Someone got so fed up with GE fridge DRM – yes, fridge DRM – they made a whole website on how to bypass it Fed up with the DRM in a General Electric refrigerator that pushed the owner to buy expensive manufacturer-approved replacement water filters, an anonymous hacker went to the trouble of buying a domain name and setting up a website at gefiltergate.com to pen a screed about appliance digital rights restriction management (DRM) …
... said product hacking of this sort is entirely legal, in America at least.
Hmmm ...
Is there any other place in the world where it is not entirely legal?
ie:
Whose goddamned fridge is it anyway?
Or am I actually renting it from GE under some new type of contract?
Maybe I just think it belongs to me but for some strange reason it does not.
Right-to-repair legislation, which aims to ensure consumers have a legal right to repair products ...
It is incredible that right-to-repair legislation would be actually needed in a country where property rights are clearly enshrined in the constitution, to the extent that said rights many (most) times are enforced contrary to and without remedy to public interest.
O.
Far more pithy than Adam Smith but I will cite him anyway because capitalists ignore his fear of monopolies:
"To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens." (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations)
... issue arises if you later wish to claim warranty service ...
Then they should print that in big bold lettering on the first page of their warranty:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using other than our brand of [whatever] voids this warranty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But it is not done (or the fine print is illegible) because it scares potential buyers away.
Still, it wouldn't matter to me because:
1. I wouldn't ever be so dumb as to buy a fridge with custom water filters.
2. If I have't taken it apart, it isn't really mine, so no warranty* to speak of.
O.
* After a few weeks use without issue, obviously.
Using other than our brand of [whatever] voids this warranty.
Can't speak for the laws where-ever you are, but in Australia this is not the case, at least with respect to statutory warranties, but may apply to manufacturer extended warranties.
If an item isn't repaired correctly, then that can void the warranty with repect to those specific parts of the device affected by that repair. For example, a non-certified filter may void the warranty on the water/ice dispensing system, however it would not, for example, void the warranty on the compressor. And note also, that the onus is on the one providing the warranty to show that a particular non-approved repair is the cause of the malfunction that a warranty repair/return is being sought for.
Alo worth noting, in Australia, the warranty also applies to repairs by the manufacturer done previously under warranty, such that the part repaired has a new warranty equal to the length of the original warranty. E.g., if a compressor has a 3-year warranty and fails during that period and is reapired/replaced by the manufacturer, that repair itself now has a 3-year warranty on it from the date of the repair.
Then they should print that in big bold lettering on the first page of their warranty:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using other than our brand of [whatever] voids this warranty.
I'd be in favor of it being printed on the top of the "EnergyGuide" label. Just to be sure the potential buyer gets a chance to see it before purchase.
Simplistically, you are correct. But the Right to Repair movement is seeking to combat a barrier - the ability to repair. No point saying I have the right to repair my device, if I can't access parts to make those repairs - because the manufacturer doesn't sell them, and because they require code access or crypto secrets for someone else to be able to make and sell parts. When attempts to obtain said software or secrets are illegal, that makes your simplistic point an empty platitude.
Practically, however, you are wrong. Repair by anybody else but the manufacturer or their designated service centre is prevented by the necessity to break other laws to do it. So, when components are cryptographically linked, the only way to replace a part (even when the part is genuine) is to crack the protection system, or use the manufacturers' service utilities. This falls foul of DMCA, patents/copyrights, or software piracy.
"Jon Johansen's life was turned upside down due to DeCSS"
And that was only stopped when a US judge quite rightly pointed out that the laws concerned do not have ANY validity in the country where Mr Johansen lived. (The case was killed for lack of jurisdiction)
And that was only stopped when a US judge quite rightly pointed out that the laws concerned do not have ANY validity in the country where Mr Johansen lived.
...where they then tried to put him on trial for mail fraud (being about the only law that came somewhat close).
As I recall, the prosecutor promptly lost that case, but still landed a cushy job with the Norwegian equivalent of MPAA.
I'm confident there was no corruption involved. The prosecutor went on a fishing expedition just for the fun of it.
The other thing is the fragillity anyway of modern stuff.
Coffee Philips machine broke again.. its been back under warranty but once again broke.
Synology NAS - main board broke down 1 week after warranty.
AEG washing machine, 15 months and the pump broke, 5 years and the main bearing in the drum is buggered
The only toys bought for my kids that last more than 5 minutes are Mamod steam engines and 1960/70 vintage TriangHornby or lego.
My Monday morning taxi driver had to return his 90k km Merc because it stopped functioning at all
Manufacturers buy up brand names and then cheapen everything to the point the brand is worthless. Hersheys have done it to Cadbury (not that those in America would know, Cadbury was a good chocolate everywhere else in the world - the American version was made under licence by Hershey and just as shit as they have now made it world wide), Colmans of Norwich ENGLISH mustard is now going to be made in Germany by Unilever, HP sauce with the houses of parliament is made in Holland...... it is FRAUD and is only happening because it doesnt matter who I buy X from, at the end of the day the same over arching company is making it, no competition is leading to shit products, high margins and disappointment for consumers. Any attempt at breaking into the market is stiffled by laws and rules designed to keep people out and keep the cozy monopolies. The politicians know where their back pockets get filled and have no interest at all in fixing it, either in the USA or EU
Believe me, people in the USA, at least those of us not shambling through life in a waking sleep, know how lousy Hershey's chocolate is, how useless our current president is, and how awful mega-brewed domestic beer is. (Hence the craft beer movement) We are also saddened by all of the above.
I am irked by the way my wi-fi enabled LG air conditioner's Android app refuses to run on my rooted phone. IT'S an AIR CONDITIONER. Why should the app or LG give a f*ck? Not exactly high security here. What is a malicious hacker doing to do, make my home a few degrees warmer or cooler? Great air con, but this idiocy will make me consider another brand next time I'm in the market for any appliance, and I would urge anyone to skip buying LG for this reason.
One thing a malicious hacker *might* do is to program your WiFi enabled aircon to be part of a DDOS attack, or to send millions of spam emails.
And who's to say the crap firmware in the air conditioner isn't already vulnerable anyway, regardless of what app you're accessing it with (but most likely the piss-poor outsourced one from the manufacturer).
"I am irked by the way my wi-fi enabled LG air conditioner's Android app refuses to run on my rooted phone. IT'S an AIR CONDITIONER. Why should the app or LG give a f*ck?"
The usual complaint hereabouts is why does so much Internet Of Tat have poor or no security. Now you're whinging because your IoT device HAS GOT [at least some] security. Jeez, ya just can't please some people :-)
> AEG washing machine, 15 months and the pump broke, 5 years and the main bearing in the drum is buggered
AEG now is Electrolux (and other companies), avoid. Story is just as your last paragraph puts it.
Same is true for various (ex-)German brands that used to produce decent stuff; in fact most brands I could name from the top of my head, I am afraid.
If you want utter shite, buy anything from Whirlpool.
Cadbury were bought by Kraft (now called Mondelez) not Hershey. Despite reassurances to the British Government of the day when buying Cadbury (you can guess where this goes when a greedy Multinational Company promises something), they moved production first to Poland, then onto China, India, Brazil and Mexico, closing plants in UK, Canada, New Zealand, USA and Ireland.
The OP referred to the Cadburys Somerdale chocolate factory in Keynsham, which Kraft promised would remain open after the merger, only to shut it down and close it permanently days after the merger closed. The production of its products was moved to Poland, and it caused not only a huge uproar in the Bristol-Bath area, but also nationwide. Bournville is the only one still producing chocolate products (it's where their R&D lab is). Mondelez also have a plant in Banbury (produces Kenco coffee).
That's all well and good, but tell that to the people of Somerdale, Keynsham near Bristol.
They had an assurance first from Cadbury, and then Kraft that the site would remain open (even though Cadbury had originally been wanting to close it), right up until the deal went through, and then Kraft said it would close within a year. The equipment was all sent to Poland.
Kraft reassured the UK Government that was investigating the take-over that they would keep it open, and immediately went back on their word when the deal was complete.
Before anybody says, Kraft bought Cadbury before they split to form Mondelez, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kraft.
You are incorrect where Cadbury's is concerned (well, ownership/licensorship anyway).
Cadbury was sold to KRAFT (and now is owned via a merger/reorg/demerger by Mondelez). Hershey's is owned by the Hersheys Trust Company. Never have the two had a relationship other than Hershey's making Cadburys under licence.
You are correct in saying that Cadburys was rubbish in the US, and now is rubbish elsewhere too... But then again, I have *always* found Cadburys to be rubbish compared to brands that do *not* use palm/vegetable oil as part of the 'fats' portion in chocolate. There was a massive row in the European courts over that (which Cadburys won in the end).
Johnson have done something similar on their Glade timed/sensor spray scent thingies
In their case it's not RFID chippery but two black stripes on the spray nozzle that aren't there on generic cans. The workaround is to swap out the nozzle from a genuine one - or a black marker pen.
"Or am I actually renting it from GE under some new type of contract?"
If you are, and it breaks, then GE are obligated to REPAIR it as part of that rental agreement, etc etc.
A good lawyer can have a field day with this kind of stupid mindset on the part of the makers - and a few cases like that - showing that their civil liabilities go through the roof (death of a billion paper cuts) - would have a far more salutory effect on their attitude than any level of copyright laws might do
@oiseau
*
Recently I bought a really nice Acer Swift laptop. The standard install process for Windows 10 is designed to FORCE me to set up a Microsoft online account (note slurpage: email account and mobile phone number mandatory). Whose laptop is this anyway?
*
So....an hour later, and a hard drive reformat later, this nice laptop is running Fedora32. And no online accounts and no M$ slurpage.
*
What puzzles me is this -- Why do people put up with this stuff? RFID chips in water filters? Mandatory slurpage of PII by enormous corporations? And the matching extended costs too?
*
.....and Fedora 32 is MUCH nicer (in every way) than Windows 10!!
Don't give Windows 10 an internet connection during installation/OOBE and it'll still let you create a local account. Of course it'll try bug you to setting up a microsoft account when you do finally let it lose on an internet connection, but on this second try, you can tell it to piss off.
I recently re-installed Windows 10 on a system (I feel really dirty now), and there is a way to install the system using a local account without keeping it off the network (can't remember exactly how, but it involved clicking on text boxes that may have been labelled "More information" and which were made to look like you could not click on them).
But the one thing it did force me to do was to turn on location services and targeted search and advertising. You just could not de-select the options, the only thing that worked was to click continue.
Once it was installed, you could go back in and turn these options off, but I was absolutely outraged.
The annoying thing is that I could probably get on OK with Windows 10 if I had to, but I just can't stand Microsoft's overbearing desire to control the environment.
When it comes to repairing consumer electronics, China is a much more free place than the US. Hence the US whining about its lack of respect for IP...
They're also more efficient. Some years back, I've had a laptop motherboard fixed, in a small shop in Beijing, for the equivalent of a few €. As in, the tech did not propose to replace the whole thing with a new one. He actually took a soldiering iron to replace some component or other near the CPU.
"If it requires an app or any kind of login outside of my own network to be used... it's not being purchased."
So what happens when (not if) EVERY air conditioner requires it? And it's not like it's getting any colder on this dirt ball, meaning alternative methods of cooling may not be viable for much longer, either...
"..corporate communications director promptly replied that GE sold its appliance unit to China-based Haier in 2016, which continues to use its brand"
Well perhaps GE should have considered that people will assume that a product with GE on it was at least endorsed by them and therefore it won't be good for their overall brand that people are pissed that their fridge has DRM.
The whole who own GE appliance division now remind me of 30 Rock when Jack Donaghy explains how NBC, is owned by GE, who is owned by Kabeltown which is a division of Sheinhardt wigs.
GE is basically out of the consumer goods market. They are in the process of selling their lighting unit, which is their final consumer product. I suspect companies and governments buying jet engines and power generating equipment will be more concerned about the reputation of those specific products.
Also, GE is very close to bankruptcy due to their old long term health insurance business, and the GE brand was probably the most valuable part of the appliance business for Haier, so I'm sure they had much choice but to give Haier the right to use the GE brand. Otherwise, they probably would have been sued by their own stockholders and creditors.
Don't know where you got the idea GE is close to bankruptcy unless you are an acolyte of Stephen Tusa and enjoy shorting the stock.
They sold the Appliances unit some years ago when they could see the margins were dropping and they had an opportunity to sell it at a premium. Their current problems actually stem from what they spent the money from that sale on. You really need to get your facts straight before commenting on what the stockholders would do.
I doubt many Wall Street traders while away their hours as commentards but as a general rule of thumb, its good practice.
Even if you don't agree with Harry Markopolos's assessment of GE Capital's reserves for long-term care policies (and I tend to give it some credence, having been involved in insurance reserving and having witness some massive under reserving leading to company failures), the other statements still apply. The GE brand has value in consumer electronics, and excluding it from the sale would have definitely lowered the price. Given the current legal environment, that probably would have lead to a stock owners class action suit.
No I don't agree with him and see it as the hedgefund backed shorting move it is, along with many other actual shareholders.
I am also realistic enough to understand that brand names have value and market share.
As to your last point, if the purchase of Alstom, which directly lead to their current troubles, didn't raise an action, this wouldn't.
In the real world, people just sell their stock.
This discussion has probably been overly long, since I don't have any real interest in GE other than following the problems they have had with their loss reserves, and only because I did loss reserving for years (P&C, but workers comp has similarities to GE's book, particularly the long tail and effect of future medical infation). As far as shareholders lawsuits a quick search will turn up hundreds of articles. As an example, this quote from www.cfo.com (1)
"Among business practices that investors don’t like, one of the most reviled is when companies in their portfolios provide scanty information about planned M&A deals.
Shareholders’ antipathy for the practice is so great that in 2017, they initiated class-action litigation in response to 73% of public companies’ announced deals valued at more than $100 million, according to a new report from Cornerstone Research. ..."Between 2009 and 2015, investors challenged more than 90% of such M&A deals, Cornerstone reports."
(1) https://www.cfo.com/ma/2018/07/shareholder-lawsuits-over-ma-deals-are-dwindling/
Note that the "dwindling" in the URL refers to the drop from 90% to 73%. Also, this is all deals, not just the ones with "scanty information".
Have a good day.
Getting puzzled here.
GE that is a US company isn't it?
Alstom is a European company. This version created by merger of GEC (British company) and Alsthom (mainly French company). After GEC was killed by crap management.
So nearest thing to aviation with the European company would be BAe from EE (Lightning).
Can someone clear up link between GE and Alstom (not Alsthom or GEC Alsthom)
Cisco decided it was a good idea to use the patch update system of their retail customers' routers to sieze control of them, and make commercial demands of the owners in return for allowing them to configure their property again. After the scandal that erupted, they did a U-turn and sold the Linksys brand. People do remember these things, even years later, as this post shows. Don't treat your customers with disrespect after purchase if you want repeat custom.
Very surprised HP haven’t yet started selling printers that recognise only the chemical signature, or invisible to the naked eye micro dots, or a RFID thread woven into their paper, so that they’ll only print on HP branded paper.
Counting the minutes until another commenter points to a link or patent that says this is on the way....
My Canon inkjet printer keeps nagging me that I am not using Canon cartridges each time I replace one.
Why would I? I can buy a full set of compatibles for less than the price a single Canon cartridge. And a full set is more than I paid for the printer! I can't notice any particular image quality issues with the compatibles.
I'd happily use Canon cartridges if they were a sensible price. I'm stopping the printer from getting any firmware updates just incase they try something stupid like blocking non-Canon ink.
That's the business model pioneered by King Gillette. He figured that he could practically give away his razors, so long as people had to buy his blades. At the time, the blades were carbon steel and only lasted for a few shaves. Then came modern, stainless steel blades that lasted far longer...
And for the previous mentions of HP...the *did* try to force people to buy their toner cartridges, and got shot down over it. More recently, they've said they're raising prices on the printers because they don't profit from replacing toner cartridges.
Then came modern, stainless steel blades that lasted far longer...
What blades do you use? After about 50 years (on and off) of using safety razors, I use Feather blades. They are the best I have tried, and give an excellent shave without cuts/soreness; but still only last a week (Mon-Wed, one side; Thu-Sat the other; Sunday, no shave or both sides - Cost about £0.30 each).
@Old Used Programmer
"At the time, the blades were carbon steel and only lasted for a few shaves."
I had a very interesting conversation with someone many years ago (somewhere in the nineties). He worked in an R&D lab for a large company producing razors amongst other things (he was unwilling to say who it was) and according to him a couple of them unofficially experimented with carbon coatings on blades. They managed to produce blades that were super sharp and did not go blunt: at the time of our conversation he was still using the first of the three blades he kept for himself - this was some three to four years later.
Management was less than enthusiastic about these shenanigans (they very enthusiastically gave a presentation and demonstration to senior management, all starry-eyed about the possibilities and market reaction) and ordered them to hand in all samples for destruction. All further research in the same vein was forthwith forbidden to boot.
Most of us are naïve that way. Just look at the history of the Internet and networking. I certainly (in my small involvement in establishing Intrawebs) never considered the malicious ways sharing and linking could be abused, given the bright new future .
The last Epson printer I had a couple of years back was a royal pain in the arse if I tried to use even their own refilled ink cartridges.
The pop ups telling me about the dangers of not using freshly paid for, overpriced epson cartridges made it almost impossible to print and prevented access to advanced print options.
It was still in good nick when I threw the poxy thing in a skip.
The HP I replaced with recently had a flying lesson.
Any recommendations for an occasional home use printer that doesn't dry up between uses?
This attitude from big business trying to maintain control of your property after you have paid for it is a real pain, I wonder where it will all end?
Will MacDees be selling burgers as a service soon?
From memory, if you want good photos then Dye Sublimation is a reasonable choice. And being solid, the ink doesn't dry up.
I've no idea how the financial side works out though.
And then there used to be a wax printer that used solid blocks which it melted and then spat at the paper ala ink jet (IIRC). No drying up there, but I suspect the wax blocks aren't/weren't cheap.
"Never seen/used one, but hear they worked well."
I had two as part of the fleet
Waxjets (and they _were_ waxjets) worked really well if you used them for several prints every single day. The moment you let them sit for a while was when they'd gum up - and they worked by having tubs of melted wax inside them so having them sitting on anything except a _VERY SOLID AND STABLE SURFACE_ was a bad idea (anyone kicking the table would upset them and they took over an hour to cool sifficiently to be safe to move)
If you only used them occasionally (or avoided color printing) then you were guaranteed to have the usual inkjet gumming problems - on steroids - because cleaning them involved working with a hot plate running at 80C
Frankly i was glad to see the back of them. I have a number of very nice pictures they printed but the hassle factor was way too high for the crayons they used
Dye Sublimation gave good pictures - at a price FAR HIGHER than inkjet. Any printed image (even a single full stop!!) used the same amount of the dye coated sheet as a full colour photo. I think that it died a death once inkjets got good enough except for specialized uses (like ID cards) where instant drying is an advantage.
(The used dye sheets are also a security hazard as they have a negative image of what was printed.)
Just use compatible inks or printers with refillable ink tanks.
And then there used to be a wax printer that used solid blocks which it melted and then spat at the paper ala ink jet (IIRC). No drying up there, but I suspect the wax blocks aren't/weren't cheap.
They had one at a place I worked; the prints were top-notch, but at eye-watering prices. Especially when you'd only use one sporadically, as it did have some kind of cleaning or calibration routine that it would perform either on every power-up or at regular intervals (every week, IIRC).
Back then it was the only printing tech that could deal well with overhead sheets.
Xerox make good wax printers that are cheap to run but they are seriously expensive. They also really need to be powered up all the time; every time you power them up a load of wax goes through (or used to when I was working with them). The biggest cost is the continuous heating, if you don't use them very much. But they are very good for busy marketing departments and the like.
The shoe sized wax blocks are quite cheap, and the whole thing is really quite environmentally friendly - hardly any packaging.
The wost bit about Samsung having sold off its Printing Division to HP. Was the sad fact that HP had to almost instatly gimp the Mobleprint App on my Phone. Which was an awsome way to just fire up the MFD, and scan a slate of Documents, and have them directly deposited in to which ever eMail / Messanger App I needed.
Sadly the only work around is to find an older (working copy), published by Samsung. Which I'm saded to say is always nagging me ab out wanting to install a broken update.
Makes me wonder what my next Printer should be. I would have likely stuck with Samsung, because I have a sething hatred for HP So I guess Samsung... Asumuing they still somehow still exist in some GE / Telefunken / <INSERT OTHER RE-BADGE: HERE!!> I guess will also be offf my list. But, I guess It will still be some form of Laser or other, that I'll be going for. I've hav the same Printer for over 10 Years now. and, I've only had to replace the toner cart just the once. yeah good luck just trying to print a single sheet after just a month after installing Ink. And, you still wonder why people want HP to die??
Brother laser printer, black and white or color depending on your major need.
Just take your photos to the kiosk or drugstore, they use superior quality real photo stuff, and the cost isn't that prohibitive. For the rest, non-drying non-water-soluble laser toner is the way. Lasts for years and years.
I've been through several brands incl. Epson & HP. I now have a Brother all-in-one - it's my second one, I only upgraded to get double-sided printing and an auto-feeder....
Otherwise, dead reliable, cheap 3rd party ink and does pretty much everything without fuss. Never had a problem with ink drying up and it sometimes goes months between printing, although it will randomly auto-clean.... Also, works perfectly with a Mac as a printer & scanner.
Well, HP are the only printer vendor I am aware of trying the subscription ink circus.
Ink-subscription services are pretty common in the business arena. When you have a couple hundred or more workgroup printers or floor-standing MFDs printing thousands of pages per week each, a subscription service makes sense.
I’m not going to disagree about it being commonplace, but that situation is when it makes the *least* sense to use a subscription model.
When you have a sizeable fleet of devices in the same model range, simply keeping a stock of spares adds relatively little overhead. Running them at high duty cycle makes that even more true, as you’re going to do reach the replacement windows for all components on a regular basis.
It’s when you have a single large device that is expensive (from your perspective), and/or used lightly enough that something like an imaging unit replacement is an unexpected expense that it can make sense to have a subscription plan for service and consumables - you are in fact passing on the risk to an organisation that meets the ‘sizeable fleet’ description above.
HP's subscription ink is actually not a bad idea for light home use. I have the "free for under 15 pages a month" plan, where I have to pay $1 per 10 pages for extra. I've only had to do that once when I had to print a few dozen pages. If I had to print hundreds there are better options such as going to a print shop or buying retail cartridges and temporarily swapping them. They have plans that cost money that come with higher monthly allotments and cheaper per page overages for people whose printing needs aren't quite so modest as mine.
I used to buy cartridges that I had to replace long before they ran out of ink because they dried out due to age and disuse so I was probably paying some insanely high per page rate. A laser printer would avoid that but a color laser multifunction has a much higher up front cost, so I figured I'd try HP's subscription solution this time around. Time will tell how long the printer lasts and how they handle the ink drying up - they automatically send you cartridges before yours run out of ink, but not sure if/how they tell if they are drying up. I wouldn't be surprised if the subscription cartridges are designed to last a lot longer before drying out to avoid this issue, something they had less reason to care about when the consumer was paying for them.
I got a $129 printer for $40 on closeout so I'm not out much if it doesn't work out.
HP no longer provide a PCL5 driver for Win10, so it's not possible to use older Laserjets like the LJ5 I have. This is a fairly recent thing, as I had been using my LJ5 quite nicely with Win10 until a recent update. Now, I am positive this has nothing to do with HP wanting to sell me new printers with DRM'd cartridges, because that would be evil. And Microsoft would never push out a driver upgrade that would stop hardware from working, would it?
Lucky for me, I found the old PCL5 driver on the web (HP have deleted it from their website...now why would they do that?), which Win10 still accepts. So I am up and running with a printer that works perfectly and shows every sign of outliving me.The HP driver does pop up a message every time I print, warning me that the (brand new) black toner is nearly empty. Hmmm. But the printer, which was free, and easily repairable, is working like a champ.
Not going to be buying HP again.
They do that for linux drivers too...
Since M$ and hp are all good Foss friends now and offering support for open projects... Weirdly a cups update sent hundreds of older machines to the obsolete pile. Love to know what criteria they use to decide which printers get the chop as there are some drivers that are as old and older that did not get tossed on the pile, considering that there's very little difference between the drivers for similar models... Try installing a driver with the printer off and use a similar model driver...
10 year old desk jet works fine but according to hp it's obsolete
They do that for linux drivers too...Since M$ and hp are all good Foss friends now and offering support for open projects... Weirdly a cups update sent hundreds of older machines to the obsolete pile. Love to know what criteria they use to decide which printers get the chop as there are some drivers that are as old and older that did not get tossed on the pile, considering that there's very little difference between the drivers for similar models... Try installing a driver with the printer off and use a similar model driver...
10 year old desk jet works fine but according to hp it's obsolete
I love Apple for this very reason...
"Oooh look how great we are, we love making the world a better place with our superb technology. You're so empowered by choosing from us...providing you have the required disposable income of course!".
The second it breaks what's Apple's response? "If it's a current model and you have AppleCare, sure we'll fix it. You mean it's 4 years old?! My God that's at least 2 generations out of date! You need to throw that old piece of crap on a barge full of other e-waste crap that's heading to some third-world nation that deal with this stuff and immediately get on the website and buy a new model! Easy payment terms up to 2 years ( 'cos that's the longest you should be keeping your Apple kit! ) makes sure you can keep feeding the Apple machine."
Having had a my rant I do have two 2008 iMac's still going strong in my family and a 2013 mabook that's serving a family member doing their A-levels. I also have a 6 year old Samsung tablet that's still going strong. So while I hate the idea of e-waste being dumped on some poor bugger's doorstep some kit, if it's looked after well, does give good service.
Son, i just had a 2012 Mac mini repaired, for free. The machine had a problem with one of the USB ports. The local Apple Store replaced the motherboard and put back the 3rd-party RAM, and the two 3rd-party SSDs, all for free. They did try to sell me a new Mac mini. And they knew that I’d been in there evaluating Mac Pros and would, on past experience, be buying at least a dozen for the company in a month or two. Being known as a good customer instead of as a cheap asshole can work wonders.
Bless, I recently got an original bondi blue iMac up and running again. Only needed a new hard drive since the original one 'sang' when spinning.
Apple does make robust hardware from time to time but have been trying to eak out ever last nickle and dime lately and it's showing. As is the obsession with having something new every time (even if that means replacing something that never should have been messed with.. I'm looking at you Mac book pro keyboard).
On the flipside, the eldest just managed to break the screen on her Acer aspire one and it's going to cost more than a second hand one to get a new screen. The screen was appalling when new anyway but resellers want about as much as for the full HD screen for my works lenovo. Madness...
Instead of making it legal for consumers to bypass it, they should make it illegal to put this nonsense in products in the first place. Apparently, the voters don't have sufficient control over legislators to bend them to their will instead of that of big corporations. Since they can vote for whomsoever they please, they can fix that.
"Since they can vote for whomsoever they please, they can fix that."
If that were true, then there wouldn't be such a thing as party tickets and primary elections. For all intents and purposes, to be able to get elected, you need to get on the ballot, and guess who controls that process.
As for "that nonsense", they usually use the excuse of quality control. Otherwise, they'll claim they'll have to deal with excessive warranty claims due to "stupid mistakes," and at the last, they can threaten to pull out and take rather-important things like their still-active patents with them.
In the UK we have safe seats because no one in the area ever elects another 'party'. The problem is that we ALL know from bitter experience that it doesnt matter which tosser you vote for they are all the bloody same, back pocket open at all times and dont give a flying fig about electors between elections, and not even much at elections because once in they are in for life.
"Just check out where some of that 80 seat majority came from."
I live in what is one of Labours safest seats. At the last election, the Labour share of the vote dropped noticeably, but nowhere near enough to be any real worry for the incumbent. Although it was quite heartening to see so many other Labour seat, some seen as "safe", be lost in their heartland. Hopefully that shook them up a bit. There's far too much complacency in politics, relying on fighting a very few "swing" seats where all the campaigning happens.
It's illegal according to El Reg: https://www.theregister.com/2002/12/30/eu_tells_hp_et_al/
TLDR: Your municipal water supply is safe and clean; to ensure that it's likely also full of chlorine, which these filters, marketed with heavy FUD, are often designed to remove.
"The GE website suggests that a water filter is a good idea to avoid exposure to unfiltered water and sediment, inadvertently offering a sad commentary on public water infrastructure and government funding priorities."
No, they're very much advertently creating FUD about water quality just like everyone else who sells retail water filters in developed countries. If, like more than 90% of people in the US (I'd assume it's even higher in the UK), you receive your water from a municipal supplier, that water is tested several times a year and the results are available to you from your supplier (some agencies mail out reports to every customer). You will find that the overwhelming majority of you receive water that is clean and safe to drink.
By contrast, if you have a well or are one of a very small number of people whose municipal agencies are known not to supply clean water, you almost certainly have invested in a properly-sized point-of-entry filtration system; a tiny point-of-use filter is an inefficient and inadequate solution to that problem anyway, and may not be designed to remove the specific type of contamination you have. If you're one of a much larger number of people who have older or poorly-installed plumbing in their own houses, you may well have sediment, heavy metals, and other contaminants in your water, but (a) it's nothing to do with the government unless you live in public housing and (b) you may not even be aware of it because unlike the municipal supply there is no requirement in most jurisdictions that your water be tested at point of use (by your landlord or the person who sold you the property). Depending upon the nature of the problem, these little point-of-use filters may or may not correct the issue, but of course they do so only for that single spigot. If you actually have a significant sediment problem, your pipes and fittings will be filled with it and subject to erosion and premature failure regardless of whether you filter it at point of use.
The actual reason you want a carbon-block or granulated-carbon filter for drinking water at point of use is not to remove sediment or make the water safe, though it does indirectly reflect those "government funding priorities" you bemoan: it's to remove the chlorine most municipal agencies add to guarantee the safety of your water. While the levels are safe to drink, chlorine doesn't smell or taste very good, and most people prefer water that has not been treated with it or has had it filtered out. Carbon filters do that quite well, and that's why most of the little point-of-use filters you see retailers offering are carbon filters. They will remove some sediment as well, but that's usually not their primary function. There are point-of-use filters designed only to remove sediment, but these are typically only the very cheapest models and are of little use to most people.
The bypass that you can use in these fridges is for setups that have an under sink filter that also supplies drinking water to a small faucet. The leak thing is a joke because if you get a leak its going to be outside the fridge. Under sink filters are themselves a bit of a scam, you can spend upwards of $180 a pop for a filter cartridge.
Most tapwater in the US is good quality. Where its bad its usually so bad that a domestic filter won't do any good, you'll have to buy bottled water or get used to the weirdest tasting coffee. A water filter is sometimes useful for removing residual chlorine, that's bad for coffee, but you're unlikely to need it. Many states require the water supplier to test the water at regular intervals and publish the results.
...and there are still places in the US that use open-to-the-air storage reservoirs for the treated, ready to use "drinking" water. Open to insects and other crawlies, piss and shit from any local critters, bird dropping, dead animal carcases rotting in them and the occasional human pissing in them.
The BRITA type filters also do a pretty good job of removing Pb and Cu which may come from plumbing - Pb is now unusual, but can come from poor quality modern brass fittings. If you are a tea drinker, these filters will remove Fe and tannic acid which form a dark coloured scum on the surface of tea. Iron tannates are the main ingredient of most inks that were used in Europe for about 1500 years.
If you are a tea drinker, these filters will remove Fe and tannic acid which form a dark coloured scum on the surface of tea.
Small correction, that tannic acid is extremely unlikely to be in the water for the filters to remove, it is infused into the water with the rest of the tea solubles from the tea leaves.
Yes, sorry. I’m a Chartered Chemist - It was a very sloppily constructed sentence. Dry black tea contains about 30mg/g of tannins (often expressed as tannic acid equivalent), of which only a trace amount is free tannic acid. I expect that I hadn’t drunk enough caffeinated beverages before I posted...
I use both a water jug with a Britta filter and also a kettle (well, hot water dispenser) with a built in Britta filter. I do by 3rd party (Amazon own-brand) filters though as the cost is ridiculous for the branded ones.
I'm not clued up at a technical / chemical level, but I live in a very hard water area and find the use of the Britta filters soften the water dramatically which results in next to zero limescale in my kettle as well as removing unpalatable tastes and scents which is ideal for light teas.
I'd rather like it if I could filter the washing machine, dishwasher and shower, but that's purely to reduce the limescale and thus prolong the life of the goods. Although I believe dishwasher salt is mean to do that for me.
I wouldn't bother with a filter for the taste alone, but 6 years on the same kettle without needing to descale it at all is something of a miracle given I had to do it every few months pre-filter.
I have apoplexy at dish/clothes washers that wont take my free hot water cos of some 'efficiency' rating designed by a fucking idiot. But if I want chilled water I'll put a jug in the fridge so I dont have to go back to it if I want more. Whatever next rfid milk bottles that wont let you drink non-gm milk?
Washing machines these days take in such small amounts of water, and in short bursts, that the pipe run-through time generally means they still have to heat the water, whilst your hot water system is being used just to heat the water in the pipes.
Depends on the run length. At our last house, there was about 3 feet of pipe from the boiler to the washer connection. OK, it was a combi, so the argument isn't really applicable - but gas heated water is cheaper (and quicker) than electric heated water.
When I get my thermal store fitted (currently on hold as the factory shut down), there'll be a circulating pump on the DHW for exactly the reason you cite - I'm peed of with the amount of water we have to waste before we get the hot water we want (often a small amount). Will that be energy inefficient ? Not for most of the year when the heating would be on anyway, and the pipes will be lagged.
"But if I want chilled water I'll put a jug in the fridge so I dont have to go back to it if I want more."
Don't you still need to go back to hit the jug more than once? Plus what if you need more than a jug at a time? Plus there's the automatic ice maker (which I've personally found quite useful as it means you don't have to think about ice on a hot day).
Look: you're plumbing in the GE fridge anyway, so leave the bypass gadget in, and put a bigger, more easily accessible, and standard size filter in the water line before it even gets to the fridge. Parts easily found at your home center...where you were going anyway to get the parts to hook the water into the fridge.
Done.
My appliances resent that designation!
My fridge/freezers keep everything cold to the correct temperature, automatically switching on and off when required. They don't need software patches, and the fridge even puts a light on when you open the door!
Dumb, they are not!
Yes you are right. Mandarins were the bureaucracy, I structured my rule of thumb, because military positions of authority were also Mandarins - Military Mandarin Ranks went from Field Marshalls/Generals down to Corporals/1&2Class Privates. As you know, Party committees are embedded in almost all state bodies, as well as most private and state companies. So, in a similar way to the structures of the Imperial past; when the administrative, bureaucratic and leadership functions for the military were generally controlled by Mandarins; the party permeates nearly everything.
The Chinese military own loads of normal civilian companies. As well as some of their armaments factories. It helps pay the bills. Or the massive illicit bonuses for top officials to squirrel away. They had cash back when state owned companies were being sold off.
In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard Corps had so much cash from their own factories and investments that when the government privatised the national telecoms provider they outbid everyone and bought it for cash.
In dictatorships, it’s useful to have alternative supplies of cash, for bribes or bureaucratic infighting.
"Haier over a decade ago I was doing business in China with this "bankrupt" company..."
Haier is actually a customer friendly company that listens. And it is profitable so not sure why you're claiming they are bankrupt - unless you're being witty and saying they're morally bankrupt.
A decade ago:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/china/2010/06/17/haier-a-chinese-company-that-innovates/
Care to divulge what business you was doing with this "bankrupt" company a decade ago?
"categories where repairs that require breaking digital locks are still not allowed, like boats, medical equipment, and game consoles."
Except, due to that pesky 1st ammendment, I can tell you how to crack boats, medical equipment, and game consoles as much as I want, and they can't do jack shit about it.
And if some judge decides to ignore the bill of rights and US Constitution, one can then fall back to the prohibition-era policy (this is when the nutjobs in the US tried to prohibit alcohol...), a few of the brewers published guides to make sure you DIDN'T produce unauthorized alcohol like "Make sure you don't put in 2 spoons full of barley; after that, I implore you, whatever you do, DO NOT store the bottles for 30 days or they may go through fermentation and produce unauthorized alcohol." 8-)
Except, due to that pesky 1st ammendment, I can tell you how to crack boats, medical equipment, and game consoles as much as I want, and they can't do jack shit about it.
For that I don't need your instructions, nor the 1st amendment (which does only apply in the US of A anyway). Just a large sledgehammer.
(the one with the Fubar XXL hanging off its belt)
I raise a glass to Sunbeam despite my beloved toaster going "bang" and letting the magic smoke out in a most spectacular way.
Ah well, 40 years of daily use is a good run. Cover off and the single controller chip has clearly cracked in two. Sob. Never mind; a quick bit of rewiring and it still toasts, providing the plunger is held down - a mere inconvenience.
But it wasn't designed for minutes of sustained finger pressure a day so the nice knob of the plunger snapped off.
So it's out of its casing, operated by a length of wooden dowel. It looks deadly but isn't, is still working wonderfully, has many more years of life left in it, and it hasn't once groused me up over the internet or made any complaint.
Can't you replace with a PIC ?
I had thought of that, and it's still on the list of possibilities, but figuring out the hardware drive for the AC coil which magnetically holds the plunger down and power on is a little complicated, outside my current skill level. The pot ADC reading and timing is easy.
Having rewired it as a quick fix it's not yet bubbled up the to do list.
Besides; I might get tempted to turn it into an IoT device :)
the single controller chip has clearly cracked in two
You got the wrong model...
Right to repair? - I'd establish a duty for devices to be easily repairable. For example, replacing the battery in my mobile phone should require no tools (other than an "ordinary" screwdriver perhaps). No need for prising, heating to melt glue or "proprietary" restrictions, e.g. trademarked connectors.
There's only one problem: I have somewhere an old IP68 satnav with removable battery. The space taken up by the reinforced back, the O ring slot and the thumbscrews would roughly double the thickness of the phone, for something that nowadays only needs to be done every few years.
At one time with some Sony models you could just buy a kit of a battery, and preglued new back. I'd be perfectly happy with that.
As mentioned in the comments on Hackaday, the whole hack is unnecessary.
The fridge will keep dispensing water after the expiration date on the filter and will just display a negative number of days on the display.
https://hackaday.com/2020/06/14/the-water-filter-that-wouldnt-defeating-drm-with-duct-tape-and-a-dremel/
"The author of this article even states that he later discovered (after destroying his fridge) that this isn’t a real lockout, it’s just an annoying warning. We all hate DRM, this isn’t DRM. It’s a just someone who went HAM on their fridge without looking too closely at it first.
From the first paragraph of the article: (UPDATE:After this article has made it around a couple people let me know that the fridge would, in fact, continue to work just would roll over to a days-past mode. That said I can now buy 15$ filters on Amazon vs 50$ DRM filters. Oh and no more triangle of doom on my fridge HMI)"
In my youth we had a COMET-supplied Washer/Dryer with electro-mechanical programmer and knobs and switches. It was a 'doddle' to replace parts when they wore out, until they became unobtainable/unrepairable.
Recently had to replace a 'Bosch' washer after the second time of renewing the brushes; this time the error control electronics would not reset. Slightly off topic, unrepairablity more than DRM, but still ...
Rant continues ... and touch screen car electronics you can't adjust without taking your eyes off the road ...
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