Or, if you’re more fun, a giant wall of lava lamps! The coolest randomness in town!

(Cloudflare does this)

Even USB-C is a nightmare. There’s 3.0, 3.1, and 3.2, which were rebranded as “3.2 Gen X” with some stupid stuff there as far as what speed it supports.

Then it can do DisplayPort as well. There used to be an HDMI alt mode too!

An Intel computer might have Thunderbolt over the same cable, and can send PCIe signals over the cable to plug in a graphics card or other devices.

Then there’s USB 4 which works like Thunderbolt but isn’t restricted to Intel devices.

Then there’s the extended power profile which lets you push 240 W through a USB C port.

For a while, the USB-C connector was on graphics cards as Virtualink, which was supposed to be a one-cable standardized solution to plugging in VR headsets. Except that no headsets used it.

Then there’s Nintendo. The Switch has a Type-C port, but does its own stupid thing for video, so it can’t work with a normal dock because it’s a freak.

So you pick up a random USB C cable and have no information on what it may be capable of, plug it into a port where you again don’t know the capabilities. Its speed may be anywhere between 1.5 MBit/s (USB 1.0 low speed) and 80 GBit/s (USB 4 2.0) and it may provide between 5 and 240 W of power.

Every charger has a different power output, and sometimes it leads to a stupid situation like the Dell 130 W laptop charger. In theory, 130 W is way more than what most phones will charge at. But it only offers that at I think 20 V, which my phone can’t take. So in practice, your phone will charge at the base 5W over it.

Dell also has a laptop dock for one of their laptops that uses TWO Type-C ports, for more gooderness or something, I don’t know. Meaning it will only fit that laptop with ports exactly that far apart.

The USB chaos does lead to fun discoveries, such as when I plugged a Chromecast with Google TV’s power port into a laptop dock and discovered that it actually supports USB inputs, which is cool.

And Logitech still can’t make a USB-C dongle for their mouse.

At least it’s not a bunch of proprietary barrel chargers. My parents have a whole box of orphaned chargers with oddly specific voltages from random devices.

The scalp bird takes advantage of this by nesting in people’s hair and consuming the fruit. This causes another symbiotic relationship as it spreads the fruit seeds.

The deafening “USB device connected” sound from the house bothered my neighbors.

Then I learned my house had mouse aiming when I tripped over the mouse, ripping it from its foundation and spinning it wildly.

Unfortunately, the house did not save prior to its excursion. The insurance company is really mad.

Definitely be careful though! There’s plenty of rail that’s overgrown, horribly maintained, looks like it hasn’t been touched in 20 years but gets a train every few weeks or something. You’ll want to be very sure that it’s impossible for a train to be on the same track.

(There’s a town in my state that has some rail that is physically cut off from the railroad it used to be part of, so something like that would be the safest)

I find that 15% number interesting… For example, there’s a highway near where I am with a 55 mph speed limit. But you’ll rarely find people doing less than 60. Usually 65, with the occasional crazy person doing 80.

But I feel like raising the speed limit would defeat the purpose. Drivers would be happy, but then they’d just go 75. If traffic engineering amounts to “More than 15% are breaking the rules and driving in an unsafe manner, let’s change the rules so that’s legal,” it seems pretty dumb. Like, that extra speed isn’t suddenly safer because the sign says something else.

I believe they’re probably referencing the recent disastrous flooding in Texas.

May not be it, but the shape reminds me of rat poop… It’s not clear enough for me to say for sure.

Well, they have a security advantage. I know Google moved over to requiring a USB MFA key for their employees a few years ago, and saw a reduction in successful phishing attacks.

I would imagine one of these fobs is cheaper than a USB key. It also can work without being plugged into a computer, which is good.

Authenticator apps are nice and all, but are not going to provide as much security as one of these. Apps live on people’s phones, and especially if it’s a personal phone, you may not want to trust its security. If it’s stolen or hacked, your multi-factor authentication just got less secure.

If you don’t want personal devices in a building as well, these are useful.

Lots of reasons these are still totally good today!

(Not saying this was your case, but generally good to check) - a finicky/wobbly USB type c connector has been a symptom of a dirty charging port several times in the past. Awful lint/dirt would get packed down into it, preventing the charger from fully inserting.

I ended up carefully and gently picking it out, though there are some delicate small contacts in there!

Anyway, good luck trying GrapheneOS! It’s been my daily driver for months and past the learning experience it’s great!

Ew. I hate that. I see they offer an option in settings to permanently switch out of S mode, but that seems like it’s a crappy excuse. I’m guessing most users are never going to go there, and will stay in S mode, using only Microsoft’s awful products. That’s their intention, at least.

Sorry folks. Because of the banana handouts, the company is short on cash for the quarter, so there will be no bonuses or raises.

Grab the door handle too hard and it’s totaled. I’d say my car has maybe 250 health points. That’s even counting the rust and the broken plastic clips!

It’s survived being sideswiped - 150 damage, healed by using aftermarket panels and spray paint. Permanent -5 beauty debuff though.

It does have a curse (weakness to head gasket failure) though. But that hasn’t killed it yet!

I mean there are ongoing costs with any form of power generation. Obviously there’s fuel costs for most, but even other renewables have maintenance costs. You’ll also need to keep investing anyway as power demands increase over time. So newer solar installations eventually replace the old.

I know someone with obsessive compulsive disorder, and I could see a chatbot being harmful there, depending on how it goes. A lot of compulsions are around checking or asking for reassurance. A chatbot would provide endless reassurance where a human might eventually get annoyed and cut you off. It would allow you to ruminate endlessly.

The problem is that engaging in compulsions keeps you in a cycle - it’s never enough reassurance. The gold standard treatment is exposure response prevention (ERP), where you intentionally expose yourself to triggers and resist doing the compulsions. (Info from Free Yourself from OCD by Jonah Lakin, PsyD)

Homo Sapi3n: Sape Harder

I have two pet rats, and I’m pretty confident that they’d love a trebuchet. I could see one of them operating while the other is the ammunition.

Or, both operating with more conventional projectiles. Rats crave destruction and chaos. And also cuddles.

I’m worried I’ll slip up and do it in public. Or maybe the ceiling will be so much more comfortable that I can never go back.

Oh, and that ceiling fan kinda hurts.

I mean, maybe you’re in need of a second fridge or something!

I have issues even with the simplest Apple USB-C to 3.5 mm dongle on my phone. The USB side rocks back and forth, disconnecting from the phone and exploding my ears with popping noises.

It’s also flimsy as hell.