I didn't realize because I am too used to it.

Because it reads like this:

“In other countries, like [those in] Europe or South America”.

And in the big touristy cities in Europe, there's so many scam currency exchanges, while if you just take the time to go to official government exchanges, you get reasonable exchange rates. The problem isn't the locals, the problem is that you didn't do the research and you did a dum-dum. (Also fuck the people who are scamming tourists, that's just low.)

The only places I’ve found that take USD are really poor places that really want USD, and maybe Mexico. Even some of those places will really take advantage of the exchange and you get way less than what the USD is worth if you just pay with USD.

I travel all the time and tourist locations, barring the ones I mentioned, don’t want anything to do with handling USD when tapping a card or phone to pay is vastly preferred.

At the risk of being that idiot …..

I’m still annoyed at crossing a border over an international bridge and having to exchange currency to pay the toll. There’s a good argument that situation should support both currencies at that border.

And of course the currency exchange at that toll did not allow exchanging the amount of the toll. Scammy ripoff of people trying to cross forcing them to exchange larger amounts than they need

Yeah. It always strikes me as bizarre how many people online see something that would only be satire in a sane world and completely assume it's serious. They have no doubts. Never occurred to them it might be a joke...

Houses in the US generally have 220v too but not at ordinary wall outlets

There's a technology connections video on it if you're interested in the specifics

Oh don't worry about that, just plug in your 110V appliances and watch them run twice as fast

It's less of a problem nowadays where most things have switching power supplies that can handle either just fine

Oh this gets stranger.

It's usually 120v, but I'm not going to split hairs over 10v.

So, 120v is not a voltage that is delivered from the grid... Technically speaking. Each home is given one circuit of 240v, which is usually part of one leg of a three phase, coming off of the Transformers... 120v is there because they center-tap the transformer. This halves the voltage by consequence. Inside the house the circuits are generally laid out to try to balance the load between each half of the 240v phase.

The idea is that two 120v loads, put in series, will total 240v. So power will ideally go from L1 to a 120v load, to "neutral", then over to another 120v load, then finally back on L2.

More or Less.

120v is basically just half of what you should be loading the system with.

The center tap neutral from the transformer is to collect any load imbalance between L1 and L2 to allow for the two "sides" of the phase to be out of balance and still work.

The US "plug" ( aka receptacle ) is a NEMA 5-15R, or NEMA 5-20R (for 20A); these are designed for 120v operation using the half phase described above. Of course, you can mis-wire it and make all kinds of dangerous abominations if you so choose. There is, however, a less known NEMA 6-15R and NEMA 6-20R that is basically the same, but for 240v operation, replacing the neutral wire with L2 instead (and 15/20A respectively).

So it is entirely possible to have 240v outlets in a North American home, while still being compliant with code.

It's actually really fascinating information when your dig into it.

US used to be like that too. When polarized plugs first became a thing, they wouldn’t fit into older non-polarized outlets. It took decades for all those to be replaced and I’m sure they’re still out there. Somewhere

According to Electroboom Australia is doing it right too.

Stand on one pointing up and tell me it’s good.

I'll for repairability but the plug isn't usually what breaks.