Yep. These were a stopgap in the days when normal users could not be expected to have a functional home network of any sort. Those were indeed active devices, and had a lump in the middle of the cable that basically amounted to an integrated USB hub.
They didn't catch on because in the era they existed it was very difficult to achieve any kind of connectivity with them to the outside world. By the time that was able to be ubiquitous, smartphones were already happening.
all the work
You have, like, seen my post history, right?
Here is the current spread. Not everything I have, just what's hooked up at the moment. Never mind the crap lighting in here.
The machine in question.
It's slightly less absurd than that, I guess, because modern smartphones do at least still have telephone functionality.
Plenty of kids I grew up with also called Nintendo and Atari cartridges "tapes." It made sense from an ergonomic standpoint and from the point of view of someone who had no interest in understanding what was actually going on inside the machine. It's a rectangular plastic thing you put in the machine to make it play whatever it says on the label. Just like a VHS tape, see? Same same.
The thing with tape was that it described the actual medium inside the casing, all the way back to the time before the tape itself came in the casing and was just loose on a spool. This would have been state of the art in the 1960's. It's possible that Original Series Star Trek foresaw the possibility of solid state-ish storage with no tape reels inside, but probably not. (Their computers also exhibit a distressing lack of displays, so I'm not sure the producers were too good at being prescient.) And for what it's worth, I do know a few oldsters who now call the various small card based flash media formats "memory chips," which I guess is pretty close to accurate. TnG did this too with their "isolinear chips," whatever the hell those were supposed to be made of.
Anyway, we do have a limited selection of "phones" without the phone feature, e.g. things like the iPod Touch which was basically an early-gen iPhone with the phone cut out. Nobody could really decide what to call these, with the closest thing to a standard being "pocket media players," which turns into the rather non-melodious "PMP." (With this I guess we missed the chance to call wi-fi enabled variants "pocket internet media players," and therefore have the opportunity to label these "PIMPs," which is obviously much cooler.)
USB-A to A cables aren’t common
I believe USB A-to-A cables actually violate the USB spec and should not in fact ever exist. They definitely should not exist as a straight-through cable (although obviously they still do in reality) without any active electronics in the middle. Male A plugs are solely for connecting to a host device, and the entire purpose of the spectrum of B plugs in their various guises is specifically to make the other end of the cable that goes into the endpoint device different. The point is that you are not supposed to be able to directly connect two hosts together like that.
A straight through dumb A-to-A cable would connect the +5v pin from the host device directly to the +5v pin on the device on the other end of the cable. If you did this between two host devices (i.e. two computers) it is certainly possible that Bad Things would happen if the designers of both devices did not account for this type of stupidity. The only way one of these can be valid according to the spec is to omit the power pins entirely.
That said, I have a particular flashlight that came with exactly one of these naughty cables: A straight through male USB A-to-A cable with no smarts in it whatsoever. The flashlight charges via a USB-A port which is exceptionally bizarre, and I suspect the reason it does so is because it can also act as a power bank and the manufacturer was too cheap to include a type C or micro B or whatever port for input and a separate type A port for output. But now I'm stuck having to use the moronic cable it came with (which is also only like 14" long) without much hope of ever finding an alternative or replacement...
Well, okay. In that case, definitely fuck 'em.
I was just making a hot dog joke, man. We can grind up the shareholders first.
The ancillary equipment and infrastructure for a railroad influences things quite a bit as well. If you just need to privately move things from A to B, it is "theoretically" cheaper to lay rails than build a road of equivalent capability. But a locomotive and cars plus a railyard and a turntable and sidings and switches and all the other stuff you'll need to run trains effectively is going to cost a lot more than just getting a box truck or a even an 18 wheeler and just plonking it on your new road.
A modern freight locomotive will cost you $1.5m to $2m just by itself. Then you need boxcars and all the other stuff, too. Big rigs aren't exactly cheap, either, but you can drive one of those off the lot for less than $250,000.
Connecting your railroad to the rest of the railroad network -- a significant portion of which is privately owned, for an extra special added layer of clusterfuck -- is also a headache. This is trivial for roads, even after you take all of your local government regulations into account. You can make roads go more places more easily.
You are correct that scale is a very important factor for the financial viability of a railroad.
If they were going to bulldoze an inner city neighborhood, it's likely that neighborhood was going to be predominantly black whether they like it or not. The white flight phenomenon predates Costco by a wide margin, and that fuckery already happened decades ago. While there were already inroads to corralling the country's black population in cities around the turn of the century, the ball really got rolling on that in the post-war period following WW2 with redlining, block busting, widespread segregation prior to the civil rights movement, and the white middle class retreating to the then-new suburbs.
They could always grind them up to make into those $1.50 hot dogs.
More noodling around with Overture glow PLA.
I tried to tweak the exposure a bit this time to make it look more like how you perceive it in reality.
I'm finally getting around to messing with this stuff. Now I can balisong in the dark.
Step 2 is determining how badly all the particles of gumf in this filament negatively impact the mechanical strength.
Edit: I probably should have said this in the first place, but this is Overture green glow PLA.
The model is my Rockhopper balisong utility knife. Go check it out -- it's fully printable, even the hardware.
Wouldn't you know it, I've been messing with the current release candidate for FreeCAD lately. Just now, I used it to make this.
I got annoyed at having to search through all these multipacks of files to find a Gridfinity bin in the size I want. So I decided the hell with it, and made a parametric configurable FreeCAD model that creates bins or you, in any size (within reason) and also with a configurable number of fixed dividers in the bargain.
My main intent was, of course, to use these to organize oodles and oodles of pocketknives. You'll never be able to guess why. But if you have a use for it, knock yourself out.
This one's a real reach. Mo' obsure, mo' better.
I got annoyed by my BRS Replicant (clone) showing up with very swanky channel milled handles, but no latch. Yes, it came with a little ballistic nylon belt pouch and no, even I of all people am not a big enough nerd to actually wear it that way.
So I made this, which is a little friction fit dingus you can print out of TPU that fits quite snugly over the bite handle and holds the knife shut, but you can slip it over the end of the safe handle with your pinky easily.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17328458
Oh boy, here I go shillin' again.
I just updated my 3D printable balisong utility knife so hard that it wound up with a new name.
As usual, you get the brief version here. Massive amounts of details are located, as ever, in the original post and also at the Printables link.
Want one? Of course you do. Get the files here.
UTILI-SONG evolved into...
...ROCKHOPPER! ~(Screeaw!)~
Printables link: here.
"But you already designed a balisong," you say. Yes, I did. And it is further said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.
So I did the same thing again, and I got a different result.
Iteration after iteration, tune after tune, ultimately literally every single component of the original Harrier Utili-Song wound up being changed or in some cases, just outright thrown away and designed anew. This carried on to the extent that I eventually realized we were deep into in a Ship of Theseus situation, and at that point it ought to get a new name. Thus, the Rockhopper was born. So here's another black and white knife coming at you from the deep blue sea.
It is not an optical illusion, but the handles are subtly tapered which was an important aspect I realized was originally missing. There are also ergonomic finger rest cutouts, which also provide a tactile indication of which side of the handle you're holding.
At is core are the headless "Impossible" screws I used on the Adélie design. I liked these so much that I said at the time I would backport the design to my other knives, and here we are.
The next logical step is, of course, to give the Rockhopper bushing pivots to ensure a guaranteed kick-ass action.
And isn't it just. (Slow mo version here. Warning: That file is 28 megabytes. Sorry, instance admins.)
The Rockhopper also has a deep carry pocket clip. I can't think of any production balisong that does. Maybe there's one out there but I'm drawing a blank. Give me an "acktshully" in the comments if I'm wrong.
Oh, yeah.
I also added a Morpho style spring loaded squeeze-to-release latch. The latch head is a new lower profile design, and positively locks in place in both the open and closed configurations unless the handles are squeezed.
I could sit there and do that all day.
The spring latch was what gave me the most trouble. Getting that tuned to work reliably was a major chore, and ultimately revealed that you can't print that component in ordinary PLA if you expect it to work, at least beyond demonstration purposes. Cold creep will eventually do you in if you try, and by "eventually" I actually mean "within a couple of hours of leaving it latched." Which is a real drag.
But if you print the liners in ABS instead there's enough creep resistance in the material to make it possible. ABS will also take a minor set after a while, but its permanent deflection is more limited and at least so far in my testing a pair of ABS liners has kept the spring latch perfectly functional from the start right up until the time of writing.
The entire knife has been slimmed down, especially the blade holder, because it turned out the added thickness was actually unnecessary for function and durability. The thinner design feels much nicer in the hand.
And when I said I did a lot of tuning, believe me when I say I was not fucking around.
Practically every mechanical aspect is parameterized and configurable, which was necessary to dial in everything to be just so.
That's because, and I knew this already, designing a balisong knife is actually unexpectedly difficult and complicated. It doesn't seem like it should be at first blush. I mean, pre-industrial Filipino fishermen carved working examples out of whalebone and bamboo or whatever the fuck, right? How hard can it be?
The answer is, very. Making a bali- that spins and goes "clack" is not actually terribly difficult. But doing so in a manner that doesn't suck, works reliably every time, and most importantly can be cranked out on a consumer level 3D printer turned out to be quite involved.
Everything is a factor. Everything. The spacing between the cutouts for the Zen pins, and their diameters. Length of the handles. Angle of taper. Length of the latch, to compensate for angle of taper. Clearances between the bushings, the screws, and the blade. Height of the pivot bosses. Interface between the tang and the pins. Everything works in concert with everything else.
If you've ever wondered why Chinese flea market balisongs are such crap, this is exactly why. All of that stuff has to be right, and it has to be consistent, and that's not easy.
I designed the Rockhopper to be an intermediate sized knife. It's 4-15/16" long closed, not including the protrusion to the rear from the clip. Open and latched it's 7-5/8" long, including the length of a typical Stanley style utility knife blade. It's 11.5mm thick or 0.45" in total, again without the clip. And printed with 100% infill in a combination of PLA and ABS, it weighs 36.1 grams or 1.27 ounces.
In length that puts it in between, for sake of example, a Benchmade Model 32 and 51. It's about the same overall length when open as a 32, actually, owing to the longer handles but shorter blade assembly.
I also did a trainer version of the blade, presented here in eye-searing green for safety. This is for practice, or can be used by any prospective waddlers who happen to live someplace with insufficient Freedom^tm^ where live blade balisongs may be illegal.
And I did a better job of it than that damn carrot. At least I can say that for myself.
The Rockhopper is pretty much exactly as complicated on the inside as a Morpho, as well. A full build requires 27 individual components, all of which you get the fun an excitement of assembling to get to the finished product. Once again, I'm not going to detail the assembly process -- which is rather involved -- for the sake of brevity. That's all detailed on my Printables post.
Want one? Of course you do. Get the files here.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17097936
As usual, since I already wrote a monumental piece on this in the other community, I'm just going to give you guys the short version. The long version is in the cross-post link above.
What it is: A 3D printable Axis lock folding knife, mechanically complete fully functional, with Penguin beak wave opener, one each. The world's finest; the world's only.
We're having great fun with this and other silly objects over on !pocketKNIFE@lemmy.world.
Jooooooin usssssss. You know you want to.
Printables link: Here.
"You need to buy this special heater pad to break the screen adhesive!"
No, I think you will find that in fact I don't.
In keeping with my usual tradition of harping on about the dumb shit I design and slap up on Printables:
https://www.printables.com/model/862518-cat-shelf-bracket-for-smartykat-paw-perch-or-build
These brackets solve a specific, but major, usability issue with the aforementioned brand and model of cat accessory widely sold at Walmart, Amazon, Chewy, Pet Smart, etc.
Conversely, there's nothing stopping you from screwing your own piece of wood to the top of a pair of these and arriving at roughly the same result without shelling out 30 of your hard earned Washingtons.
Cat tax paid:
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/13318099
A Very Specific Object. You may or may not recall from my post a couple of days ago about the surprisingly competent (and very cheap) Jin Jun Lang JL-13A that one of its points of incompetence was a design that allows the latch to strike the blade, like so:
Well, sure I put a stop to that.
This half-gram piece of plastic slots right into the handle like so:
And means the latch will only swing in a 180 degree arc such that it stops just short of the tip of the blade.
It works the other way, too.
Grab it here:
https://www.printables.com/model/811990-latch-no-strike-spacer-for-jin-jun-lang-jl-13a
Solving real world problems for a hilariously tiny number of very specific people. That's how we do around here.
...I have seven.
Are you sure you're not me?