This is a real tweet from the European Commission:
https://x.com/EU_Commission/status/2004462313508950137f
One port, one cable, one Europe.
This holiday, unwrap the power of one: USB-C for all.
Yes, not just phones, tablets, and laptops. In three years, every charger will be under the same tree.
Because less waste, smarter choices, mean more for everyone, all year long.
https://link.europa.eu/QDMFTh
This is an excerpt from a scholarly article about the history of Islam:
By the beginning of the fourth century of the hijra (about A.D. 900), however, the point had been reached when scholars of all schools felt that all essential questions had been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that from that time onwards no one might be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at the most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all. This ‘closing of the door of ijtihad‘, as it was called, amounted to the demand for taklid, a term which had originally denoted the kind of reference to Companions of the Prophet that had been customary in the ancient schools of law, and which now came to mean the unquestioning acceptance of the doctrines of established schools and authorities.
– Joseph Schacht, quoted by Wael B. Hallaq in Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?
If you think that the ability of the European Commission to recognise when something has reached a point where no improvement is possible is good enough to allow it to safely close the door of ijtihad on charger cable design, consider the evident fact that none of the multiple people in the Berlaymont building over whose desks the draft of that tweet must have passed knew enough history to veto that title.
“Ein Volk,Ein Reich, Ein Führer!” springs to mind.
I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand it has that high handed feel of bullying, anti competitive government — how will we innovate?
But on the other hand standardization of certain things is really very useful. After all, when you plug that charger into the wall socket you do so into a highly standardized plug. And USB-C has proven itself to be more like a platform than a specific standard as it has grown from very basic beginnings to a complex and rich capabilities. I have no doubt they are not done yet.
Of course my personal dislike of Apple and *their* high handed approach of deliberately making a connector that only they could make through abuse of the patent system does engender a certain delight to see the bully put down. But of course it is one bully putting down another bully, so what is to be said?
But standards are a good thing. After all, this web site is transmitted to your computer using perhaps several hundred standards and protocols, such as IP, TCP, HTTP, WiFi, HTML and so forth, agreed by international standardization bodies. Of course much better by volunteerism if at all possible, and much better a private body than the government.
So my immediate inclination is to think “The EU did it, therefore it must be bad”, but I do think there is a bit more subtly here.
I think micro-usb is the perfect connector, it has plenty of current capacity for all future uses, and plenty of data-rate to spare. I especially like that you always have to orient it correctly to get it to fit.
Oh, wait, it is nearly 2026 now, not nearly 2010.
I think usb-C is the perfect connector, it has plenty of current capacity for all future uses, and plenty of data-rate to spare. I-ve already had someone destroy my $600 device by ham-handedly inserting the USB-C cable into the socket, somehow mashing all the thin contact strips into flat shorted mess at the back of the hole, but I’m sure that’s a one-off.
Beta. I loved Beta.
There was never any need to go beyond Beta. Humanity would have been better off had we settled that costly dispute much earlier.
We waste so much money and effort on “improvements.” Norman Borlaug shoulda stayed home. We already had wheat. He was just looking to upset things for private gain.
The Islamic scholars were, within their framework, correct – the efforts to change Islam were clearly error, they were going against what Mohammed (various spellings) taught – and personally did (repeatedly did).
As for the European Union – it is a horrible mixture.
A mixture of unlimited state power, but without any person being clearly in charge.
The People’s Republic of China also had unlimited state power (which is a bad thing) – but it also has individuals (including at the very top) who are clearly “in charge” – who can order “we are going to do this….” and get the order carried out.
In the European Union there is, instead of anyone being clearly in charge, endless bureaucracy and red tape – strangling innovation and development.
The European Union, and the International Community generally, FALSELY think this endless bureaucracy and red tape is the “Rule of Law”.
They do not understand what the Rule of Law really is – they think it is endless bureaucracy and red tape.
The United Kingdom is the same as the European Union – it never really left, we do not have Independence – we have (meaningless) “Brexit”.
And, make no mistake, this system, endless bureaucracy and red tape, is what the establishment (the local branch of the international establishment) want to do in the United States.
As President Trump, and others, finds almost every day – modern judges (and other such) confuse endless bureaucracy and red tape (regulations) with the Rule of Law.
The modern establishment do not understand what the Rule of Law is – they confuse it with endless regulations and bureaucracy.
Their, FALSE, definition of the Rule of Law would mean that the United States had unlimited government power, preventing any private innovation and development, but also would have a government that was incapable of doing anything constructive – in spite of spending endless amounts of money.
Look, for example, at how long it now takes to rebuild bridges that are destroyed.
“Very well Paul – if our definition of the Rule of Law is wrong, what is the real definition of the Rule of Law”.
The Rule of Law is the attempt to enforce the non aggression principle (the principle of traditional Justice), do not violate the bodies or goods of others, in practice.
“But that is an ideological definition of the Rule of Law” – yes it is, and so it should be.
“But that would mean that socialists, what we falsely call “liberals”, have no place in the legal system” – correct, their only place in the legal system should be….. in the dock, IF they try and put their doctrines into criminal practice.
After all, for example, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (a member of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers – what would, falsely, be called a “liberal” group in the United States) is a shameless liar – who says, in the Oval Office, that Freedom of Speech is “precious to us” and at the center of everything in Britain – whilst, at the same time, the regime of which he is part, arrests thousands of people for their opinions.
The European Union strongly supports this FALSE view of what the Rule of Law is (they love “Hate Speech” regulations as much as they love economic Corporate State regulations) – and hate the true definition of the Rule of Law.
The Corporate State vision of the International Community (including of the regime in the European Union and the United Kingdom – and the “liberal” establishment in the United States) must be defeated.
Henri Saint-Simon and co – were NOT “liberals” by the true (roll back the state) definition of that term.
And their “Rule of Law” is NOT the rule of law – it is the strangulation of society by endless bureaucracy and regulations, handing over society to the government and pet “partner Corporations”.
To give a concrete example, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr – a friend of the British socialist totalitarian Harold Laski (whose doctrines he largely shared) had no business being on the Supreme Court of the United States – because he opposed (indeed detested) the philosophy, the traditional private property based non aggression principle, on which the Constitution AND the Common Law is based.
Indeed as the, later, 1935 gold clause cases show, 5 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices had no business being on the court.
If you will uphold the violation of all contracts, private and public, and (further) the stealing, by the threat of violence, og all privately owned monetary gold (such things as wedding rings were NOT stolen – as a gesture of “kindness” and “flexibility” by the “New Deal” regime) – then you do NOT believe in the Constitution or in the Common Law.
You have no business being on the court – or indeed in practicing law at all. Because you do not believe in law – by the true definition of that word.
You have abandoned the true definition of the Rule of Law – and substituted a false definition of the term.
And this divide is as relative (indeed far more relevant) now than it was in 1935.
I have to agree with Douglas2 and Fraser. USB C is the best (for now, anyway) and I do like it’s high power capability and I do like having a universal standard because I have miles of assorted USB cables and the time I have spent rummaging…
Forget it’s the EU behind this. Even they sometimes get things right.
Fraser Orr and Nick M,
USB C might indeed be the best now. The trouble with making it the standard by law is that it sets the current situation in stone and discourages innovation.
As to standards… If there is one I hate it is the G type plug. Clunky and designed specifically so the earth has to go in first – ever wondered why the “top” prong is longest? Because the British government (long before the EU was a glimmer in Delores’ eye) didn’t believe us proles could be trusted with electricity. Well, this here prole has a BSc in physics and an MSc in astrophysics. Whilst (arguably) electrically safer the G type has, due to it’s shape, a disturbing tendancy (unlike the plugs of most of the World) to naturally lie pins-up. I bet ya you’ve stood on one in the night. I have. A horrid design in every way. And nothing to do with the EU. The British government is more than capable of incompetent nannying without any (electrical?) input from Brussels.
OK… I voted remain. You know why? Because I knew we’d get a half-arsed Brexit which would make travel more difficult for most people but would have no effect on the boat-people. I voted remain because I’m that cynical of government at every level.
And no, it is no longer “early days” for the UK’s independence. The vote was nearly ten years ago. How many people practising what is essentially the slave trade across the Channel have had their collars felt? I mean, overwhelmingly, that is why people voted leave isnt it? To control our borders. All Brexit has achieved is that we no longer have plumbers from Gdansk coming here and fixing our toilets. Instead we have Somalis coming for the “uncovered” meat.
@Natalie Solent (Essex)
USB C might indeed be the best now. The trouble with making it the standard by law is that it sets the current situation in stone and discourages innovation.
Sure I understand. But, like I said, the wall plug your charger plugs into is also standardized by law and also not subject to innovation. But that seems like a fair trade off for the benefit that you can confidently plug anything in there. It is also worth pointing out that USB-C is quite different than that wall socket because it is a negotiated protocol, which is to say using the same form factor we can change what it does by adjusting the standard and protocol while maintaining both the physical and mechanical characteristics, and maintaining backward compatibility. This isn’t a pipe dream, it has already happened multiple times, for example, increasing the charging current the connector can carry and the bandwidth that can be transmitted. So certainly innovation is possible, and has already been proven to have taken place.
Standardization is an extremely good thing. Among other reasons it prevents abuses of the patent system that I think was the core concern of the EU — specifically that Apple used patents to overcharge for their inferior connector. If you ask me if I’d prefer that a standards body wrote that and people complied due to market forces then I’d certainly agree. But I’d also prefer that we got rid of the patent system that caused this problem, and that and my taxes were a third of what they will be, and that’s not going to happen either.
As some wise philosopher once said “you can’t always get what you want, but … you might find you get what you need.”
@NickM
As to standards… If there is one I hate it is the G type plug.
How funny, I think that plug (which I didn’t know was called a “G type”) is a triumph of good design. Speaking as someone who has accidentally “connected” himself to the British National grid, 240V going through your body is no fun. So that preferential earthing and that fact that it is almost impossible to electrocute yourself with that plug, even with the brilliantly innovative designs of a five year old kid, is very clever indeed.
Nonetheless, I have stood on one in the middle of the night, which definitely sucks.
FWIW, one of my favorite YT-ers, Tom Scott, has a rant about how British plugs are the best. One can almost hear “Rule Britannia” as the background music.
Andrew G: And then, immediately afterwards, old fuzzface’s crack about history repeating itself first as tragedy, then as farce.
Fraser,
Actually for quite some time the UK has run on 230V AC @ 50Hz. This is to harmnoize with Europe which is largely 220V and very useful.
I do a lot of fixing and building computers. I like standards (however they are arrived at and this is often without government) because the alternative woud be a ‘mare.
Anyway, I have a tale to tell… It was 1995 and I was living in a postgrad hall of residence in Stepney and a weeping American came to my door. I had already got a rep for knowing about computers in just three weeks! Anyway she asked me to look at her Mac (Classic II). I could tell something was badly wrong going up the stairs because smoke was billowing down them. Her Mac had, essentially, caught fire. Her essay was on a floppy in it. Now, Macs never had a mechanical push-button to eject a disk (Steve Jobs thought such things ugly – I hate everything Apple*) but I figured there had to be a way. So I looked and there is! There was a pin-hole on the back to pop the drive. So, essay saved! The computer was, dare I use a techie term? -“Fucked”.
How did this calamity happen? The American had used a plug (not power) adaptor lent her by her German flatmate. Now that adaptor did change the pin lay-out but not the voltage which considering this American had a US model which was designed for 110-120 VAC so the PSU blew up.
She was from Atlanta. If I sometimes here suggest I know the SE USA a bit that was the start.
*See the Apple III.
The Corporate State doctrines of the European Union and the, modern, United Kingdom are not good – they strangle innovation and adaptation.
And the establishment have worked hard to impose the same doctrines on the United States.
No the Euro/UK standard was set at nominal 230V (plus 10%, minus 6%) so that 220v and 240v are within standard.
djc,
UK Domestic Voltage is 230 VAC. Yes, for most purposes 220-240 VAC, is an acceptable margin. Apart from computers. Sort of. a computer runs on 5/12 VDC but that is not the real issue. The real issue is how it is transformed from AC to DC. Now for that a simple rectifier won’t do. It will deliver very “choppy” DC which is why, when building computers, don’t skimp on the PSU. I have been building them for 25 years.
Written on Signy. I am a recovering astrophysicist. Signy is my gaming rig. She has a Ryzen 7 5700X CPU (8 cores, 16 threads*), an nVidea 4060 with DLSS and 8GB of DDR6. She has 64GB DDR4 main memory and NVMe 1 TB SSD. For back-up she’s got a 2TB WD drive.
I can control lightning. I do have a scheme for a truly epic machine. I just need to find 10 grand ☹️
*And overclocked to 3.6GHz but still runs cooler than The Fonze because the graphics card has three fans, the CPU has an impessively baroque piece of AL/Cu. And because the only hardware artists in Cheshire better than me are possibly Stormforce Gaming.
USB-C sockets don’t seem to last for very many inserts/removals in practical use. I have replaced at least one otherwise functional phone because it would no longer reliably charge through the work socket. So much for reducing waste.