[bpowah]

Wonderfully entertaining to read. I was once told by a certified electrician (and physicist) that you don't even need a neutral wire and many rural services only have one "hot wire" and use the earth as the neutral "return" circuit (which really just need to have capacitance. I think the author could have started with a "one slot" age. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return

[cynicalkane]

You still need two slots, unless all of your appliances happen to rest on copper stakes hammered into the ground.

[bpowah]

or have some capacitance of their own.