Posted on 09/23/2021 7:04:01 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Finally something useful from the European Commission!!!! And it is not bent bananas or nabob potato rules!
The main holdout is Apple, which said it was concerned the new rules would limit innovation, and that would end up hurting consumers. iPhones come with the company’s own Lightning charging port, though the newest models come with cables that can be plugged into a USB-C socket.
The push by the EU will certainly be cheered by the millions of people who have rummaged through a drawer full of cables for the right charger. But the EU also wants to cut down on the 11,000 metric tons of electronic waste thrown out every year by Europeans.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Tell me about it. SCSI termination and daisy chaining was an art, magic art. I recall one daisy chain of six SCSI devices required that I placed the terminating device on the fourth device to get all six devices working… and they had to be in a specific order… that was arcane. Trial and error was what finally got them all to work together. Putting the terminating resistor pack on the final device never would allow all of them to work together consistently. Sometimes the second device in the chain would fail to be recognized, sometimes it would the fifth, sixth, third, etc. Only when the terminator was on the fourth device would all consistently be recognized. Never could figure out why that worked. Change the positing of two devices and it was back to playing musical chairs. Took me two weeks to figure it out. Some SCSI daisy chains worked best with no terminating resistor. Go figure.
What next, will they tell Thule to stop changing the bike rack roof systems every 5 years so you need to buy a new $500 one every time you get a new car? Now that would be progress.
Allow me to bow to you in respect. Well done, organizing hardware like that! I have plastic bins and cabinets stuffed with cables and connectors, not organized like yours. Your pics are motivating me to organize and label the stuff! As for why I keep them, I have many dozens of vintage devices in my collection. Some of which I put in walls covered by sheetrock when remodeling my home, a future surprise for future owners.
The best part is when your chain has disparate devices, like a high end flat bed scanner, proprietary removable hard drive carts and optical drives (pre CD burners) and then the customer wants to throw a 25 pin Iomega Zip drive into the chain.
I actually owned an Apple LaserWriter IIsc. Not their best effort.
Actually, no. Except for the Lightning cable, which offers greater functionality than the USB mini, Apple has not in fact used proprietary cables for 25 years. They’ve been using industry standard cables. Apple was also the first major computer maker to use the USB port as a standard for connection to peripherals. Other than the iPhone, Apple has standardized on the USB-C/Thunderbolt standard. Thunderbolt is an industry standard jointly developed by Apple and Intel that combines high speed PCI-E, DisplayPort, and DC power. It uses and can share the standard USB-C port and Is orientation ambidextrous. The ports and plugs are far more durable than the antique unidirectional USB-MINI which do far less.
They do… the resistor packs were intended to buffer termination signal echo, but with greater length, or more devices, or drop in signal strength, or failure of signal amplification for pass-through from cheap devices, the echoes got attenuated buffering either wasn’t required or it was needed elsewhere on the chain to ameliorate the data collisions.
My precious….
You like to waste space, eh?
Paper tape? Punch cards?
Yea, for me the only beef with lighting (and lighting is a more robust protocol), was the blade style plug. Had a couple break off. Inside the device. Not a problem to remove with the right tool. I like the USB-C plug. Seems more robust mechanically.
Having one standard for plug design isn’t really the problem.
If you want to bitch about proprietary plugs; let’s talk Sony.
I haven't thought about putting a 386sx behind a wall, too thick! Last year I remodeled our living room, gutted the fireplace wall and built embedded cabinets above a new electric fireplace, with a TV mount that both moves into the wall and lowers the TV out and below the mantle. Installed ethernet cabling, electric, coax connections for the TV. I had a lot of empty space in the fireplace mantle I built so I dumped some old cell phones and other devices in there before closing it up. Other walls from past remodeling have 8-track players and cassettes. Just a quirk of mine to do this. Next I'll dump some ZIP and JAZ drives.
“Oh, and about that roof leak .... good luck working on a roof that’s an electrical generator.”
As someone who lives on the coast and people have to use hurricane straps to keep their roofs from flying down the street during a normal Pacific Coast winter storm, I stand in amazement not only when I see these contraptions on roofs but how damn gullible the property owner must be to mutilate their homes for a solar energy system in an area that annually gets 52 sunny days, 75 partly sunny days making a grand total of 127 days a year we see sunshine.
Not to mention the angle of the sun rays here in the PacNorthwest. They prove the old adage of “there’s a sucker born every minute.”
GFCI’s! I am in the process of replacing everyone of those damn things in my 12 year old house, 3 car garage and RV barn. It seems those devices have about a 10 year working life. Mine started failing at about 7 years.
In places, I’m not replacing them, others like in the bathroom it makes sense keeping them but I wish they had a longer life expectancy. They’re not cheap and some can be rather cantankerous if you don’t torque the terminals just right they trip when given a load.
GREEN ENERGY DANGER !!!
I’ve railed here in California on the train wreck ahead for solar roof system failures (with an approx. 20 year shelf life) Also on the false assumption that our energy needs are being solved while we abandon traditional proven methods of generation. These systems Will Fail, become incredibly dangerous as they atrophy and leave home owners with an expensive mess to clean up or repair (without the subsidies that pumped up this false solution in the first place)
Worse is the failure of leadership to warn the public of this coming assured disaster. For all the $$$ that is pumped into rah rah solar you’d think the idea of safety would be first. Sheesh, you can’t even get an electric device without multiple warning tags and the front of manuals 10 pages deep in useless warnings before you get to the meat of how to use the product.
There’s no such thing with solar and it’s far more dangerous.
Maybe they need to have the heck sued out of them before this happens. Should be a nice lure for some ambulance chasing class action attorneys. Ripe to sue 3 levels, installers, manufacturers and the gov agencies that have overseen this. It’s coming
https://www.solar-facts.com/safety/
BTW. My brother lives in the Skagit Valley and Dads house in Anacordes but did not realize they’re pushing those systems up there too.
You need not worry about your father, Dad raised you right. I had not thought about panel life since I find the entire residential solar business to be bad business as you point out.
Can you imagine trying to exist in Skagit Valley on solar? How would you keep your Prius charged? Heat? Whatcom County, it’s close to the Skagit Valley up in Anacortes area, has banned natural gas hookups in new construction…can you imagine all the stupid people up there? The air is not safe to breath, full of exhaled stupid atoms.
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