Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

kau.sh

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 197 posts

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#61

Post by jeroenhd »

pmlnr wrote: post #38

Imagine if we printed the capabilities on the cables, like we used to.

Capabilities are printed on the side of ethernet cables and the text printed on the cable rarely seems related to the actual capabilities of the ethernet plug. Some cat5e cables are rated for 1000mbps but will happily run 5000mbps or 2500mbps (because those standards came after the text on the cable was last updated), other "cat6" cables are scams and struggle achieving gigabit speeds without packet loss.

Plus, it doesn't really matter if you put "e-marker 100W USB3 2x2 20gbps" on a cable when half those features depend on compatibility from both sides of the plug (notably, supposedly high-end devices not supporting 2x2 mode or DP Alt mode or charging/drawing more than 60W of power).

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#63

Post by lloeki »

Someone wrote: post #2

> The script parses macOS’s system_profiler SPUSBHostDataType2 command, which produces a dense, hard-to-scan raw output I couldn’t find source (the link in the article points to a GitHub repo of a user’s home directory. I hope for them it doesn’t contain secrets), but on my system, system_profiler -json produces json output. From that text, it doesn’t seem they used that.

Last bash source: https://github.com/kaushikgopal/dotfiles/blob/7f37454a887989...

First Go source: https://github.com/kaushikgopal/dotfiles/blob/f0f158398b5e4d...

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#65

Post by duckerduck »

bediger4000 wrote: post #4

Two years ago, I wouldn’t have bothered with the rewrite, let alone creating the script in the first place. The friction was too high. Now, small utility scripts like this are almost free to build. This aligns with the hypothesis that we should see and lots lots of "personalized" or single purpose software if vibe coding works. This particular project is one example. Are there a ton more out there?

I've created a custom "new tab" page that I have been enjoying. 95% vibes. I wrote about it here:

https://janschutte.com/posts/program-for-one.html

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#66

Post by raincole »

basepurpose wrote: post #62

i don't understand why do competent people need to mention that they vibe coded something.

"My static blog templating system is based on programming language X" is the stereotypical HN post. In theory the choice of programming language doesn't matter. But HNers like to mention it in the title anyway.

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#67

Post by chedabob »

pmlnr wrote: post #38

Imagine if we printed the capabilities on the cables, like we used to.

USB4 is supposed to have proper labels: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2602229/better-usb-labels-ar...

I don't know if that necessarily helps though, because I've seen USB3 cables that seemingly have the bandwidth and power capabilities, but won't do video.

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#68

Post by sharkjacobs »

basepurpose wrote: post #62

i don't understand why do competent people need to mention that they vibe coded something.

I mean, they seem to address that pretty directly in the post

> Two years ago, I wouldn’t have bothered with the rewrite, let alone creating the script in the first place. The friction was too high. Now, small utility scripts like this are almost free to build.

> That’s the real story. Not the script, but how AI changes the calculus of what’s worth our time.

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#69

Post by basepurpose »

stefanfisk wrote: post #64
basepurpose wrote: post #62

i don't understand why do competent people need to mention that they vibe coded something.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually a plus in the eyes of possible new employers these days.

vibe coding in my understanding is losing/confusing the mental model of your codebase, you don't know what is what and what is where. i haven't found a term to define "competently coding with ai as the interface".

Re: A macOS terminal command that tells you if your USB-C cable is bad

#70

Post by numpad0 »

tennysont wrote: post #16
duttish wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what. I thought half the point of usb c was to not rely on orientation. Is there any way to check this other than experiment? My "solution" so far has been to not buy cheap cables and just hope I get quality in return.

I think that I have a specific cable-device-orientation that is broken. Meaning, I think a particular USB C cable won't charge my phone if it's plugged in 'backwards'. I always assumed that USB C cables use different pins depending on orientation, and that some pins on the cable wore down. Maybe that's what happened here?

It's CC2/VCONN used for eMarker. That pin may be terminated inside the cable and used to power eMarker chip. It can also be used for orientation sensing. I think.
Post reply on HN