Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Cerebus]

Cerebus: that is significantly less horrifying than 80 year old stripper  . Looks like a good day out 

But not by much. 

Mock as you will, but I suspect that Douglas Adams had the reason for your mockery down pat: 

The Infinite Improbability Drive

The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood — and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy.

Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.

[mnementh]

   It's elementary...

Utterly painless install... not only did it install pretty much automagically, it offered to repartition the Mint install, and configured grub so they could co-exist in harmony. AND it fixed whatever MacOS deliberately borked on the hard drive when, in a moment of stupidity, I tried to boot with the MacOS AND Mint drives in the machine at the same time. 

I think I'm gonna go give them a donation right now... my ballsack just gave a huge sigh of relief. 

mnem
ST:TNG time...

(urrrggghhh... GnomeWeb sux ballz, but FireFlump crashes if I try to attach a pic... Yup, must be *NIX...)

Mini-Review: elementaryOS vs Mint First Impressions

Installation was utterly painless, updates completely painless as well, and app installation was only slightly confusing. However, after using it all morning with the included GnomeWeb browser (because FireFox is not supported properly and keeps crashing if you do anything except look at the internet) I was ready to knock my own brains out with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. It is fucking slooooooow at everything, even on the desktop. 

I want to believe that was just the old hardware (Dual 3GHz XEON with 20GB RAM)... except Mint is really nice & tight and fast, and FireFox feels exactly the same as on Winbloze. Only weakness for my morning "browse over coffee" was the photo editor included in Mint was a bit unweildy... but at least I was able to crop and adjust contrast with a little work. elementaryOS has no such app integration, so it was like "use it as you found it on the web or get bent".

So... still liking Mint much, much better. elementaryOS has a much better OOBE, but that is where it ends. I have the feeling a lot of tinkering under the hood will be necessary to get it to actually run as well as Mint... and I'm not sure I can be arsed. Their list of curated apps is pretty small, and even FireFox came with a bunch of warnings that it might not work right... which it didn't.

IMO, not supporting something as common as FireFox is a complete non-starter. I'll continue to dabble with it... but odds are will be working with Mint unless some miracle occurs and my attempts at fixing the original MacOS are actually successful.

And in a distant 4th place, we have GhostBSD with a DNF... evidently it only supports AMD 64-bit ATM; as I was unable to get it to install at all, nor could I find a version which claimed support for 64-bit Intel.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

...Currently ogling Vostok Radio Room mechanical watches.

@mansaxel : I like the one with a Bat-Signal on the dial.

And I finally got around to scoping out my new Skagen today. A pleasant surprise; it evidently actually is new/unused, as it still even has the plastic keeper-bit on the stem. Popped it out, set the time, pressed the stem in and now it lives.

Super-comfortable, sanely thin, and not a effing hockey puck on my wrist; it is a proper gentledwagon's wristwatch. I love it already. I think maybe I'll even read the destructions that came with it.

mnem
 

[Saskia]

Ungh!

*hitting the button REALLY hard*



 

my new boss wants one of those buttons.

It seems that his imagination goes wild when I tell him of my plans on how to punish the assholes that once again shut down my infrastructure ...

Hint: it evolves around clamps, batteries, the proper alibis, capsaicin, campher oil plus the generous application of Candirú ...

[bd139]

Cerebus: that is significantly less horrifying than 80 year old stripper  . Looks like a good day out 

But not by much. 

Mock as you will, but I suspect that Douglas Adams had the reason for your mockery down pat: 

The Infinite Improbability Drive

The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were of course well understood — and such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy.

Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.

I think the issue is you have to have a certain well known propensity for things of disrepute before you get invited to such parties. This is actually requires some serious effort to pull off in normal circles. Not one I have the energy for these days, although I wonder sometimes 

[mnementh]

Thank you very much. 

Do you have the fantiest idea, how much Looney Tunes I have to watch to get THIS picture out of my head? 

Count yourself lucky that there aren't photos of later, once the evening had got interesting. 

Cerebus: that is significantly less horrifying than 80 year old stripper  . Looks like a good day out 

Try this instead. 

mnem

[McBryce]

And I finally got around to scoping out my new Skagen today. A pleasant surprise; it evidently actually is new/unused, as it still even has the plastic keeper-bit on the stem. Popped it out, set the time, pressed the stem in and now it lives.

Super-comfortable, sanely thin, and not a effing hockey puck on my wrist; it is a proper gentledwagon's wristwatch. I love it already. I think maybe I'll even read the destructions that came with it.

mnem
 

Ya goddit on the wrong arm! 

McBryce.

[Cerebus]

I think the issue is you have to have a certain well known propensity for things of disrepute before you get invited to such parties. This is actually requires some serious effort to pull off in normal circles. Not one I have the energy for these days, although I wonder sometimes 

Time for another quote:

Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

[mnementh]

That's a tough one... but I can see the need to protect one's customers from all the cheap-shit LiPos out there. Once you slap a counterfeit label over it, that battery looks just like the real thing, even tho it is a fucking fire hazard. And they are a fucking epidemic right now. Now add to that the fact you don't know what moron is going to be doing the battery swap... 

The biggest problem there... and where it all falls apart.. is that providing replacement batteries and such service is the tip of the spear penetrating the entirely realistic argument that allowing such service is an invitation to morons who are going to make the thing a death-trap.

Part of how durable an iDevice really is... is how it is sealed up. No matter how careful you are, you simply cannot disassemble it, replace something, then reassemble it and be sure it is sealed as well and maintains the structural integrity it had when new. You may not want to believe it, but that piece of Gorilla glass is actually a stressed member of the assembly; and replacing it with some cheap knockoff means that the resultant product will not be as strong as an original, sealed unit. And that WILL HAPPEN... it DOES happen every day.

The big problem from a manufacturing standpoint is that getting that kind of engineering nuance across to the average iConsumer is like trying to explain precalculus to a chimp, or global warming to a Trump-ite. They will either faze out and start thinking aboot bananas, or they will assume you are lying to them and then faze out and start thinking aboot cheezburgurrzz.

So now they're faced with either promoting and enabling battery replacement (a worthy ideal) but starting the downhill slide which leads to them defending lawsuits caused by crap knockoff parts, or standing their ground and flatly refusing to support any repairs on the grounds that it is not feasible to do it and make a product which is as safe as an original, unsullied unit.

 

Bottom line is that this is again part of the whole "nibbling away at the edges of a much bigger problem" problem. We all need to be thinking aboot the bigger part, not just replacing parts.

mnem


I don't agree with it. I don't like it. But I accept it.

As an example, my Samsung S5 is still alive and kicking after many years, and it is on its 6:th battery...   it is the only item that keeps wearing out in it.   If the battery had been "difficult to replace", I think the case would be a lot worse for the wear by now, just from having to melt it apart every year or two - in other words, it would have become e-waste.

I buy batteries that last longer than the originals (but makes the phone twice as thick).  This is an option that you won't have on a phone that doesn't have a replaceable battery.

I have 256GB SD card in this phone, and an FTP server on it.  Try that with a modern phone that doesn't come with an SD card slot.  (I'm about to try a 1TB SD card, I'll let you know how that goes...   assuming it works, can you even buy a modern phone with 1TB of memory? - and if you can, would your great grandchildren still be paying it off, long after you are dead?)

Basically, I don't like how manufacturers are herding us all into tidy little boxes where we are not allowed to do anything (are actively prevented from doing anything) with the devices we own, whether our objectives are to extend their life span, or enhance their capabilities in other ways.

It is still just about possible to do what you want by purchasing the right models from the right manufacturers or buying used, but the choices keep getting more limited.

Youngsters grow up in this environment never having known anything else, and just end up paying through the nose for simple things that our generation are used to buying once a decade or even less...

Yes, but you are comparing a utilitarian device with an iDevice which is manufactured and marketed as a luxury aspirational brand. Literally comparing apples and oxcarts. The sleek, sealed design is part of the exclusivity that is their stock in trade; this simply is not a reasonable argument.

You don't have to buy Apple. Nobody needs anything they make. Trying to make them be like your Yugo phone is like trying to beat a alligator into a pigeonhole; even if you were successful, what value would be the result? You are not going to ever be able to make people stop wanting an exclusive product, nor make other people stop making those products to sell to them.

No, the solution here is still to fix the core problem of allowing any corporation to command our lives, and forcing them into accountability.

You know... that thing that's been a dirty word since The Gipper played the role of a lifetime... regulation.

mnem

[AVGresponding]

People rightly complain about the descriptions in some fleabay listings. Here's a rather honest one...

Hewlett Packard HP3456A Digital Voltmeter, 6.5 Digit, Repair

This is one of a pair that have been used in the lab for years. The two tracked within a handful of microvolts on the lowest range and had negligable aging over many years. Used here mainly for voltage reference development work. Not used for some time and this one has unfortunately developed a fault. Power on self test initially reported a -11 error. Left for a few minutes, self tests run ok, but all measurements are invalid. From the manual, section 8-343, error 11 suggests an ohms converter, input amplifier, or input switching fault. A 1 volt Fluke reference input shows ~0.9 volts, which suggests one of the input fet switches is leaky. Also, auto ranging is not consistent. Not looked further, as no time to fix it here, but ss far as I know, this has never been repaired in the past, with all boards looking untouched. Pdf manual on cdrom included with the sale, a very stable meter and well worth fixing.

Update: I left this running for 24+ hours and it now appears accurate on DC and AC ranges. Suspect the fault is either connector related, or a dry joint. See the first two pics showing this...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hewlett-Packard-HP3456A-Digital-Voltmeter-6-5-Digit-Repair/133711544559

Yes that's my bid btw...  bought from this seller before, they are reliable iirc.

[mansaxel]

You don't have to buy Apple. Nobody needs anything they make.

I need their laptops. Everything else I've tired just breaks. And runs Windows.

Discord in an hour. DST here, so, I might be a tad late in.

[mnementh]

I think the issue is you have to have a certain well known propensity for things of disrepute before you get invited to such parties. This is actually requires some serious effort to pull off in normal circles. Not one I have the energy for these days, although I wonder sometimes 

Time for another quote:

Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

mnem
I think you both could use a nice, hot cup of TEA... 

[mnementh]

And I finally got around to scoping out my new Skagen today. A pleasant surprise; it evidently actually is new/unused, as it still even has the plastic keeper-bit on the stem. Popped it out, set the time, pressed the stem in and now it lives.

Super-comfortable, sanely thin, and not a effing hockey puck on my wrist; it is a proper gentledwagon's wristwatch. I love it already. I think maybe I'll even read the destructions that came with it.

Ya goddit on the wrong arm!  ;DMcBryce.

*raises paw*

Yup, southpaw dwagon; guilty as charged. 

BTW... the destructions included with the watch are generic, covering all the watches they made at the time. And shockingly... this Reno Nevada-based, Denmark-immigrant-designed watch is made in Hong Kong with a Japanese movement. Just like everything people want rather than need.

mnem
*always in my right mind*

[Specmaster]

[ mode ON]

1000x this. This is the problem in a nutshell. Right to Repair nibbles away at one tiny corner of the problem... and as it is being presented right now, it plays into the hands of corporate greed by allowing them to wash their hands of the disposal problem and fitness for purpose problem in one single line item on some random bill. Even if it were successfully passed, it would do nothing except aid and abet the bastards.

Specmaster, no matter what you think, the nature of modern portable electronics makes custom silicon absolutely necessary. To build the contents of an iPwn out of generic parts would literally make it the size of a netbook computer, or larger. You simply cannot get around this. You're talking like those fanfic writers who suggest that Spock, armed with nothing more than hollow-state technology, really could have conceivably created a suitable replacement for a tricorder. And made it portable. Because we wantzz SteamPunk.

I'm not defending this corporate right-think... I'm saying that as long as we keep obsessing over our trivial little pet peeves without banding together and tackling the big steaming turd in the living room (our society's blind obeisance to the almighty corporation) we are going to continue drowning in a sea of shit.

To continue to expect the corporation do "the right thing" is an exercise in futility; the definition of insanity, etc. The viral, thoughtless consumption that is the source of this corporate right-think, which fuels that sea of shit... it will be the end of the human race, and most of life on earth.

The only way out is to take the power back from the corporation, by whatever means necessary. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they cannot be trusted with the power that the articles of incorporation grant to the individuals at the helm; that insulation from the consequence of their horrific actions has to be taken away. There was a reason that through the entire history of humanity (aside from "the raging 20s"; another period when we faced an evil almost identical to this one) that those protections were only granted to the highest levels of government... now we give those protections away to any sack of shit who can afford to hire the prerequisite army of lawyers. We all know which great steaming pile of example I'm talking aboot here.

What I'm saying... is that to expect the almighty corporation to actually "do better" is at best wishful thinking, and at worst conspiring in our own doom. The corporation is at its heart a virally consuming machine with no soul, whose entire existence is to aggregate all wealth unto itself and to protect those who direct it from the repercussions of the crimes they commit.

Until we neuter them, they will fuck us to death like the Reavers they are. Only now, we really are talking aboot the end of the world here... and we really do know better.

[ mode OFF]

mnem
we've all seen this movie before, and the script is written in blood. 

Whoa there dragon, I said whoa. You're confusing me with someone else. I never mentioned anything about custom chips did I? All I said is that I think Rossman has been given short shift here on this forum when I think it is a noble thing that he is attempting to do. Which ever way you look at it, his arguments do make a lot of sense if everyone just calms down and actually listens to him and check out the legislation that he mentions. Nobody else I see is holding the manufacturers feet to the fire and the blinkered and brainwashed public continue to purchase their products regardless and all that does is give the manufacturers belief that they can get away with almost murder and so they do.
The chips that Rossman was talking about may not be custom-made ones at all because they are listed on websites. I don't know if these are suppliers or manufacturers of these chips but they are listed. If they are custom-made for Apple then they should not appear on any website at all, either for sale or mentioned by part number at all, full stop.

One thing that I have witnessed among family and friends who are so anal about buying products from this brand, they all have 1 thing in common with each other, they all have an OCD about at least one or more things in addition to their blind faith and addiction to this brand that many spend hours queuing outside their stores waiting for the store to open when they announce a new model that they simply must have no matter what the cost is. There has to be correlation or aspect of that mindset that they have found a way of tapping into and is demonstrated by the way certain folk continue to defend them and their practises while saying that does not make them right, and then they still buy their products and by doing so, are allowing the manufacturers to continue to get away from their moral and in many cases legal obligations.

If you don't want people like Rossman doing what little they can to chip away at them, you know for sure that the politicians won't do anything because they are probably benefiting directly in some form or other, then it has to be people power to bring them to their knees and stop buying their products and instead, buy from someone who actually has the guts to treat their customers fairly and if they don't offer a full and proper repair service, will at least allow others to repair their products for them and actively support them by making the relative parts and schematics etc available to them at reasonable costs.

[Cerebus]

I think the issue is you have to have a certain well known propensity for things of disrepute before you get invited to such parties. This is actually requires some serious effort to pull off in normal circles. Not one I have the energy for these days, although I wonder sometimes 

Time for another quote:

Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

mnem
I think you both could use a nice, hot cup of TEA... 

Wrong picture, we've moved on to the Profumo Affair:

[tggzzz]

People rightly complain about the descriptions in some fleabay listings. Here's a rather honest one...

Hewlett Packard HP3456A Digital Voltmeter, 6.5 Digit, Repair

This is one of a pair that have been used in the lab for years. The two tracked within a handful of microvolts on the lowest range and had negligable aging over many years. Used here mainly for voltage reference development work. Not used for some time and this one has unfortunately developed a fault. Power on self test initially reported a -11 error. Left for a few minutes, self tests run ok, but all measurements are invalid. From the manual, section 8-343, error 11 suggests an ohms converter, input amplifier, or input switching fault. A 1 volt Fluke reference input shows ~0.9 volts, which suggests one of the input fet switches is leaky. Also, auto ranging is not consistent. Not looked further, as no time to fix it here, but ss far as I know, this has never been repaired in the past, with all boards looking untouched. Pdf manual on cdrom included with the sale, a very stable meter and well worth fixing.

Update: I left this running for 24+ hours and it now appears accurate on DC and AC ranges. Suspect the fault is either connector related, or a dry joint. See the first two pics showing this...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hewlett-Packard-HP3456A-Digital-Voltmeter-6-5-Digit-Repair/133711544559

Yes that's my bid btw...  bought from this seller before, they are reliable iirc.

Good luck

[Specmaster]

Much more important, IMO, will be to make the manufacturer pay up front the real world disposal cost of all this disposable tech.

It is an appealing idea, except for two things:

• the manufacturer won't pay: the customer will. That level of indirection is problematic one way or another
• what should the disposal cost be, and when should it be paid?

Meaningless statements.

The customer ALWAYS pays for EVERYTHING.

Yes, and then the customer actually knows what he's paying for, instead of kicking it down the road for the next generation to deal with. At least an informed decision rather than just the result of being bludgeoned into an insensate fog with advertising.

Baby steps, man.

mnem
 

Just maybe, there would be less kicking it down the road, if products were made with customer expansion in mind rather than forcing them into buying yet another phone / tablet with more built-in memory, once they outgrow its capacity. It only takes the addition of a SD slot and allow the customer to insert what ever memory size SD card they need.

[bd139]

Don't need to do that. Just stop writing shitty bloated whale bits of software 

[SilverSolder]

That's a tough one... but I can see the need to protect one's customers from all the cheap-shit LiPos out there. Once you slap a counterfeit label over it, that battery looks just like the real thing, even tho it is a fucking fire hazard. And they are a fucking epidemic right now. Now add to that the fact you don't know what moron is going to be doing the battery swap... 

The biggest problem there... and where it all falls apart.. is that providing replacement batteries and such service is the tip of the spear penetrating the entirely realistic argument that allowing such service is an invitation to morons who are going to make the thing a death-trap.

Part of how durable an iDevice really is... is how it is sealed up. No matter how careful you are, you simply cannot disassemble it, replace something, then reassemble it and be sure it is sealed as well and maintains the structural integrity it had when new. You may not want to believe it, but that piece of Gorilla glass is actually a stressed member of the assembly; and replacing it with some cheap knockoff means that the resultant product will not be as strong as an original, sealed unit. And that WILL HAPPEN... it DOES happen every day.

The big problem from a manufacturing standpoint is that getting that kind of engineering nuance across to the average iConsumer is like trying to explain precalculus to a chimp, or global warming to a Trump-ite. They will either faze out and start thinking aboot bananas, or they will assume you are lying to them and then faze out and start thinking aboot cheezburgurrzz.

So now they're faced with either promoting and enabling battery replacement (a worthy ideal) but starting the downhill slide which leads to them defending lawsuits caused by crap knockoff parts, or standing their ground and flatly refusing to support any repairs on the grounds that it is not feasible to do it and make a product which is as safe as an original, unsullied unit.

 

Bottom line is that this is again part of the whole "nibbling away at the edges of a much bigger problem" problem. We all need to be thinking aboot the bigger part, not just replacing parts.

mnem


I don't agree with it. I don't like it. But I accept it.

As an example, my Samsung S5 is still alive and kicking after many years, and it is on its 6:th battery...   it is the only item that keeps wearing out in it.   If the battery had been "difficult to replace", I think the case would be a lot worse for the wear by now, just from having to melt it apart every year or two - in other words, it would have become e-waste.

I buy batteries that last longer than the originals (but makes the phone twice as thick).  This is an option that you won't have on a phone that doesn't have a replaceable battery.

I have 256GB SD card in this phone, and an FTP server on it.  Try that with a modern phone that doesn't come with an SD card slot.  (I'm about to try a 1TB SD card, I'll let you know how that goes...   assuming it works, can you even buy a modern phone with 1TB of memory? - and if you can, would your great grandchildren still be paying it off, long after you are dead?)

Basically, I don't like how manufacturers are herding us all into tidy little boxes where we are not allowed to do anything (are actively prevented from doing anything) with the devices we own, whether our objectives are to extend their life span, or enhance their capabilities in other ways.

It is still just about possible to do what you want by purchasing the right models from the right manufacturers or buying used, but the choices keep getting more limited.

Youngsters grow up in this environment never having known anything else, and just end up paying through the nose for simple things that our generation are used to buying once a decade or even less...

Yes, but you are comparing a utilitarian device with an iDevice which is manufactured and marketed as a luxury aspirational brand. Literally comparing apples and oxcarts. The sleek, sealed design is part of the exclusivity that is their stock in trade; this simply is not a reasonable argument.

You don't have to buy Apple. Nobody needs anything they make. Trying to make them be like your Yugo phone is like trying to beat a alligator into a pigeonhole; even if you were successful, what value would be the result? You are not going to ever be able to make people stop wanting an exclusive product, nor make other people stop making those products to sell to them.

No, the solution here is still to fix the core problem of allowing any corporation to command our lives, and forcing them into accountability.

You know... that thing that's been a dirty word since The Gipper played the role of a lifetime... regulation.

mnem

I didn't mention Apple, because they are not the only ones doing it these days - their business model has proven very lucrative, and now everybody else wants to do the same.  For example, it has gotten difficult to find a high end phone with a replaceable battery, a SD card slot, or a headphone jack - not just from Apple.

I can accept that super sleek phones make compromises to do what they do -  and in fairness, it is pretty impressive what has been achieved - but why can't I be allowed to keep buying Fords instead of BMWs...  it is almost as crazy as Ford dropping all their economical cars to focus only on the high profit ones...  Oh, wait!   

[mnementh]

[ mode ON]

1000x this. This is the problem in a nutshell. Right to Repair nibbles away at one tiny corner of the problem... and as it is being presented right now, it plays into the hands of corporate greed by allowing them to wash their hands of the disposal problem and fitness for purpose problem in one single line item on some random bill. Even if it were successfully passed, it would do nothing except aid and abet the bastards.

Specmaster (sorry ) SilverSolder, AVGresponding... no matter what you think, the nature of modern portable electronics makes custom silicon absolutely necessary. To build the contents of an iPwn out of generic parts would literally make it the size of a netbook computer, or larger. You simply cannot get around this. You're talking like those fanfic writers who suggest that Spock, armed with nothing more than hollow-state technology, really could have conceivably created a suitable replacement for a tricorder. And made it portable. Because we wantzz SteamPunk.

I'm not defending this corporate right-think... I'm saying that as long as we keep obsessing over our trivial little pet peeves without banding together and tackling the big steaming turd in the living room (our society's blind obeisance to the almighty corporation) we are going to continue drowning in a sea of shit.

To continue to expect the corporation do "the right thing" is an exercise in futility; the definition of insanity, etc. The viral, thoughtless consumption that is the source of this corporate right-think, which fuels that sea of shit... it will be the end of the human race, and most of life on earth.

The only way out is to take the power back from the corporation, by whatever means necessary. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they cannot be trusted with the power that the articles of incorporation grant to the individuals at the helm; that insulation from the consequence of their horrific actions has to be taken away. There was a reason that through the entire history of humanity (aside from "the raging 20s"; another period when we faced an evil almost identical to this one) that those protections were only granted to the highest levels of government... now we give those protections away to any sack of shit who can afford to hire the prerequisite army of lawyers. We all know which great steaming pile of example I'm talking aboot here.

What I'm saying... is that to expect the almighty corporation to actually "do better" is at best wishful thinking, and at worst conspiring in our own doom. The corporation is at its heart a virally consuming machine with no soul, whose entire existence is to aggregate all wealth unto itself and to protect those who direct it from the repercussions of the crimes they commit.

Until we neuter them, they will fuck us to death like the Reavers they are. Only now, we really are talking aboot the end of the world here... and we really do know better.

[ mode OFF]

mnem
we've all seen this movie before, and the script is written in blood. 

Whoa there dragon, I said whoa. You're confusing me with someone else. I never mentioned anything about custom chips did I? All I said is that I think Rossman has been given short shift here on this forum when I think it is a noble thing that he is attempting to do. Which ever way you look at it, his arguments do make a lot of sense if everyone just calms down and actually listens to him and check out the legislation that he mentions. Nobody else I see is holding the manufacturers feet to the fire and the blinkered and brainwashed public continue to purchase their products regardless and all that does is give the manufacturers belief that they can get away with almost murder and so they do.
The chips that Rossman was talking about may not be custom-made ones at all because they are listed on websites. I don't know if these are suppliers or manufacturers of these chips but they are listed. If they are custom-made for Apple then they should not appear on any website at all, either for sale or mentioned by part number at all, full stop.

One thing that I have witnessed among family and friends who are so anal about buying products from this brand, they all have 1 thing in common with each other, they all have an OCD about at least one or more things in addition to their blind faith and addiction to this brand that many spend hours queuing outside their stores waiting for the store to open when they announce a new model that they simply must have no matter what the cost is. There has to be correlation or aspect of that mindset that they have found a way of tapping into and is demonstrated by the way certain folk continue to defend them and their practises while saying that does not make them right, and then they still buy their products and by doing so, are allowing the manufacturers to continue to get away from their moral and in many cases legal obligations.

If you don't want people like Rossman doing what little they can to chip away at them, you know for sure that the politicians won't do anything because they are probably benefiting directly in some form or other, then it has to be people power to bring them to their knees and stop buying their products and instead, buy from someone who actually has the guts to treat their customers fairly and if they don't offer a full and proper repair service, will at least allow others to repair their products for them and actively support them by making the relative parts and schematics etc available to them at reasonable costs.

First... sorry, you're right. I should've addressed SS and AVG directly, rather than you. Corrected as above.

Secondly... no, Rossman has not been given short shrift. At least where bd139 and I are concerned, our opinions are the result of deep-down, depth-first research on exactly what Rossman and his PAC are doing. The legislation he promotes is already so watered-down that by the time it comes back from committee, it will be nothing more than our representatives making another gift to the bastards they're supposed to be regulating. Everything I've seen indicates that Rossman and his PAC know this, and I for one don't trust him or them with a penny.

Bottom line is that if we did get this legislation passed, it will be just like when some corporate lawyer offers a check for thousands of dollars to some poor sod who's been exposed to hazardous waste product in exchange for signing away their right to sue later. The corporations will just point to it and whine that they've already made this concession, which we have no means to enforce without costing the taxpayer billions in the long run.

No, we need to stop begging them to do the right thing and start making them clean up their own mess.

mnem
 

[Specmaster]

<snip>
Part of how durable an iDevice really is... is how it is sealed up.
<snip>

The simple answer to that question is if you go by the makers claim, not sealed at all as they often claim that liquid damage has made the product unrepairable and that a new replacement is the only solution. They show photos of the liquid detection devices that have changed their colour as proof, fact is that these can change colour simply by in a high humidity region.  Also add to that the sheer number of people seeking to retrieve thousands of photos from their phones after they have been dropped into water and refuse to switch on. The customer gets told that there is no way to get their photos and data back if it won't switch on, the data etc is gone for good, but they can buy another phone.

Some of those people take their devices to 3rd party repairers who are sometimes successful in getting the device up and running and thus saving the precious photos etc.

[Specmaster]

[ mode ON]

1000x this. This is the problem in a nutshell. Right to Repair nibbles away at one tiny corner of the problem... and as it is being presented right now, it plays into the hands of corporate greed by allowing them to wash their hands of the disposal problem and fitness for purpose problem in one single line item on some random bill. Even if it were successfully passed, it would do nothing except aid and abet the bastards.

Specmaster (sorry ) SilverSolder, AVGresponding... no matter what you think, the nature of modern portable electronics makes custom silicon absolutely necessary. To build the contents of an iPwn out of generic parts would literally make it the size of a netbook computer, or larger. You simply cannot get around this. You're talking like those fanfic writers who suggest that Spock, armed with nothing more than hollow-state technology, really could have conceivably created a suitable replacement for a tricorder. And made it portable. Because we wantzz SteamPunk.

I'm not defending this corporate right-think... I'm saying that as long as we keep obsessing over our trivial little pet peeves without banding together and tackling the big steaming turd in the living room (our society's blind obeisance to the almighty corporation) we are going to continue drowning in a sea of shit.

To continue to expect the corporation do "the right thing" is an exercise in futility; the definition of insanity, etc. The viral, thoughtless consumption that is the source of this corporate right-think, which fuels that sea of shit... it will be the end of the human race, and most of life on earth.

The only way out is to take the power back from the corporation, by whatever means necessary. They have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they cannot be trusted with the power that the articles of incorporation grant to the individuals at the helm; that insulation from the consequence of their horrific actions has to be taken away. There was a reason that through the entire history of humanity (aside from "the raging 20s"; another period when we faced an evil almost identical to this one) that those protections were only granted to the highest levels of government... now we give those protections away to any sack of shit who can afford to hire the prerequisite army of lawyers. We all know which great steaming pile of example I'm talking aboot here.

What I'm saying... is that to expect the almighty corporation to actually "do better" is at best wishful thinking, and at worst conspiring in our own doom. The corporation is at its heart a virally consuming machine with no soul, whose entire existence is to aggregate all wealth unto itself and to protect those who direct it from the repercussions of the crimes they commit.

Until we neuter them, they will fuck us to death like the Reavers they are. Only now, we really are talking aboot the end of the world here... and we really do know better.

[ mode OFF]

mnem
we've all seen this movie before, and the script is written in blood. 

Whoa there dragon, I said whoa. You're confusing me with someone else. I never mentioned anything about custom chips did I? All I said is that I think Rossman has been given short shift here on this forum when I think it is a noble thing that he is attempting to do. Which ever way you look at it, his arguments do make a lot of sense if everyone just calms down and actually listens to him and check out the legislation that he mentions. Nobody else I see is holding the manufacturers feet to the fire and the blinkered and brainwashed public continue to purchase their products regardless and all that does is give the manufacturers belief that they can get away with almost murder and so they do.
The chips that Rossman was talking about may not be custom-made ones at all because they are listed on websites. I don't know if these are suppliers or manufacturers of these chips but they are listed. If they are custom-made for Apple then they should not appear on any website at all, either for sale or mentioned by part number at all, full stop.

One thing that I have witnessed among family and friends who are so anal about buying products from this brand, they all have 1 thing in common with each other, they all have an OCD about at least one or more things in addition to their blind faith and addiction to this brand that many spend hours queuing outside their stores waiting for the store to open when they announce a new model that they simply must have no matter what the cost is. There has to be correlation or aspect of that mindset that they have found a way of tapping into and is demonstrated by the way certain folk continue to defend them and their practises while saying that does not make them right, and then they still buy their products and by doing so, are allowing the manufacturers to continue to get away from their moral and in many cases legal obligations.

If you don't want people like Rossman doing what little they can to chip away at them, you know for sure that the politicians won't do anything because they are probably benefiting directly in some form or other, then it has to be people power to bring them to their knees and stop buying their products and instead, buy from someone who actually has the guts to treat their customers fairly and if they don't offer a full and proper repair service, will at least allow others to repair their products for them and actively support them by making the relative parts and schematics etc available to them at reasonable costs.

First... sorry, you're right. I should've addressed SS and AVG directly, rather than you. Corrected as above.

Secondly... no, Rossman has not been given short shrift. At least where bd139 and I are concerned, our opinions are the result of deep-down, depth-first research on exactly what Rossman and his PAC are doing. The legislation he promotes is already so watered-down that by the time it comes back from committee, it will be nothing more than our representatives making another gift to the bastards they're supposed to be regulating. Everything I've seen indicates that Rossman and his PAC know this, and I for one don't trust him or them with a penny.

Bottom line is that if we did get this legislation passed, it will be just like when some corporate lawyer offers a check for thousands of dollars to some poor sod who's been exposed to hazardous waste product in exchange for signing away their right to sue later. The corporations will just point to it and whine that they've already made this concession, which we have no means to enforce without costing the taxpayer billions in the long run.

No, we need to stop begging them to do the right thing and start making them clean up their own mess.

mnem
 

The only sure fire way of doing that is to stop buying their products until they do clean up their mess. You cannot complain about them and still continue to use their gear, that makes you and everyone else who uses their gear, part of the problem, fact. You have to hit them where it hurts the most, in their wallet.

[mnementh]

Much more important, IMO, will be to make the manufacturer pay up front the real world disposal cost of all this disposable tech.

It is an appealing idea, except for two things:

• the manufacturer won't pay: the customer will. That level of indirection is problematic one way or another
• what should the disposal cost be, and when should it be paid?

Meaningless statements.

The customer ALWAYS pays for EVERYTHING.

Yes, and then the customer actually knows what he's paying for, instead of kicking it down the road for the next generation to deal with. At least an informed decision rather than just the result of being bludgeoned into an insensate fog with advertising.

Baby steps, man.

mnem
 

Just maybe, there would be less kicking it down the road, if products were made with customer expansion in mind rather than forcing them into buying yet another phone / tablet with more built-in memory, once they outgrow its capacity. It only takes the addition of a SD slot and allow the customer to insert what ever memory size SD card they need.

RAM and FLASH are still cheap. I just bought a brand new BLU G91 for my wife; it has 6.5" IPS screen, 4GB RAM, OctoCore ARM processor and 128GB FLASH. It costs US$150 delivered by Amazon direct from the manufacturer. A SD slot is just a panacea for people stuck in the old "RAM IS SO EXPENSIVE!" way of thinking who don't get that expandable RAM & FLASH are little more than a waste of space in a modern tablet PC or smartphone.

Adding a SD slot means now your nice sealed waterproof iPwn has a hole the perfect size to jam a dime directly into its little computer brain.  From a completely engineering standpoint, I really can see the value in making a phone that has zero ports whatsoever. And whether we like it or not, that is going to become a common thing. 

So now comes the much more realistic concern: force those who make the profit pay for the cost of recycling the product up front. THEN they have a vested interest in making it recyclable, and a whole new industry is born: Manufacturing Accountability.

mnem
*toddles off to annoy friends and negatively influence probability in Discord*

[Robert763]

Much more important, IMO, will be to make the manufacturer pay up front the real world disposal cost of all this disposable tech.

It is an appealing idea, except for two things:

• the manufacturer won't pay: the customer will. That level of indirection is problematic one way or another
• what should the disposal cost be, and when should it be paid?

Meaningless statements.

The customer ALWAYS pays for EVERYTHING.

Yes, and then the customer actually knows what he's paying for, instead of kicking it down the road for the next generation to deal with. At least an informed decision rather than just the result of being bludgeoned into an insensate fog with advertising.

Baby steps, man.

mnem
 

Just maybe, there would be less kicking it down the road, if products were made with customer expansion in mind rather than forcing them into buying yet another phone / tablet with more built-in memory, once they outgrow its capacity. It only takes the addition of a SD slot and allow the customer to insert what ever memory size SD card they need.

RAM and FLASH are still cheap. I just bought a brand new BLU G91 for my wife; it has 6.5" IPS screen, 4GB RAM, OctoCore ARM processor and 128GB FLASH. It costs US$150 delivered by Amazon direct from the manufacturer. A SD slot is just a panacea for people stuck in the old "RAM IS SO EXPENSIVE!" way of thinking who don't get that expandable RAM & FLASH are little more than a waste of space in a modern tablet PC or smartphone.

Adding a SD slot means now your nice sealed waterproof iPwn has a hole the perfect size to jam a dime directly into its little computer brain.  From a completely engineering standpoint, I really can see the value in making a phone that has zero ports whatsoever. And whether we like it or not, that is going to become a common thing. 

So now comes the much more realistic concern: force those who make the profit pay for the cost of recycling the product up front. THEN they have a vested interest in making it recyclable, and a whole new industry is born: Manufacturing Accountability.

mnem
*toddles off to annoy friends and negatively influence probability in Discord*

I've keep out of this "discussion" but can't let the comments on SD cards pass.
Most, if not all, phones with microSD card compatibility have a slot they have a tray of sonmesort so nothing to stick a coin or similar into. My Samsung has a sealed tray that maintains water resistance. I  guess you will argue you said SD card not microSD, but that would be silly, no recent phones (or any I can think of) have used full sized SD cards.

The advantage of an SD card is it is somewhere I can store my photos and data that is fairly secure and can be removed and read in another computer even if the phone has died or been smashed.  No,  don't consider the cloud to be secure and accessible for this purpose. I may need the data when the network is not available or my phone is dying.

 

[Kosmic]

I removed them with just the metcal. I wicked off the existing solder then added new leaded 60/40 and then just heated up each row quickly alternating and pulling the OCXO further off slightly each time. Not exactly scientific approach. Hot air would probably be easier.

Thanks for that nugget. I've used the trick of using 60/40 as flux* for 'orrible ROHS solder before. I went through a similar dance as you the last time I had to replace some caps on a hefty multi-layer board (G5 iMac as it happens - the operation was a success, the patient died.).

* More technically correct than our usual collective usage of the word flux in relation to soldering.

Flux ... a substance mixed with a solid to lower its melting point, used especially in soldering and brazing metals or to promote vitrification in glass or ceramics.

For operations like this a roll of chipquick comes in handy. Or look for "Sn42Bi58 solder wire" on aliexpress, if you like it cheap.

You can also use Rose Metal (Sn18Pb32Bi50). I think the mix is similar to what chipquick is offering but a lot cheaper.