't want to keep them bundled up. You want to have them stretched out in some way so they can divert the heat. But these cheap ones, I, I, I, please not raise this. You know, the, I noticed that there's an article about the power company. And it's, it says, nuclear regulator prepares to abandon a decade-old radiation safety rule. And it means that they got to at least try to not cause a wreck. And, and so the idea of surges in the nuclear power plants is kind of at issue here.

6:06You know, Tennessee is about to invite the nuclear industry in. If you notice that they, I think it's what five states are being, they're kissing up to Tennessee. And four other states offer to accept nuclear wastes in exchange for helping develop nuclear energy. So you're going to get some nuclear power plants plus have to take the weights. And if these guys all of a sudden don't have to keep up standards. Like in this first article, nuclear regulator, perverse to abandon a decade-old radiation safety rule. That came a week after the state decided to accept the stuff. And then all of a sudden the, in our C decides to abandon basic cautionary care. I mean, this is some bait and switch. And bait and switch in a deadly way. So that's why that's that's something that the other kind of come up not recently,

7:07but it's been kind of lurking out there for a while. But it may and may get put on the front burner here before too long. I mean, I hadn't thought about it lately, but I appreciate you bringing it to our attention. Yes, from yesterday August 25th. That's a new. Okay. I'm going to have a technology section of NPR. And I can see if I can shoot it over to the, do you have a Facebook page of your own? Yeah, I just know I don't I'm I'm I'm I'm not anti I'm tech. I'm just too old. Like I say, the NPR article under their technology session or section and it's for just from the 27th. So I guess day before yesterday. And it's I think the state decided to accept the stuff around the first. And here it is late in the month and all of a NRC says, Oh, by the way, we can be sloppy now. Oh, yeah.

8:07Well, that we don't need that we don't need. I hate to cut you short, but we've got that we've got a commercial commitment. We've got to take care of. And if I don't take care of it, the computer will. So good to hear from you. Appreciate it. Okay, we got a phone call. Let's take one. I do for it. Good morning. Welcome to Tricks of the trade. Good morning, gentlemen. Morning. Yeah, but the guy with the extension cords never coil the cord up. I'm pretty sure you you've got an app probe. No doubt got right. You know, that you know, did you clamp on to the wire? Yeah, it tells you. Yeah, well, when you when you coil up a table like that. You know, you know, you can just put two or three rounds on there and see what your amp probe reads. And then after after you see that your amps have technically doubled and tripled depending on how many coils you got. And then wires and let's just yield and create an EMS. And that all that cross talk and everything what you've done is you basically have created a transformer.

9:13And I can understand why things got hot, you know, the, you know, but that's time for those story. I'm not talking about it. But don't ever coil up an extension cord and use it like that because it's not good unless the cable was less the cord shielded. And that would be extremely expensive. But the number of questions I've got squirrels in my add it.