4 ms·

Is it feasible to attach a usb drive to a book these days?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bdw5204 3y ago
A cheap USB drive sells for under $10 and you can seal a book in plastic so I'd imagine it'd be feasible to just add the $5-$10 to the price of the book. People who buy books, especially programming books, generally aren't very price sensitive anyway.
- hoherd 3y ago
  A book with a usb port on it to download data contained within the book would be so cyberpunk. If we can have potato chips that play music[1], we can have a book with built in storage. 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20190516225905/https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/tv-film/7775028/doritos-marvel-partner-for-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-promotion?utm_source=twitter https://web.archive.org/web/20190516225905/https://www.billb...
  - cyberpunk 3y ago
    It's taking me forever to upgrade all my dead tree books to usb-c, to be fair.
- Zobat 3y ago
  Can we attach an attack vector to the book cover? Sure. I wouldn't let that USB anywhere near my computer if I'd bought it let alone a library copy of it. I'm with the author on this one. Any code needed to for it be useful should be printed in the book (perhaps complete code in an appendix rather than right there in the chapter). That said I haven't bought a programming book in years.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    The universal nature of USB is a huge drawback for its usage for storage. But well, the trend has been to consolidate anyway. Now even power comes through an universal interface, so you can't use power outlets in places that you don't trust.
schaefer 3y ago
How about Micro SD?
ginko 3y ago
These days you could add the source as a large QR code. (by which I mean the actual verbatim code, not a URL) ..but really IMO code samples requiring a non-trivial amount of "framework" source is an anti-pattern on its own. Code samples should be short enough that they can be copied by hand.
kragen 3y ago
yes but it would add two or three dollars to the retail price https://www.usbcompany.co.uk/usb-credit-cards/ https://www.usbcompany.co.uk/usb-credit-cards/ https://www.vistaprint.com/promotional-products/technology/usb-flash-drives/slim-card-usb-flash-drive https://www.vistaprint.com/promotional-products/technology/u... https://www.instructables.com/USB-PCB-Business-Card/ https://www.instructables.com/USB-PCB-Business-Card/ https://hackaday.com/2010/05/25/mass-storage-business-card/ https://hackaday.com/2010/05/25/mass-storage-business-card/ cds are a lot cheaper

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

A cheap USB drive sells for under $10 and you can seal a book in plastic so I'd imagine it'd be feasible to just add the $5-$10 to the price of the book. People who buy books, especially programming books, generally aren't very price sensitive anyway.

hoherd 3y ago
A book with a usb port on it to download data contained within the book would be so cyberpunk. If we can have potato chips that play music[1], we can have a book with built in storage. 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20190516225905/https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/tv-film/7775028/doritos-marvel-partner-for-guardians-of-the-galaxy-vol-2-promotion?utm_source=twitter https://web.archive.org/web/20190516225905/https://www.billb...
- cyberpunk 3y ago
  It's taking me forever to upgrade all my dead tree books to usb-c, to be fair.
Zobat 3y ago
Can we attach an attack vector to the book cover? Sure. I wouldn't let that USB anywhere near my computer if I'd bought it let alone a library copy of it. I'm with the author on this one. Any code needed to for it be useful should be printed in the book (perhaps complete code in an appendix rather than right there in the chapter). That said I haven't bought a programming book in years.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  The universal nature of USB is a huge drawback for its usage for storage. But well, the trend has been to consolidate anyway. Now even power comes through an universal interface, so you can't use power outlets in places that you don't trust.

schaefer 3y ago

How about Micro SD?

ginko 3y ago

These days you could add the source as a large QR code. (by which I mean the actual verbatim code, not a URL) ..but really IMO code samples requiring a non-trivial amount of "framework" source is an anti-pattern on its own. Code samples should be short enough that they can be copied by hand.

kragen 3y ago

yes but it would add two or three dollars to the retail price https://www.usbcompany.co.uk/usb-credit-cards/ https://www.usbcompany.co.uk/usb-credit-cards/ https://www.vistaprint.com/promotional-products/technology/usb-flash-drives/slim-card-usb-flash-drive https://www.vistaprint.com/promotional-products/technology/u... https://www.instructables.com/USB-PCB-Business-Card/ https://www.instructables.com/USB-PCB-Business-Card/ https://hackaday.com/2010/05/25/mass-storage-business-card/ https://hackaday.com/2010/05/25/mass-storage-business-card/ cds are a lot cheaper