UK to specify new charging cable standard

Possibly history will show that they were both better than Keir Starmer.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, Tim Streater snipped-for-privacy@streater.me.uk> writes

I suppose it limited the opportunities for the technologically illiterate to cross connect services.

I think we almost got there already with phones, tablets, &c, with mini-USB, micro-USB, USB-C and Lightning over the years covering nearly all, and lots of it 5V as well. But it's the huge variety of other things with their barrel connectors of all sorts of voltages and either polarity that could so easily have standardised, and for me it's those that form the bulk of the crate of chargers that have to be labelled so they can be matched to their equipment.

nib

However USB 3.x and USB-C connectors are going the same way, there's a large variety of different enhancements which may or may not be available on any particular USB-C connector. In particular there's a whole raft of higher voltages (i.e. more than 5v) and higher currents that the two ends can negotiate. It should always negotiate to the right place but I'm always a bit worried when 12v and even 20v might appear.

Once you own a couple of 13A plugs with a USB-A socket on them providing 5V for charging, that's all you need. One of those can charge my now-retired iPhone 6, my back-in-service Doro mobile, and my 10 year old Pentax DSLR. Not my 10-year old MacBook Air, though, but that does have a MagSafe connector which is in any case a far better concept than the USB-C.

Yes, lots of those too, but they each (well most of mine) have a unique cable USB-A to device, that is separate and can get lost, and probably needs labelling too. For me that's watches, electric shavers, toothbrushes, electronic toys, ... The ones that need charging rarely are the worst!

nib

That was deliberate, wasn't it? Phones had to be 'BABT Approved', in case they blew up the exchange or something. Control supply of the plugs, stop unapproved stuff being plugged in. Especially not that Hong Kong or Japanese junk.

I recall going to a backstreet phone shop with an 'unapproved' phone that somebody from abroad had carried in their luggage. It was all nudge nudge 'well this is not allowed, but ...' - they swapped the cord for one with a BT plug.

I don't remember if the 'BABT Approved' thing was also a wheeze by which the market price was kept high so people would continue to rent phones from BT. Anyone remember?

Theo

My Dad acquired a PABX phone from his work and wired it in as an extension. Not being British, he was less than impressed by the minimum 6 month wait,plus extortionate charge for an approved one.

We were told at the time that a 6 month wait was actually greased lightning compared to some areas. But that was the 70s for you.

Proof, if proof is needed, that privatisation works.

as Royal Mail and Thames Water amongst others, now demonstrate.

Something I'm trying to understand is the extent to which the water companies have much control over the sewage dumping business. We know, or we ought to know, that there's only one set of pipes in some? most? all? areas [2] which act as sewage pipes but also as storm drains [1]. If you get a sudden huge downpour then this system can be overwhelmed and they have to dump the contents. Now, how many of the public know this? None? Some? All? The way it's all reported you could easily get the impression that the water companies are just doing it for fun.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

IANA drainage engineer but AIUI it's because they haven't been investing in infrastructure, ie building new treatment plants. A new housing estate gets built, NNNN new houses discharge into the same sewerage network as before. All of a sudden the sewage works is 'overwhelmed' when it wasn't before.

Also increasingly heavy rainfall from climate change is stressing the system more than it previously was. Again the water companies should have been building to cope with that, but they haven't. This is why there can be localised flooding far away from any rivers etc - the water backs up in the sewers and then spills out into houses.

It's also possible some treatment plants are closed / offline / reduced capacity due to lack of investment. I've heard of some specific plants being closed, but don't have a good insight into whether that would impact network capacity.

But if you try to get Thames Water to actually do something when you have a sewerage issue, it's months and months of hassling them and repeatedly missed deadlines. It's almost as if they just want to do the minimum and fob you off so they don't have to spend money on their network.

Basically what was the ultimate fallback in case of an extremely rare event is now used routinely, and the water companies reckoned that was cheaper than building something to handle it.

There are street storm drains, and rainwater drains from private gutters.

It's common to have separate storm and foul water drains on new builds in some areas, but they're combined in older areas. Some properties have soakaways, but many drain into the foul water system. On clay soils soakaways are of limited use when the ground is waterlogged, so that typically drains into the foul water system.

That means it has to take the rainwater load from the NNNN new houses and drives, streets, etc as well as their bathroom waste, which makes a lot more pressure on the system.

It's common to have sustainable drainage systems, ie a foetid pond in the corner of the development, to reduce rainfall load. But it doesn't work so well in urban settings where the site isn't big enough.

Theo

Bless!

-- “it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism (or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans, about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a 'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,' a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian utopia of 1984.”

Vaclav Klaus

Its all part of the same general problem. Let's spend money on 'social justice' , the BBC, renewable energy and wokery and immigrants rather on the houses roads water mains and sewage systems to support them

-- “it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism (or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans, about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a 'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,' a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian utopia of 1984.”

Vaclav Klaus

There was an article about this in the BT Research Labs Journal around the time that they were introduced. The main motivation for the new design was to make the connector much more robust than the existing RJ11 type. There were also special versions with different keying for various PBX setups. John

BBC investigation into dumping sewage in Windermere:

On 16 Oct 2024, Max Demian wrote

That'll kill off the line about the funeral of the guy who designed the original USB-B connection...

In the case of the water companies, the money went to directors and shareholders, not the infrastructure.

One of the first jobs of any sewerage system, is to separate sanitary sewer from storm sewer.

The work has hardly begun... Many many places on Earth, if you knew what hell the surface waters had been through, you'd never drink water ever again :-)

The city I was born in, used to have turds floating in the harbour. Today, the sewer pipe (ten feed high, twenty five feed wide) is bricked up, as proof the flow has stopped. A $500,000,000 plant treats the effluent. The water is so clean (how clean was it?), they have small tour boats that take tourists up the harbour. The tourists are then, no longer repulsed by the smell :-) Progress.

And they were made to do that, by another level of government, and... without subsidy. It will take decades to pay off the loan. Many other cities are faced with the same, a request for a new standard, no subsidy to make it happen.

That was one of the cities, that had actual drink-able tap water. It didn't have a smell. It taste good. The water came from the Chain Lakes. Now, with elevated temperature, weeds grow in the lake, and the tap water has a smell. (It's not phosphorus, because there is a boundary around the lake area.) And it's proving pretty difficult for simple sand filters and chlorine to fix that. It would take something like activated charcoal, to "fix it" from a chemistry lab point of view, but there is no intention of doing that.

You don't know what you have... until it's gone.

Your fresh water could be fouled. Your aquifer, pumped down. It seems aquifers don't recharge that quickly. In some areas far from here, with farm irrigation, the level of the land has sunk many many meters. As a resident there, I think you can guess how much longer this can go on.

Then you know the *next* thing that happens. "They have water, let's build a big pipe" :-/

Paul