3 ms·
This is a very interesting little point, that consumer electronics (especially ports) have little physical safeguards to prevent errors—e.g., you can plug USB2
by pak 10y ago
This is a very interesting little point, that consumer electronics (especially ports) have little physical safeguards to prevent errors—e.g., you can plug USB2 into USB3 for backward compatibility, but not vice versa, for the B plug; ungrounded extension cords try to prevent you from plugging in grounded plugs. Medical equipment generally doesn't do this. I think the problem is that there is a tradeoff between safeguards and allowing improvisation in a time of shortage or emergency; for example, I've seen blood draw lines repurposed as external irrigators (not as catheters) and that's totally safe as long as you dispose of the needle in a sharps bin.
- eru 10y agoThat's a good point. I guess one problem is that the failures of the `can't improvise' case are really easy to see and imagine. Whereas the other failure of mixing up connectors could always be blamed on human error. Someone should figure out which scenario causes more damage. With enough stocking, we should be able to avoid the need for improvisation? As a technical solution, medical connectors could come with bits that prevent mistakes (and clearly different colours and perhaps even outside textures to use sense of touch, too); but with the safety bits simple to break off on both sides, so that you can still plug them together. So you can still plug together arbitrary things, but you get a short moment where you have to consciously use some force.