Connect-A-Cord: extension cord set with 50 1-foot cords

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A godsend! And it's only $8 (UPDATE: It won't be available until late fall).

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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grimc

I’ve been searching for a convenient, economical way to have a tubside stereo! Thanks, Connect-A-Cord!
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  Kind of limiting though. I mean there’s the bathtub electrocution, but there’s no way you’d be able to hang yourself with it. It just won’t hold.
  - grimc
    
    But you get 50 tries at it.
    - Donald Petersen
      
      Terminal chafing may not be the intended result.
      - http://twitter.com/ablufia PabloAblufiaBodente
        
        if the terminals are chafing, don’t undo the plug :)
  - http://profiles.google.com/steve.nordquist Steve Nordquist
    
    If you can demonstrate your willpower to 49(*2) connectors, you can probably free-climb out of your situation in time to fine-tune the neck snap long enough to borrow some kind of cheer, blog it, etc. That said, this is also ideal for free-climbers mounting wishes for a ‘special moment’ involving separate-tubs-at-the-top-of-the-world. No reason to tie in more than necessary.
  - Quiche de Resistance
    
    This could be a safer product. Put just right number of cords so that your radio pulls them apart before it tumbles into the water.
- http://www.facebook.com/devinmcginty Devin McGinty
  
  I need to tell my electrician to install outlets above all of my bathtubs now. Just like the picture.
Paul Coleman

That Cy Hennington is a GENIUS.
http://www.facebook.com/bradthecarter Brad Carter

So setting your boom box on the edge of the tub while plugged into 110 volts AC is something they want to encourage??
- mtdna
  
  Don’t worry, the radio will be fine. If you look closely, you can see it’s the company’s Bubble Bath Boom Box, which is humidity resistant.
- EH
  
  Well what did you think that electrical outlet right above the tub was for?
  - http://profiles.google.com/westcarleton Ray Perkins
    
    It’s not an outlet… http://gifstumblr.com/cool/key-cleaner-1178
- CSBD
  
  Actually it is pretty safe to put a boombox into a tub…
  
  The things you really want to watch out for are appliances with electric motors in them or things that actually draw a lot of amps… fans, blenders, Cuisinarts, power saws, arc welders etc.
  - timquinn
    
    Wrong
  - Brainspore
    
    So if you just cut the device off entirely, plug the power cord into the wall and dip it into the water by itself you’ll be perfectly safe since disconnected wires normally draw zero amps?
  - Sean Nelson
    
    Dangerously wrong. Do you think the 110 magically gets reduced to lower voltages without any connection that would be exposed to water if the chassis was flooded?
    
    I really hope you don’t give this sort of advice to people in person, where it’s not as easy to see a gaggle of other comments that make yours stand out as inaccurate.
    - Petzl
      
      Dude, I’ve actually used Connect-A-Cord. First, it’s perfectly safe near the tub (I’m still kicking). Second, what are fuses for? Wake up: this is the 21st century calling.
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CGUZJZ3IVNH66EXXB6JY23VPR4 vdev
        
        Fuses are for saving the house wiring. Ground-fault-circuit-interrupters (GCFI) are for saving people from electrocution in circumstances such as this.
        
        There’s a very big difference. If you don’t know that then you’re BOTH in line for a Darwin Award.
  - http://twitter.com/andyhunt Andy Hunt
    
    Prove it. With video.
  - RobDobbs
    
    My house has a circuit breaker that should save me.
    - ocker3
      
      See, not everyone gets that some sentences have built-in sarcasm tags, like this one.
  - Halloween_Jack
    
    After you, sport.
  - Stooge
    
    And the meta-Darwin award for offering life-takingly bad advice goes to…
  - Mantissa128
    
    Nonsense. I’ve used my arc welder in the bathtub for years without issue.
planettom

The box photo seems to be professing that it’s safe to have your boombox on the edge of your tub as long as you’ve precisely measured the powercord so that it’ll disconnect if the boombox falls in the tub. I admire those who want to live every moment of their lives like Indiana Jones, but I still wouldn’t do it; that area can still get wet enough to cause problems. As James Bond in the GOLDFINGER prologue would say, shocking, absolutely shocking!
mattmanning

That tub picture is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I hope that’s a GFCI outlet . . . .
Brainspore

This product wouldn’t be necessary if that stupid contractor had just installed the power outlet at tub-level like most bathrooms.
splashu

Looks like some people didn’t actually click the link…
- planettom
  
  You’re right; I am shamed. Particularly since I used that Family Blankeez box to send all my Christmas gifts to my family the year before last.
awjt

The Troll is hard with this one.
Jorpho

Actually, it’s surprisingly handy. Plug a bunch of those into a power bar, and you have your very own power “squid” that can easily accommodate a whole bunch of bulky AC adapters.

Monoprice charges 99 cents each for a quantity of 50 of these things, so yes, $8 is an incredible bargain! Or it would be, if this wasn’t fake. :(
- http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty
  
  Right! At first I thought that’s what this was. Then a second later I realised…
- MonkeyBoy
  
  A few years back I was experiencing USB port blockage problems and tried to find a few 6″ USB cables. No regular place seemed to sell them.
  
  I wound up buying like 10 for $5 from Ebay. I store the extras plugged end-to-end but I’ve never tried using them as just 1 USB cable.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    I’d say you’d be likely to get issues like USB2 stuff showing up as USB1 and so on… IME USB gets glitchy from the attenuation of connectors.
http://www.facebook.com/DaveMcCaig Dave McCaig

I would buy the heck out of this if it were real. I have about 10 1 ft extension cords around the house already – they’re great for thwarting wall warts hogging space on power bars. I never thought to connect them together though.
- http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar
  
  “They’re great for thwarting wall warts hogging space on power bars,” explained Dave, as he hustled Tom Edison IV down a street illuminated by tubes of excited noble gasses. Tom had barely understood a word anyone had said since he left the Electrical Palace at Luna Park, only to find the park deserted and in ruins. It was as though he’d stepped into some alternative to his own familiar reality, a topsy-turvy world with power stations the size of textile mills and international wireless telegraphy, yet a world in which even the most sophisticated of electric piles could scarcely power a single automobile, let alone a deluxe airship of the line. A world run on alternating current.
  
  Tom shuddered involuntarily as Dave led him into a small boutique with the curious name, “Radio Shack.”
- http://www.samuelcousinsphotography.com Sam
  
  Yeah, at that price I’d buy two boxes. Whether it’s to mitigate wall-warts or because you need just a little extra cord, One/two foot extension cords are shockingly useful. *cough*
coop

I love it. With all those connections it could double as a room heater. ;-)
- Glen Able
  
  I bought the deluxe version with gold-plated connectors, so no such problems for me. Also it makes my bathtub cassette tapes sound vastly superior.
Philboyd Studge

It’s just the thing for when “White Rabbit” peaks.
- http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
  
  That’s one way to put the savage heart in your American dream.
- KBert
  
  Adrenochrome dreams.
xzzy

I put my wife’s “big” christmas present in one of these prank boxes last year (the pet auto-petter one) and it worked remarkably well. She kind of gave one of those “oh well isn’t that nice” bits and moved on to the next present.

It took almost 20 minutes (long after everyone in the family had opened everything) to convince her to actually open it and discover what was actually inside.

Moral of the story: best $8 I’d ever spent on cardboard.
- Glen Able
  
  The real present turned out to be a set of dusters.
- Petzl
  
  You should’ve put the real present in a Connect-A-Cord box and then put the Connect-A-Cord box inside a Bathe & Brew box. Double the fun.
  
  Wait, why stop there …
http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn

“Ah, but there’s a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths. So it’s not very useful.”
- Toby Weston
  
  The now string!
  - godwal
    
    “Destroy ninety-nine percent of known household pests with pre-sliced, rustproof, easy to handle, low calorie Simpson’s individual emperor stringettes, free from artificial coloring, as used in hospitals!”
    - http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn
      
      In hospitals? It’s only string…
      - http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
        
        Put an archbishop in there, I rather like the curse of it.
    - allium
      
      ’Ospitals?
cowbell

Wouldn’t it be better to have 4 ten-footers, a five-footer and five one-footers?
- ddh819
  
  like a band-aid assortment box!
- http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch
  
  If you really want The Perfect Length Power Cord!, then six cords, in 2^n foot lengths from n in [0,5] so you can have any length you want in one-foot increments from one foot to 63 feet.
  
  Not much use for a second cord after you’ve used up some for the first, but then again the box doesn’t say Several Perfect Length Power Cords!
Preston Sturges

Somewhere there is a fire inspector having a heart attack….

Seriously, I once had a fire inspector threaten a $300 ticket for a 3 outlet plug adapter.
- snowmentality
  
  I’m not a fire inspector, but my first thought was a sarcastic “What could possibly go wrong?”
  
  I’m trying to dig up a website I saw a while back — it was a compendium of really terrible, dangerous DIY wiring jobs. (Like “There I Fixed It” but only for wiring, and not part of the Cheezburger empire.) There were some amazing examples of extension cord abuse.
  
  (And yes, everyone, I get that this is a joke product.)
  - timquinn
    
    This old house has something like that. Pretty amusing series.
    - Vulpes Abnocto
      
      Home Inspection Nightmares
      http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,1220600,00.html
      As a carpenter, this site makes me wonder how the human race doesn’t idiot itself into extinction.
  - http://www.iandicomputing.com Clifton
    
    I think I remember the site you’re talking about, but I don’t have an URL.
    
    Maybe the Naval Safety Center has something along the lines of what you’re thinking of? Their weekly photos have some mind-blowingly awful wiring jobs, but it isn’t all wiring. There are also plenty of cases of “Try to use forklift to lift smaller forklift up to where it can lift pallet” and similar.
    
    It appears they’ve got archives here, but for some god-awful reason they’ve converted most of them to Powerpoint files.
    
    Also, tangentially, I’ve taken fire inspector fussiness about extension cords and multiple outlets a lot more seriously ever since I saw a daisy-chained power strip in my company’s server room actually burst into flames.
theophrastvs

Too bad they aren’t “Y”s. Just think of the graph theory one could explore.
Mockiovelli

I was real disappointed when I saw that the link didn’t go to amazon. $8 would have been a good deal for all those cords…

Think of all the replacement plugs! Think of all the sockets!
- https://www.facebook.com/rgovrebo B. Peasant
  
  At that price, they’d be those nasty one-piece molded things.
http://twitter.com/jamesdykstra jamesdykstra

I thought the price was a little low, it would be $50 on Monoprice.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10228&cs_id=1022802&p_id=5296&seq=1&format=2
guygadbois

But can it core a apple?
- Michael Burt
  
  Ohh… a bus a bribe…a bribe a bus
http://twitter.com/matcatastrophe mat catastrophe

I don’t know what made me laugh more – the tubside boom box or the notion that someone would buy this AND THEN STRING TOGETHER ALL FIFTY CORDS FOR SOME REASON.
http://www.facebook.com/obive Charlie Hayes

I don’t see the actual product at that link. If this weren’t a gag, it sure would be a great deal on 1ft ‘plug savers’ so wallworts didnt take up 3 outlets.
Nash Rambler

The product demonstration photos on the box are straight out of the home hazards awareness poster. Appliance near the tub, man overreaching on a shaky ladder, plastic cord stretched over an open stove element. Invitations to a grisly death all! Sure this product is a godsend, if you worship Cthulu.
David Perriman

They gotta be kidding! Are they seriously suggesting using a mains-driven radio in the bathroom? As for a power outlet also in that damp, humid room, words fail me. A recipe for electrocution if ever I saw it.
- Brainspore
  
  They gotta be kidding!
  
  Literally unbelievable.
  (Literally.)
http://twitter.com/wi_ngo wingo shackleford

Haha “Wake & Bake Griddle”.
http://www.ethanham.com Ethan

What everyone is missing is that the stereo on the tub is the PERFECT example of why someone would want–nay, NEED–a connect-a-cord. Because the extension cord is the precise link, it will unplug itself automatically if that stereo happened to slip.

Because we’re only shown the front of the box, we can’t see the equally compelling photo on the back in which an electric lawnmower is headed straight for the pet dog. Thank goodness it’s powered by a perfect-length connect-a-cord!
- Halloween_Jack
  
  That was my initial thought, too, but there’s just a little too much slack in that cord. The smart thing to do is to have the boom box sitting anywhere but the edge of the tub, and to have a model that includes a remote for changing volume/stations/tracks/whatever.
Anthony I

Is this product UL listed?
http://twitter.com/a_w_young a_w_young

Gag or lawsuit bait?

YOU DECIDE.
pjcamp

Now I can plug in 50 wall warts!
http://profiles.google.com/steve.nordquist Steve Nordquist

Spray-on Datacenter for Exterior Walls and the NEMA-8 version of this are a perfect match. You might be reaching for the Goulomb ruler knockoffs, or the paintable solar and thermal wall materiel solutions available, but this is the one.
http://www.epinardscaramel.com TokenFrenchDude

What’s a foot ?
hrferic

it’s the boombox of Damocles
hrferic

I’d like to BUY this for the low-low price of $8,but can’t seem to find it anywhere.Perhaps it’s a CONCEPT extension cord??
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000847715821 Loraine Suykersteen

boombox, bath, woman. very unfortunate.
http://profile.yahoo.com/YVM2T6N2WROHR2I6YALYRFMMUY Angela

ConnectACord Prank Pack will be for sale at prankpack.com later this fall (along with a couple other new styles)!
http://twitter.com/gfxm Tyson Mowat

Up here in Northern Canada, we plug in our vehicles when it gets really cold. I have lost a dozen extension cords over the years by driving away without remembering to unplug. These 1-foot cords are not only available, but worth it for that purpose. So parody imitates life imitates parody…
jonnay

As someone who has too many wall warts, I am sad this product doesn’t exist. Very sad.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Papallion-Sunspell/100003568218405 Papallion Sunspell

My first thought? Use it to connect adapters to my power strips so I can finally have more then three plugs per strip. I’m sad it’s not real.