TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML)
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@Zecc I never noticed the logo, but now that you mention it, yeah, it seems to fit. Thanks, I didn't know.
But it's not always very visible (it's often just some grooves on the plastic) and on many USB devices (typically all those that don't have a cable e.g. USB keys) there is no logo at all. The seam in the metal, OTOH, seem to exist on all USB plugs (except those few plugs that only have the plastic thing with the contacts, and no metal sleeve at all, but while I've seen a few USB keys with them as it allows for flatter connectors (credit card thickness or so), I'm not sure they are actually standard plugs?).
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I'm not sure what's being talked about, but it seems to me I'm whooshing.
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@Zecc said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
and when i'm reaching around behind a computer to plug it in and my head doesn't fit back there too, and even if it did there's no light, and i can't pull the computer out to do this because the cables not long enough to do that...... in that case how would you recommend i detect which way up i'm holding the connector? hmm? didn't think that one all the way through now did you..... punk?
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@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
how would you recommend i detect which way up i'm holding the connector?
You may be able to feel the seam.
The bottom of the port is the side attached to the circuit board.
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@PleegWat said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
You may be able to feel the seam.
with paws like these?!
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@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
and when i'm reaching around behind a computer to plug it in and my head doesn't fit back there too, and even if it did there's no light, and i can't pull the computer out to do this because the cables not long enough to do that...... in that case how would you recommend i detect which way up i'm holding the connector? hmm?
Are you that attention deficient that you forget which way is up once your hand disappears out of your sight?
Figuring out where the heck the slot is ("no, that's the ethernet port!") is the hard part.
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@Zecc said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
Are you that attention deficient
I don't think I a....... SQUIRREL!
SQUIRREL! SQUIRRELSQUIRRELSQUIRREL!
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
There is one side that has a seam, and in most female plugs, that seam goes on the bottom.
The USB connector I plug and unplug the most often, by far — the micro-USB to my phone — is just the opposite. Look for the seam; that faces toward me as I plug it in, assuming I have the phone screen side toward me, as I do 99.999% of the time I'm either holding it or have in sitting on a desk or table. I can plug it in with nearly 100% accuracy.
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@HardwareGeek But micro USB is asymmetrical, I think? It has one small edge and one larger edge, so you can orientate it this way, which is easier than looking for the seam. At least that's how I do it with my phone and indeed I have no issue with it (and I have never looked at where the seam is...). I was thinking about "regular" full size USB plugs, the ones that look symmetrical but actually aren't.
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
It has one small edge and one larger edge
True, but the seam is easier to see than the asymmetry, at least for me. But you're right, of course; micro USB is different than USB, and what is true of one connector isn't necessarily applicable to the other.
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@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@PleegWat said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
You may be able to feel the seam.
with paws like these?!
Heh. I once saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream where, at the point where the Players are doing the show within the show, the lion chases the woman off and mauls her dropped garment, leaving blood upon it.
The actor dressed up as a lion was wearing big cloth paws like that (though less colorful, of course), and when the narrator read that he was supposed to leave some blood upon it, he picked it up, looked at it in puzzlement for a moment, then had a sort of "light bulb moment." He removed the paws, pulled a ketchup packet out of his pocket, tore it open, and poured ketchup on the clothing. Had the whole audience in stitches!
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@HardwareGeek said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
It has one small edge and one larger edge
True, but the seam is easier to see than the asymmetry, at least for me.
It's the opposite for me (the asymmetry is easier to see), but that might be because until recently I did not notice the seam at all, so I trained my eye to look at the shape.
All this talk about all the different ways to orientate a USB connector must have the engineers who designed it go all ... "We designed at least three different ways for people to find out the right orientation and yet they keep missing it!!!!"
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
All this talk about all the different ways to orientate a USB connector must have the engineers who designed it go all ... "We designed at least three different ways for people to find out the right orientation and yet they keep missing it!!!!"
Likely because they missed the obvious one that made the USB port's predecessor intuitive:
Just make it asymmetrical, and then it's impossible to plug it in backwards!
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@Mason_Wheeler They didn't even look at the other predecessor, that was barely asymmetric (there is a flat notch on the
malefemale (edit: got the pins wrong) connector, but usually nothing obvious to match it with on thefemalemale side), and that was also a pain in the a** to plug correctly (and even worse than USB as you could bend pins if applying too much force).Or maybe they looked at both and thought "we can do better!"
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Off by one
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@Vixen A new version of the "IGN reaction guys" meme from the mid-2000s?
(something boring)
(something exciting)
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@Mason_Wheeler said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
Just make it asymmetrical, and then it's impossible to plug it in backwards!
Or, like they did with USB-C, make it symmetrical and have it work either way
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@hungrier said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Vixen A new version of the "IGN reaction guys" meme from the mid-2000s?
(something boring)
(something exciting)
they're the same model actually. just photographed at differetn angles.
and imma gong to need to print this for my uncle who (as a master gardener) HATES squirrels (but is surprisingly cool that squirrel based gifts have become a family in-joke)
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@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
they're the same model actually. just photographed at differetn angles.
I know. It would've been nicer if the first one was more of a front-on angle to the camera (or a different model) but
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@hungrier said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
they're the same model actually. just photographed at differetn angles.
I know. It would've been nicer if the first one was more of a front-on angle to the camera (or a different model) but
after i print some we can fix that..........
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@Zecc said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
Figuring out where the heck the slot is ("no, that's the ethernet port!") is the hard part.
Oh no, I'm quite adept at determining ports by touch alone. Touching slots is an idle pastime of mine.
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@HardwareGeek said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
It has one small edge and one larger edge
True, but the seam is easier to see than the asymmetry, at least for me.
It's the opposite for me (the asymmetry is easier to see), but that might be because until recently I did not notice the seam at all, so I trained my eye to look at the shape.
All this talk about all the different ways to orientate a USB connector must have the engineers who designed it go all ... "We designed at least three different ways for people to find out the right orientation and yet they keep missing it!!!!"
For micro-USB I feel for the prongs. That's the bottom (or, wider) side. If the prongs aren't prevalent enough to feel, I don't trust the cable to actually stay and find another.
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TIL You can ask Google about your passwords.
Tralalala...
Edit: Should probably post the link in case people can't google a google product...
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@Tsaukpaetra said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
in case people can't google a google product
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@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@mott555 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
And I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't shown up as a selected juror.
well...... if you didnt' want to be a juror you could have answered "Yes" when one or the other lawyers asked you "Do you have any beliefs or convictions that would prevent you from rendering your verdict based soley on the facts of the case and the laws of this land" (or other phrasing to that effect)
then you wouldn't have been selected. ;-)
Or just be me and be dismissed because I have a lot of family in law enforcement, so the defense counsel (presumably) thought I would be biased towards the LEOs connected to the case.
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
TIL that you can get a better-than-50% chance of plugging a USB correctly by looking at the metal sleeve around the male plug. There is one side that has a seam, and in most female plugs, that seam goes on the bottom.
It doesn't work all the time but it's better than trying a random orientation (3 times, of course, because the first one was actually the right one etc.), and it's easy to visually spot on the male plug, much more than trying to look at the plastic filling inside the plug and trying to see how to match it with the female one. Although now that I know that there is a preferred orientation, it looks like the plastic thing also goes on the bottom. But sometimes the plastic thing isn't so clearly visible and I find that the seam on the metal sleeve is usually more visible. Plus I find easier to remember something like "hide the seam" (i.e. put it at the bottom) than "the plastic goes to the bottom" (with no easy mnemonic to remember it). Anyway.
Is it really that hard to just look at the plug and socket?
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@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
TIL that you can get a better-than-50% chance of plugging a USB correctly by looking at the metal sleeve around the male plug. There is one side that has a seam, and in most female plugs, that seam goes on the bottom.
It doesn't work all the time but it's better than trying a random orientation (3 times, of course, because the first one was actually the right one etc.), and it's easy to visually spot on the male plug, much more than trying to look at the plastic filling inside the plug and trying to see how to match it with the female one. Although now that I know that there is a preferred orientation, it looks like the plastic thing also goes on the bottom. But sometimes the plastic thing isn't so clearly visible and I find that the seam on the metal sleeve is usually more visible. Plus I find easier to remember something like "hide the seam" (i.e. put it at the bottom) than "the plastic goes to the bottom" (with no easy mnemonic to remember it). Anyway.
Is it really that hard to just look at the plug and socket?
Apparently, 92.72 percent of the time USB is plugged in by blinded users.
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@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
I would be biased towards the LEOs
How can anyone be biased towards Low Earth orbits?
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
I would be biased towards the LEOs
How can anyone be biased towards Low Earth orbits?
It's "Large Eggplant Organelles"
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
I would be biased towards the LEOs
How can anyone be biased towards Low Earth orbits?
It's an acronym for Law enforcement officer(s), and encompasses police, sheriff's deputies, FBI agents, US marshals, Texas and Arizona (and maybe other states') rangers, etc.
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@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Vixen said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@mott555 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
And I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't shown up as a selected juror.
well...... if you didnt' want to be a juror you could have answered "Yes" when one or the other lawyers asked you "Do you have any beliefs or convictions that would prevent you from rendering your verdict based soley on the facts of the case and the laws of this land" (or other phrasing to that effect)
then you wouldn't have been selected. ;-)
Or just be me and be dismissed because I have a lot of family in law enforcement, so the defense counsel (presumably) thought I would be biased towards the LEOs connected to the case.
That used to work for me, too, until it didn't.
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@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Applied-Mediocrity said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
I would be biased towards the LEOs
How can anyone be biased towards Low Earth orbits?
It's an acronym for Law enforcement officer(s), and encompasses police, sheriff's deputies, FBI agents, US marshals, Texas and Arizona (and maybe other states') rangers, etc.
Thank you for explaining. It might be uncommon outside the US, but it was also quite obvious from the context, so I was just pulling your leg. Seriously, how many times here have I posted anything even half-serious?
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@Applied-Mediocrity I figure it's always okay (for me, at least) to be the straight man for the jokes. And maybe sometime you (or someone) won't be joking, and so you'll get a serious response.
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@djls45 said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
TIL that you can get a better-than-50% chance of plugging a USB correctly by looking at the metal sleeve around the male plug. There is one side that has a seam, and in most female plugs, that seam goes on the bottom.
Is it really that hard to just look at the plug and socket?
Yes, for two reasons: one is that the socket isn't always easily visible (the plug is usually OK). For example my desktop computer is under my desk, with USB sockets on the front towards the bottom (so 10-20 cm from the ground). When there is low lighting (such as in the evening when I just have a desk lamp providing some low ambient light), to actually see properly the inside of the socket would require me to put my head down to ground level and/or add some light.
The other reason is probably something similar to how some people always confuse right and left. I might be looking at the plug, looking at the socket, knowing which bit of one is going into which bit of the other and thinking hard about it, I still manage to get it wrong close to half of times.
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
how some people always confuse right and left.
Spacial cognition is hard! That's why I use the Stage, though it definitely helps to know from where the "right and left" is referenced from, as
this
doesn't necessarily mean yourself ("not my left, your left!")
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@Boner That's an interesting idea, but there's a large portion of time where you don't know the minutes because the pointer is gone.
Also some more info:
The worker’s blue overalls, yellow rag and red bucket pay homage to the famous Dutch artist, Mondrian.
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@Boner On a related note: I'm one of those eejits to whom it took some confused googling to find it was "mind your step" being said over and over all along. For the fuck of me I could not understand it a number of times I've went through there, which as it happens actually reduced the chances of me minding my step. It's now patently obvious, but until then the freaking brainworm went... "right or left"? What, why? Or "something left"? What? TDEMSYR!
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is PHP, of course, but it's amazing that they kept this all this time:
Parse error talks about T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
I'm one of those eejits to whom it took some confused googling to find it was "mind your step" being said over and over all along.
Oh yes, from all the travelators. When they're working anyway...
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@JBert said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
is PHP, of course, but it's amazing that they kept this all this time:
Parse error talks about T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM
Mostly just surprised the PHP people know what a parser is.
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@remi said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
TIL that you can get a better-than-50% chance of plugging a USB correctly by looking at the metal sleeve around the male plug. There is one side that has a seam, and in most female plugs, that seam goes on the bottom.
It doesn't work all the time but it's better than trying a random orientation (3 times, of course, because the first one was actually the right one etc.), and it's easy to visually spot on the male plug, much more than trying to look at the plastic filling inside the plug and trying to see how to match it with the female one. Although now that I know that there is a preferred orientation, it looks like the plastic thing also goes on the bottom. But sometimes the plastic thing isn't so clearly visible and I find that the seam on the metal sleeve is usually more visible. Plus I find easier to remember something like "hide the seam" (i.e. put it at the bottom) than "the plastic goes to the bottom" (with no easy mnemonic to remember it). Anyway.
To me it always seemed natural that the heavy side was at the bottom of the plug. Not that you could actually tell by its weight, but that's the best word that I could use to describe it; looking at the plug, that side looks heavy.
It doesn't always work though... sometimes the port is upside-down, and sometimes it's sideways (in which case all bets are off).
@Tsaukpaetra said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
For micro-USB I feel for the prongs. That's the bottom (or, wider) side. If the prongs aren't prevalent enough to feel, I don't trust the cable to actually stay and find another.
Yeah, that plug is actually easier to tell because those prongs are usually pretty easy to feel.
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TIL Catherine Zeta-Jones, known for her extremely believable role as Elena in the Zorro movies, is actually Welsh and has no Spanish or Latin American ancestry!
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@Mason_Wheeler Did you know that the Welsh have close contacts with quite a few parts of South America, especially in Argentina? There were a lot of emigres who went out for mining...
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@dkf said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Mason_Wheeler Did you know that the Welsh have close contacts with quite a few parts of South America, especially in Argentina? There were a lot of emigres who went out for mining...
Huh? I thought it's full of
NazisI mean... Germans
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@topspin Them too I guess. I think the Welsh went more down Patagonia way...
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@topspin said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@dkf said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Mason_Wheeler Did you know that the Welsh have close contacts with quite a few parts of South America, especially in Argentina? There were a lot of emigres who went out for mining...
Huh? I thought it's full of
NazisI mean... GermansOne time when I was in Argentina, in a town with a certain level of German population, some guy randomly came up to me and addressed me in what sounded like German. I told him in Spanish, "I'm sorry, Señor, I don't speak German."
He looked a bit surprised. "Oh, you don't speak Gypsy? Sorry, never mind." And he walked off.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@topspin said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@dkf said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Mason_Wheeler Did you know that the Welsh have close contacts with quite a few parts of South America, especially in Argentina? There were a lot of emigres who went out for mining...
Huh? I thought it's full of
NazisI mean... GermansOne time when I was in Argentina, in a town with a certain level of German population, some guy randomly came up to me and addressed me in what sounded like German. I told him in Spanish, "I'm sorry, Señor, I don't speak German."
He looked a bit surprised. "Oh, you don't speak Gypsy? Sorry, never mind." And he walked off.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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@MrL said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Mason_Wheeler said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@topspin said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@dkf said in TIL (about the Dark Arts of HTML):
@Mason_Wheeler Did you know that the Welsh have close contacts with quite a few parts of South America, especially in Argentina? There were a lot of emigres who went out for mining...
Huh? I thought it's full of
NazisI mean... GermansOne time when I was in Argentina, in a town with a certain level of German population, some guy randomly came up to me and addressed me in what sounded like German. I told him in Spanish, "I'm sorry, Señor, I don't speak German."
He looked a bit surprised. "Oh, you don't speak Gypsy? Sorry, never mind." And he walked off.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
Go stick your head in a pig.