Cables

For a while now I've been thinking about just how many cables come in products. And the waste that is created to ensure that people have the right cables. A prime example is mobile phones. The last four phones I've had have all required a different connection to the phone in order to charge them. That is such a waste. It would be much better for the consumer to have a standard connection that will charge the phone. I can't remember who I'm stealing this particular idea off but there is already a standard in place. The car 12 volt connection. If all these handheld devices (like phones) were designed so they would charge off that you could get rid of the multitude of cables required to charge phones. It would of course require legislation to force that and you do then have an increased risk of a fire caused by faulty electrical cables. But the amount of plastic saved!

The same principle applies to computer gear. If you buy anything you tend to get at least two different types of power points, and in the case of a monitor all the connections that the monitor is capable of. Once again a hideous waste. How much better would it be if you just got the monitor, and then had to purchase the cables seperately? It would stop a Taiwanese manufactured monitor having so many cables in the box. I think it's a good idea anyway. If you're after high quality stereo gear you'll generally be buying your own cables anyway and for the majority of people who aren't doing that you only buy what you need and don't end up with drawers full of cable snake jams that are impossible to unsnarl.

What made me re-think about this? Well, I'm on call tonight and I was having issues with plugging the on-call laptop into my network (long-ish story about why I require an on-call laptop to remote in). Anyway, I eventually figured out that it was because the cable I was attempting to use wasn't an Ethernet cable but was instead a telephone cable (slightly different pins). So I dug through the bag the laptop came in looking for the ethernet cable. Except there isn't one. I look through my box of computer goods (including some 3.5 inch floppy disks). No excess ethernet cable to be found anywhere. I know at one point I had a 10 metre one which I'm pretty sure was purloined by my crazy ex-roommate. But you'd think I would have kept a crappy, bright blue 2 metre one. But no, I am excess cable-less (I have one for my computer) and feeling a distinct lack.

I still think cables shouldn't be supplied though. I'm sticking to that position come hell or high water :)