Commentary
Although I am not by nature a violent person, just irritable, it is probably for the best that I’ve never met whoever decided the original USB “A” plugs would only go in one way. For although I am not by education an engineering person, just a know-it-all, I am passionate about efficient and inefficient designs including “affordances,” controls that work in obvious ways. But if you think being not by temperament a socialist person, just an economist, I’m happy about the European Union ordering device-makers to standardize around USB-C, guess again.
To be clear, to make USB-As not reversible and then have their outside shape not indicate which way is “up” is design idiocy squared. And while these twin flaws make it natural, on encountering resistance, to rotate it and try again, that it has often taken me five or six tries to get it right indicates that I am defective too. But this column is not about me….