At 400 kilovolts, a standard value for long-distance transmission, an alternating current 30 metres (100 feet) from the ground has a fortieth of the loss of a similar cable at ground level.

ECONOMIST: Power transmission

Totally Bamboo's Samoa cutting board is harder than maple, fine-sanded to a silky finish and set with alternating light (natural) and dark (naturally caramelized) pieces.

FORBES: Patio Daddy-O

Then thread fruit onto the skewers (alternating different fruits looks nice), baste them with a little melted butter before cooking.

NPR: Grilling Your Dessert

One of the considerations was the relative safety of direct current - the first electric chair seems to have been built (and then used) to prove that alternating current was more of a killer.

BBC: A universal plug socket... at last?

Its remorselessly shrill tone, alternating between the shocking and the motivational (not a word Mr Peters likes but accurate, nonetheless), could easily cause a normal brain to explode after half an hour's continuous exposure.

ECONOMIST: Corporate management: Excellence revisited | The

Immediately preceding this symposium -- the second in a series of semi-annual meetings(1) to be convened on an alternating basis in Washington and New York -- an elegant luncheon was held to salute Edwin Meese III .

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

The authors, who write in alternating chapters, share anecdotes about their own experiences in a tone that is breezy and chatty (sometimes excessively so).

WSJ: Healthy Reader: 'Thinner This Year,' by Chris Crowley and Jen Sacheck

But the agreement - or carve-up, as the Tories see it - between Labour and Lib Dem GLA members to vote the former's Trevor Phillips and the latter's Sally (Baroness) Hamwee as alternating chair and deputy chair of the assembly will give the party more of a high-profile position.

BBC: Mayor Ken's big tent