It's a pretty good invention for being 150 years old, though, isn't it? Easy to insert and remove, but still stays in securely. And you can plug it in correctly no matter which way you rotate it, which is more than we can say for USB plugs. Maybe this one deserves a stay of execution.
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Locks Have Remained The Same For 150 Years (And Largely The Same For Thousands Of Years)
Your basic lock, where you stick in a key with bunch of teeth and then turn it to open the mechanism, is spectacularly old. That makes some sense. When you see one pop up in Lord Of The Rings or The Witcher, it doesn't look out of place. But the lock goes back even further than you think, all the way to Egypt 4,000 years ago. Early locks weren't so great, though. They needed a key with teeth, but they weren't super particular about a key having the right teeth. Stealing was easy, which is why the wilderness in RPGs is populated with 90% bandits.
It took until the 1700s for this general type of lock (called the pin tumbler lock) to be tweaked into the double-acting pin tumbler lock, which rejected most random keys one could collect from lootable corpses. Then in 1865, Linus Yale tweaked the design further, turning the keyhole into a cylinder filled with a plug which took a flat and serrated key. And ... that was it. That was the lock they had then, and that is the lock we have now. Your standard lock today can be jimmied using a pick and a torsion wrench exactly as easily and exactly the same way as a lock from the 1800s, to the delight of vampires everywhere.
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