Spoiler
Probably at the hardware store picking up more Phillips head screws.

Looks like a dystopia to me, can’t get anywhere by foot and all the cars look like the same general design
If it makes you feel any better, the Phillips head was designed specifically to strip out so assembly line workers wouldn’t over-torque them. It is stupid that they are the default in so many things when we have things like torx that are infinitely better.
From Wikipedia:
There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners. There is no good evidence for this suggestion, and the property is not mentioned in the original patents.
Huh…well guess I was wrong. Thanks for the info!
Acknowledging own error and thanking the counterparty for pointing it out with no sign of spite? Fucking witchcraft! How do I acquire this power?
I mean you just gotta try it I guess. You know what’s more fun that being right? Learning something and then being right.
Edit someone linked this post from tool manufacturer tekton saying much of what I described may be popular misunderstanding, it may be worth taking this info with serval grains of salt https://www.tekton.com/blog/jis-vs-phillips-screwdriver-tip-geometry-and-fastener-compatibility?slug=jis-vs-phillips-screwdriver-tip-geometry-and-fastener-compatibility
If you like Philips aside from that feature (being self-centering is nice sometimes), JIS the Japanese industrial standard is basically the same design but its not intended to cam out, stripping the fastner
To my understanding you can safely use a JIS bit with a Philips fastner to reduce likelihood you strip it. But you ideally shouldn’t use a Philips bit to turn a JIS screw. You can identify a JIS fastner by a little dimple in the corner by the plus shaped indentation


Posidrive bits being mixed in with Phillips also helps strip out a lot of Phillips fasteners
Don’t feel bad, it’s the PH design who’s at fault. For some reason, someone decided PH should have tapered flanks, so that the bit has a constant tendency to slip out of the screw unless you push the bit into it with absurd amounts of force.
The cam out is a feature not a bug for when these were invented. They were made well before we had electric torque control cheaply and easily, so assembly lines developed Phillips to control torque using the driver and fastener. It’s literally designed to cam out on its own at a given torque setting.
AFAIK, this is a myth. The original patents don’t include the tapering, and someone else in the comments quoted the relevant parts from Wikipedia.
i love how the head in the before picture is ALREADY stripped
And half the time it came from the factory like that.
If it comes from the factory with such pronounced corners, chances are its a Phillips/Square drive combo. In which case you can use a square drive bit which will drive it without slipping (IIRC square drive has similarly high torque before cam-out as torx). There are a ton of different kinds of screw drives though, the phillips-adjacent ones are under cruciform here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
How in the world does such a comprehensive article not include JIS? It looks like it was once included but then it was removed due to poor citations. Wtf why was it not added back? It is very distinct from Philips and if you use a Philips driver on a JIS screw, it strips the shit out of it.
JIS screws are denoted by a small dimple in one of the corners of the + on the screw.
Phillips is bad enough to start with, but then they started making Pozidriv, which looks almost identical but isn’t actually compatible - making it even more likely to tear out.
I wonder why Canada seems to be the only country in the world that understands Robertson screw head supremacy?
Robertsons are the Pinnacle screwhead. Torx and hex are also acceptable
Not Hex, I’ve stripped those a few times.
Yeah, hex is only a few obtuse angles away from being a circle. And that means it strips into a circle surprisingly easily.








