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Been following the vesuvius challenge and to me this is nothing short of alien magic tech. Incredible work.

Apple was on the USB Implementers Forum that designed USB-C so.. I would say they could definitely be credited as a co-inventor of USB-C, they also introduced one of the first devices that used USB-C.

In addition to being the sole inventors of lightning (the connector), which directly informed the USB-C spec based on learnings from field use.

Apple doesn't get solo credit for USB-C, but they were certainly essential to it. Just compare the USB-C physical interface to the USB-3 micro or super speed type B ports and compare design sensibilities.


Also compare the USB-C physical connector to the reversible power connector on Cinema Display models (circa 2004) and older Mac Minis. To me, there appears to be a strong through line to USB-C’s design.

https://open.substack.com/pub/theelectronvault/p/apple-cinem...

USB-C can fulfill some/all of what I was using Thunderbolt 2 for with a MacBook Air and a Thunderbolt Display in 2013. Going back far enough, Apple combined video and data into the HDI 45 connector in the mid-to-late 90’s (but no one was going to use that for a laptop, even a laptop of the era). It was chunky enough even on a Power Mac 6100 and display then.

USB-C / TB is the latest example of a direction Apple has been moving in for a long time.


I believe Nokia is responsible for the monstrosity that is Micro-USB, and unbelievably one of the arguments was that it would be more robust than Mini-USB.

And then they went too far and introduced laptops that only used USB-C before finally setting at a (so far) happy medium.

I think we needed Apple to do that to throw a lot of weight behind the standard so it didn't get stuck in an eternal migration that never ends. Though removing the SD card slot was dumb since USB-C was never an alternative to SD cards.

Even today the desktop PC market is still stuck on USB-A since they have no Apple equivalent to just get things done.


I really don’t understand what SD card reader on MacBook Pro is for.

All small cameras and devices use micro SD. Professional cameras don’t use SD since forever now. Basically I always need an adapter now.


You can use an adapter for a micro SD but you can’t shrink the size of a normal SD card, is my only guess.

I don't think that's right, professional cameras still use full sized SD cards.

That's not what Grubber claimed tho. They claimed solo inventor, which Apple is not.

There are some studies that suggest human brain sizes have been shrinking over the last 20,000 years. The theory is that as civilization developed the demand for individual humans to be independently intelligent has weakened because we developed a "collective brain" and also self-domesticated to be more cooperative.

Honestly there might be truth to it, I don't get the downvotes - why?

The correlation between brain volume and intelligence is fairly weak. Neanderthals had larger brains than humans, for example. Looking outside the hominids, we have fairly smart corvids with relatively tiny brains.

That means the chain of thought “brains volume decreased, so individuals must have gotten less intelligent. Yet, societies grew smarter, so there must be herd intelligence” breaks at “so individuals must have gotten less intelligent”.

I think/guess that argument may have merit when replacing brain volume by number of neurons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...)


Even if we grant your argument that brain volume between species isn’t good proxy for intelligence, It doesn’t immediately hold for comparisons within a specie.

No, but correlations there aren’t large, either, if they exist.

Einstein’s brain reportedly was below average size.

That’s a n = 1 example, but there also is a 50/50 example: man vs women. on average, the brains of males are about 10% larger than those of women (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroscience_of_sex_difference...). That doesn’t show up in intelligence differences (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligenc...)

Even only looking at males or females, I don’t think larger (fe)males tend to be more intelligent.


Yes. Absolutely. They will move more units and make more profit overall, and if they don't do it a competitor will.

We use headless browser providers because the companies we interact with don't and won't create a proper API for us to use. Lots of legacy web apps/portals. Saves thousands of man hours.

There are no true scotsman

Everything is obvious in hindsight, but the data (and theory) at the time was that this had a really good shot at being the next big thing in a world where >90% of drugs never make it past clinical trials. 10% probability of success * $200B in lifetime sales (assuming a Keytruda level smash hit) means an EV of ~$20B or more. Not a surprise more than a few companies wanted a shot at it.


Actually a lot of drugs make it all the way through to approval from Phase I. I think you probably mean preclinical to approval. It's something like 33% across all therapy areas in the USA, and in some areas closer to 50%.


Soooo.. not to sound like a luddite but to me the best dedicated writing device for me has been just pen and a notebook or a typewriter.

There are surprisingly many "portable" typewriter options out there (including electronic ones).


> There are surprisingly many "portable" typewriter options out there (including electronic ones).

An odd laptop ($0) with free software ($0) makes more sense than buying another electronic device.


If you don't value your time sure. Pen and paper is also basically free and even simpler with no setup time..


Handwriting or using a typewriter is great if you're writing something solely for enjoyment of the process. But if you want to store, organize and use any of your writing in the future - you have to go digital.


How so? Most of these companies will take a hit but will be fine Alphabet, Amazon, Google, etc can write off their entire investments in AI and will be a-OK. The pure AI companies will obviously be dead.


This is what people said about the banks in 2007. Just because the big players’ balance sheets can take the hit doesn’t mean the wider economy is insulated.


Exactly. The below reply to you also says the banks were bailed out. "So people were right".

How so? Big corps got home safe. Not the people. People committed suicides and lost their livelyhoods.


And all these banks were bailed out by big brother. So the people were right.


A) they still screwed the economy and everyone in it except themselves. B) Nobody gives a shit about the banks as businesses. They got bailed out because they physically made much of the world’s economy function, like plumbing. That’s not going to happen here.


You're still ignoring their mention of the wider economy. The banks were bailed out, but everyone downstream of them still felt the brunt of the impact, atop paying for that bailout with tax dollars.


Yeah and a lot of far less powerful people got fucked over from the crash. Is that what a successful, functioning economy looks like to you?


All of those companies will be fine, but they are currently valued on the stock market for future earnings. Investors anticipate them making a lot more money in the future. So stocks will slide dramatically. Open AI and Anthropic might not survive. And suddenly you see a 20-50% pull back on stocks. That impacts retirement and pension funds. It may trigger a panic and sell off across sectors.


Hah, none of the big companies are going to write off their entire investment. They will come begging for bailouts.

Privatize Profits and Socialize Losses is now Bog-Standard Operating Procedure.


https://fortune.com/2026/05/18/is-ai-a-bubble-1997-or-1999-w...

The stock market. Stocks crash, companies go belly-up, tons of people get laid off, unemployment spikes, people die. I don’t give a shit about the companies themselves. I do give a shit about who they employ, both directly and downstream, and the job market that will result from many of them losing their jobs.


More like poorly structured loans and incentives.


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