XKCD: It's more than a comic

That's my gut reaction as well, but I heard that to efficiently charge phones, you need some data too so the devices can negotiate how much power the host puts through the cable.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Wall chargers don't do that, do they? Also, that would require software support. I also find it unlikely that a computer could control how much power they give through USB. I think these things are more likely to be controlled on the phone side.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

Apparently, the "power bricks" sold with Microsoft Surface devices do negotiate. A quick Google™ search shows they're bigger than your average wall charger, but no clear indication whether they're dumber or smarter.

At the very least, both need a transformer from 110/220V AC to whatever voltage phones use and the electronics to convert from AC to DC; I'm not sure how much additional cost the electronics for negotiating would represent.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Apple Lightning cables communicate as well - there's a chip in them that communicates with the phone, even when it's only charging.

Nominally it's a quality control measure of sorts, but Chinese tech types have made their own chips capable of passing themselves off as the real deal to the phone for quite a while now.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

A smart cable that stops charging when the phone is full would be useful to avoid overcharging the battery. Also, it would be able to top up the battery periodically.

Optimism is a duty.

I think that would be for the phone to manage, not the cable.

This.

edited 21st Sep '17 9:53:46 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

The cable needs to at least communicate the data to say "turn off now".

But I think the reason most type-c jacks are so bulky is because they have a chip in each end to process how best to move whatever needs moving from one end to the other.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

Why would it need that? The phone can just open the circuit on its end.

Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a chore

Thread thread

This one did nothing for me.

Guess you need to be familiar with the Dragonriders of Pern books to get it (I'm not, and I did not either).

edited 22nd Sep '17 11:41:37 AM by C105

Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.

I am, and while it's amusing, it's such a ridiculously narrow topic for a comic that I'm not sure what the point might be, other than as a shout-out to Pern fans.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I don't think Munroe ever worries that his comics won't find an audience. He seems to just do what he likes, knowing that his fans will still come back for the next comic even if there's one they didn't get/like. He's done fringe-y stuff before. (Usually it's in a comic with loads of small jokes, though.)

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I always get the sense that the fringiness is part of the joke.

Holy shit Randall is touring the UK in a week! And he'll be in Edinburgh just before I leave!

Worldbuilding is fun, writing is a chore

#1894: Real Estate

I can't argue with Randall too much here: for most people the amount of money involved in the purchase of a home is way more than they typically deal with during their everyday lives, making it hard to mentally encompass.

edited 25th Sep '17 5:22:54 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I have to confess I tend to have this problem whenever I'm handling sums above a few thousands Euros. It's still not something that happens very often to me either.

Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.

It starts to get really serious when you hear about amounts of money governments spend. When you deal with real estate, at least you can compare that to your total savings.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

Government spending can at least be put in perspective by dividing it per capita.

"Your plan would cost taxpayers umpty-billion dollars over the next ten years!"

"That's umpteen dollars per person per year, for a vital service, when we're spending eleventy dollars a person a year on this thing that mainly lines your pockets. I can do math too."

Fresh-eyed movie blog

For some reason, the annual defense spending of Finland, which I saw in some chart years ago (and has remained pretty constant), has stuck with me. When I see any figure that's close to it - around €3 billion - I always compare it to that. As if I knew very specifically what Finland gets with it, other than national conscription and the costs associated with that, as well as a relatively small permanent defense force with semi-modern equipment. I don't even know how many people they train annually, or even roughly how large the permanent staff is. (So basically, even if the €3 billion figure is a yardstick I have in my head, it doesn't actually connect to anything concrete.)

edited 25th Sep '17 11:06:45 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

It's kinda like dealing with astrophysics. You can put things in fractions of c all you want, it's still a mind-boggling number if you stop to think about it.

"[Y]ou may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

edited 25th Sep '17 11:21:06 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I find it helps to nurture the habit of thinking in percentages: "the seller just offered to drop the price by 5%"

My metric for thinking about real estate is "if the mortgage is X, and I put Y amount per year towards it, where Y is the sum of my current annual rent, utilities, and savings...then I would be retired before I paid off that mortgage''.

Which is part of why I'm happy renting instead.

The frustrating thing about renting is that you pay and pay and pay and in the end all you got is you weren't sleeping in the street.

Fresh-eyed movie blog

Eh, I did the math, and the monthly cost of utilities, property taxes, condo fees, and mortgage interest - without even touching the principal of the mortgage or putting a dollar towards ownership of any real estate - would be equal to what I'm spending on rent and utilities now. And even if I ever paid off the mortgage, I'd still be paying the condo fees, property taxes, and utilities.

So I don't save any money by buying real estate; whether I rent or own, I'm still paying the same amount of money monthly for nothung besides not sleeping in the street, and I'd still be paying a lot of it (utilities, condo fees, property taxes) even after the mortgage was paid off.

The difference is that if I have a mortgage, in addition to spending my current rent money on the interest, condo fees, utilities, and property taxes, there's also the need to actually purchase the house by paying down the principal. So every spare dollar I earn would have to go towards it - I couldn't travel, I couldn't go to restaurants, I can't do anything I do now, because I would need all that money to pay down the principal for the house. For the next 40+ years. To get a one-bedroom condo slightly inferior to the house I now live in.

Whereas renting allows me to actually have disposable income and only invest what I can afford.

Everyone pays for lodging. Saying it's a waste is like saying buying food is a waste because it's gone after you eat it (and all you get from it is that you haven't starved).

edited 25th Sep '17 9:39:01 PM by Galadriel