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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 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.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Thank God for the EU.
If Apple and the Americans had their way, each of those would use a different proprietary connector.
Yes, Americans famously love having dozens of different chargers and cables to manage
They love letting their companies do so.
It doesn't matter what they love in that regard, because they are incapable of making companies do things that help consumers or the environment
The reason we should thank the EU is because of this rule. While I cannot guarantee this rule is responsible, the fact that it's mandated means it's significantly more economically viable to use the same connector across all regions (including America), and so this rule is the primary factor in the standardization of charging cables.
I know why we have the EU to thank .
Americans don't want proprietary connectors. We're happy to get USB-C, too.
Ah, I misunderstood. I conflated "Americans" (lawmakers) and "Americans" (everyone else).
When did anyone say the EU created USB-C? They passed legislature that required the mass adoption of it and are the reason Apple had to switch from that stupid lightning connector (and other companies can't try to make their own), but I don't see anyone claiming the EU created it.
They've got a massively institutional love for all things Charging Protocols
New chargers and cables = New freedom units to measure stuff with
I'm going to add Sony to this list.
100%.
Sony has continuously sought to make money on licensing royalties for proprietary formats whenever they can.
Oh, there are vanishingly few hardware vendors I hate with a greater burning passion than Sony. Over the span of literal decades, Sony has consistently and systematically found so many ways to piss me off that I will never give them another red cent so long as I live. I will happily pay slightly more money for a slightly inferior version of whatever gadget from somebody else rather than deal with Sony's bullshit.
The USB standard was made by Intel and the USB-C port is based on a port designed by Apple…
The EU commision did not decide on USB-C in a vacuum. It looked on already existing stanards and talked to many large electronics manufacturers in order to come to a proposal for USB-C as a universal standard. You are right to point out the role that both Intel and Apple played (Along HP, Microsoft and the USB-IF) in the development of the standard, but you're missing the forest for the trees, since it was the EU making it a *universal * standard within it's boarders that means we all use the same standard.
I was responding to the second sentence, not the first.
I recognize that there are many Americans who believe a great deal in the benefits of standards and interoperability.
But on the whole, as a group, you've spent almost a century electing politicians who vow to do the opposite.
Which ‘port designed by Apple’? Apple's Lightning is quite obviously more sturdy than usb-c, being just a puck with contacts, put into a hole with contacts and without flimsy plastic tongues. However, Lightning is more costly to produce, while afaik USB was always made from cheap sheet metal.
Though you might mean Thunderbolt, since afaik usb-c is made to be able to carry Thunderbolt. Not sure if that involved more than electrical concerns, however.
USB-C (top) is based on the Cinema Display power connector (bottom) from the early 2000s:
Interesting, but odd that it's the first I've ever heard of this.
The moving parts are in the device rather than the cable with Lightning. The tongue on USB-C is required to be deep enough that you can't torque it with the cable during insertion/removal.
It's not an obvious comparison, but the mechanical engineers where I work seem to have a mild preference for USB-C
The expensive part of both is that you need a microcontroller in the cable
USB-C also has way more pins for data/power
By 'moving parts' you mean the springed contacts? Yeah wow, that's a lot of movement.
USB-C has more pins because it was made later and is required to carry standards like Displayport and Thunderbolt. If Apple made Lightning 2, nothing prevents them from slapping more contacts on it.
The Apple who were the first to make an all-usb-c laptop?
Apple caught flak for switching iPhones from the 31-pin connector to Lightning, and obviously didn't want to repeat the experience sooner than necessary.
And then took 8 years to add it to their phones? And only did so kicking and screaming after being forced to by EU regulations? And whose USB C implementation is notably more finicky and less compatible then virtually every other manufacturers'?
This wouldn't happen to be the same company that reversed the polarity on headphone jacks just to be a dick would it?
They also got a cut from any 3rd party lighning cables
Until a better option becomes available, and then being stuck with just usb c will suck
The laws specified by the EU allow for future technological developments and the advancement of the standard without having to re-write the laws. The law itself includes a mandatory technical review, and allows for new standards to be integrated, and outdated standards to be dropped.
I don't think governments should be in charge of deciding what's innovative
History has shown us again and again that corporations can't behave decently if let to their own device.
I would much rather have the government stiffle innovation if that means that consumer are safe and benefit from said innovation.
I'm not saying don't regulate.
How can they benefit from innovation that has been stifled?
a) how are you measuring "innovation"?
b) how are you measuring the "benefit", and for who?
Regulations and standardization can hold back an existing company from trying a new idea, however, they are also the only thing that creates true, lasting, interoperability, and interoperability is what let's new companies enter markets.
i.e. Theoretically, Apple may be held back if they want to innovate their charging port because they have to make it compatible with USB-C.
However, now new companies that aren't apple that want to innovate on cables and chargers can enter the market, and they'll benefit from a consistent specified interface and not having to design a million proprietary variants, and they'll be able to plan their products in a stabler, longer term environment, that will make it easier to attract investment.
Standards are effectively a government created platform / framework for building and designing new ideas. True innovation often strives when you have some thoughtful constraints that lets everything work together predictably.
Patents, breakthroughs. Most happen in US or China.
No risk, no reward.
Stifle wasn't the right word. Sorry about that, I wrote my comment too fast amd English isn't my first language.
Innovation isn't an all or nothing thing.
There is a difference between removing all the red tape and saying "fuck it" and making sure that the said innovation isn't outright dangerous. If we need to take thing slower to make sure that people aren't killed directly or indirectly, then so be it.
That's not what people like Draghi think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draghi_report
If we burn the planet for more economic productivity, we made more money but made human life worst.
So what is the point of economic productivity if it makes our everyday live worst?
It needs to be sustainable obviously
If the innovation is a more efficient way to stub your toe
Stifled innovation means a loss of competitive advantage.
Clearly you work for the "big toe stub" industry
It's the lesser evil in this case.
Exactly the sort of thinking that has stagnated Europe in all areas of innovation this century.
It’s not standardized on USB C. It’s standardized on whatever the USB IF standardized on. So when USB D is a think it will eventually switch to that.
No they wouldn’t lol
They literally did until recently.
Apple would still be using different variants of their crappy connectors for everything, none of which were compatible with anything non-Apple, if not for the EU ruling forcing them not to.
If Apple had any intention to switch to USB-C on their own, they would've done so with the iPhone 7.