It’s simple. Humans aren’t cables. Any questions?
It’s the classic:
“It’s grade school biology!”
“Okay, but when you get to middle school…”
It’s middle school biology!
Okay, but when you get to high school…
Another perfect example of flawed analogies and kneejerk conclusions vs. the benefit of thinking about it for a few seconds
Most circuit boards are an absolute pride parade. You have your male to male/female to female connectors, MtF/FtM transformers, master/slave setups, multiport adapters, splitters, switches, docking, etc
I present to you the IBM hemaphroditic connector!
IBM is, was, and will be run by crackheads. Seriously why make this?!
I think that’s for token ring. I remember using an adapter to plug Ethernet into a wall version of one of these. Massive things.
So it’s just a fucky old school data connector? That actually makes some sense, given how old Ethernet cables are these fuckers probably date back to when ribbon cables were the standard for connections, like that bastard radio shack computer from 1979 that I have.
hot damn. I once lived in a house that used a contraption like this to feed elctricity from one circuit into another. I didn’t know and I touched one end… I did fall off the ladder, but I’m still alive.
Of course this analogy is even more flawed than OOP’s.
Anyone know if female-to-female cords are a thing?
Yes and that’s totally fine.
/s
(This is a joke about homophobia)
Can I ask, what’s the (ill-advised) use case for this?
I don’t know anything about electronics but I readily believe this is a dangerous cable
But what I don’t get is what people want it for. I’ve never been in a situation that calls for this
just in case you think your fuse box is bored
They can be used to hook a generator to your house if your power goes out, but people will use them for things like if they strung up Christmas lights backwards so 2 female ends are next to each other.
It allows you to move power from a live circuit to a dead one by connecting the outlets between them. The most common use I’ve seen is to easily hook a gas generator to a household circuit during a blackout.
But yes, they’re very dangerous and there are less-stupid ways to hook up a generator that won’t make tripping over a power cable lethally dangerous or risk burning down the house by bypassing the circuit breaker and overloading the wiring in the walls.
But this one is popular because it can be done very quickly and easily with minimal supplies.
Fun fact, the plugs used in Europe are intersex.
US has those too, theyre 480v usually
Behold: RP-SMA
Meanwhile french plugs and outlets :
Not gonna lie… my first reaction to that in this context is “two in the pink one in the stink”. Now I feel dirty, thanks, Beryl.
Another example where this argument falls flat is spaceship docking connectors, which are genderless so they can all dock to every other one.
In space being heteronormative is less useful.
now I’m interested, any recommendations too learn how every work?
Unfortunately, it’s difficult to find a good shot of the docking adapters in nomal docking videos. Scott Manley has a bunch of good shots in this video, and I found this fantastic video showing the docking process in detail.
Or read the wiki on the International Docking System (IDS), or spacecraft docking systems in general.
Unfortunately, the IDS isn’t androgynous right now, the passive and active sides are slightly different. Androgyny is planned for a future version.
