a moment of silence for every technical standard or computer feature that's still around "due to past ubiquity" and for no better reason
the phrase "past ubiquity" popped up in a thing i was reading about RS-232 and, while i get why that standard is still in use sometimes (simplicity, longer cable length than usb, good for some industrial and scientific applications), it really made me think about all the other computer bullshit whose presence in our lives is solely because it used to be the hot newness
@typhlosion Some of it, surely, is simplicity. RS-232, or at least its low-voltage variant, is much simpler to use than USB. You don't require any sort of impedance matching or specialized integrated circuits.
@typhlosion I managed to completely skip over the word "simplicity", apparently.
@typhlosion Well, now I'm embarrassed. Sorry about that!
@Rosemary did... you read the whole post? i said that i understood it in rs232's case and even specifically mentioned its simplicity