Coming up on hands-on tech, do you really need to replace that power outlet, that surge protector?

Let's talk about it. Stay tuned.

This is Twit.

Hello and welcome to Hands On Tech. I am Micah Sargent, where I take your tech questions and do my dadgum best to answer them.

This is the show where you write in to HOT at twit.tv with your questions, and I try to find them in the midst of dozens of emails asking me to be a collaborator on all sorts of product launches.

I swear I get more email from the spamazoids on our HOT email than I think I've ever seen.

I don't know what it is about those short letter emails, but goodness gracious.

In any case, when I'm going through and every five is a great question.

I'm super, super happy to be able to find it and talk about it.

This week's question really interesting comes in from Elizabeth, who says,

I've heard it said that power strips wear out after several years and thus need to be replaced. My response to that is, well, that's mighty convenient for power strip manufacturers.

What makes these things wear out? Love this question. First and foremost, I want to do some clarifying if

this reminds me of a high school debate a little bit because one of the first

things that you do in Lincoln Douglas debate in particular which is one

person versus another there are like three main forms of debate. Puff, which is also called policy, Lincoln Douglas, and no, no, I think it's policy,

Puff and Lincoln Douglas. I don't recall now. It's been so long, but certainly the kind

that I did was Lincoln Douglas, 1 v1. And in it, the first thing that you do is define terms.

Because if you can't come to an agreement on what the terms are and what they mean,

then you're not able to make your argument in any case.

And there were many a debate, there were many a debate won on my part by disagreeing with

and providing better definitions for the terms they're in.

So let's talk about terms.

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