MP3 players and later

Sure, and I had a handful that used mini-USB instead of micro-USB, and they were completely fine. It’s easy to quickly look at the plug and orient it the right way, whereas with micro-USB, it’s a fair bit harder.

I don’t think I ever had a mini-USB device wear out the port. Then again, I didn’t have a ton of them, so maybe it’s more common.

Regardless, USB-C feels like an over-engineered solution to a few small problems. The ability to use it in any orientation is nice I guess, but I still have similar problems that I had w/ micro-USB, with cables wearing out over time. I’d rather we optimize for easier to swap ports (i.e. something like the Framework laptop’s changeable ports).

Yeah, not trying to argue with you or anything, it’s just a pretty big disappointment for me. I really want to be able to do privacy-friendly transactions, and I guess I wish someone like Proton or Mozilla would that up.

Something like a Proton Wallet could be really cool if I could add a few different payment options (e.g. XMR, BTC, credit, debit, bank transfer), and then pick the one I want at checkout based on what the vendor supports. They could add this to a phone app and get tap-to-pay working, which would really lower the barrier to people using crypto. It would then be backed by Proton’s privacy and security (e.g. stored on encrypted Proton Drive, no logging, etc).

I probably still wouldn’t use it because I don’t trust any single entity with all of my data, but if it appeals to the mass market, then I benefit as well.

So yeah, I guess I’m just frustrated and disappointed.

1. This seems to only work between Proton accounts, so I doubt many would actually do that. And it seems they’re using the regular BTC network, not Lightning, so fees are going to be huge ($1.60 from their screenshots). Monero solves this way better since there’s no way to see someone else’s balance with their address, and transactions are pretty cheap (a few cents). Their solution doesn’t actually add privacy, it just obfuscates transactions a bit. Lightning does a much better job w/ privacy (it’s private until you close the channel) and costs (transactions are way cheaper and way faster than regular BTC), and it would be the ideal solution to this problem since it still uses BTC.
2. Sure, but aunty is highly unlikely to be using Proton, much less Bitcoin. It’s a service for enthusiasts. Support is absolutely important though, I just don’t think aunty is likely to be sending crypto over Proton.

I still don’t really see who this is for. The requirements to actually using it productively is that your contacts need to also have Proton. If most of your contacts use Proton, that means you’re probably running a business or something and thus don’t need to send BTC to eachother.

Focusing on regular users makes way more sense than focusing on these niche use-cases. Make it so I can easily use cryptocurrencies for online payments. Integration with Proton Pass makes way more sense than integrating with email.

Right, which is why it’s so important to define tiers.

For example:

1. basic support (cheap) - gen 2 speeds, charging at 5v 500ma, etc; for peripherals and whatnot
2. high speed (fast enough) - 5gbps speeds, charging at 5v 500ma, etc; USB drives, regular laptop/desktop ports, etc
3. fast charging (general purpose) - 5gbps data transfer, fast charging up to 45W (or maybe a little lower) at various voltages; phones, special laptop/desktop ports
4. specialized PD - gen 2 speeds (faster is optional), fast charging up to 240W at various voltages
5. specialized data - 40gbps data transfer, charging at 5v 500ma (faster is optional), display out

You’d use the same cable for 1-3, and specialized cables for 4 and 5, and those cables would have special markings on the connector. Ports for 3-5 would have unique markings as well. Cables and ports can go beyond those specs if they want.

Just because you can break things into separate groups doesn’t mean you should. The goal here shouldn’t be to make things easier for manufacturers, but to make things easier for users.

Eh, USB4 is basically what USB 3.3 would’ve been, but with fresh branding. I expect it to have the same naming issues after a few updates…

Exactly. If Proton does anything with cryptocurrency, it should use one of the privacy coins, and Monero is probably the best option here. Here’s how I would’ve rolled it out:

1. accept Monero w/ a discount directly as payment for Proton - I might have picked Proton over Tuta for this
2. add Monero payments to Proton Pass
3. integrate 2 into existing products (e.g. send money to trusted contact, pool money for events in calendar, etc)
4. add other cryptocurrencies (e.g. Bitcoin and ETH) and payment networks (e.g. Lightning)

But no, they instead did:

1. accept Bitcoin as payment for Proton
2. release Bitcoin wallet
3. ??

At least it’s non-custodial, but that raises more questions because if it’s non-custodial, I presumably already have another wallet anyway. The wallet doesn’t add anything directly useful.

Honestly, I didn’t really have an issue with USB type A ports. They worked fine, and it was only a minor inconvenience to orient them the right way. I cared far more about capabilities of the port (speed, power delivery, etc) than I did about the actual port.

That said, micro-USB sucks in every way. The awkward “is this the right way?” thing is way worse than with USB-A, it’s not meaningfully smaller than mini-USB, the port is incredibly hard to clean (and it always gets dirty), and the connector seems to break all the time. I would’ve been totally fine with moving everything to mini-USB instead. The connector was less flimsy without being that much bigger, and it had room for more wires.

I do like USB-C though, I’m just not sure the added complexity is worth it.

Same with my keyboard, and I appreciate the compatibility. If it doesn’t need anything faster than 2.0 speeds, there’s no reason to include more expensive parts.

Mine is worse, it says it can do way more than 20Mbps, but once the buffer is exhausted, it hangs frequently. And this isn’t some random POS from AliExpress, I bought it retail at BestBuy.

And that’s the real issue with the USB spec, almost everything is optional. This would be fine if cables were largely interchangeable, but they’re not.

What they should have are a handful of very well-defined tiers. Cables should maybe have three (basic, mid-range, high end), and ports can have a couple more.

But will that be better or worse than USB 3.3 gen 2 extra super speed?

Oh sure. Personally, I would just break the rule and drop the transmit power on my router, banking on them not bothering to enforce it. They’ll most likely give a warning first, especially since the dorm rep said it would be fine. I have broken plenty of dorm rules, yet never got as much as an email because I made sure my rule-breaking didn’t bother other people so nobody reported it.

A lot of times, those rules are in place because someone ruined things for everyone and they added it so they have something to point to. If you don’t cause problems with others, it shouldn’t be an issue.

“Bubbles” are typically defined by stock/commodities prices. The 2000 dotcom bubble was defined by investor losses, the 2008 housing bubble was defined by housing price drops, etc. So an AI “bubble” will be quantified by stock prices of AI-related companies, like Nvidia.

I think the stock price will be at least partially supported by spending by the big tech companies trying to keep AI relevant. So I expect less of a “pop” and more of a gradual deflation.

And probably royalties for using their “likeness.” But longer-term, I’m guessing total revenue for VAs will drop, and there will probably be less variety.

They moved them to jackets and made them magnetic.

Exactly. My need for a coat/jacket is already satisfied, and fashion really isn’t something I care about. I also don’t care about this designer.

I don’t meet all of the items here (my homelab setup is still a WIP), but here’s basically what I have:

1. Cloudflare manages my domain and DNS, but nothing else; I only use them because they’re cheaper than my last registrar (Namecheap)
2. VPS at Hetzner acts as my edge - HAProxy forwards packets based on SNI over my WireGuard VPN to the relevant device on my network
3. I use Caddy on each device to handle TLS, and all services are inside docker with zero directly exposed ports
4. each service only has access to the files and other containers it needs to accomplish the task
5. my router is configured w/ static DNS, so all requests to services go to my domain name over TLS, but they don’t hit the WAN if I’m on my LAN

I don’t have continuous monitoring and alerting, mostly because the only people using my network are me, my SO, and my kids. I am planning on adding some alerting though, and I especially need to configure SMART reporting (had it configured at one time). So when I do that, I’ll add some dashboards for my various other services as well.

Some things I plan to add:

• backup and restore - I plan to use Backblaze, my main hurdle is that I don’t want to backup my large media files (movies and whatnot), and I haven’t put in the work to configure a service to handle backups; this is a top priority for me
• VLANs to separate devices - I want one network w/o internet access for my IP cameras, one for devices that need access to specific external sites (e.g. my smart TV, or a separate media device once I switch to a dumb TV), one for privileged services (e.g. my NAS, which will talk to multiple VLANs), and one for guests
• continuous monitoring and alerting - each device would report to a service on my VPS (or maybe a separate VPS)
• home automation system - my focus has been on replacing external services, and I don’t use an automation system yet, so I haven’t gotten to this; but I’m planning on using HomeAssistant as I roll out my other home monitoring stuff

So I’m probably halfway to what the OP has laid out. I don’t do this type of thing at work, and I don’t share anything outside my network, so I’m in no hurry. However, I do need to handle backups and SMART monitoring on my NAS ASAP, since those are the last glaring gaps in my setup.

I’d appreciate it as well.

I have a somewhat sophisticated setup as well that doesn’t use Cloudflare (aside from domain and DNS hosting) or AWS (I use a simple Hetzner VPS). I’m considering using Backblaze for backups, and everything else is self-hosted.

One of my main goals is that every responsibility should be modular and have a compatible drop-in replacement. I’m very interested to read what others with a similar perspective have done.

Yeah, I practice some ZeroTrust principles w/o using any of the above. I use Docker networks to associate services and their data and restrict them from accessing services/data they don’t need. I use HAProxy at the edge to route requests to specific nodes in my network, and all of that operates over my own WireGuard VPN. I’m working on creating VLANs for my network to further segment things, so I can dictate which devices can access which resources. For continuous monitoring and alerting, any separate device connected to my VPN would work (haven’t yet configured that); I personally don’t bother because my SO/kids will tell me if something they use goes down, and knowing a few minutes earlier wouldn’t matter.

You really don’t need AWS, Cloudflare, or Telegram for any of this. That said, it is interesting to read through when crafting your own solution, if only to check which parts you have and what parts you may have forgotten.

“Disruptive Device” means any device that prevents or interferes with our provision of the 4Wireless to other customers (such as a wireless access point such as wireless routers) or any other device used by you in breach of the Acceptable Use Policy;

That’s in the OP, so it specifically calls out any kind of wireless access point.

Yeah, it might not be on the network, but the prohibition doesn’t seem to be limited to network-connected devices. Bridging from your phone to your AP/router w/o touching the network may still be against TOS.