3 ms·

Definitely shouldn’t be anywhere near highest reliability. Professional equipment has to stand up to a lot more use—like a camera you use every day, made with m

Definitely shouldn’t be anywhere near highest reliability. Professional equipment has to stand up to a lot more use—like a camera you use every day, made with more metal and with thick rubberized grips. If I have a personal camera, I’ll take care not to drop it. If I’m a professional photographer, the question is how often it gets dropped. If we’re talking cables, “professional” grade (to me) means the connectors are going to get hundreds of cycles per year, and the cables might have to snake across the floor and get tread on five days a week. In general, “pro” grade stuff can be bigger, bulkier, more expensive. Then there’s stuff built for public spaces. ATMs, books in the public library, turnstyles at the metro, etc. All designed to be in close contact with people who either just don’t care or are actively trying to damage it. TBH I don’t know what the grade below consumer-grade would be.

InfiniteRand 5y ago
Jerk grade reliability, this stuff will explode if stepped on
derefr 5y ago
I would say that the grade below consumer grade is “functional prop” grade. There’s a type of consumer electronics available on Wish/AliExpress/etc., which is designed for people who want to appear at a glance to be using a certain expensive device, for status-signalling reasons. The devices only have to be real enough to allow you to pretend to be using them without drawing suspicion, and only have to be rugged enough to last until the device being mimicked isn’t fashionable to have any more (at which point you get a new knock-off aping the new cool thing.) Surprisingly, these devices do work! They wouldn't be convincing otherwise. (How can you seem to be using the best new phone if you have to pull out a different phone to check your text messages? How can you seem to be playing a Switch or a PS4 if it doesn't turn on and show pictures and sound on the screen/a TV?) It's just that they work as terribly as you can imagine, given that costs are optimized to meet the minimum needs of someone playing pretend and no more.
robotresearcher 5y ago
Mil-spec?
- dheera 5y ago
  Military people just sit in canopies and hit buttons these days. Consumers are the ones that will actually have cables bitten, chewed, stomped, sat on by unfit, heavy civilian asses, jammed into wheels of office chairs, rammed into by strangers' hips in coffee shops when your connector hangs off the edge, dunked in cereal, splattered by kitchen grease, smashed into rocks at Yosemite, and shoved into bags while plugged in after a slow TSA checkpoint and needing to sprint as fast as possible to a departure gate. Very different set of ruggedness requirements. Most cables of the 80s and 90s were completely fine in these civilian environments.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    If the consumer device breaks, the owner typically consumes a new one. If the pro device breaks, the pro typically consumes a competitor's product. If the mil device breaks, the mil typically won't order 85,000 of them. It is in the company's interest to ensure that the consumer device breaks.
taneq 5y ago
Prototype?

InfiniteRand 5y ago

Jerk grade reliability, this stuff will explode if stepped on

derefr 5y ago

I would say that the grade below consumer grade is “functional prop” grade. There’s a type of consumer electronics available on Wish/AliExpress/etc., which is designed for people who want to appear at a glance to be using a certain expensive device, for status-signalling reasons. The devices only have to be real enough to allow you to pretend to be using them without drawing suspicion, and only have to be rugged enough to last until the device being mimicked isn’t fashionable to have any more (at which point you get a new knock-off aping the new cool thing.) Surprisingly, these devices do work! They wouldn't be convincing otherwise. (How can you seem to be using the best new phone if you have to pull out a different phone to check your text messages? How can you seem to be playing a Switch or a PS4 if it doesn't turn on and show pictures and sound on the screen/a TV?) It's just that they work as terribly as you can imagine, given that costs are optimized to meet the minimum needs of someone playing pretend and no more.

robotresearcher 5y ago

Mil-spec?

dheera 5y ago
Military people just sit in canopies and hit buttons these days. Consumers are the ones that will actually have cables bitten, chewed, stomped, sat on by unfit, heavy civilian asses, jammed into wheels of office chairs, rammed into by strangers' hips in coffee shops when your connector hangs off the edge, dunked in cereal, splattered by kitchen grease, smashed into rocks at Yosemite, and shoved into bags while plugged in after a slow TSA checkpoint and needing to sprint as fast as possible to a departure gate. Very different set of ruggedness requirements. Most cables of the 80s and 90s were completely fine in these civilian environments.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  If the consumer device breaks, the owner typically consumes a new one. If the pro device breaks, the pro typically consumes a competitor's product. If the mil device breaks, the mil typically won't order 85,000 of them. It is in the company's interest to ensure that the consumer device breaks.

taneq 5y ago

Prototype?