• Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    37·
    22 days ago

    WD-40 is a cleaner and not a lubricant, this is the equivalent of using soap.

    Female USB A cables are explicitly forbidden in the USB A spec, so this is some very specific, possibly illegal, fetish.

    • Efflixi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      22 days ago

      I have at least a dozen USB A extension cables at work that supposedly don’t exist then.

      • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        22 days ago

        I’ve got a webcam plugged into a daisy chain of USB A extension cables 15 feet (4.5 meters) long across a room. Works fine, surprisingly.

      • Psythik@lemmy.world
        2·
        22 days ago

        Also I have on more than one occasion used soap as lube out of desperation. I do not recommend.

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        20 days ago

        Apple sold keyboard extensions and I use them to plug memory sticks into TVs without having to hunt down the socket in the back of the damn tv. But I had one before that that came with a WiFi dongle way back in the day too.

        Technically the Apple ones have a notch to prevent non keyboards from fitting in, but a pair of pliers and a gentle squeeze removes the notch in the female end quite easily.

          • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            22 days ago

            USB A extension cables exist and work very well, so I’m not saying this is justified, but…

            My guess for the rationale behind the explicit ban on female USB A cables in the spec is that signals degrade over distance and they didn’t want to try to go to the extra work to make USB host and guest devices hardy enough against noise in the signal to work reliably even in the presence of extension cables.

            Apparently USB host/guest devices are hardy enough against noise to handle extension cables just fine. But I’m thinking that wasn’t planned to be the case by the authors of the spec. Perhaps most USB host/guest devices exceed the spec in at least that particular regard.

            Clearly not all female USB A ports are banned by the spec. Female ports on USB host devices, of course, would have to be allowed or USB would be useless. Given that, I’m guessing an active (powered) extension could be strictly compliant with the spec. (Think of it as a one-port USB hub.)

            • Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              2·
              21 days ago

              As far as I know, it was mostly about not creating confusion about who is the host and who is the peripheral device.

              By limiting female connections only to hosts and male connections only to peripherals, there can never be a situation where you get host/host or peripheral/peripheral.

              This still begs the question: why not allow extension cables? And it seems that they don’t explain anything past the roles issue.

    • Fushuan [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      20 days ago

      I’d have used something like SwItch instead, then use RJ45 ports because it’s the internet, and switch is both a hub and also an sex term. Also you can divide it in sw itch, sw being software and itch being another sex term.

      • UnfairUtan@lemmy.world
        1·
        21 days ago

        ELI5 : why does it feel like it lubricates my garage door and other metalic-y things that rub together?

        • Damage@feddit.it
          2·
          21 days ago

          So unfortunately WD-40 as a product has become actually several different products with different properties, so it’s possible that yours is actually a lubricant. But if you have to reapply it often then no, it’s normal WD-40. What it does is it unblocks and cleans the gaps between moving parts, and it does have a slight lubricant effect but that doesn’t last long, so after a while you have moving parts, where WD-40 has removed any remnant of lubricant, rubbing against each other directly.

          • UnfairUtan@lemmy.world
            1·
            21 days ago

            I see. The one I usually use doesn’t explicitly say it lubricates but that it can “loosen” metals and clean them.

            • Damage@feddit.it
              1·
              21 days ago

              Depending on what you are unblocking, grease or simple oil can be a longer term solution