And this is Progress?

Modern life is an alphabet soup of acronyms and standards, at least when it comes to technology. We have SMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, Atom, POP, IMAP, etc., riding atop the venerable TCP/IP. The devices connect using RJ-45 or RJ-11 cabling, and everything interoperates. Almost. Need power with that? The devices usually are powered by an array of mutually incompatible “power packs”, or the cutely-named “power pills”, most of which render some number of outlets on a power strip unusable, because of the “pill’s” girth. And don’t get me started on the fact that most of the plugs on the device aren’t standard.

To date, the best that technology has to offer are the power strips with widely-separated plugs, to accommodate the various power packs. Then, you deal with the length of the wire from the power pack to the device, and your whole world revolves around either a glut or a deficiency of these wires, with the end result being that your device placement is totally out of your control. You place it where you can power it. Done deal.

What I’d propose is a standardization of the plug ends, so there are maybe 3 or 4 different types of plugs that a device could use. Then, with standard voltage outputs, one could easily purchase a transformer to output the correct voltage, to a standard plug. You could even buy “power patch cables” of a kind, in varying lengths, to enable you to place the device where you wanted. I can even visualize the day when modern houses have outputs such as I’ve just described on every AC outlet in the house. Man, how hard can this be?

This Father’s Day rant brought to you from tbbs-land, where your host has just lost a power pack to a device, after a weekend of much needed storage room defenestration.

-k-