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The Reason You Always Plug in USBs the Wrong Way, Revealed

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the stand-on-your-head dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

So that's why:

The USB paradox is one of the most familiar experiences of the digital age. Every time you try to plug in a USB cord, it seems like you always get it wrong on the first try. It doesn't matter how much attention you pay to the plug or the cord or the icons on the cord. It's always wrong.

And there's a good reason for that! In an interview published Thursday by DesignNews, Intel's Ajay Bhatt spoke at length about why the ubiquitous technology has been so infuriating for so long. Bhatt was a member of the team that developed USB technology. Even at the start of development, they knew that making the connector flippable would be a better user experience in the long run. But doing so would require twice the wiring and more circuitry, which would increase costs.

"If you have a lot of cost up front for an unproven technology it might not take off. So that was our fear. You have to be really cost conscious when you start out," Bhatt said.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by bart9h on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:18PM (1 child)

    by bart9h (767) on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:18PM (#604794)

    The problem is that the USB connector is an object from the fourth dimension.

    Proof:
    http://c0.thejournal.ie/media/2014/04/1z3yc.jpg [thejournal.ie]

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:35PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:35PM (#604800) Journal

    No, it just proves the cable has spin 1/2: [wikipedia.org]

    For example, rotating a spin-1/2 particle by 360 degrees does not bring it back to the same quantum state, but to the state with the opposite quantum phase; this is detectable, in principle, with interference experiments. To return the particle to its exact original state, one needs a 720-degree rotation.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.