Actually each one of those chips was a redshirt under the command of each officer. How do you think they decided which disposable crew to send on away missions.
As they always do in nature (work themselves out). In systems speak I think it is called a neutral feedback loop, which basically just means self balancing.
The key is how rocky or drastic is the negative swing to right the balance. That is do we get to a place where there is a massive die off, followed by some pretty lean years, or will it be a much more gradual thing.
It has nothing to do with nature. I have had a lot of experience with the pointy end of many "environmental" groups.
Most environmental groups I have seen are made up of about 1% of people actually concerned about nature. The other 99% (particularly the money and resources they use for lobbying), is made up of land owners, and financial interests looking out for themselves and their investments. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but using the thin veneer of environmental concern to hide their more mundane purpose is a bit gutless.
Perfect example is the wind farms they have been trying to build off shore of Toronto, Canada. An environmental group has been fighting it successfully for over 10 years. Using things like the wind mills killing birds and such as an excuse. In reality the group is a bunch of rich pricks that are part of a cottagers association that own multi-million dollar cottages (if you can even call them that anymore), and don't want their property possibly hurt by the potential bad aesthetics of how the wind mills look off shore ruining their million dollar views.
100$ says the people and the money making up that environmental lobby opposing the power line, are not so ideologically opposed to the idea, but rather have actual land involved that will either be taken by the government (or at a price they don't think fair), or that the sight, or presence will somehow lessen the value of their land, etc...
The idealists that you see on the news standing up in front of these groups actually concerned for bunnies and trees unfortunately do not make up the larger population.
Using the Builder: Not sure what the managers experience is with "builders", but from mine, it is never their fault and your always end up paying for it (one way or another). If I listened to what any contractor or builder said, none of them ever made any money in the world, they all work for free, but they somehow all drive around in the newest 70,000$ truck, and have to turn down contracts as they are over booked.
So using his analogy, a programmer should blame the bug on something else (design, hardware, integration, choice of language, etc... whatever it really doesn't matter as like the builder and his client, the manager won't know the difference anyway), and really "feel" for the manager, but it is going to take longer, and require more materials (code), so it will have to cost more. It's a real shame but these things happen.
For extra bonus points, compare doing a renovation on an old home to making changes to a legacy application. You never know what you are going find until you open it up, the only certainly is that you are going to have to pay for it once you do...
It is like banning cellphone usage at the bottom of the ocean because it might interfere with submersibles (which it doesn't anyway). Sure you can do it, but how much reception do you think you are going to get at 5000ft below sea level? (I actually don't really know if someone wants to tell me)
However I do know how much cell reception you are going to get at 30,000 ft over an ocean flying at 600km/h. Which is specifically, none, or not much in slightly better situations. Cell signals are meant to be sent more less horizontally, not really up or down, and generally at speeds much lower, and typically follow population centers and roads, which planes may not.
About the only phone you might be able to use is a satellite phone, which is actually what the airlines use for your in flight calls if available or in flight wifi, which is why you pay so much, as it is expensive and available bandwidth is low.
If they are trying to prevent people from using cell phones the last minute prior to landing in a city, I don't see how you need a specific bill for that anyway.
Also if they are so fscking dangerous, how the fsck do I get to keep my phone and bring it on the plane when the TSA type goons are going to steal my toenail clippers?
Seriously, all your data is perfectly safe. I have worked with GIS for 14 years. and I can tell your conclusively that absolutely no one reads metadata.:)
Everything I have read about hyper sonic missiles is that they really have one intended purpose. Sink navel carriers. The only powers that have the resources to create these things are the super powers. All the super powers have nukes. Likely any engagement serious enough to warrant the sinking of a carrier, would result in a nuclear response (seen as a precursor to degrade nuclear response and possible first strike) . Which likely no one will want, hence no one will use them anyway.
Piss pot crazytown countries may not be able to build them, but might steal them (I doubt buy, as mostly only the super powers have carriers as well, why sell a weapon that can be used against you). However they likely lack either A) nuclear deterrent, or B) an effective delivery system (ICBM's) making it even less attractive.
Also while they might be faster and fly lower, I somehow really doubt the maneuverability claims. Generally speaking, the faster something goes the harder it is to turn it. Called inertia or something like that. Which means it would likely be even easier to hit. The tricky part would be detection, target acquisition, and the fact if you miss at range, likely not a second chance.
A more likely strategy would be to overwhelm defenses with many multiple targets, overloading the ships capability to react all at the same time allowing for one to slip through. However from the sounds of the technology, these things won't be easy to make or cheap to produce... That said a super carrier costs a lot too.
Look to the left of you... Look to the right of you...
These are not your friends. They are your competition.
My workplace seems to be devolving to this base level (not that we have these kinds of reviews). Why would I contribute anything positive to your project when I may be competing against you on a continuous basis? In fact why wouldn't I try my best to torpedo anything you do in hopes of increasing my own position.
Not that I do that, which is probably why I am still a peon, but it is the sense I have been getting lately.
It also means those that might find better employment elsewhere probably will, leaving you with...
More so that it takes effort, involves more complexity, and costs more. Management doesn't want to pay for it, doesn't want projects to take longer because of it, and doesn't want to be inconvenienced by it.
That said, I have seen it swing the other way as well, heightened security being applied to everything regardless of risk due to silly policy. I had a project delayed by about a year to deploy an application because the security goons wanted to lock it down so much as to make it useless (making network communication with it either so difficult, or simply not allowed). This is a database involved contains no sensitive information and the only security really needed is for data integrity. Anyway took them a year of arguing with us about security policy to figure out that this is not an isolated issue and that their idea of security would case a big problem for a lot of business groups. Not to mention legacy applications, which while not ideal, are too expensive to replace all at once, and are business critical. There are levels of acceptable risk, and appropriate security. Risk assessment and security analysis need to be done and several levels of security options available. Categorize your system into one of the options being aware of each's limitations, and plunk it in. However I think many don't want to even do the analysis in a hear no evil see no evil kind of attitude. If we find out that it needs better security we will have to pay more and it will take longer which we don't want. Also typical management BS, where they can get the kudos and translate the project "success" into their next management job, and when it does get pwned somewhere in the future, it will not longer be their problem.
By the time all the palms get greased, it will also cost 10 times as much, and will be eventually just canceled.
One of the reasons it seems much of India is still in the stone age is that it is nearly impossible to do any kind of infrastructure project due to all the corruption at every level. With an "Ultra" project like this, I can only imagine that it will magnify this effect several fold.
First comparing solar (or wind) with base load generation is and apple oranges comparison. As in they shouldn't be. Like nuclear, gas is always on (should you want to pay the gas bill). Solar is not.
So you also might want to factor that into your KW calculation, in that it is basically half of that, as you can only run it when there is sun in sky.
These things have been around as a niche product for many years. Only difference is Asus is loading Chrome on them, when usually they don't come with anything.
I always thought they were a bit of a tough sell. 2-400$ where 3-4 you get a netbook, or 4-5 a low end laptop. That come with windows. That come with a monitor. That come with a battery and can be cordless.
Anyway I don't see this as much of a move, simply another player in a small market.
NES has emulators just like MOO2 has DOSBOX, no difference. Just like cartridges are rare equipment, so are 3.5" floppy disks, again no difference.
I was specifically talking about game features (namely in multiplayer) that simply do not exist anymore. There is no TEN, or The Entertainment Network, and really it didn't even exist all that long if you think about it. Also systems typically do not come with modems anymore (though I suppose some must exist someplace as I think there are still some dial up services in the middle of nowhere). There are no serial ports either.
If the source has been released, does that not imply that it is Public Domain?
40 years? Seriously? Did you think about that in any appreciable way before saying that? What kind of computer was around 40 years ago? Do you know what computer games were released in 1974?
You are talking about only making things like Pong available to the public domain to be played on modern systems?
Also sufficient school? Lets say you play this when your 10. In 40 years you will be 50. You require that much school eh? In 15 years, you would be 25. I graduated from a university with honors in computer science and got a certification at a collage by the age of 23.
So did I at one point as another poster pointed out. However it isn't the original software really. They provide a service to make it work with modern systems (sort of mostly), which is the fee you get charged for. Also before they existed, it just wasn't available, and illegal to copy.
Also many of the outdated features don't work for multiplayer. Were it public domain someone might actually do something with it. That is why there are a host of MOO2 clones out there, although they all had to start from scratch.
You don't "own" software, but you do own a legal copy. That you can use. Locally. Subscription based software you don't even own that. You are allowed to use it for the given term, and once that is up, or your don't pay, then you don't even have that.
Last time I looked at any sort of contract or licencing agreement with anything, it is usually phrased in such a way as to let the corporate owner to do whatever it wants to do with little recourse to the consumer. Like changing the terms of the agreement at any time, usually with a provisions of "notification" which might include posting the notice of change to some obscure area of a webpage you have no idea to check. Even if you do notice, usually your only recourse is to stop using the service, and then you may face penalties anyway.
Anyway subscription based service using formats that you can only use that service in the future is intrinsically a very stupid idea. About the only perspective it makes a little sense is in a large corporate environment you don't have to manage individual licences or group licences, and if it is all cloudy and online, local deployment... maybe. All of that at the expense of what I have already mentioned.
That said many or most large corporate type applications already do this via versioning that isn't eventually compatible with earlier versions or "maintenance" fees, or mandatory support fees. Of course at least those are measured annually, or over several years, not on a monthly subscription.
Of course this discussion starts moving in the realm of open software and the like which is the other side of the coin.
First, I would like to say that Masters of Orion 2 should be entered into the public domain. It is silly that it is not. It came out in like 1995, like 19 years ago.
The ethics and idealistic rhetoric aside, there are some practical considerations. Namely that of technology changing much faster than the current copyright scheme. I am not talking even about music or outdated business models or anything like that.
So I would ask that Duke Nukem idiot, to go connect to TEN, and I challenge him to a game of Duke Nukem 3D, or if he can connect to my computer VIA his 2400 baud modem and beat me in a game we will all accept what he says as Gospel. Hell, I will even allow him to set up a Null Modem serial connection for some LAN play... Not to mention I have loaded Duke Nukem 3D onto a modern computer with modern resolution, nostalgia aside, it looks horrible! Keep your memories, they are much nicer.
In conclusion, he is an idiot, and his odd ramblings and gesticulating, should be avoided akin to looking directly into Cthulhu's eye holes, you will go mad trying to comprehend thoughts so alien to humankind.
P.S. Someone jokingly mentioned a unit of time for Public Domain being a DukeNukem which would translate to 15 orbits of our sun, which really isn't all that a bad idea. Duke Nukem 3D and Masters of Orion, Warcraft, would all have been in the public domain 4 years ago.
I mean honestly law makers need to look and say, OK what is the rational here? How much value did any of these games make their owners? I am going to guess so close to zero that it matters not.
Talk about the idea of storing your information in a propitiatory format using a subscription based software that you do not own.
"Oh your millions of documents are all in our closed source format now? It would be a shame of our subscription service quadrupled in price... Then again the stand alone versions are even more expensive... That's OK however, you will only have to pay us monthly... for forever."
Once you get by that stupid part, then you can go on to the stupid part about cloud based services... Also note that 99.99% of all those services are hosted in the USA where the NSA and every other government agency will be helping themselves to all your private data for whatever purposes they deem fit,
SO yeah, very quickly 3 good reasons never to use, and that is before you even look at the actual price, software features, etc...
Meh you could say the same thing about a lot of stuff. Like power sockets (though there is variation in the world), or light bulbs, or computer parts, or any standard really. That is what standards do, make things compatible as you can all build using the same specifications.
What the article is saying is that these are Tesla charging stations, which presumably won't have an interface for say the Nissan Leaf, or other competing electric cars. Which if you think about it, if they are trying to get consumer buy in as a viable alternative is a pretty colossal stupid move (tho maybe influenced by specific technology which would be a shame). As while I might drive a Nissan, I don't want to be forced into only going to Nissan brand gas stations, or drive by a Ford gas station simply because some asshole designed the gas nozzle a particular way in order to screw over the competition.
However even your USB example might not be as ubiquitous as you might think. My new computer has a USB interface on the front bezel. However it is a USB 3.0, which I think may be causing my Galaxy S3 to be all twitchy when I try to connect it. There is also USB 1.0 and 2.0 standards, and they are not all completely compatible with all USB devices. Some portable external hard drives cannot use lesser standards due to inadequate available voltage to power the device.
Anyway like any analogy none are perfect, and likely because this is a reverse car analogy, something probably just broke inside slashdot. However so far as these things go, using mobile phone connectors as a example is pretty bad.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually each one of those chips was a redshirt under the command of each officer. How do you think they decided which disposable crew to send on away missions.
Maquis traitor to me...
all our banks accidentally burned down and there is no backups, that means all our debt is gone right? right?
As they always do in nature (work themselves out). In systems speak I think it is called a neutral feedback loop, which basically just means self balancing.
The key is how rocky or drastic is the negative swing to right the balance. That is do we get to a place where there is a massive die off, followed by some pretty lean years, or will it be a much more gradual thing.
It has nothing to do with nature. I have had a lot of experience with the pointy end of many "environmental" groups.
Most environmental groups I have seen are made up of about 1% of people actually concerned about nature. The other 99% (particularly the money and resources they use for lobbying), is made up of land owners, and financial interests looking out for themselves and their investments. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but using the thin veneer of environmental concern to hide their more mundane purpose is a bit gutless.
Perfect example is the wind farms they have been trying to build off shore of Toronto, Canada. An environmental group has been fighting it successfully for over 10 years. Using things like the wind mills killing birds and such as an excuse. In reality the group is a bunch of rich pricks that are part of a cottagers association that own multi-million dollar cottages (if you can even call them that anymore), and don't want their property possibly hurt by the potential bad aesthetics of how the wind mills look off shore ruining their million dollar views.
100$ says the people and the money making up that environmental lobby opposing the power line, are not so ideologically opposed to the idea, but rather have actual land involved that will either be taken by the government (or at a price they don't think fair), or that the sight, or presence will somehow lessen the value of their land, etc...
The idealists that you see on the news standing up in front of these groups actually concerned for bunnies and trees unfortunately do not make up the larger population.
Best of both worlds :)
Using the Builder: Not sure what the managers experience is with "builders", but from mine, it is never their fault and your always end up paying for it (one way or another). If I listened to what any contractor or builder said, none of them ever made any money in the world, they all work for free, but they somehow all drive around in the newest 70,000$ truck, and have to turn down contracts as they are over booked.
So using his analogy, a programmer should blame the bug on something else (design, hardware, integration, choice of language, etc... whatever it really doesn't matter as like the builder and his client, the manager won't know the difference anyway), and really "feel" for the manager, but it is going to take longer, and require more materials (code), so it will have to cost more. It's a real shame but these things happen.
For extra bonus points, compare doing a renovation on an old home to making changes to a legacy application. You never know what you are going find until you open it up, the only certainly is that you are going to have to pay for it once you do...
If that doesn't shut him up nothing will.
Moot point, and pointless bill.
It is like banning cellphone usage at the bottom of the ocean because it might interfere with submersibles (which it doesn't anyway). Sure you can do it, but how much reception do you think you are going to get at 5000ft below sea level? (I actually don't really know if someone wants to tell me)
However I do know how much cell reception you are going to get at 30,000 ft over an ocean flying at 600km/h. Which is specifically, none, or not much in slightly better situations. Cell signals are meant to be sent more less horizontally, not really up or down, and generally at speeds much lower, and typically follow population centers and roads, which planes may not.
About the only phone you might be able to use is a satellite phone, which is actually what the airlines use for your in flight calls if available or in flight wifi, which is why you pay so much, as it is expensive and available bandwidth is low.
If they are trying to prevent people from using cell phones the last minute prior to landing in a city, I don't see how you need a specific bill for that anyway.
Also if they are so fscking dangerous, how the fsck do I get to keep my phone and bring it on the plane when the TSA type goons are going to steal my toenail clippers?
Seriously, all your data is perfectly safe. I have worked with GIS for 14 years. and I can tell your conclusively that absolutely no one reads metadata. :)
Everything I have read about hyper sonic missiles is that they really have one intended purpose. Sink navel carriers. The only powers that have the resources to create these things are the super powers. All the super powers have nukes. Likely any engagement serious enough to warrant the sinking of a carrier, would result in a nuclear response (seen as a precursor to degrade nuclear response and possible first strike) . Which likely no one will want, hence no one will use them anyway.
Piss pot crazytown countries may not be able to build them, but might steal them (I doubt buy, as mostly only the super powers have carriers as well, why sell a weapon that can be used against you). However they likely lack either A) nuclear deterrent, or B) an effective delivery system (ICBM's) making it even less attractive.
Also while they might be faster and fly lower, I somehow really doubt the maneuverability claims. Generally speaking, the faster something goes the harder it is to turn it. Called inertia or something like that. Which means it would likely be even easier to hit. The tricky part would be detection, target acquisition, and the fact if you miss at range, likely not a second chance.
A more likely strategy would be to overwhelm defenses with many multiple targets, overloading the ships capability to react all at the same time allowing for one to slip through. However from the sounds of the technology, these things won't be easy to make or cheap to produce... That said a super carrier costs a lot too.
Look to the left of you... Look to the right of you...
These are not your friends. They are your competition.
My workplace seems to be devolving to this base level (not that we have these kinds of reviews). Why would I contribute anything positive to your project when I may be competing against you on a continuous basis? In fact why wouldn't I try my best to torpedo anything you do in hopes of increasing my own position.
Not that I do that, which is probably why I am still a peon, but it is the sense I have been getting lately.
It also means those that might find better employment elsewhere probably will, leaving you with...
"This device will self destruct in 10 seconds..."
I would suggest using thermite.
More so that it takes effort, involves more complexity, and costs more. Management doesn't want to pay for it, doesn't want projects to take longer because of it, and doesn't want to be inconvenienced by it.
That said, I have seen it swing the other way as well, heightened security being applied to everything regardless of risk due to silly policy. I had a project delayed by about a year to deploy an application because the security goons wanted to lock it down so much as to make it useless (making network communication with it either so difficult, or simply not allowed). This is a database involved contains no sensitive information and the only security really needed is for data integrity. Anyway took them a year of arguing with us about security policy to figure out that this is not an isolated issue and that their idea of security would case a big problem for a lot of business groups. Not to mention legacy applications, which while not ideal, are too expensive to replace all at once, and are business critical. There are levels of acceptable risk, and appropriate security. Risk assessment and security analysis need to be done and several levels of security options available. Categorize your system into one of the options being aware of each's limitations, and plunk it in. However I think many don't want to even do the analysis in a hear no evil see no evil kind of attitude. If we find out that it needs better security we will have to pay more and it will take longer which we don't want. Also typical management BS, where they can get the kudos and translate the project "success" into their next management job, and when it does get pwned somewhere in the future, it will not longer be their problem.
"Hey you, you might want to slow down your murdering."
By the time all the palms get greased, it will also cost 10 times as much, and will be eventually just canceled.
One of the reasons it seems much of India is still in the stone age is that it is nearly impossible to do any kind of infrastructure project due to all the corruption at every level. With an "Ultra" project like this, I can only imagine that it will magnify this effect several fold.
Several things are wrong with what you just said.
First comparing solar (or wind) with base load generation is and apple oranges comparison. As in they shouldn't be. Like nuclear, gas is always on (should you want to pay the gas bill). Solar is not.
So you also might want to factor that into your KW calculation, in that it is basically half of that, as you can only run it when there is sun in sky.
These things have been around as a niche product for many years. Only difference is Asus is loading Chrome on them, when usually they don't come with anything.
I always thought they were a bit of a tough sell. 2-400$ where 3-4 you get a netbook, or 4-5 a low end laptop. That come with windows. That come with a monitor. That come with a battery and can be cordless.
Anyway I don't see this as much of a move, simply another player in a small market.
What boggles my mind is that this is the GOP coming out in favor of regulation.
The GOP is not for or against regulation, they are for anything that their corporate puppet masters want to squeeze out more profits.
NES has emulators just like MOO2 has DOSBOX, no difference. Just like cartridges are rare equipment, so are 3.5" floppy disks, again no difference.
I was specifically talking about game features (namely in multiplayer) that simply do not exist anymore. There is no TEN, or The Entertainment Network, and really it didn't even exist all that long if you think about it. Also systems typically do not come with modems anymore (though I suppose some must exist someplace as I think there are still some dial up services in the middle of nowhere). There are no serial ports either.
If the source has been released, does that not imply that it is Public Domain?
40 years? Seriously? Did you think about that in any appreciable way before saying that? What kind of computer was around 40 years ago? Do you know what computer games were released in 1974?
Here is a list:
http://www.imdb.com/search/tit...
You are talking about only making things like Pong available to the public domain to be played on modern systems?
Also sufficient school? Lets say you play this when your 10. In 40 years you will be 50. You require that much school eh? In 15 years, you would be 25. I graduated from a university with honors in computer science and got a certification at a collage by the age of 23.
So did I at one point as another poster pointed out. However it isn't the original software really. They provide a service to make it work with modern systems (sort of mostly), which is the fee you get charged for. Also before they existed, it just wasn't available, and illegal to copy.
Also many of the outdated features don't work for multiplayer. Were it public domain someone might actually do something with it. That is why there are a host of MOO2 clones out there, although they all had to start from scratch.
You don't "own" software, but you do own a legal copy. That you can use. Locally. Subscription based software you don't even own that. You are allowed to use it for the given term, and once that is up, or your don't pay, then you don't even have that.
Last time I looked at any sort of contract or licencing agreement with anything, it is usually phrased in such a way as to let the corporate owner to do whatever it wants to do with little recourse to the consumer. Like changing the terms of the agreement at any time, usually with a provisions of "notification" which might include posting the notice of change to some obscure area of a webpage you have no idea to check. Even if you do notice, usually your only recourse is to stop using the service, and then you may face penalties anyway.
Anyway subscription based service using formats that you can only use that service in the future is intrinsically a very stupid idea. About the only perspective it makes a little sense is in a large corporate environment you don't have to manage individual licences or group licences, and if it is all cloudy and online, local deployment... maybe. All of that at the expense of what I have already mentioned.
That said many or most large corporate type applications already do this via versioning that isn't eventually compatible with earlier versions or "maintenance" fees, or mandatory support fees. Of course at least those are measured annually, or over several years, not on a monthly subscription.
Of course this discussion starts moving in the realm of open software and the like which is the other side of the coin.
First, I would like to say that Masters of Orion 2 should be entered into the public domain. It is silly that it is not. It came out in like 1995, like 19 years ago.
The ethics and idealistic rhetoric aside, there are some practical considerations. Namely that of technology changing much faster than the current copyright scheme. I am not talking even about music or outdated business models or anything like that.
So I would ask that Duke Nukem idiot, to go connect to TEN, and I challenge him to a game of Duke Nukem 3D, or if he can connect to my computer VIA his 2400 baud modem and beat me in a game we will all accept what he says as Gospel. Hell, I will even allow him to set up a Null Modem serial connection for some LAN play... Not to mention I have loaded Duke Nukem 3D onto a modern computer with modern resolution, nostalgia aside, it looks horrible! Keep your memories, they are much nicer.
In conclusion, he is an idiot, and his odd ramblings and gesticulating, should be avoided akin to looking directly into Cthulhu's eye holes, you will go mad trying to comprehend thoughts so alien to humankind.
P.S. Someone jokingly mentioned a unit of time for Public Domain being a DukeNukem which would translate to 15 orbits of our sun, which really isn't all that a bad idea. Duke Nukem 3D and Masters of Orion, Warcraft, would all have been in the public domain 4 years ago.
I mean honestly law makers need to look and say, OK what is the rational here? How much value did any of these games make their owners? I am going to guess so close to zero that it matters not.
OK before you even start kicking the cloud.
Talk about the idea of storing your information in a propitiatory format using a subscription based software that you do not own.
"Oh your millions of documents are all in our closed source format now? It would be a shame of our subscription service quadrupled in price... Then again the stand alone versions are even more expensive... That's OK however, you will only have to pay us monthly... for forever."
Once you get by that stupid part, then you can go on to the stupid part about cloud based services... Also note that 99.99% of all those services are hosted in the USA where the NSA and every other government agency will be helping themselves to all your private data for whatever purposes they deem fit,
SO yeah, very quickly 3 good reasons never to use, and that is before you even look at the actual price, software features, etc...
Unless of course they were going for irony, in which case it was very good.
Meh you could say the same thing about a lot of stuff. Like power sockets (though there is variation in the world), or light bulbs, or computer parts, or any standard really. That is what standards do, make things compatible as you can all build using the same specifications.
What the article is saying is that these are Tesla charging stations, which presumably won't have an interface for say the Nissan Leaf, or other competing electric cars. Which if you think about it, if they are trying to get consumer buy in as a viable alternative is a pretty colossal stupid move (tho maybe influenced by specific technology which would be a shame). As while I might drive a Nissan, I don't want to be forced into only going to Nissan brand gas stations, or drive by a Ford gas station simply because some asshole designed the gas nozzle a particular way in order to screw over the competition.
However even your USB example might not be as ubiquitous as you might think. My new computer has a USB interface on the front bezel. However it is a USB 3.0, which I think may be causing my Galaxy S3 to be all twitchy when I try to connect it. There is also USB 1.0 and 2.0 standards, and they are not all completely compatible with all USB devices. Some portable external hard drives cannot use lesser standards due to inadequate available voltage to power the device.
Anyway like any analogy none are perfect, and likely because this is a reverse car analogy, something probably just broke inside slashdot. However so far as these things go, using mobile phone connectors as a example is pretty bad.