#1 rule for online forums --> YOU do your own homework.

 

It always boggles me why some member in forums seem to insist on judging threads as to their usefulness or lack thereof.

Aren't you just redefining "useful"?

It is natural to feel frustration if you believe people who you otherwise admire seem to be trapped by cognitive bias, and make argument lacking in rigor based on intuition and sophistry. It can be very disheartening.

I can't find fault in @Jon Chandler's response to what appears to be uncharacteristic sloppiness disguised as expert opinion, it appears for all the world to be intentional sophistry.

Perhaps the utility of this thread is the shaking of a fist at a world that becomes less comprehensible and accessible to some of us each day because of the increasing complexity combined with our personal experience of mostly understanding it.

Bald assertion (e.g.: "there will be fires", "devices are being/will be destroyed", &c) combined with frame shifting (e.g.: A: "Type-C and PD will have many advantages for consumers" B: "It will not stop e-waste") suggest axe grinding, and any thread that has utility for the axe-grinder is one that is in my opinion one that is a net negative.

Anyway, in the end, this has no real effect on the world and it is a shame that it can feel so bad to a person trying to sing on key when the echo chamber is amplifying the flat note being sung by the crowd—and it does, it feels like being smart and informed does little to protect against the kind of error that in the greater social world leads to negative outcomes we are now suffering a spate of.

 

It is natural to feel frustration if you believe people who you otherwise admire seem to be trapped by cognitive bias, and make argument lacking in rigor based on intuition and sophistry. It can be very disheartening.

I can't find fault in @Jon Chandler's response to what appears to be uncharacteristic sloppiness disguised as expert opinion, it appears for all the world to be intentional sophistry....

Bald assertion (e.g.: "there will be fires", "devices are being/will be destroyed", &c) combined with frame shifting (e.g.: A: "Type-C and PD will have many advantages for consumers" B: "It will not stop e-waste") suggest axe grinding, and any thread that has utility for the axe-grinder is one that is in my opinion one that is a net negative.

Thsnk you.

 

As one of my favorite thinker's like to say, once an idea or set of ideas becomes ingrained in society, people tend to focus on the faults because the core idea becomes "obvious" in the application.

Take Sigmund Freud for example, when people talk about him usually, it's about which of his theories are absurd and cherry picked to fit the problem. Meanwhile, much of his work has become the bedrock for clinical psychology which is now largely consensus among professionals.

So, I think it's short sighted to condemn Freud for each of his faults when at the time, it was groundbreaking work which paved the way for other thinkers to build on. He also had limited resources and primitive technology to work with.

As a result, we end up with a class of people who use today's standards to judge someone who died long ago. Is this the right approach? Sometime yes, but also sometimes no.

I see the same thing happening in all aspects of innovation, including something like USB. As it sits, we currently have a pretty good solution that solves a very complex problem (universality between devices) with a high degree of reliability.

Since most of us here know basic electronics quite well, it's easy to punch holes through the little things that could be optimized. We tend to forget all the hard work and iteration that went into it because through societal advantage, we did not have to do all the work ourselves.

Needless to say, I think most folks are in no good position to complain because they have not contributed to the improvement of the system. It's also not at all obvious to me that the ones who complain actually understand the problem and can envision the solution.

 

Needless to say, I think most folks are in no good position to complain because they have not contributed to the improvement of the system.

This sounds pretty extreme; in line with it I hardly could even complain of the espresso I take twice a day at the cafeteria if it comes with an awful taste.

 

This sounds pretty extreme; in line with it I hardly could even complain of the espresso I take twice a day at the cafeteria if it comes with an awful taste.

Aye, which is why I included the word "good" in the statement. Complaining doesn't improve much of anything unless the feedback reaches the right ears.

As for your coffee, how much feedback have you provided to the manufacturers? Probably little to none right? If so, your complaints only serve to inform those who happen to be around you.

The trouble with that is those poor souls have to sift through your bias in order to form an opinion of their own. Maybe the coffee is great and you have an uncommon palate. Either way, the coffee company is unaware of what you really think about their product and will be hard pressed to cater to your desires.

 

Here's a different perspective, which perhaps proves the lessons from history have fallen on dead minds (not the people here).

Recall the push to rid incadecent bulbs. The whole push to heavy-metal-mercury/plastic/glass/chemicals CFL bulbs, a way more complex bulb and not eco friendly at all, because they would "save the grid". I have a new-build home that is now 24yrs old, builder installed very cheap made-in-mexico incadescent bulbs througout the house. Within 1st 5yrs of being in the home I replaced all but one of those cheap bulbs, not because they failed, because I bought into the BS they were peddling about CFL's on how they save the power grid and will last way longer, CFL bulbs that were about 10x the cost of a basic glass/metal bulb. Turns out that CFL idea was BS, I ended up replacing those CFL's 4-5x and then went to LED bulbs, which both CFL and LED bulbs are in the same category of metals/chemicals/plastic, and even the LED bulbs don't last. All of that CFL LED crud went into the trash. The one old mexico-made bulb I have still runs approx 6hrs per day, for the past 24yrs !
A simple A-5v wart being morphed into a more complex with more materials in ESR PD wart means the new more complex thing will fail sooner. Are there any studies looked at regarding MTBF before the great e-waste minds in EU took their idea to paper? And if I recall, going to ESR PD warts means they are also physically bigger as many of those have 2-3-4 charge ports, so if we talk about the e-waste problem in terms of tons and not count, you perhaps get more tons of e-waste with perhaps lower count.

Houses. There was a TV show about this. Houses made from concrete/marble/granite will last perhaps many thousands of years, houses made from wood stick framing will last perhaps hundreds of years, with wood stick building going into the trash eventually, or just being easily destroyed by a small rain storm.

Cars. Big heavy Cadillacs had bumpers that were very heavy and made to last longer than rest of the vehicle, but today we have bumpers made of thin metal & crap chromed that rust out and need replacing (or made of chemical plastics), but that's ok because that rust comes just after the "warranty" has expired.

In modern times (the industrial age), everything is made to be throw-away.

The main issue for "lets make/force everything C port to save on e-waste", is an idea of fallacy, an idea of "see, we are doing something, but don't really understand the problem or solution". If 20tons of C cables are sold into the EU, then 20tons of C cable will eventually make it into the trash. There's no mandate on quality of the cables.

But why, the idea around the mandate is that it saves on e-waste? Fallacy. The idea (which is not any port spec specific in reality) only works if the cables were made to last, but long living cables does not mean they won't ever go into the trash, it just means the e-waste rate into the landfill is reduced and perhaps more manageable.

Everything made today is made to be throw-away.

5 volt-only devices require changing the USB connector to a USB C and adding two ⅛W resistor – i.e., the change costs virtually nothing.

That's the utopian reponse. Cost nothing? NO. Cost virtually nothing? NO. Whatever the cost is the extra cost is to the consumer, and now that you need two resistors per port you the maker now have supply chain issues, with more metals and solder, which requires more sophisticated management of the process, which costs more, which the consumer pays....................., all for a "solution" that does not solve the problem. But good to know the small extra costs for more eco-enemy metals and such makes the implementation of C port very easy. And on top of that, more eco-enemy stuff making tons more of resistors.

 

In a thousand years people will be mining that waste.

 

In a thousand years people will be mining that waste.

Or dying from the unknown reason why some new undetected chemicals are in the water they drink.

Make it a $1,000 fine if you are caught throwing away a C cable or battery or old phone/tablet, and enforce it. Watch how fast a robust recycling program becomes effective. And at the same time, demand from the local govt that garbage folks implement garbage processing that can remove e-waste from the stream. Technology is not a crux, it's just a variable in the math, and we can solve those problems.

 

More resistors in PD. But no worries, the eco-friendly processes use eco-enemy processing, just not as bad as it was 10yrs ago.
See how I rebrabded the problem? The processes are in reality eco-enemy, but when you can reduce the eco-enemy stuff you can then rebrand it as "eco-friendly". The only eco-friendly in my book is anything that is zero impact on eco. So lets not call it eco-friendly, lets just rate the process (or thing) in eco-enemy terms. If I recall, some eco green folks rate things in "tons of CO2" or "the CO2 footprint". I am not sure if that's a good way or if it is relative in the green-house problem, but they do at least rate it in eco-enemy units. Less CO2 is better, more is no good.

So in essence, way more stuff with some savings on eco front.
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/in...cturing-eco-friendly-materials-and-practices/

So as you can see, we are not solving the problems, we are just rebranding them with higher costs to consumer.

 

I see the same thing happening in all aspects of innovation, including something like USB. As it sits, we currently have a pretty good solution that solves a very complex problem (universality between devices) with a high degree of reliability.

But "universal between devices" (abbr. here as UBD) was not the stated problem. It was said the e-waste was the problem. UBD is perhaps the bandaid applied in half baked solution.

If I were to frame the umbrella of problems, it's power on top, then under that you can fit all the related eco stuff like e-waste and such.

From my perspective, I do not see UBD as a solution to any of the problems. Like I mentioned, make everything USB-C to USB-C and all warts must be ESR PD. You make 10tons of that stuff and 10tons will make it into the trash.

 

Aren't you just redefining "useful"?

It is natural to feel frustration if you believe people who you otherwise admire seem to be trapped by cognitive bias, and make argument lacking in rigor based on intuition and sophistry. It can be very disheartening.

I can't find fault in @Jon Chandler's response to what appears to be uncharacteristic sloppiness disguised as expert opinion, it appears for all the world to be intentional sophistry.

Perhaps the utility of this thread is the shaking of a fist at a world that becomes less comprehensible and accessible to some of us each day because of the increasing complexity combined with our personal experience of mostly understanding it.

Bald assertion (e.g.: "there will be fires", "devices are being/will be destroyed", &c) combined with frame shifting (e.g.: A: "Type-C and PD will have many advantages for consumers" B: "It will not stop e-waste") suggest axe grinding, and any thread that has utility for the axe-grinder is one that is in my opinion one that is a net negative.

Anyway, in the end, this has no real effect on the world and it is a shame that it can feel so bad to a person trying to sing on key when the echo chamber is amplifying the flat note being sung by the crowd—and it does, it feels like being smart and informed does little to protect against the kind of error that in the greater social world leads to negative outcomes we are now suffering a spate of.

Hi,

Well I think this gets a little complicated and might be hard to discuss in a forum, and we all have our own opinions about right and wrong.

However, I refuted his post with an example so I think when you say you can't find anything wrong with his post you must have overlooked that. This also suggests that if we do talk about right and wrong, we have to be careful to quote specific examples and take each one in turn because there may be some valid points and some not so valid. This gets hard to do and takes a lot of time and thought.
The point I am referring to is when he suggested that it does not do anyone any good, yet I quoted someone that it did "good" for, namely me. I got something out of both the pros and cons regardless how 'biased' they might have appeared to be. If they are biased, then that's just part of the personality. I don't like it when they are never ending though as that does get annoying.

If the person keeps suggesting the same thing over and over again though, that means they didn't learn anything from the thread.

This is kind of a tough thing to debate though because of the complexities of human personality. This might be best done in a different thread that focuses on what constitutes a post that contributes to the zeitgeist and what does not.
I'm not sure if I can argue strongly in either direction unless the offender is relentless and maybe we did see some of that here

 

Or dying from the unknown reason why some new undetected chemicals are in the water they drink.

Make it a $1,000 fine if you are caught throwing away a C cable or battery or old phone/tablet, and enforce it. Watch how fast a robust recycling program becomes effective. And at the same time, demand from the local govt that garbage folks implement garbage processing that can remove e-waste from the stream. Technology is not a crux, it's just a variable in the math, and we can solve those problems.

Then people start throwing them in their basements and attics. Been there, done that.

 

Then people start throwing them in their basements and attics. Been there, done that.

In my experience, deterrence isn't nearly as effective as incentive. As you implied, people will always find ways to circumvent deterrence, and the only way to fully suppress those who do is through tyranny and oppression.

I find it somewhat depressing to read topics like this. Instead of highly intelligent folks forming a coalition to be heard by the state, they would seemingly rather bicker among themselves.

It's a very hard thing to put into practice I know but that's what needs to be done.. the rising tide lifts all boats. I challenge readers to find ways to put their thoughts into real action. Talking about it on a forum is fine if that's what you like to do but folks should understand almost nothing comes of it.

I'm a huge advocate of inducing change even if it means you fail in the process and most will. Complaining on the other hand is a vicious cycle with people constantly at each other's throats.

 

The point I am referring to is when he suggested that it does not do anyone any good, yet I quoted someone that it did "good" for, namely me. I got something out of both the pros and cons regardless how 'biased' they might have appeared to be.

I becomes pointless when people start making up their own facts to base their arguments on. Apparently @DC_Kid doesn't know that the sale of the charger is unbundled from the sale of the device.

 

I becomes pointless when people start making up their own facts to base their arguments on. Apparently @DC_Kid doesn't know that the sale of the charger is unbundled from the sale of the device.

Makes no diff. 10tons of USB-C chargers bought, 10tons will goto trash.

 

I find it somewhat depressing to read topics like this. Instead of highly intelligent folks forming a coalition to be heard by the state, they would seemingly rather bicker among themselves.

Did the EU actually summon experts for many many round-table discussions before writing the mandate? If so who were the experts? I suspect 1 or 2 things; They did not bring in experts, or, they did and the advice fell on deaf ears.

 

I'm a huge advocate of inducing change even if it means you fail in the process and most will.

If you send complex rockets into space, the 1st few phases of testing has "fail" in it. SpaceX is good example. After that the word "fail" is not an option.

USB warts and cables, or e-waste, is not a "complex" problem like sending rockets into space. So have good perspective & context is a must.

 

If you send complex rockets into space, the 1st few phases of testing has "fail" in it. SpaceX is good example. After that the word "fail" is not an option.

USB warts and cables, or e-waste, is not a "complex" problem like sending rockets into space. So have good perspective & context is a must.

I don't know about that mate. I think you are trivializing all that goes into manufacturing a product at the global scale. The complexity I'm referring to is getting everyone to work together towards a common goal.

The issue as I see it is that goal is constantly shifting in response to both emerging technology as well as economic viability. One locale may be focused on reducing power consumption whereas another may be focused on simply getting everyone connected to the internet (and out of poverty).

As more players get involved in any venture, the number of variables increases dramatically. Even if a company manages to put out the perfect USB cable, many countries will still be forced to rely on imported legacy systems for years because they cannot make their own for whatever reason.

It seems unreasonable to expect a single authority to account for all these variables in a way that makes everyone happy, is sustainable and is profitable. Your argument seems to be that this process is horribly inefficient, which it is. Mine is more of acknowledging that the factors involved may very well be beyond our comprehension.

 

Makes no diff. 10tons of USB-C chargers bought, 10tons will goto trash.

Hi,

That seems like an oversimplification. If 10 tons are bought maybe 2 tons will go into the trash within year 1, then 2 more tons the second year, etc. If the standard is changed, maybe only 1 ton will go into the trash within the first year, which would still be helpful.
Right now I have several chargers I can use with phone, power pack, etc. I should not have to buy another charger for some years to come now.

Everything in the world is governed by an equation of some sort, usually a differential equation. That describes how the world works when it comes to some category or another. To get to that point, we need data so we can form the model. To make a judgement about a protocol or something like that, we have to have measured data. Only then we can start to assess the good the bad and the ugly regarding that category of things. For some things we don't have that data yet so we can't really make a worthwhile judgement.