People thinking there will be advanced electronics in the next decades. How naive /s
this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
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- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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USB-A, the fonz of USB.
I’ll see myself out.
I'll make and sell USBC cables that only have pins on one side of the connectors, marketing them as retro nostalgic.
I will not be marking them differently from your other cables, for authenticity of the experience.
Replace half the cables from all of your friends' cables drawers without them knowing and go enjoy your free ticket to hell
wouldn't that actually be completely fine since the ports handle the orientation?
"You'd always stick it in wrong at least once, preferably twice, and then swear about it under your breath, as was the style at that time. And the smaller devices had the micro USB ports that had the same problem. And you'd have to take out your mouse's ball and gently clean all the lint off it when it would start getting all onery. And don't even get me started about when they removed all the audio jacks from all the cellular phones!"
Was it mini or micro usb, tho?
Yes.
I actually miss having to clean the mouse's ball. It was oddly therapeutic.
Grandpa, What's an audio jack? Is that what you guys used to eat those tide pod things?
Can't you see that gramp's busy cleaning his ornery balls
One day USB-A will be so uncommon
Every USB-C to C connector I've seen ends up coming with half a dozen adapters, because cell phones seem like the only device that uses it reliably.
Usb-c covers so much that something like 75% of the onea i have are entirely useless for data transfer, or dont have fast charging capabilities, or just... Suck? And sometimes i do feel the need to flip them for troubleshooting purposes or whatever.
I also had a laptop charger that needed to be flipped one specific way. Usb-C will one day die and be replaced with an extremly expensive usb-Delta that everything i wanted but also costs a bajillion dollars
One day, children will ask why we don't make the plugs different shapes so you know if you're using a 60 watt cable or a 240 watt cable or something in between.
(I do not know anything about electricity so I'm certain there's a better way to explain this but it's bananas I have USB cables that look identical but my Steam Deck will die while plugged in if I grab the wrong one)
The 90's were even more lead-addled than that. You remember these things:
Barrel jacks and plugs. Typically used for DC power, and that's all I can reliably say. The socket had an inner pin and and outer ring that engaged with the inner and outer surfaces of the plug. Which was positive and which was negative? BOTH! A given power brick or device could be wired either way, which is why most of them had one of these diagrams printed on them somewhere:
There was no attempt at standardizing sizes or lengths for different polarities or voltages. It was entirely possible you could own a 12V center positive power brick that would plug straight into a 6V center negative device. If you were lucky, the device had reverse current protection, maybe a self-resetting fuse. Some didn't. Or, somehow worse, you'd find a brick with the right voltage and polarity that wouldn't physically fit.
So the current state of USB-C charging is considerably less lead-brained than what I grew up with.
The barrel pin system could have been great if it was standardized. Only one valid polarity with barrel size being keyed to voltage while pin size was keyed to amperage, for example. A plug would only fit if it was the correct specs, and would always fit if it was the correct specs. Unfortunately, nobody ever had this idea while they were popular and it's much too late now.
That's because your supposed to use usb 3.2-1v3.1.2-hyperfast and not USB 3.2-1v3.1.2-superfast.
- You don't care, the cable will tell both device how much current can go through it using its e-marker chip.
- More and more cable comes with their specification engraved on at least one end.
a. If no speed, assume usb2
b. If no power, assume 10W (5V2A)
Do people have a massive skill issue? I get it in first try almost every time.
Ya ok buddy, and my real name is Reanu Keeves
I'm not going around plugging in USB-A into hundreds of unfamiliar devices. I have a few devices which I sometimes plugin and I have the muscle memory to know the correct orientation for my USB stick or that other cable.
USB-A was a rare case of a quantum-locked consumer device. It would not reveal its orientation until after observing all possible combinations.
Grandpa, what's a USB? Is that one of those old three letter groups that were part of the big group you always talk about? The, uh... guvver men?
No, not likely.
USB A and B still have use cases, predominently in their physical strength.
For any use case that requires a stronger socket that will take abuse and needs to hold longer, then USB C fails.
Its smaller and more brittle, more prone to failing under pressure.
DE-9 with potting, a proper strain relief back shell and screws.
Or go all the way to MIL-DTL-38999
There has got to be more reliable and stronger sockets than a usb a. Like if something truly needed to be stable and withstand pressure, I really hope they are not relying on usb a or b
Time to bring back the little screws that VGA connectors had (have?)
Yes! Exactly!