I am duty bound to start a thrad about planned obsolescence

[lisarea]

Because the Story of Stuff lady did a new video about electronics.

YouTube - The Story of Electronics (2010)

She kind of glosses over the proprietary aspect of it. The reason you have to have a million different charger cables and data cables and shit, for example, is that companies design proprietary parts, sometimes for the sole reason of increasing accessory sales, rather than using standard connectors and stuff that people already have.

(This just happened to me because the cheapassed Samsung phone I bought, primarily because it costs more to buy a new battery for an old phone than it does to buy a whole new phone, has a proprietary USB port that really needs to go fuck itself.)

Anyways, so part of the solution is this:

makezine.com: Owner's Manifesto

Which brings me to the main reason I Hate Lifehacker. Every time they post some kind of repair or DIY project, there's a huge subset of insecure white people who get just UP IN ARMS about how it looks either 'ghetto' or 'white trash,' and it makes them sick and what kind of ingrate doesn't just BUY A NEW THING IN A SEALED WHITE PLASTIC CASE FOR GODS' SAKE!!!?! Cause, like, what if the Queen of England or a representative of the FTC came to your house and saw you JANKY TRAILER PARK electronics repair and then permanently kicked you out of the middle class FOREVER AND EVER and you died, alone and black, in a junkyard, clutching your chest and saying "I'm coming, Elizabeth!"

To summarize, I hate:

• Proprietary parts
• Sealed plastic cases
• Proprietary connectors
• Samsung (HE-ey! HE-eee-ey! TONIGHT!)
• White people
• Lifehacker (a wholly owned subsidiary of white people)
• Most other things also
• Turnips

[BrotherMan]

• underpants

[LadyShea]

I hate packaging in general. Put the thing in a fucking cardboard box, if it needs cushioning, use like tissue paper or something. If it doesn't need cushioning on accounta, you know, plastic toy, then it does NOT need to be twist-tied, rubber banded or otherwise affixed in 20 different places to it's own specially molded plastic insert.

[Ensign Steve]

I think a lot of that is to make it harder to shoplift. It still sucks, though.

[viscousmemories]

As an employee of Newsweek's "Greenest Company in America 2010" I feel duty-bound to post this.

Recycle Your Electronics Responsibly with Dell | Dell

[lisarea]

Yeah, shoplifting prevention makes sense with that. Some online retailer, I think Amazon, actually has an option where you can order some things delivered without that clamshell packaging and stuff. I don't know, though, whether it comes that way from the manufacturer, or if it has it and they just unpackage it for you.

With electronics cases, though, the core of the issue is more that they're trying to create a physical barrier to repair. Even if a product would be otherwise user-serviceable, they'll seal the whole damned thing up, battery compartment and all, so that you can't get in to repair or upgrade your electronics without breaking the case or sometimes purchasing specialized aftermarket tools just to get it open.

That kind of thing is just especially dastardly, because it doesn't even rely on technical obsolescence in the usual sense that there are faster better products available. It's solely based on making the user pathetic and dependent on the manufacturer for even normal, inevitable maintenance such as replacing batteries.

Generally speaking, when you buy something with a sealed battery compartment, you are buying cheap, disposable garbage that is not even designed to outlast a rechargeable battery.

That's one of the things that really baffles me about the middle class aspirational notions of avoiding user repairs. They're trying to maintain the appearance of some kind of status or something by demonstrating that they're so helpless and incompetent that they can't even change a battery or make simple little repairs.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

As an employee of Newsweek's "Greenest Company in America 2010" I feel duty-bound to post this.

Recycle Your Electronics Responsibly with Dell | Dell

This is good, but what would be even better would be if they'd stop making unnecessarily proprietary components, so that their computers could be more easily upgraded and repaired, rather than being discarded in the first place.

http://en.community.dell.com/support.../19676285.aspx

to YOU, MR. MEMORIES!

[viscousmemories]

Oh absolutely; I literally had to buy a power adapter on eBay for a monitor at work because it was so proprietary I couldn't find one among the dozen or so I had on hand. At least Dell is making committments (if not timely progress*) to using less toxic materials.


*I was at work the day Greenpeace hung that banner on the building across the street and I missed it!

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by lisarea

With electronics cases, though, the core of the issue is more that they're trying to create a physical barrier to repair. Even if a product would be otherwise user-serviceable, they'll seal the whole damned thing up, battery compartment and all, so that you can't get in to repair or upgrade your electronics without breaking the case or sometimes purchasing specialized aftermarket tools just to get it open.

That kind of thing is just especially dastardly, because it doesn't even rely on technical obsolescence in the usual sense that there are faster better products available. It's solely based on making the user pathetic and dependent on the manufacturer for even normal, inevitable maintenance such as replacing batteries.

Generally speaking, when you buy something with a sealed battery compartment, you are buying cheap, disposable garbage that is not even designed to outlast a rechargeable battery.

I agree that's part of it, but additionally, since these things are packed with toxics, are attached to electrical power, and are more complex than a manual pencil sharpener, the company may have a vested interest in avoiding legal suits resulting in individuals attempting home repairs and setting themselves on fire or electrocuting their pacemakers or whatever. Not that this isn't simply another design issue- these things could be designed in a modular fashion and idiot-proofed by not filling it full of toxins and not making it within the realm of probability to impale oneself or whatever, especially if they were designed to last, like the video discussed.

Some batteries (lithium) have design problems involving catastrophic (read: incendiary) failure at high temps, so this may be another reason manufacturers don't want people to access parts like this. Though I guess if one is CompyCorp, you might as well use that legal department for something, and then the packaging could just be wadded-up warning stickers showing simplified graphics of nearly featureless figures dying grisly deaths, and corporate ass be covered.

That's one of the things that really baffles me about the middle class aspirational notions of avoiding user repairs. They're trying to maintain the appearance of some kind of status or something by demonstrating that they're so helpless and incompetent that they can't even change a battery or make simple little repairs.

Is that a middle-class aspiration? And is user repair avoided in complex machines, or is it that there are more barriers for other reasons?
For example, cars: items that at one point with some basic skills and tools, you could do 50% of the repairs and replacements; with advanced skills and more tools and a helpful neighbor or friend, you could do 80%+ of the repairs. But analog moved to digital, and some of the solutions to fuel inefficiency involved reducing weight by making u-body construction and modular assemblies that had to be replaced as a whole; to make compact (and lighter) cars everything was compacted into smaller spaces (making work beyond simple maintenance super-involved- removing half the components in the engine compartment to get to component F), using lighter materials; and vehicles were designed to crumple under impact- a good thing for increasing survival rates at some speeds, but making the vehicles less likely to be repairable.

When I was a kid, my dad bought a Heath-Zenith television as a kit and soldered the whole thing together. I don't think that's for everyone- my dad understands electronics- but I don't think the new layers of technology have that kind of accessibility, and it's not just because the engineers aren't being paid to design it better and the corporate interest is in obsolescence = profit maximization; it is also because the components are several magnitudes more complex and engineered at tiny fractions of millimeters, and a lot of that you simply can't repair in the home workshop.

I understand again that modular components designed for easy swapping is something that can be engineered much better, and proprietary designs for male and female parts on electronics is shitty and should be made into semi-universal plugs and ports.

Related to the video, Mike Daisey has a new monologue (that I can't find recordings of anywhere yet) entitled "The agony and ecstasy of Steve Jobs", about his obsessive love of Apple products and his visit to Shenzhen China to see horrifying working conditions in massive factories, where Apple is made right next to Dell, right next to Samsung, etc.); Daisey strongly encourages people to ask Apple to improve and change their practices, and to rethink the whole chain of consumerism tied to disposable electronics and planned obsolescence.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites

Is that a middle-class aspiration?

Absolutely. I'm not kidding. I've noticed this mostly on Lifehacker, probably because it's the dumbest blog I read (and because I started intentionally reading the comments to test my theory). Nearly every time they post any type of repair or DIY projects, they get these weird classist comments calling it 'ghetto' and '[white|trailer] trash,' and recommending people buy new.

So it's not just that they're saying they don't know how, or they think it's dangerous or something. They are saying that it makes you appear low class to make or even repair your own things.

And is user repair avoided in complex machines, or is it that there are more barriers for other reasons?
For example, cars: items that at one point with some basic skills and tools, you could do 50% of the repairs and replacements; with advanced skills and more tools and a helpful neighbor or friend, you could do 80%+ of the repairs. But analog moved to digital, and some of the solutions to fuel inefficiency involved reducing weight by making u-body construction and modular assemblies that had to be replaced as a whole; to make compact (and lighter) cars everything was compacted into smaller spaces (making work beyond simple maintenance super-involved- removing half the components in the engine compartment to get to component F), using lighter materials; and vehicles were designed to crumple under impact- a good thing for increasing survival rates at some speeds, but making the vehicles less likely to be repairable.

When I was a kid, my dad bought a Heath-Zenith television as a kit and soldered the whole thing together. I don't think that's for everyone- my dad understands electronics- but I don't think the new layers of technology have that kind of accessibility, and it's not just because the engineers aren't being paid to design it better and the corporate interest is in obsolescence = profit maximization; it is also because the components are several magnitudes more complex and engineered at tiny fractions of millimeters, and a lot of that you simply can't repair in the home workshop.

O HO HO UNBEKNOWNST TO YOU, YOU HAVE STEPPED INTO ANOTHER OF MY PET PEEVES.

Yes, you do have a point with solid state electronics and such. It is much more difficult to repair some newer products simply because they are very compact and don't use as many mechanical parts. However, manufacturers also tend to make products seem more complex than they are. A lot of apparently sloppy development is designed to make things look irreducibly complex. This is most obvious (at least to me) with software, but with electronics, too. I first noticed it probably in the mid-90s when people were just learning HTML. HTML is a really simple little markup language, which you can (and many people did) pick up simply by looking at source code. However, there were also HTML editors available, for people who wanted a GUI to do it for them. Things is, many of those GUIs resulted in what I can only assume was intentionally obfuscated markup. It just looked irreducibly complex, so that if you had written a webpage in one of those editors and then looked at the code, it was a big, tangled, senseless mess that I'm assuming was actually designed to make you think that you needed the software to make a webpage. (There's lots of software like that, too, but I remember that because it's when I first really noticed and articulated that tactic.)

And it's the same deal with hardware sometimes as well. What looks like sloppy development (and probably is to some extent) also serves the purpose of obfuscating the design and making it seem much more complicated than it is.

You can comment a circuit board, or even write little love notes on them. And I have electronic equipment from the 70s with stickers still on the back that tell you that it can be dangerous to mess around with the guts, sitting right next to the standard screws that allow me to do so at my own risk, using a regular, standard design screwdriver.

Lots of people are doing it:

Make: Online : Open source hardware 2008 - The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2008

The litigation risks are pretty overblown, really. You're not going to win a giant lawsuit against a company because you open up your electronics and cut your finger or electrocute yourself.

Electronics are generally pretty safe. If anything, newer equipment is probably safer, if harder to repair, than older stuff on the whole. Vacuum tubes and CRTs are much more dangerous than anything you'll find in modern home entertainment equipment.

And there is no reason in the world that users can't safely replace batteries in consumer electronics. Sure, batteries carry some risks--always have--but sealing those batteries inside of electronics makes them more dangerous, if anything.

The smaller the equipment, the fussier it's likely to be, but people have been replacing their watch and hearing aid batteries forever without getting killed or damaging their stuff in the process. The reason they make it harder to change the battery on an iPod is because they want people to throw them away and buy new ones when the batteries die. There's just no other compelling reason for it.

I understand again that modular components designed for easy swapping is something that can be engineered much better, and proprietary designs for male and female parts on electronics is shitty and should be made into semi-universal plugs and ports.

Yeah, that's a big issue. There is no reason in the wide world that the USB connector on my stupid low-end phone needs a proprietary connector. The connector it uses is actually larger than a standard micro B, and I WILL EAT MY HAT if it has any technological benefit. It's a crappy little low-end dumb phone, and all it needs to do is transfer crappy, low end data from one end of the data cable to the other.

I will concede that, every once in a blue moon or so, there is some groundbreaking new technology that requires, for technical or even form factor reasons, some non-standard parts or something. But the vast majority of proprietary connectors and other components are just designed to force consumers to buy proprietary accessories and replacement parts, and to allow the manufacturers to obsolete them at their whims.

[ceptimus]

Nokia had a standard plug for charging their phones for ages. It worked well, was reliable and it meant that you could always find a charger lying around at home or at the office if your Nokia phone needed a quick charge.

But then about five years ago they decided to use a new, smaller, less reliable connector and they've not even standardised on that - their new idea seems to be that with every new phone model they release, they'll choose a new, incompatible connector.

[Stormlight]

Socialism to the rescue.

[viscousmemories]

Are they just gonna announce that every year or will it eventually happen?

[Doctor X]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Are they just gonna announce that every year or will it eventually happen?

I miss DorisDavidMabus2000. . . .

--J.D.

[Naru]

Originally Posted by Doctor X

I miss DorisDavidMabus2000. . . .

--J.D.

[strike ][/strike]

[wei yau]

Back to packaging for a sec, it's not only about preventing shoplifting. It is also about having a retail package that displays the product, not just a photo of the product. This is especially true with toys. All those damned Barbie playsets used to be a in a closed non-window cardboard box, but now that you have to show everything, everything has to be tied down with twisties.

Now that I think about it, I wonder how much of that packaging is actually to prevent shoplifting. I mean, there's no packaging that couldn't be opened with a razor blade, quite easily, quickly and surreptitiously.

That's probably why you see certain items like video games, small electronics, etc. usually kept in a locked display case.

[viscousmemories]

I used to be very good at popping cassette tapes out of those giant white plastic thingies when I was a teenager. 1. Pop out the tape, 2. pocket it while sliding the giant white thingy back in the rack, 3. sell the tape at the used record store, 4. buy smokes and video game tokens. I did that a lot.

[BrotherMan]

Wrong thrad.

[Ymir's blood]

One of the things that struck me while reading Brave New World was the idea that in the Future we will not repair anything, that doing so was damaging to the economy and generally tacky. Pretty good prediction for a novel written in a time when most people still wore home made clothes.

[Janet]

Have you read Amusing Ourselves to Death? As I seem to recall it's basic premise was that while we were all watching and waiting for 1984 to happen, Brave New World actually did.

[Ymir's blood]

I haven't read that, but the thought occurred to me as well. I read both BNW and 1984 very close to each other. Also, growing up in the 80s, I still remember the media buzz about whether 1984 had arrived.

[Ensign Steve]

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Stuart McMillen - cartoon Recombinant Records

[Adam]

Man, I'm sick of this ghetto brave new world we live in. Fuck iPhones and HDTV, where are my government sanctioned orgies and why haven't I been genetically modified to find my job fulfilling?

Mr. Pea is very smart and I agree with nearly everything she says, but that is not going to stop me from picking nits:

Originally Posted by lisarea

Absolutely. I'm not kidding. I've noticed this mostly on Lifehacker, probably because it's the dumbest blog I read (and because I started intentionally reading the comments to test my theory). Nearly every time they post any type of repair or DIY projects, they get these weird classist comments calling it 'ghetto' and '[white|trailer] trash,' and recommending people buy new.

So, I understand and often roll my eyes at the classist aspiration to replace rather than repair in all situations, but I think there are contexts in which replacement is, on its own merits, more desirable than repair. If I'm going to repair my gadget by opening the case, replacing or tinkering with some internal component, and then resealing the case as designed, that's one thing. If I'm going to end up with my Xbox duct taped shut, or a widget glued to the outside of my iPhone*, on the other hand, that's pretty trash, and I think a strong case can be made that the proposed repair is objectively ghetto.

* - Unless, of course, said widget is a nonfunctional gear, in which case TOTAL STEAMPUNK WIN!

HTML is a really simple little markup language, which you can (and many people did) pick up simply by looking at source code. However, there were also HTML editors available, for people who wanted a GUI to do it for them. Things is, many of those GUIs resulted in what I can only assume was intentionally obfuscated markup. It just looked irreducibly complex, so that if you had written a webpage in one of those editors and then looked at the code, it was a big, tangled, senseless mess that I'm assuming was actually designed to make you think that you needed the software to make a webpage. (There's lots of software like that, too, but I remember that because it's when I first really noticed and articulated that tactic.)

I think that's less a conspiracy to make HTML look complex and more a predictable result of the simple fact that, while writing an HTML document is very simple, writing a program to dynamically write HTML documents is not. The program has no way of assuming that it's OK to deviate a little bit from what the user has designed in the GUI for the sake of simplifying the code, and it has no capacity to be clever, so it has to be designed to just brute force through whatever is required to exactly replicate what the user draws. Add in stuff that the programmer adds to make it easier to programmatically address elements of the document (i.e. the hojillion DIV tags any generated HTML inevitably contains) and even theoreticallly simple documents are a mess.

[Adam]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

I used to be very good at popping cassette tapes out of those giant white plastic thingies when I was a teenager. 1. Pop out the tape, 2. pocket it while sliding the giant white thingy back in the rack, 3. sell the tape at the used record store, 4. buy smokes and video game tokens. I did that a lot.

I never did that, but I had a friend in high school who had access to a shrinkwrapper via his job, so we had quite a racket going with purchasing a CD or PC game, copying it, shrink wrapping it, and returning it.

[Ensign Steve]

I think that's less a conspiracy to make HTML look complex and more a predictable result of the simple fact that, while writing an HTML document is very simple, writing a program to dynamically write HTML documents is not. The program has no way of assuming that it's OK to deviate a little bit from what the user has designed in the GUI for the sake of simplifying the code, and it has no capacity to be clever, so it has to be designed to just brute force through whatever is required to exactly replicate what the user draws. Add in stuff that the programmer adds to make it easier to programmatically address elements of the document (i.e. the hojillion DIV tags any generated HTML inevitably contains) and even theoreticallly simple documents are a mess.

Warning, I am talking out my ass here about how I remember (or possibility mis-remember) how MS Word used to do things a long time ago

Okay, so say like you make a document in Word. You didn't do anything fancy with the layout of the page, like columns or backgrounds or borders or images or anything. You just typed some text and marked it up, like making some text bold, other text red, and you did the whole thing in Helvetica. And then you click on Save As HTML.

The program could go one of two ways, I guess. It could just mark up your text in regular HTML just by sticking bold and font tags around shit, and it would look great and super simple, like how web pages looked 15 years ago, and how we do stuff now with BB code. The vBulletin WYSIWYG handles that kind of thing just fine.

But that's not okay, because of zealotry, so you have to use css styles on everything now, and keep content separate from markup or whatever it is that they say to make you stop using tables on non-tabular data, even though tables are just way easier!

So obviously, Word should make the styles on the fly, and since nothing is meaningful to them, they're not going to call it "left-menu" style or whatever, but they could still call it style "A" or something that is internally consistent. And then stick that in style tags at the front of the document, and then apply styles A thru Z at the appropriate text in the document.

BUT THEY DON'T! Instead they just mark up the text in-line, but with css style tags instead of HTML tags. So, it's like the worst of both worlds. And it's hell to read and it's hell to change. If they did it my way, you could make the document in Word one time for the first big push, and then any piddling changes you wanted to make to the styles you could do by hand. But the way they do it, it takes away the entire point of css in the first place because any time you want to change anything, you'd have to change it in every single tag, or else you have to keep doing it in Word even if you don't want to. And really I can't think of any good reason to do it that way besides incompetence or maliciousness.

Okay, that's all.

Ooo, edited at