MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

Summary

There's this thing about USB-C that nobody really talks about. Not the part where we all had to buy new dongles (RIP my dongle drawer, 2010-2023). The other part.See, we all thought USB-C was just going to be about charging things and moving files around like the other USBs. Very serious. Very purposeful. But because of the way it is it can do... other things.My friend Rex connected his toaster to his monitor last week. I don't know why. The toaster doesn't know why. But it worked, and now Rex's toast has HDMI output.Remember car cigarette lighters? Nobody uses them for cigarettes anymore. They're just universal power outlets that happen to be shaped like something from 1952. Your car doesn't care if you're charging a phone or running a personal pizza oven. The hole is the same size. The power is there.The protocol doesn't judge your life choices.This brings me to something I discovered about MCP (Model Context Protocol) while trying to make my calendar app order takeout. Stay with me here.Everyone thinks MCP is for making AI assistants smarter. You know, "Claude, please read my files and understand my soul." And sure, it does that. But here's what they put in the documentation that made me spit out my morning tea:"MCP provides a standardized way to connect AI models to different data sources and tools."Okay but. But. What if you just... removed the AI part?What if it's just "a standardized way to connect AI models literally anything to different data sources and tools"?Or remember when someone looked at NFTs—which were supposed to just point at images—and thought "what if the pointer... WAS the image?"For those of you who don’t get the idea, copy and paste this into your url bar: data:application/json;base64,eyJuYW1lIjogIkJhZyAjNzQ4IiwgImRlc2NyaXB0aW9uIjogIkxvb3QgaXMgcmFuZG9taXplZCBhZHZlbnR1cmVyIGdlYXIgZ2VuZXJhdGVkIGFuZCBzdG9yZWQgb24gY2hhaW4uIFN0YXRzLCBpbWFnZXMsIGFuZCBvdGhlciBmdW5jdGlvbmFsaXR5IGFyZSBpbnRlbnRpb25hbGx5IG9taXR0ZWQgZm9yIG90aGVycyB0byBpbnRlcnByZXQuIEZlZ...