Out of curiosity... do you feel differently about cars? (e.g. through services such as Uber and Lyft)

What the sibling AC said - care to share your list?

Note that for [your] online viewing habits, you don't need G+. I guess you could be doing it out of solidarity of the internet commenters or those uploaders who curse the requirement while coveting the ad/syndicated partnership income - but if you're just watching the videos, you don't need a Google+ acccount. (Yet. Not likely to change, but then Google pulls all sorts of unlikely things.)

I find turning it around or positioning myself so that I can see the back a lot more efficient (even if it did accept the plug either way around). Of course if it's something that has to be swapped out relatively often, I don't use the ports on the back at all.

every game I install these days also installs the redistribution files for .net.

Do they actually install them, or are they merely included in the installer packaging and installed if and only if the files are missing or outdated?

Sort of a casino
( but without all the entertainment perks and less of the gambling )

Really? You look at your phone when plugging it in while dark with your night vision?

No, for my phone I know which way it's up, and for its cable I know which way the plug is around by the fact that it is offset (it's a short mini-micro adapter). I don't have to look for that one. That's the whole 'remember' bit.

If pretty much everyone who ever uses USB regularly tries to insert the connector backwards then that is a problem with bad design. Period. If you find that hard to fathom then you really need to get a good whack with a cluebat

Do I, or do the people who keep trying to insert them the wrong way around?

Again, I'm not saying that the new design isn't an obvious improvement. What I am saying is: a good portion of the people who keep trying to plug the things in the wrong way around, are probably going to find ways to continue to do so.

Perhaps I should clarify further, though.. I look first when I'm not familiar with the device. The fact that I have to do that at all (instead of only requiring a slight touch to determine general port orientation in the first place - see sibling comment) is enough reason to applaud a 180Â symmetrical design.

But I can't say that I identify with the vocal group who appear to find a source of continual frustration in USB plug orientation vs port orientation.

You've never tried putting a usb cable in wrong? Hard to believe.

I know - bold claims require bold evidence. Unfortunately, I have no video record of every single plugging-in of a USB plug. It's entirely possible that I did try to plug one in the wrong way around for a while there when I got a computer with USB ports, and have simply forgotten about it.

Most of the complaints seem to come from people who have been using USB products for years and are still having orientation issues with it, though. I find that hard to fathom.

My, aren't you special.

Snark aside - no, no I'm not. Certainly no more special than anybody claiming they always need to try it 3 ways :)

I've used more than one computer where they're on the back and the wrong way up (most go with the 'trident' logo on top). I have a phone and a tablet that are the same plug but the opposite way up and it's small and recessed too.

In which case for the first time around, you didn't look (perhaps you couldn't, because, well, back side of the computer and all) and for the second+ time around, you completely forgot about the first time around.

If it was properly designed, you shouldn't have to look, and if your eyesight's not brilliant that might not help anyway. As to remembering, great if you only have one machine. Not so much when you have four at home, and use many different ones at work or college.

Which just brings us back to people taking a flattened plug horizontally to a port that's oriented vertically even if the port have a 180Â symmetry.

Without seeing the back side of the computer...

Are they vertical?
http://www.computershopper.com...

Or are they horizontal?
http://images.anandtech.com/do...

I guess you could think that it's always parallel to the longest side, but then what orientation does it have when there is no longest side?
http://www.pcstats.com/article...

I guess some people would just have to try it 4 ways around.

Note that I'm in no way saying that I think the USB plugs/sockets were a great design in terms of user-experience. At the time they were certainly better than most anything out there with multiple pins. Plugging in a PS/2 plug when you couldn't see the port, now that was torture. I certainly applaud the new design (for the most part).

Ultimately though, there's always going to be people who have trouble plugging devices in - for whatever reason. Some people have trouble just plugging headsets into their phones (judging by the plethora of scratches surrounding the headphone jacks). Thankfully for them, more and more peripherals are available in wireless form.

( Well, except for the power cables. Ever try to plug a U.S. plug in the wrong way around? Easy to do if you don't check which of the pins is the broader one. The C7P (device-end) is even worse. )

USB has a 'D-shaped' connector, standard Type B. People still manage to try and plug that one in wrong as well.

As it is, Type C should be seen mostly as a replacement to mini/micro A/B which (and also happens to replace regular ol' A), which are already a D shape.. just that they're fairly flattened.

There was a design for a type A plug that was double-sided, I don't think anybody ever produced a cable/product using it (probably because it would be relatively expensive to produce):
http://www.yankodesign.com/201...

Even with Type C I'd imagine there's people who, when faced with a flat connector and a horizontally oriented port, will try to jam it in vertically.

A cylindrical connector (think headphone plugs) is the only type that can truly be inserted at any angle around the axis of revolution, but those take up a fair bit more space.

Personally I've never even tried to insert a USB plug the wrong way around.. it's not like it's impossible to see the shapes and remember for any future occurrences. Unless you're drunk, tired, stupid or any combination thereof - in which case you shouldn't be inserting tab A into slot B anyway, whether it's computer hardware, assembling IKEA furniture, or recreational activities.

Not that I mind the improvement - at least it purports to get rid of Micro USB 3.0 B.. thanks to its width vs insertion depth, that is the only one that I've found to actually be problematic at times even when inserting it the right way around.

Outside of just-the-displays off of aliexpress or so, I think this may be the only reasonable e-ink option for hobbyists out there right now:
http://www.embeddedartists.com...

Which is a shame. I realize the market for e-ink displays is way bigger for retail (and I don't really mean retail products - I mean products for retail, such as OTA-updatable price indicators) than for hobbyists, but for many other electronics segments you can usually find a decent hobby-level offering as well.

2.7" might be a bit too big if you wanted to make a watch :)

Nothing. Pebble clearly copied the iWatch and violates several of Apple's patents. :)

Might as well - you know half the comments will be about party affiliation anyway, and then a bunch of comments will be about whether it's really this government's fault, or the one before it, etc.

Also, while politicians are annoying, talk show hosts can be much worse. If successful, he could pollute, I mean sway, the mind of quite a few people and get his way in the end without needing to be a politician.

Unlikely to be the cause of the vast majority of the claimed 'lost' coins, that is.

Bitcoin Transaction Malleability and MtGox
http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.6676

In Bitcoin, transaction malleability describes the fact that the signatures that prove the ownership of bitcoins being transferred in a transaction do not provide any integrity guarantee for the signatures themselves. This allows an attacker to mount a malleability attack in which it intercepts, modifies, and rebroadcasts a transaction, causing the transaction issuer to believe that the original transaction was not confirmed. In February 2014 MtGox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange, closed and filed for bankruptcy claiming that attackers used malleability attacks to drain its accounts. In this work we use traces of the Bitcoin network for over a year preceding the filing to show that, while the problem is real, there was no widespread use of malleability attacks before the closure of MtGox.

Yes, but remind me exactly why I shouldn't be suspicious of you being on a call walking down the same street as I am? I can't tell if you're really just making a call, or recording everything I happen to be saying. I can't tell if you're just holding that smartphone to your ear, or also having the back side camera record everything that happens in that direction - i.e. ME. I certainly can't tell if your GPS is on and you are logging your position.. which, by 'coincindence' (or so you'll claim) happens to right near where I am, too, and I have no idea whether any of that information is getting shared with Google, Apple, Microsoft, facebook, twitter, the U.S. government, the German government, or just your pet dog.

Let's be honest here, a huge portion of people's dislike for Google Glass is 1. That people don't take the darn things off when they probably should be (somebody else commented about prescription versions and then needing to carry two sets of glasses, I think - sounds like a fair trade-off, if Google won't make a model where you can physically detach something to reassure the people around you that the only thing recording them is the HD button camera) and 2. the 'dork' factor. Same reason a lot of people hate 3D movies - they don't like the 'stupid-looking' glasses. Nevermind that they're in a dark theater and everybody is wearing them. It's out of the norm and thus catches flak, regardless.

Again, I fully understand people's concerns - but I'm saying that a huge part of that is the psychological aspect of being able to see it. right there. on somebody's face. creepy by default.

Depends on how public the knowledge already is

Readily public - even if not specific to AWS:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...