Is that gone from anything other than cell phones? Maybe there's still money in bitching about that, I expect most people moved on to USB-C and Bluetooth two cell phones ago.

The people bitching about that don't know about the abundance of adapters, terminal servers, and that there is no such thing as DB9.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Parallel needed to die. Lived in a largely Apple world for my life in computers so I know little of the joys of a parallel port. What I do know is that a lot of people got burned trying to turn their parallel port into some kind of multiple device bus and wound up getting burned. They should have used SCSI for that.

I don't believe you that anyone bitched about the loss of the floppy drive. By that time CD-RW, USB flash drives, and other media were well established.

I'd gladly bitch about the loss of optical drives if anyone would be willing to pay me for it.

I saw on TV last night how CDs and other optical media is becoming popular among young adults. I had my mom ask me about how to play her CD collection since her CD player died, that was a simply matter of reminding her that her DVD player will play CDs too. I have a Blu-Ray player around here somewhere, I've been using the DVD player built into one of my TVs for most of my optical media viewing.

I miss FireWire but I'm not going to bitch about it being gone. USB-C and Thunderbolt made it obsolete. Maybe it could be resurrected with some well crafted updates but there's not been a sizable audience for bitching on that being gone for some time.

I still see bitching about the loss of PS/2 ports.

PS/2 means being able to secure a computer more easily as the USB ports can be disabled for removable media without losing the basic functions of a mouse and keyboard. Maybe that function can be restored with DE9 ports and the right adapters and drivers but that means having real DE9 ports than some USB simulation of them.

Then is the increased performance of PS/2 for gaming. For people looking for every advantage on fast paced games PS/2 adds just a wee bit more than USB can provide.

There's room to bitch about PS/2 falling out of use. Because of such bitching we see new gaming PCs and servers still having PS/2 ports.

There was no micro-USB, I don't know what you are talking about. I've had nightmares about micro-USB but that's just a bad dream, right? RIGHT?!?!?

Ah, yes, the days of CRTs and analog video. Is that bitching or just nostalgia?

I'm pretty sure that is still around so who's bitching about it going away?

Again, bitching or nostalgia? PCMCIA hung around for a long time because so many attempts at replacement failed to do the same. It took a while but it's gone and I don't see money in bitching about the loss. Only nostalgia remains.

With the loss of USB-C there's MagSafe, HDMI, and SD slot. Since a large number of people will be using one of those USB-C ports for power the addition of MagSafe makes up for it, the HDMI port and SD slot are just kind of a bonus.

I'd rather have MagSafe than use one of the USB-C ports for charging, that would have certainly saved my MacBook Pro from damage.

HDMI has in it's specification the ability for audio input and Ethernet so if Apple supported these features and people wanted it then the HDMI port could be used for more than just A/V output. 100 Mbps Ethernet that is supported by HDMI is getting to be a bit outdated but it's still enough for what most people would expect of internet connectivity and so would be useful if only as an Ethernet port.

HDMI can be used for more than connecting a monitor, but since the loss of HDMI meant people were going out to buy HDMI adapters to plug a monitor into USB-C there were complaints. That means losing a USB-C port for HDMI was considered a "win" for many and the gain of also MagSafe and SD slot were a bonus.

By the time HDMI is retired so will the laptop. It's kind of a moot point after that. In the mean time people want HDMI because that is the most popular display connection now. HDMI to DVI-D is a trivial matter of an adapter cable. Using analog VGA than digital HDMI or DVI could mean using a USB-C port that might not need to be occupied otherwise kind of sucks but that can be rectified with a dock you'd likely have otherwise, or be so rare that people will deal with it or not be an Apple user anyway over some shortcoming in available ports.

Apple effectively built a USB-C dock into the laptop for the three most common ports that concerned people, power, HDMI, and SD slot. I missed MagSafe enough that I bought a kind of third party knock off to get that back. That meant I was using one USB-C port as if it was MagSafe. With the newer laptops with MagSafe I'd have the magnetic breakaway power port and still have the means to plug in a display without occupying another USB-C port. The ability to use USB-C power bricks was not lost because the other end of that MagSafe cable was USB-C, and the remaining USB-C ports allowed for power input. Where's the downside here?

I don't use SD cards often but apparently other people do. I have a digital camera with SD but I also have at least two USB-C docks with SD slots. Not a big win for me but others appear pleased.

When looking at USB-C travel docks there's apparently always the same ports of HDMI, SD, and power. USB-A is common too but at least with power, HDMI, and SD in the laptop people wanting to plug in USB-A devices are less likely to need anything more than a USB-C to USB-A adapter to do that. Apple removed the need for a dock for something like 90% of users by removing the USB-C port and replacing it with MagSafe, HDMI, and SD.

Apple can't please everyone but I'm seeing that on the balance they did well with their choice to remove one USB-C port and replacing it with MagSafe, HDMI, and SD.

Isn't the entire point of the fine article that USB-A is not being phased out?

I see USB-A sticking around because it is a simple, durable, and therefore inexpensive, connector. Given that those needing to plug USB-A into USB-C can do so with an inexpensive adapter there's not much to hurry people along to be rid of USB-A like there was with so many other ports that we saw get replaced with some USB variant.

The mini USB connectors need to die. The USB-IF group would like everyone to forget they ever existed. I'd like to be able to forget they existed.

Is there a combination USB-C dock and charger that I'm missing? If someone is using a laptop for gaming, to a point that he's using a mouse, headset, and portable screen, then it's likely plugged in to an outlet. That means needing a charging brick. If the charging brick is also a dock that provides a couple USB-A ports, maybe also HDMI, Ethernet, and SD slot, then there should be no complaints on having to carry a dock. I have a USB-C dock but the power supply is a separate large power brick, and so not exactly friendly for carrying with a laptop. Just how hard could it be to have a power brick with a USB-C port for a laptop and a couple or three USB-A ports for mouse, headset, or whatever? There's certainly power bricks with USB-C and USB-A ports but the USB-A ports aren't for acting as a hub or dock but only for providing power.

A dock would likely solve the problems the author of the fine article brings up. I've seen a few travel docks that are quite small and inexpensive that should do nicely as they provide 2x USB-A, HDMI, SD slot, and a USB-C power pass through port. What would make such a dock especially sweet is if there was a power supply inside so I'd not need a separate power brick. I suspect that is unlikely because of electrical safety codes or something.

Agreed. When I got my first computer with USB-C I bought a dozen USB-A adapters and stuck them on the USB-A jacks I used most often and just treated them like part of the cable. I had a few left over that I'd move around as needed. Every new computer will come with a need for cables and adapters, that's just how things work. Just budget for it and everything will be fine.

The guy is bringing with his laptop a mouse, headset, portable monitor, and cables to plug in his cell phone. Why is he bitching about a couple $8 USB-C adapters? He's already got a bag of accessories to go with the laptop, stick a USB-C adapter on the USB-A jacks, pretend the adapters are just part of the device, and STFU.

I'd say the problem is he's using wireless dongles for his mouse and headset than buying Bluetooth to begin with. I had a number of wireless mice in the past and learned to hate them. The Bluetooth mice were nice enough but they were expensive and had problems of getting worn out or broken quickly. Part of being wireless is there was no wire to keep them from being knocked to the floor. By nature of having a heavy battery in them they tended to hit the floor with enough force to break something inside them. By being closer to $40 than $8 that was an expensive mishap to see a mouse hit the floor one too many times. I gave up, bought a wired mouse, and never looked back.

I have a few Bluetooth headsets and speakers, some work better than others. Once I had a decent headset I had no need or desire to do anything different. Though the connection could drop if there's too much noise, such as from a microwave oven. I have a USB-C adapter and cable to plug in the headset if that becomes a problem.

I've seen a USB-C mouse before, it was something like $30 and looked like junk. Again, if the lack of a USB-A port is a problem then $8 will fix that. Get an adapter, stick it on the mouse, pretend it is part of the mouse, and move on.

What is RS485? I did some searches but there was no photos of any connectors. That sounds niche enough that I'm not wondering why you don't see those adapters.

The mini and micro versions of USB need to die, though I can see how and why the "wide" micro-B is hanging on for things like portable storage.

Apple heard that and brought back MagSafe (though not the same kind of MagSafe), HDMI, and SD card slot. I have an all USB-C MacBook Pro, it's due for replacement, and it had a need of repairs because a dropped item landed on the power cord and yanked it off the table. Magsafe would have saved it from damage. Complaints on a lack of USB-A goes back to my previous comments on an $8 adapter and STFU on needing dongles.

You have a bag with a headset, mouse, HDMI cable, charger and cable, and likely more, and needing to put in there a couple USB-A adapters upsets you? I'm not directing that at just the OP, or the author of the fine article, but anyone with a similar complaint.

When I got my then new MacBook Pro with USB-C ports I bought something like a dozen USB-A adapters. I learned quick that with every new computer will be a need to buy about $100 of adapters. With USB-A being the norm at this point it was that all the adapters were the same kind.

Chrysler was clear on what killed the turbine car:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

It's not like the turbine experimentation ended when the production on their first run of turbine cars ended in 1964. After they made the cars they experimented with them for years to see how they'd perform. Experiments on a new engine and vehicle design lasting for around 15 years might be a bit unusual but not unheard of. For a comparison consider the GM EV1. The GM EV1 started as a concept car in 1990, the first generation production ran from 1996 to 1997, second generation production from 1998 to 2000 to fix some issues that arose with the first production run, the decision to put the idea of an EV for sale on the shelf came in 2003, and the last car reclaimed in 2004.

You mean about the time it takes for a bill to be introduced into Congress until it is signed into law and goes into effect? Shocking. It's almost as if they could see the clean air mandates coming and decided to stop spending money on developing a product they'd know they could never sell.

That's an example on why I expect the ICEV as we know it to become a rarity.

Once we get to where the BEV is no longer a rarity then we'd have more houses where there's a 240 VAC outlet for EV charging in a garage or an outdoor parking pad. With heavy duty shore power that means PHEVs and "electrified" ICEVs can use that shore power for things like automated pre-warming the cabin or whatever to avoid needing to burn fuel for that. I can expect people upset about the thought that a vehicle would be plugged in for anything than charging a propulsion battery but not everyone will be sold on a BEV. In the mean time we can get lowered reliance on fossil fuels with other vehicle types by using electric power for cabin heat and so forth.

Consider a pretty "mid" BEV with a range of about 200 miles on a single charge. That's "mid" by today's standards where 300+ miles from a new BEV is common, 200 miles could be expected from an older BEV that's had some wear on it. Consider the average round trip commute for an American is less than 50 miles in a day. Assume the BEV loses a quarter of the range because of cabin heating, that's leaving 150 miles on the battery. Then assume another quarter of the range lost because of cold impacting battery performance, now range is at 100 miles. I'm exaggerating the loss in range as part of the point, it's not likely to be that bad in reality.

Just how many people would be impacted by seeing their BEV having its single charge range cut to 100 miles because of age, wear, and cold?

It would suck if the cold weather coincided with a long trip. If that happens then maybe the trip needs to be delayed or extended, as might be the case with any vehicle. I can recall one cold -40F winter day where my dad felt a need to make a trip to the feed store in the Chevy truck. I don't know why he needed to make that trip so bad but he went. On the trip back something in the transmission broke, making the gear selector stuck. It had to be put on a flatbed truck to be hauled off to get fixed as it could no longer be put in reverse. Cold weather is hard on everything mechanical. Long trips in the cold might not be advised. Short trips to the feed store, or wherever, in the cold might not be advised.

I'd expect long trips to be in warm weather, where EV range would be optimal. If taking a long trip in the cold then such trips would be in mild cold than in the middle of an ice storm. The examples in the fine article were about people making regular trips for work in the cold, so in that case maybe a BEV wasn't the wisest option. Or more likely they went cheap and paid for it with less cold weather performance. Next time buy a Ford than a Chevy I guess. (That's a joke, never buy American vehicles. That's another joke, always buy American.)

Maybe someone can help me find a reference so I know I'm not hallucinating. I recall places selling kits to add kerosene heaters to electric cars. This might have something to do with government EV incentives in places that got very cold in winter. This kind of made sense since for much of the year the EV operated fine without the extra heat. If the range loss on EVs becomes a problem that isn't so easily solved with insulation, heat pumps, or whatever then maybe there will be an option for kerosene heaters on these "mid" EVs that don't work so well in the cold. It's not ideal as the intent was to avoid having to buy fuel. The alternative could be people continually upset on EV performance, having to pay for a road tax fuel for a hybrid or ICEV when a heater in an EV could legally use untaxed fuel as it is for heat than propulsion. Remember that this is about low priced EVs in the fine article, they mentioned some of the vehicles had three wheels which implied this wasn't exactly a Tesla.

Legislation on NOx emissions killed the turbine engine for cars. Turbine engines moved a lot of air to work and it was impractical to put a catalytic converter on a car that could allow for that kind of air volume. Turbine engines are great for their fuel flexibility for one thing. Maybe there were other ways to mitigate the NOx emissions from turbines but without some driving need to use them the reciprocating piston engine dominated. At least that's my recollection on the history. Jay Leno and a few other people did videos on the experiments with turbine cars.

I expect the many variations on the theme of PHEV to dominate. Serial hybrids are fine but I'd expect some parallel/series hybrid hybrids to be fairly common. As an example I can think of seeing some Ford engineering plans or something that was a on the outside a fairly typical 4x4 F-150 truck, but on the inside it had mechanically driven front wheels and electrically driven wheels in the back. I don't know if any prototypes were built off those plans but I'd be surprised if there was none.

A PHEV doesn't need an ICE that is all that large to aid in providing heat and some extra range on the batteries in the cold. It can there to help out in cold weather, provide a backup in case of a power outage or something that would delay a recharge, or something similar than propel the vehicle on its own.

This effect is known to us in the Midwest USA. This was widely reported: https://www.newsweek.com/tesla...

The link I gave picked on Tesla but I recall this impacted other makes also. This got to be news because of the coincidence of a winter storm on top of weekend travels. The news was not that cold impacted EV range, the news was that so many people were caught off guard due to the severity.

No doubt there, that's why "cold cranking amps" ratings exist on lead-acid batteries.

Presumably now that manufacturers have been embarrassed with national news of EVs needing to be towed away because they refused to charge in the cold there will be changes to better account for this. Presumably for most EVs all that is needed is a software update. Given the mass of a typical EV battery it might not be enough to have a 120 volt 15 amp outlet like that used for the typical block heater to get the battery warm enough for maximum range.

Growing up on a dairy farm we'd lose power with some frequency on cold winter nights. Not like it happened every night, but if there was a freezing rain or something then the long runs of overhead power lines tended to break somewhere and take hours for the line workers to locate and fix. For such cases we had a generator that we could power from one of the tractors. We had several diesel tractors on the farm, and diesel engines are known for being especially difficult to start in cold. The typical means to aid in starting was a block heater, starter fluid (a canister of compressed alcohol or something that looked a lot like a spray paint can, with a button push a bit of this fluid was squirted into the air intake), or glow plugs. One tractor had all three. We could not milk the cows without electricity so we relied on that one tractor to start. I asked Dad once what we would do if the power was out and that tractor didn't start. He said we would not milk the cows that morning. We milked the cows every morning.

Maybe in the future we will see some equivalent to a starter fluid injector for EVs. I don't know what that might look like but I have a few ideas based on some of the more unusual ways to get diesel trucks and tractors started in the cold.

I like BEVs when put to uses appropriate for them. I expect the PHEV to make the ICEV as we know them today obsolete. Because there's a lot of the USA that has cold winters, also still quite rural and sparsely populated, there's not likely to be a time all that soon where the BEV replaces most every commuter car and light truck. With many PHEVs offering vehicle-to-load capability I can see them become popular as a replacement for portable generators, such as for dairy farmers that need to milk the cows on a frozen morning.

It's a change in temperature that is the problem, hardly something analogous to the earth being salted. It's like a forest management office seeing the average temperature shift and so after the next forest fire (be that fire from natural causes or not) they plant a different tree species than before to aid in recovery.

I'm not seeing anyone claim this solves the problem of global warming, but rather adding resiliency to the coral reef to survive the warming that has already happened and the warming expected in the future.

Did you even look? Such as check Wikipedia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

A quick web search shows 9 US states with nuclear power bans, though apparently Illinois lifted their ban recently:
https://brilliantmaps.com/nucl...
Or maybe not, I can't keep up: https://www.thecentersquare.co...

World Bank lifted their ban on allowing loans for nations developing nuclear power, so things are improving: https://www.world-nuclear-news...

Denmark has a ban, or had a ban since this could have changed since:
https://www.ft.com/content/787...

I can keep going but I believe I made my point. The Wikipedia page might be outdated so there could be some that have gone on or off the list since. Either way the list on nations that have bans on nuclear power is longer than just Germany.

Um, no. I've become tired of the debate over global warming, instead I prefer to assume global warming is a problem and ask to move the discussion to solutions.

The article does state that the problem is getting worse. The number of reefs in poor condition is reportedly increasing.

I'm assuming that global warming is happening, and that it is bad. What seems to upset people is that I'm not screaming about global warming like my hair is on fire. I'm a bit tired of every bleaching event getting blamed on human activity only to later read that the reef recovered, followed with an explanation that bleaching is a natural cyclical event. Since we are seeing reefs recovering here and there I'm not yet in a panic. I have concern, just not panic. If there is a problem then I'd like to move on to what should be done about it than continue to dwell on the problem. Can we all do that? Move on to discussing solutions?

I express concern on if they are taking the correct actions and that's interpreted as "denialism" for some reason. I understand they are the subject matter experts but without some more information on their thinking there's something not right about introducing a species that didn't exist there before. I found a different article where other subject matter experts took a different tactic, it would be helpful to know why they chose to act differently.

That's how time would pass on Earth, for the people moving at relativistic speed it would be more like decades. It all depends on the acceleration, of course. If the acceleration was close to Earth gravity then the time passing on Earth would be more like centuries than millennia, if I'm reading the chart on the Wikipedia page correctly.