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Professor: Young People Are "Lost Generation" Who Can No Longer Fix Gadgets
antdude points out this story about one of the problems with our ever increasingly disposable world. "Young people in Britain have become a lost generation who can no longer mend gadgets and appliances because they have grown up in a disposable world, the professor giving this year's Royal Institution Christmas lectures has warned. Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to 'just work' and have no idea what to do when things go wrong. Unlike previous generations who would ‘make do and mend’ now young people will just chuck out their faulty appliances and buy new ones. But Prof George claims that many broken or outdated gadgets could be fixed or repurposed with only a brief knowledge of engineering and electronics. "
This story is a dupe from my grandfather's generation, who cried about the same thing.
I have detailed technical knowledge. However my time is not worth fixing every small gadget that breaks. If I break a blender, its simply not worth me sourcing parts, waiting, and then spending an hour repairing it.
So it sounds like the marketing pitch is that you want gadgets, just not so integrated that you can't understand/repair them.
Not everything needs to be optimized to a fare-thee-well, with "an app for that".
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I've worked several schools and find this applies to even just using software. They are constantly told their youth is the answer to be being at one with computers but their skills are merely knowing which button to press. To test this change the web browser and watch your support tickets roll in.
Part of the problem could be that so many things are integrated now.
Entry-level audio gear, for instance, tends to use integrated amplifiers -- no longer can you fix easily fix a blown power transistor, as you could with older gear. Same thing with cars -- adjusting the timing on a car was sort of a rite of passage for many, but it's hardly feasible on a new car with computer-controlled everything.
(There's really nothing to be said here. Slashdot just requires writing something in the big box in the mistaken belief that that will somehow create more thoughtful discussion)
Oh sure - if a tiny grain capacitor without marking is failing - I bet the author can't even de-solder it
find the same part and solder it back on
same with BGA chip - ever try desolder a 400 balls BGA chip in your gadget and try to find that chip in your radio shack?
When your toaster costs 20 dollars, how long can it take to take it apart, find the fault and put it together again, before it becomes a huge waste of time?
Or am I just the only one who values his free time? I'll gladly put in new flooring or do some basic plumbing or electricity work, if it saves me the hundreds of dollars a professional would cost, especially when him just driving here costs me a hundred per default. However, many appliances and gadgets cost little enough and can be ordered online... why should I waste my time on that?
Also, electronics are not my thing. So what doesn't have electronics in them?
Seriously, I can't know about each and every niche in life... I know how to forge knives and carve longbows already... do you expect me to make my own shoes as well?
This is why there are no forums full of information of how to replace the screen on your phone or tablet. This is why ifixit.com doesn't exist. This is why you can't order OBD scanners for your car.
It's only a minority of people who are skilled and interested enough to fix things. But that's always been so. It's just that now it's typically cheaper to replace broken things (well, not cars) than call in someone who can fix them, because labor costs for repair are so high compared to initial manufacturing costs.
maybe these infernal new-fangled gadgets are close to impossible to fix, requiring special tools and facilities that papa's john deere did not.
Nullius in verba
Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
surface mount micro tech components is so small that human hands with a soldiering iron can not fix it, and those electronic gadgets and put together so tightly with hidden clasps that snap together that simply taking them apart destroys them unless you are a specialist with those gadgets
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Obviously, when something breaks, you throw it out.
Then you simply download a new one and fire up the old Printerbot or Makerbot!
Duh! Only a LUDDITE can't see that.
It's also a cultural shift - When I was a kid, I remember my dad being down in the basement for hours fixing stuff, working on the car or what have you, while my mum took care of us kids. Now that I'm a dad, I'm out at the park with my kids, or taking them to swimming lessons or just doing general Dad stuff. So while I have the aptitude for fixing stuff (likely inherited from my dad), I don't have the time - I'm busy parenting. It's just not acceptable for a Dad to be down in the basement or the garage for hours on end while the mum upstairs is going insane.
If this effect is real, then it's also being retconned into my parents generation (I'm 31) as well; I think it's more about the changing nature of our technological products and the fact that they are not constructed in a manner conducive to repair.
You are right, this is a generation which can't fix much of its gadgets, but the previous generation can't fix much of the gadgets either. It isn't because they aren't smart either. It is because many of the same gadgets are less mechanical and more digital which does make them smaller and more efficient to run, but also makes it several times harder to repair or change.
For an obligatory car example, a current generation boy with any real upbringing with automobiles can do the basics like changing the oil, tires or breaks, same of the old guys. BUT, a mechanic nowadays will need much more schooling to work with the newer cars compared to the older ones with some of the new technologies as working on the transmission on a 1970's era car is much easier than working on the transmission on a newer car with an electric hybrid transmission.
Same goes for clocks, watches, and other such stuff as many of the gears and such are replaced with circuit boards.
Sure, here's a broken smart phone.
The battery logic failed, it's inflated, it also damaged the SoC.
Have fun reflowing the BGA 0.5mm ~100^2 SoC by hand.
Have fun sourcing the right voltage regulator and lipo charging IC, and have fun finding a replacement battery that will fit inside my iphone/nexus/whatever case.
and most importantly, have fun doing that for less than the cost of a smart phone.
H.G. Wells has given us a glimpse how things might end up for those that cannot create/fix/use anything: meatl
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
This generation doesn't know how to shoe horses. And they're terrible with cave drawings.
This guy is clueless. Large portions of every generation were useless at repairing things.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Devices today are less repairable than ever. Tiny PCBs packed with surface-mount and epoxy-covered wire bonded devices are the norm. Cases are usually cheap plastic with snap-together latches that break right off if you're not careful or don't use a purpose-built prying tool. Batteries are routinely secured with glue or epoxy. Subassemblies are connected with fragile, non-standardized connectors and cables. And even if you overcome all that, you're unlikely to be able to get your hands on key components in most devices because they're only sold directly to OEMs and contract manufacturers, assuming they're sold to third parties at all (e.g. Apple A4/5/6/7). The stuff built by/for the maker movement is definitely cool, but it bears little resemblance to the vast majority of mass-produced electronics.
It's that I don't have the 2mm dodecahexalobe screwdriver to open the device. Or the tools needed for surface mount components. Or access to a supplier of the device's custom designed NAND or other component that has no discernable identifying marks on it.
iPhones won't let you change the battery, and give you a hard time getting to the SIM card. Most other cell phones follow suit.
Want to change providers? You get a free new device.
Fixing tech is better done by Best Buy's Geek Squad since have all of the test devices that you would only use once to find your problem component.
I know a number of people that buy broken shit on ebay, scavenge the working parts and fix another broken model.
But let's be real, by the time most electronics break without warranty applying anymore, it's easier to go out and buy a much superior model. Last time I replaced a notebook battery with an alleged new one, the new battery was as shitty as the old one (I find this to be somewhat common). Only fix that was worth it was replacing a broken phone screen. Let's not mention, one time I was fixing a phone, even though I followed the instructions to the letter, used proper tools, some super tiny capacitor got popped out and the camera ceased working on it.
Last time I got a fridge "fixed" by a pro, (GE Monograms are garbage), he made 3 trips, replaced the motherboard, checked this that and the other thing, before getting so frustrated that he stopped coming. He sent a bill that was close to 1/3 the price of my new fridge, which by the way will save me in electricity over its warranty extended extended lifetime what the old fridge was costing me in price. Of course I didn't pay the repairman, no fix, fuck him and his bill.
There are things worth fixing... but these days even most mechanics can be called parts exchangers rather than fixers. Its not like they take the broken part and remachine it most of the time, out with the old, in with the new. It's just an economic question of how much to replace for the effort.
I see so many people who go: Hurr, Durr, my computer has a virus, I guess I'll just store it or throw it away.
Generally it isn't hard to reinstall an OS. It is a pain, but it isn't hard. And if you get sick of it, install Linux because almost no viruses target Linux.
My dad knows how to fix cars because he grew up in a world of no computers and cars were cool to get into then. I can't fix cars because I got involves in programming and video games.
Am I really supposed to be fiddling with fixing a blender? That sounds near suicidal for someone who isn't trained in it. And how cheap blenders are, there probably isn't a lot of market for a blender repair man either.
God spoke to me
Wasn't it the previous generations that decided that replaceable parts were too expensive? I'm only 32, so I'm pretty sure that it wasn't my generation that started manufacturing everything in a way that makes it cheaper to simply replace the entire unit rather than custom ordering replacement parts...
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Ending is better than mending!
The more stitches, the less riches!
Are there still people out there who haven't read their Brave New World yet?
If the good professor were to venture out to the sticks and (gasp) converse with the provincials, he would find many capable young people that understand mechanisms and basic electrical/electronics. My younger daughter replaced a water pump on her Mazda and only needed to ask me for the Permatex. (wipes away tear) It made Dad proud.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
The Lightbulb conspiracy is a nice documentary about planned obsolescence.
People don't fix things, because those things are DESIGNED to fail. Also, most modern electronic gadgets are not designed to be repaired, and require high-precision equipment (microvolt ohm-meters, micro solder, etc).
I suspect this will change if the price of things increase. Otherwise, we will remain in a throw-away culture for a while.
Since Prof George is (a) under 40 and (b) not a 'he', that seems rather unlikely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Also, we are moving towards a society where working is no longer required. Youths today are perfecioning the art of chatting and consuming. Although such a life style is not my cup of tea, I realise that the alternative would be unemployed peoplen rioting. Governments and corporations will come up with a scheme to keep the masses happy and consuming. We will live in even more interesting times
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
its alot more than just not having the time to fix them even if you could. its the amount of waste generated from disposable tech. it may cost more to make products repairable but it would generate less waste, making them more environmentaly friendly' and save us shipping our shite to 3rd world countries to deal with it.
I have a Samsung computer monitor that isn't properly detected if I use the DVI cable, although the VGA cable works fine. This prevents Mac OS from detecting the monitor, and confuses Windows. (The technical details: it's not transmitting EDID over the DVI connection.)
The quick fix for Windows worked for a while, but a driver update changed how things work and would be constantly confused by that monitor. The proper fix requires opening the monitor, using a multimeter to find what's wrong with the DVI connector, and fixing or replacing it. This is not something you can do on a weekend, as opposed to fixing a larger appliance.
The problem isn't around knowledge, but that it requires equipment not expected to be in a normal home. A house can have tools available to fix large mechanical objects, but not extremely delicate electronics that require an electron scanning microscope to properly fix. The repair costs for devices usually indicate that the whole device has gone bad as opposed to an easily swapped component, meaning the manufacturers also have trouble getting things to work as well.
I tried once to fix a monitor with SMDs with a standard soldering iron. I made a mess of the board - even though I was replacing the big old can caps.
Then there is ordering parts. Most of the electronic supply places have minimums. And those parts bags? Please. Junk. And I have better things to do than sort through every component - mostly weighted down by these huge power caps. Googling numbers on them doesn't yield much. But I'm not an electronics expert - just a hobbyist so take my complaints with a bead of solder.
And then there is the pricing of replacement parts by the manufacturer.
To make a long story short, my father is a manufacturing engineer. What they make for $1 - out the door, they sell it to the consumer, who wants to replace that part for $35 - while the whole unit is $50.
Or look at Norelco shavers. You can buy a shaver for less than $30. The replacement blade set is $30 - HQ8.
Manufacturers PLAN that you will throw away the product and buy a new one.
Like Communism. Making work for the sake of work; or in the case of Capitalism; work for the sale of profits.
You damn kids. Harumph.
when you open the latest gadget, it's black boxes, nothing that you can see working, or replace without just desoldering a chip.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
So when my laptop fries up I can't repair it with my Snap-On collection of wrenches. So, when something like a laptop fries, I go buy another one. I never buy new - I buy used ones for cheap. I'm not going to fix my laptop or microwave oven or telephone. To imply that I should is stupid.
If that kind of throw-away society is suboptimal for the professor, then the problem is the *throw-away society*, not some deskilling operation.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Gadget wanted an upgrade anyway and it failing is just a convenient excuse. My current TV's a good example. It's a 42" CRT I got with a tax refund back in '99. It's an early HDTV that doesn't have HDMI connectors. I'm just waiting for it to die for the excuse to upgrade to a larger 1080p flat panel. The only reason I haven't already is I'd want to do my entire media platform in the living room, which is really more effort than I care to put in until I have to.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My younger sister threw a perfectly good contractor's extension cord in the trash because the insulation was broken at a spot in the middle.
I pulled the extension cord out of the trash, cut it in two at the broken spot, bought a socket and a receptacle, and now I have two excellent extension cords for a very low price.
Because, in fact, most everything does "just work." And, the cost of the parts that need replacing makes repair uneconomical. And a new one does much more than the broken one ever did. And a new one uses less electricity. And who needs a crock pot anyway?
...was supposed to be the US' economic saviour after WWII. It worked for a while but then grew into what we have now. Some people even believe we can save our environment through consumerism. To sum up some of the comments so far:
Consumer items are not built to last longer than their warranty so that consumers continue to buy more, more frequently.
Consumer items have become more delicate and more complicated over time and so easier to break and harder to fix.
Teaching and/or encouraging people to "make do and mend" is in direct contradiction to consumerism and is unlikely to be tolerated.
If too many people stop buying things, the economy will suffer.
The world, its chemistry, its physical nature, is changing dramatically because we measure and value our success according to how quickly we can dig stuff out of the ground and turn it into pollution.
In my day when a CPU stopped working we got out out microscopes and fixed it!
For one, many of the most common consumer devices are designed not to be repairable. That's the Apple model of things.
Young people generally won't own a house until well past their 30th birthday. For some, the dream will never come. For their entire lives, they've rented and ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX THINGS! If you're not allowed even to put holes in the wall, you're not going to know how to install an electrical junction box. If maintenance is just a quick call away, you're not going to spend your afternoon fixing the sink--doubly so because if you break something, your landlord may keep a huge chunk of your security deposit as a penalty posing as damage.
"Gadgets" today are about 100x more complex than they were even 10 years ago, and often specifically designed to *prevent* tinkering and modification. This even includes "basic" devices like refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, clothes washers, and cars.
Some things don't want to be fixed, like the Krupps toaster oven I have with the buttons that barely work... I fix all kinds of things so I figured the toaster oven would be a no-brainer. I tried to take it apart but it refused. It cut me, made me bleed, and then parts of it dented, and it still wouldn't come apart... It's a no-win... A new one is over $250. So we put up with it.
My son, however, takes big flat screen TVs from the electronics recyclers and tries to fix them. Usually it's a half dozen or so capacitors on the power supply card... Then he sells them locally. He also takes cheap garage sale android phones and has a good fix rate resoldering the micro-usb connectors...
Some kids are entrepreneurial.
I accidentally dropped my kettle breaking the switch. I thought it would be easy to just unscrew the base, and reinsert it. Except it was screwed with what I later learned were tamper proof screws. I could buy the screwdriver online, but with the cost, postage, one off use, and three days without cups of tea I just bought a new one.
If not outright forbidden to do so. We live in a time where not only things get complicated enough that you'd need to study everything you want to fix for a while before you could even start finding out what's broken, more often than not some legalese bullshit is thrown between your legs where you may not even start working on something you allegedly bought. You see, back in my days we did something funny with the stuff we bought: We "owned" it. It meant that we could do whatever we damn well please with the stuff we bought. No such luck anymore, the more technology your gadgets contain and the more gimmicky it is, the higher the chance that you must not do anything but use it in whatever fashion the creator wants you to. No tinkering, no "fixing", no improving, and sure as HELL no talking about doing any of that!
Most technical appliances are actually defect at delivery. They refuse to do what you want, like, say, you buy a new game console and it doesn't play whatever you want it to play, despite the technical capability. You must now not go and fix the defect so it would do what you want it to do. In some countries it's even already an offense that could cost you a nasty fine or even land you in jail to fix your broken device. Let alone do it for others.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, they are a lost generation. Because to tinker usually requires a disposable item, where in my house my parents were so cheap I couldn't touch anything till it was beyond all hope. I can tinker if I can afford to screw up, but at my age I am luckly to even find an actual paying job, and if I do it usually has to do with retail where STEM skills are outright ignored. Add to that the walled gardens and tinker-unfriendly architectures many devices your generation favored to make, I can't afford to mess with my gadget without fear of being locked out or being arrested for godsakes.
Not to mention the state of education is so deplorable these days that universities are nothing but retirement communities supported by the young begging for a recommendations. Either professors are too lazy to put effort into their course-plan or they're too impatient they just resort to teaching weed-out courses. Maybe I am being to harsh, but seriously what have you academic fuckheads have done in the past 20 years that have helped our economy? You're living on borrowed time if you think you can charge tuition prices far above what your students will be down right lucky to earn if they can catch and keep a career. You really think you're going to have an ivy-league endowment if you keep charging for student loans rather than encouraging donations, or dare I say actually putting effort in helping your students network.
Yeah, education is important, but most classes have devolved into getting students interested in abstract theory of things sliding down ramps, rather than paying enough for decent experimental equipment where students can learn directly from nature without fear of having to pay for lab equipment. By the way, how many jobs these days care if I know Ohm's Law but not AutoCAD?
"Prof George claims that many broken or outdated gadgets could be fixed or repurposed with only a brief knowledge of engineering and electronics."
How fucking old are you? Short from a clean room and some knowledge of photolithography, you are not going to fix anything that's smaller than the human eye can see. Why would I waste my time when you are already wasting my time having me work 10 hours on a minimum wage job that requires no skill when you should have retired thirty years ago from your job!
Speak for yourself asshole... I'm under 40 and can fix damned near anything. So can my kid. We just got done rebuilding a 50yr old tractor together.
Most people of any generation are useless meat puppets that seem to exist for the sole purpose of consuming celebrity gossip. We need them to blow their money on useless crap so technology and industry can advance and allow those of us with an IQ about 80 can have new tools to play with.
If you survive, you'll be a grand master fix it person.
I'd seen some young uns asking what time it was with a standard dial clock nearby. I learned that the new kids can't tell time from a clock with Dials, Digital only. This would at least result it now knowing clockwise , from counter clockwise. This seems disconcerting, Chirality starts with Right Hand, left hand... But... are we to only know what a Business Informatics tells us? Is symmetry part of the toolbox for a critical thinker these days? THats a tough one to lose. Took apart the washing machine to clean out the rubber boot/sump in the Frigidaire front loader. Eek... stinky work. No kids wanted to see.No more self sufficiency. Does anyone gage our success in WWII as being due to out-producing tools of War? Is the notion of a sovereign nation antiquated itself?
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
When the poo hits the fan and "civilization" collapses, they'll be good feed stock (as in dinner) for those of us who know how to actually do things.
They want us to teach friendlier, softer engineering to undergraduates, so we tend to really low-ball it on how hard the material is. It concerns me deeply.
What about common issues with plumbing or electricity in the household? Today it can cost an easy $100 just to have a plumber or electrician come out and fix a SMALL repair (bigger repairs are even MORE $$$).
Case in point ... Over the recent holidays, I replaced a shower diverter (Moen posi-temp), fixed a squeeky and smelly idler pully in a clothes dryer, fixed a non-working water softener, and replaced a temperature-pressure valce on a water heater (as well as draine it). Total cost of repairs: $85. Total cost of labor: $0. Had I called a plumber and an appliance repair person, it would have cost >$500 to fix all those things. And who is to say they wouldn't have tried to up-sell me in the process.
The GOOD thing about today is that ALL of those things I fixed were easily pulled off of YouTube videos that made the job a lot easier to understand. So if anything, today's youth have a distinct advantage.
I mean, look at what they do with Casio watches and cell phones ...
Oh, wait he's saying it's the kids fault?! Sounds legit.
Most gadgets/appliances these days are designed NOT to be repaired. Finding parts is often a royal nightmare, opening the gadget/appliance often results in damage and even if you can find the parts & get the appliance open its almost cheaper to buy a new one. A while back we had a washer's control board fry (likely a lightning strike), a few screws and unpluging a few connections was all that was needed to extract it from the machine. However after an exhaustive search we found a replacement board for it but it was over $400 for a washer you could buy $600 new. There are sometimes exceptions (I repaired a cracked screen on a $700 laptop for $125) but unfortunately these days more often than not its cheaper, safer, more time saving & easier to toss your broken gadget/appliance and get a new one.
Or: This is somewhat true now and it was somewhat true generations ago.
I don't know about Brits, but two generations ago most American kids didn't learn how to diagnose and repair mechanical equipment beyond an obvious simple thing like a broken bolt or using Elmer's Wood Glue and clamps to repair wood furniture. Yes, they still taught "shop class" and "home economics" but they weren't required like it was in the 50s or 60s.
Repairing a lawnmower engine or the non-integrated-circuit inside parts of a 1970s television or radio? Fuggetaboutit, that's what repair shops are for.
Today, most high school graduates either have or - by using Google - could figure out how to safely and effectively replace a light switch, repair a broken kitchen sink knob, replace (but not repair) a broken garbage disposal without calling a plumber, or assemble a "some assembly required" bookshelf.
But, like those who grew up in the 70s, only a few could handle more complex repairs.
Then of course there are things that fall in the "No Reassemble" category - once they are broken, you can't fix them without specialized tools and/or advance training. Integrated circuits and most things made out of thin glass like light bulbs fall into this category. I would also put surface-mount-technology computer boards in this category even though in theory you can repair these without specialized training or tools, in practical terms it's rarely cost-effective.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I have often spent more time and money repairing something when it would have been much easier and cheaper to replace it. I am 67 and from the generation just after the Great Depression and I guess I learned that sort of frugality, or perhaps now false frugality from them. However, my late wife used to lament that I never just fixed something I would redesign or re-engineer it. And, yes I am an engineer.
At my job I've had to re-cap every LCD monitor we bought in 2006 and 2007.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If you have a nonworking computer in your car, you don't pay someone to spend hours looking at the circuit board. You get another one at the junk yard for $100 pulled off of a wrecked car, toss it in, and see if it works. You don't care why something doesn't work, just that it doesn't work.
Almost all electronics can be fixed, but it should only be done when it makes economic sense. Otherwise, the electronics should be disposed of properly, hopefully recycled.
If it doesn't make economic sense to fix an electronic device, then young people should be spending their time outside playing, or if they're older, getting more exercise.
We have something in our society called division of labor. Everybody depends upon everybody else to survive, but if we're all doing what we're best at then our leisure time is maximized. [Obviously that is how an ideal society would function and we have a long way to go.]
Maybe this generation can't fix things, but there's a bright and engaging future opening up with tabletop 3D printing. While integrated circuits might have pushed most electronics beyond the practical realm of 'fixable', the next generation is going to be more familiar with the design, construction, and manufacturing of the things they use than before.
For example, it is trivial to fix nearly all smart phones and tablets. Upgrades are hard but googlebis working on that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm using the word "idiot" as a hyperbole to refer to "people naturally disinterested in anything remotely techncal." Most people are this kind of idiot. Scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, architects, writers, and others who think abstractly are RARE.
Perpetually, many who ARE interested in technical things lament that those people seem to have missed out on the right opportunities or education, which is a sad, sad thing. The truth is that MOST people who are naturally inclined to care about technical things will learn technical things. Sure, there's the occasional person who is otherwise missed, but mostly, those efforts to educate disinterested people in technical things result only in incompetent, disinterested people CLAIMING to know technical things. Force someone disinterested to memorize a bunch of technical facts, and all they'll ever know is a bunch of disconnected facts. This does not lead to competence. Really, they still don't care and pretty much don't get it and would be better off, for everyone's sake, doing something else. You can't MAKE someone think abstractly; it's either present as a talent, or it's not.
That does not imply that everyone with abstract thinking ability will be competent. You also have to have passion for something. That's rare too.
It is not the labor costs that have skyrocketed. It is the taxes that are being collected and they creeped in and their effect has a ripple inflationary impact where due to the taxation and regulation certain things just do not make sense anymore. I know it is not a popular speech, and I always wondered why nobody wants to talk it.
And i am not talking abou the taxes that are taken from my paycheck directly, which is 43%, in my case (fed, state, city). There are less direct taxes on the property and capital gains, which I also pay.
Now there are true indirect taxes which represent the taxes which you are paying when you get services and goods from others, that are raising the prices of services of the people who are providing them, for they also need to pay taxes on the services provided or value created, or buy services that are mandated and recognized as taxes for they are unavoidable (aka Obamacare). This price inflation has a ripple effect and is further passed through economy.
In my situation (and I do realize that there are individuals who are different), Simple mathematical calculation, Lim f (individual tax rate) = overal taxation burden, shows that, again this is my case, approximately 85% of my income is given back as taxes, which is overall taxation burden. This trend can be repeated for the rest of the economy which is driven and fueled by governmental taxation, waste and spending, and government will never be as efficient as private individual, not even close.
That is the reason why it is cheaper to have to buy something manufactured by robots and bio-robots, rather than pay someone a salary and 80% taxes on top of it.
Have you noticed that in less taxed communities (some erroneously call them less developed societies), where taxation is virtualy non-existent, people do take care of their things and do fix them.
It's more like, every new gadget these days are made to be throw able with barely any self-serviceable parts (like every phones, tablet.. that you can't take the battery out or any Apple products)
I'm 25, If I can repair my gadgets, I will, but if the procedure to repair it involves me having to pry away the screen, that's glued on the bezel, which then require me to buy more strips of glue to replace it back on and if I'm not careful I basically end up with a duds because of how cheaply made everything is made... Well I won't even bother with it. I'll take it apart for fun, breaking it even more and not spend 5 hours opening it carefully just to solder that one part that came off... only to have to spend 2/3 of the cost of the product to buy the replacement glue and other parts that were destroying due to poor design and not made to be open once assembled, ever.
To be honest, my first thought was this: Age of machine + cost of repair vs cost of new machine and found it wasn't worth getting a repairman out here, probably once to figure out what's wrong and once to fix and it wasn't worth the struggle to deliver 70kg to a repair shop and return it afterwards. I almost ordered a new one but then I figured, what the hell I could maybe manage to swap a broken transmission belt so I unscrewed the back lid. Turns out it had just jumped off from years of spinning, didn't even need a replacement part. Simple mechanical devices where a filter is clogged or the machinery needs oil is worth a look. Flaky electronics on the other hand, forget about it. It's mostly one big integrated lump of circuits that either works or it doesn't. And small, cheap or old appliances just aren't worth the effort as fixing cheap plastic or a bad solder might only last a short while longer as where there's one fault there's probably more poor QA.
People used to mend socks because cloth was really expensive and involved a lot of manual processes to make. Today I can get a year's supply from an hour's wages so why bother? Yeah I'm less self-sufficient but let's face it without the grocery store I'd starve so if it comes down to the basics it's not all that essential. In fact mostly useless if the electricity is dead. So if having those skills don't do me much good today and don't do me much good in the post-zombie apocalypse so why would I do it? It'd be a hobby. Nothing wrong with having hobbies, but they're a leisure activity that you do if you feel like it. For me that sounds a lot like maintenance and repair, which I hate in general. I hate housekeeping and I hate changing broken light bulbs just to maintain the status quo. Making broken shit work(ish) sounds like work, not fun.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Regardless of your skill, some devices are designed to be throwaway
Some are assembled with glue or welding
Some are completely encased in plastic by potting or overmolding
Some components, like ICs in BGA packaging, cannot easily be replaced with common tools
Many manufacturers don't offer repair parts..at any price
Sometimes, manufacturers grind off the identifying information on common parts to make repair and reverse engineering more difficult
Schematics and repair manuals are often completely unavailable, or very expensive
Many products require special tools that are unavailable at any price
Even if you have the skill to build your own tools, software interface documentation is rarely available, and often the interface is obfuscated
I have been building stuff, fixing stuff and reverse engineering stuff for many, many years
Yes, I agree that fixing stuff is a valuable skill that should be taught and not allowed to die
But, much of the fault lies with the manufacturers who aggressively resist any attempt by users to gain control over their devices
This practice should be illegal, we should have the legal right to fix stuff we own if we have the knowledge to do so
I mean, why should we buy phones that we can't change the battery in the first place?
It's like buying a knife that we can not sharpen ourselves, or a bicycle that we can't change a flat tire
The whole idea is so ridiculous but yet HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MORONS lined up to buy stuffs that they are defective in its design !
My uncle says that about people under 60 and he's mostly right.
One example is that even tradespeople are acting this way. The amount of waste from building sites is staggering. While previously offcuts were saved for when short bits were needed, or were joined together, now the materials are much cheaper than the time cost of sorting or joining.
Trouble is, a lot of today's appliances aren't worth fixing. I junked a blender recently. Problem? plastic coupling between the motor and the blades. What's that you say? Machine a new one out of metal? OK maybe... if the motor didn't already spark and smell like ozone when making one smoothie. No, crushing ice was not pushing this thing. It was specifically advertised as being OK with that. It was just. A piece. Of crap. Now a BlendTec, that'd be worth servicing... but even the consumer version is $400.00. Many of us can't afford that, or we rationalize the 5-year disposable $40 blender as potentially cheaper even though trashing things is somehow less satisfying. There is no pride in ownership when there's no pride in manufacturing. This is by design. The companies don't want people fixing things. Everybody knows it.
Maybe that's why the younger generation is more interested in making. If companies won't put pride in manufacturing, maybe individuals will.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You can still find that $1 part that brings down the $1000 machine and fix it yourself but the opportunities to do that are becoming fewer and fewer. This is why I'd rather run multiple older computers purchased second-hand than have the latest laptop. With the old gear I can repair and reconfigure it, put Linux on it and set it up to serve a given function for our entire household. If something dies I can always temporarily cannibalise a less important server until I have the parts to bring everything back on-line. I also have the benefit of part trickle-down where upgrades on the higher performing systems free up parts for lower level servers or functional units. The only negative that matters much to me is the additional power usage that multiple old systems cause.
My television is old. I bought it in 1994 for about a $1000. It wasn't top of the line, but it was above average. It's a 32" with the square corners which means that it's the same size as a 31" with rounded corners. It has a 4:3 aspect ratio. Nowadays, you can get a 42" TV with a 16:9 aspect ratio for $400. That's a TV that is at least as big in every dimension as mine, but instead of having black bars at the top and bottom to fit a 16:9 image, widescreen media will use the whole screen. A 4:3 show will be the same size as my current screen (with black bars on either side to fill out the rest of the screen).
So if it would cost $400 to repair my television, should I? Or should I just get a better television? And my TV is the appliance that is most likely to be fixable. I'd never try to fix a DVD player. I might try to get my Kindle fixed, but that's mainly because they don't make them without touch screens anymore. I've been toying with the idea of getting my router fixed, but that's because I've heard that it's a problem that can be fixed in such a way that it's not likely to go bad again for a long time. I.e. the fixed version may be more durable than a new one.
The typical consumer device is not worth fixing. If you pay yourself or someone else a reasonable wage, it's cheaper to just get a new device. And in a lot of cases, the new device will be better.
Like an awful lot of people I know, I actually enjoy understanding how things work and solving problems. When I was a teenager, I used to repair things for money. On an average day, I could repair 10 TVs and a few video recorders without reaching a sweat. I can honestly say that the 5 years worth of Saturdays I spent doing this to help me though Secondary and Tertiary education was awesome fun. It made me enough money to buy my first car and PC, which lead to even more tinkering!
I suspect that the way we live our lives means that very few people who are technical enough to understand how to repair things, be it a gadget or your neighbours 20 year old car can rationalise the cost in time it takes to do so. I would venture that this has a knock on effect, as those skills don't get communicated to the kids who have been press ganged into action with a wrench, welder or the cold end of a soldering iron.
It is a crying shame to see so much useful equipment in the local land fill site or metal yard. Having said that, I have seen the rather unpleasant underbelly of tinkering. Before the UK laws were tightened up,anyone could effect home wiring repairs; what this lead to was an unholy mass of cruddy electrical wiring in homes up and down the land. I have also seen repair work on cars that is more hiding the full horrors of the structural and mechanical degradation than actually resolving it. During my days as a repair boy, I also saw plainly deadly repairs that people had undertaken with bits of tin foil and good intentions. Obviously, this is not all due to tinkerers, but a fair share of the blame can be levelled here.
I would say that with common sense, tinkering is a joyful endeavour that is its own reward. At least until EVERYONE finds out that you are the guy to go and talk to...
As for the next generation, I'm hopeful that the resurgence in hackable electronics like Arduino and newly accessible technologies like 3D printing will bring a renaissance in how we interact with technology.
Well: corporate manufacturing bids out components to attain the cheapest by a fractional cent costs – often from 3rd world suppliers using sub-par components final goods are specifically designed to wear out requiring replacement – Labor costs of actually fixing broken things exceeds the cost of just buying new one cheap ass ones. Consumers perpetuate the problem by refusing to pay more for reliable items. This results in the growth of Walmart and the decline of high quality merchants outside of boutique locations or niche markets Hell, look at the GM V6 – the home garage mechanic can’t even replace the spark plugs because the motor needs to rocket for plug access. Now – combine all these trends and this twit author is going to somehow blame people who grew up in a post disposable world? I’ll bet his house is filled with new cheap disposable shit too. So, rather than spending your weekend screwing with some $40 vacuum that broke, throw it, buy a new one and spend some quality time with your kids. Go fishing, teach them something, go have fun - They'll be better off and so will you.
Even from an early age I was curious to see how things worked, often taking things apart to see the insides, sometimes to the point of destruction but I grew competant in being able to take them apart and put them back together without damage, then further to that I discovered that I could fix certain things, usually those that seemed obvious when looking at them and then using learned knowledge of components and what to test to see what worked and what didn't.
It seems to me that too many people just aren't curious enough to find out what's in the magic box and how the magic box works, maybe because I'm on the Autistic Spectrum this has fuelled my curiosity, but despite the downsides of that it's gained me some high regard in some people's minds because I've been able to fix things that to them seemed impossible or expensive if they took it to a dedicated repair service.
Like a few months ago my brother gave me his 32" TV because it 'died', turned out one of the backlight transformers had failed, it cost less than £6 for that part off eBay and once it arrived I had it fixed in minutes, though the initial diagnosis took quite a bit of time. Now my mother has a nice new TV because I couldn't use it, the refresh rate wasn't high enough for my liking.
And just last night a friend had a laptop that wouldn't charge up anymore, which I fixed by re-soldering the power connector pins on the motherboard. I did it for nothing but was given some money as they were so greatful.
People need to learn to be more curious and to question things.
This is the trend I've seen recently. Everything is designed to be sealed and not repairable as their business model absolutely depends on people replacing shit every year. Sorry but I'm quite willing to pay just a tad more for quality hardware that I can actually fix when it breaks.
This is just one of the reasons I wont buy much of the crap sold at walmart. You can't fix it and the shit is designed so that it can't be fixed when it breaks as Walmarts profits depends on selling more cheaply made Chineses crap.
I once tried to fix the stereo in my car and somehow managed to turn the entire vehicle into a time machine.
see subject
In the current world, it often costs more to repair something than to replace it. The only reason people will avoid attempting repairs is because replacement is more economical. There seem to be far more people familiar with repairing stuff now than ever before, especially with so many decent guides on the internet.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
When I was a kid most of the stuff one would buy was crap, if it did work it didn't do much and more often than not it either didn't work or didn't work for long.
If I were to bike any great distance there was a good chance that I would need to at least fiddle my bike a bit or maybe even fix it. Definitely I had to regularly adjust and fix my bike. But my nieces and nephews bikes just go on and on working just fine. So in that extremely infrequent occasion when it needs some work they just have the bike shop do it (which would have cost too much in my childhood).
My first computer which was a VIC-20 didn't even come with storage when I got it. Thus any program I wanted I typed in, played with, and when the computer was turned off it vanished. Eventually I got a tape drive and was a marvel. The floppy drive for my C64 was completely over the top.
Then with the first PC we all had to fiddle with the config.sys to squeeze that extra few K that was needed for some program or a sound driver needed for another.
So all these experiences have turned me into somewhat of a technological hill-billy. I am perfectly happy to resolder a failed headphone jack in my laptop or replace a capacitor in a failed monitor. I will make the programs I want using languages ranging from Python to C++ and have zero problems creating fantastically strong replacement parts with just invented composites based on such products as JB Weld. My electric razor had a great cutting mechanism but the battery just wasn't good enough. So rebuilt it using a pair of 18650s and a heat sync to help defend the now slightly overworked DC motor. It isn't a proper Christmas nativity if the star isn't a green laser pointer controlled by an arduino and some 9g servos.
So in my world fixing things, improving things, salvaging things, and making things better are all an overlapping concept. I rented a car this weekend and it was a pile of crap GMC with OnStar. It was all I could do to stop myself from going under the hood to rip the onstar clean out of whatever sewage pit they kept it in and just reinstall it moments before returning the car.
Most of the people around me though stare at me funny when I rip apart an old all-in-one printer in 5 minutes so that I can extract those excellent 10mm rods. Or when I can take a faulty iPhone apart in a restaurant after the person complains of only ever getting 1 signal dot anymore and just wiggling the antenna wire returning them to 5 dot nirvana. As I am simply not taken aback by faulty gadgets or machines, yet I see many people use a cracked screen as an excuse for a phone upgrade.
But this is not just a younger generation thing. I think in the generation before me it was just as bad. They simply didn't have the tools to fix things like their reel to reel tape machines and things broke so fast that it pretty much wasn't worth the effort to fix them. A typical 1970s car that came with any features usually lost those features one by one very quickly. I can remember many cars from my early childhood where the power windows were dead, heater was dead, brakes made funny noises, the car backfired, the car wouldn't shut down when the key was turned off, etc. And these were cars that were only a few years old. But the problem wasn't something that a little fiddle could fix. These were fundamental problems such as all the wiring being wildly susceptible to corrosion; resulting in the car being beyond any reasonable repair. This too resulted in a generation of people who were largely incapable of fixing things.
But lastly it is almost certainly economics. In the 70s things were changing so quickly that in many cases it was better not to fix it but to buy the new and improved version. Now it might not be worth the time and money to fix things. I have collected a bunch of nice tools and skills for fixing things. I have various glues and epoxies. I have nearly every conceivable small screwdriver. I have soldering stations. But I also have so many years of experience
My toaster has an IQ of 4000, it should be smart enough to fix itself.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
What I've found is that there are a lot of people who right off hand know how to do things these days. HOWEVER, for those actually wiling to try, the internet (and mostly Youtube) has generated a ton of reference material to learn how to do all sorts of things.
Replace an element on my water heater? Youtubed it.
Replace the fan motor for the AC in my car? Youtube.
Install an LGA771 processor in a LGA775 motherboard? Youtube.
Tap an existing power outlet to wire in an overhead light and switch to my garage? Youtube.
As I said - most people don't just know how to do as much as they used to - but if you have any desire whatsoever to LEARN it's a great time to be alive.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
My friend had a car in the 1970's having 2 spark plugs which could not be replaced without lifting the engine. I had a 1974 Subaru with a broken tail lens. I found the lens for a 1973, but holes were in different spot. When I redrilled new holes and put the old lends in, the lens cracked. This was designed to fail.
It's sadly not just cars. I think every designer should have to prototype a product and then have to try to field repair it before they put things into production. I have done furnace repairs where to change a simple hot surface ignitor or to clean a flame sense you have to dismantle half the furnace. Typically these are held in with one screw to keep in place. Why some furnaces are made so bad I have no idea. Anyone with half a brain should think 'hey, what parts might need changing?' and make it easy to get to.
I had one of those LED light bulbs and it stopped working one day. Since I'm 44, I was able to fix it with a soldering iron.
Obviously this means that society is in decline.
Exclusively polling people over 50 each generation over the last several thousand years would lead us to believe that society has been in steady decline during that entire period of time--which obviously contradicts the trends of every objective measure of human quality of life & productivity. This itself is the single most compelling evidence I've seen that people get stupider as they age.
As someone pushing 40 I can say without equivocation that I've seen no evidence which suggests a decline in the intellectual capacity, work ethic, or general productivity in younger generations--I'm consistently impressed by most young people I meet and in particular by how well prepared they are for the world they live in, which isn't the same as the world 50 years ago so I'm not sure why we're surprised that some new skills are emphasized while others have atrophied.
Wow, I'm in love.
I actually have tools to fix circuit boards. And yeah I can sometimes fix something and it's worth while. But a normal person isn't going to want to invest not only the cost of the tools, but the time to learn the skills and techniques, do that on the off chance that something electronic breaks is going to fixable.
Car stuff.... I can so a fair amount of things. But mostly I can't work as fast as an auto mechanic with a lift and an engine analyzer. And finally I'm old enough to remember old cars. And I've heard tails from my dad and uncle who was born in 1922 of cars that requed valve adjustments ever 4000 miles. Old 30's era cars that required the brakes be adjusted, and a minor overhaul every 25,000 miles.
Stuff just doesn't break like it used to, unless you by crap, and then it's not worth fixing.
Me: Physicist who is very happy to be born 1975, and see the best of both worlds, hardware and software. I can use all devices you find in any electronics lab and used >10 programming languages.
There are several factors contributing to his impression. The time since we finally understood electromagnetism and built amplifiers/switches was very homogeneous in terms of technological development. We uses AM/FM for nearly hundred years - basically you can use the very first tube radios to receive the music from your fm transmitter you use to transmit to the radio in your car (hopefully only where it's legal!). So that means that for hundred years, you designed an antenna, a filter, maybe an oscillator and a mixer, another amplifier. In the LF-World it was even simpler. Give me an oscilloscope and a probe, and i find where the amplifier is broken. You could start learning this as soon as you learned how to read (i did).. The devices were expensive (buying a television was a big decision back when i was a child, and would reduce the monthly savings of a family below zero, or if you had a low wage you had actually to save to buy it. The same is true for audio equipment and computers (the computers i buy actually get cheaper each time). This meant that every device actually had a circuit diagram contained. You open the radio from 1920 (i found one), wonder what is broken, an find a circuit diagram inside. Our television actually had a circuit diagram with checkpoints and illustrated waveforms which you should see on the oscilloscope, and a list of parts/modules which typically would distort the signal. Yes, that was for free inside an envelope stuck inside the back cover of the device. So instead of inventing special screws, glueing things together to save the last 0.01cent during manufacturing, and only giving service manual to "selected partners" the manufacturers actually helped you maintain the value of the device. We had that television for 20 years, and it was repaired one time.
So what happens now?
a) There is a big change in technology, which is now stabilized yet, so there is not equivalent of the "standard electronics workbench", which costed $5000. There may be a JTAG standard for actually diagnosing devices, but no standard connector but usually a few spots on the PCB, undocumented. And no manufactuer actually tells you and promises you anything about it.
b) manufacturers donâ(TM)t like to give out access to software, or even diagnosis tools. Partially because of legal reasons, I suppose.
c) I make the observation that bricking by damaged firmware is a substantial fraction of the devices which really fail hard (in my case 2x embedded controllers in thinkpads and one google chromecast, and one time some embedded firmware in an ACER Laptop). One should say that statefulness is a curse if you try to fix things.
d) Taken aside a bluetooth headset and an MP3 player which were fried by a bad USB power supply, i did not observe any personal hardware failing. The only computers which i saw the hardware failing of at work were a few intel Boards with bad capacitors
e) The discrete analog part of the circuits get smaller and smaller.
So up to now this professor was pampered in EE with people who all did analog electronics as a hobby, a very homogenous group who all learned the same technologies. Now he is confronted whit people to whom this knowledge is not valuable because of the world they live in. But they are probably better in programming and fixing software, potentially even hacking the firmware of devices. So on modern devices they may actually fix more than he could. Sure, he may be able to re-solder the broken connector, but instead of asking that his students can follow him from day 1 in using the oscilloscope, he should accept that the mix of students has changed to more software expertes, as have the device functions changes software-defined functions; the EE course anyway should contain a lab-course which give you the basic knowledge. People who change the
Dealer Quote $550
Back Street Guy $300
DIY $67 - Time taken 20mins (+1h of internet research and ordering)
+Tax on all those numbers
(Nissan Altima 2013)
and I had never replaxed a car mirror before, later in the year a replaced one on a Honda CRV for $15, but in that case I did not need to replace the housing..
Our kids are going to find life very expensive relative to income.
Rather than whining about it, start a Fixit Clinic in your town. It's great fun, and everybody learns from it. You can ask the guy at that webpage how to do it, it's pretty simple, but he has good tips.
Once the device which caused the fire is determined as being "self-fixed" the fun with an insurance company and possibly even police starts. Also, many trivial devices simply don't have spares available. Only larger, good brand house hold appliances can be trusted to have spare parts available after 10 or 15 years. And those shouldn't be messed with unless the user is willing to buy a new one right away as they are starting to be as complicated and closed as modern cars.
Because they're all ate up with viruses. Their iPhones and Android devices have more bugs than ours, too, for some reason. We learn how to fix things, they're just different.
I find it ironic that the generation that started pushing cheap, unmaintainable gadgets to the consumer 'to save costs' now complain that we do not fix our own stuff anymore.
Fuck you, babyboomers.
Geek runner, motorcyclist and professional know-it-all
If the "older generation" can fix stuff and the younger one can't, then why am I constantly fixing my parents' computer when it goes wonky?
Oh, wait, you're talking about a world filled with mechanical gadgets where "fixing" is the gross replacement of some broken part. Personally, I live in a world chock-full of pre-assembled crap that's not built to ever BE repaired, just replaced along it's planned obsolescence track.
-Styopa
try moving to a third world country, nothing is thrown away and crazy whacked out stuff are recycled everyday. When was washing machine or oven is 1/3 to 1/4 of your yearly income you try to learn or find someone who can fix anything.
BS. The only thing so far I can't replace are the components INSIDE the damn PCB board. (these exist, fucking annoying. If anyone knows how to get to them without breaking shit I'd like to hear). Granted, big BGAs with tiny pitch are a pain. A huge pain. Almost undoable. Unless you really really want to. Or have the correct equipment to desolder and reball them. 01005 components are doable with microscope and very pointy soldering iron. And good tweezers.
It looks like the new generation of British men have been turned into women.
Fixing shit is for the chinese. I dont have time for this shit!
If it can't be fixed by rebooting it or by blowing onto it or some combination of the two, it should probably be replaced. Or cleaned. Or returned for a free rental.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
The trick to doing (even the smallest size) SMD with a normal iron is solder wick. It will apply flux and suck up excess solder leaving a clean, factory looking, board behind.
My wife had a kitchen appliance fail recently. It was an electric orange-juicer. I diagnosed the problem, determine the motor was burned up or the plunger switch failed(which allowed AC to flow through what was probably a Chinese electric motor from Alibaba in minimum order quantities of 100).
Either explaination required me to find a manufacturer part number/wait on hold for 30 minutes to argue my way past 2 levels of talking customer support scripts/rewind an electric motor with magnet wire I would have to order from AlliedEelectric/Mouser/Digikey(while counting the turns)/Crack open an ultrasonically welded plastic case on a plunger switch to sand the contacts/jumper the switch & drive 30 minutes to the nearest Radioshack or Homedepot so I could by a replacement cord which would allow me to bypass the devices intended functionality in order to leavy it in a 100% duty cycle condition(possibly resulting in overheating related failure which was the most probable explaination for failure in the first place knowing my wifes enthusiasm for home squeezed orange juice).
Just like I would have done for my employer if they had the same problem: my determination was the expected value of an attempted repair would exceed the cost of simply buying a fucking replacement. Assuming the knowledge that made this determination possible is worth $10 USD/hour, you couldn't pay me to spend 2 hours on this problem with 100% guaruntee of success. I didn't spend the 10 minutes it would take to disassemble the plastic injection molded case because there were security screws in use and moving every 2 years to follow the jobs means I've given up keeping an inventory of security bits/harbour freight tools on hand because there is no economical way to amortize out their purchase in labor cost savings when you relocate to follow better job opportunities every 24 months.
I threw the thing in the garbage(didn't even feel bad about it) because I knew any further investment beyond diagnosis would result in FURTHER unnecessary disappointment for my wife(with the expected value: she probably isn't in the mood for sex that night).
Being a "Real Man of Genius" TM I bought a replacement via Amazon Prime a couple weeks later for her b-day demonstrating:
A: I cared about her emotional condition enough to remember the feeling of loss she felt at no longer having a juicer machine
B: I remembered what her birthday was
C: I'm financially capable of spending $24.99 on KitchainAid plastic injection molded bullshit on Amazon Prime
As a result:
A: I saved myself 60-120 minutes poking it with a screwdriver/possibly injuring myself on broken PVC plastic shards/burning myself with electricity
B: We were able to go to the movies instead of getting in an argument about an unfinished project messying up the kitchen table
C: I got laid on her B-day
D: I saved my self-esteem the blow of not being able to economically preserve value of a gadget which was engineering with a mean-time to failure of ~5 hours of operation. I felt better about myself by letting it go and getting the fuck over the $20 loss.
Anyone want to tell me I made the wrong call?
I don't suppose you are overpaying on your mortgage for the shop space necessary for you to make bubble-gum/duct tape "HACKS" which extend the usable life of failed $100 devices by 25-100%? Do these clever hacks occur more than 2x time a month? How much time do you spend on them? How many $1000s of dollars do you have in unused specialized tooling collecting dust other than the 2-3x hand tools which allowed you to save that money? Is the answer greater than the total amount of labor cost adjusted capital savings you made by being a DIY home improvement hero?
Home Depot/Lowes shouldn't even fucking exist. Just pay the specialists to come in and leverage their economies of scale to save you time-money(a new unit expressing the reality that time has monetary value). Core competency? WTF is that?
Sincerely,
"Jack-of-all-trades"/Handyman/Professional Technician/Machinist who is tired of Depression era thinking wasting human potential in the age of Amazon Prime
*Always* check the voltage rails first. Schematics may help but aren't always necessary. Look for swollen capacitors or black legs/PCB on or near the switching transistors(they're probably mounted to a heatsink). There is no reason a $2.00 part should bring down a $2000 television set.
Nobody has discussed so far what the consequences should be.
If you create a device or gadget or whatever, and you know that people are not going to repair it, then all the parts inside should be designed to break around the same time. Because any part that breaks earlier than the others decreases the useful life of the device and therefore its value, while any part that has still a long working life when the device is thrown away is just a waste of money.
As a thirty-something coming from a family where I wasn't taught or shown how to fix things, I find the internet (and YouTube in particular) to be a great resource for learning how to diagnose and fix problems with and upgrade cars, appliances, etc. Internet research and learning has saved me LOADS of money over the years!
One issue that I think has been missed here is how common (and restrictive) manufacturers warranties are. For many things that are electrical or mechanical, if you attempt even the most rudimentary repair, you void the warranty. Not very helpful if you muck up the repair.
did he make any comment about his lawn and how should young people should keep off from it?
On my Toyota you can twist the socket base and slip in a new bulb with just a bit of cursing at the engineer who didn't give you that extra half inch of slack that would have made it much easier. On other cars you almost have to remove the front bumper assembly to get the lights out. Shops charge accordingly and make good money off labor on what "should" be an easy fix.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
VINA: War, thousands of centuries ago.
PIKE: That's why it's so barren up there?
VINA; The planet's only now becoming able to support life again.
PIKE: So the Talosians who came underground found life limited here and they concentrated on developing their mental power.
VINA: But they found it's a trap, like a narcotic, because when
( dreams | facebook | twitter | dancing with the stars | texting and driving )
become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record*.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
because they can't fix software.
Your point?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And I know how to fix things. When my LCD TV just gave a blinking red power light I knew for example the power supply had shit the bed. So I took it out, found the offending capacitors (Yeah, plural! ) and determined the time to de-solder, order, replace and re-install made it cheaper to just buy a whole new power supply for $50, install and TV has been running well ever since.
Can also do electrical and plumbing stuff too.
There's a slew of 3D printer owners that would disagree with this old codger's statement.
Get a plastic container with a tight fitting lid. Get some heavy whipping cream. A small carton will do. Put the cream in the container, close the lid (yes I had to add this step), and then shake the hell out of it for a while. If you have multiple people pass it around and shake until it feels solid. What you get is butter. Add a little salt if you like and spread on some crackers. Good science project and pretty tasty butter too.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
The other problem is more things are glued together with critical parts across the glue. You have to break the parts more in order to fix them. The plastic will break before the glue does. The parts are made of plastic that won't glue unless you have the special epoxy for that plastic. Only the dealers have access to that epoxy.
Plastic pop rivets that require special tools to unlink them. (on all types of major appliances) 50 yr old guy noticing the changes in assembly techniques.
https://www.youtube.com/user/storyofstuffproject
Why fix an old iPad when for the same $ you can get a new retina one?
Huh a professor of necromancy and voodoo er I mean microwave and RF engineering.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Many devices containing software are intentionally designed to be hard to fix/repair. With the exception of open source applications running on a PC, or open source operating systems on said PCs, an increasing number of appliances and "gadgets" have software that is completely locked down. If the software out of the factory is not 100% perfect and there is some kind of a defect, the consumer's only option in most cases is to buy a different device.
Worse, since the software is the same between each unit produced, the consumer could go through the RMA process dozens of times and still have the problem. If the manufacturer does not acknowledge and fix the problem, the user is SOL.
This is largely a consequence of consumers not truly owning the devices they buy anymore, due to companies valuing their "IP" over (digitally-infused) consumer appliance serviceability. Try fixing a shoddy driver on an Android smartphone from a major US carrier (90% of them are locked down) and let me know how you make out, with "brief" engineering knowledge. Ditto for the faulty ECU in your car, or the faulty temperature regulator in your fridge, or...
The only situations where the OP may have a valid point are with things that have not yet been designed, in mainstream models at least, with significant digital components. For example, if your toilet starts leaking, the knowledge and technique to repair this low-tech item probably hasn't changed in at least 40 or 50 years. But these examples are quickly vanishing, as even toilets are starting to have digital components. Usually, you are *lucky* if your manufacturer provides you with some kind of instructions on how to buy and replace the complete electronics package in something like a dishwasher or a washing machine. If you are attempting to repair it without actually chucking the whole component and installing a new one, good luck -- provided you're not an Electrical or Computer Engineer.
Yep, I made the mistake of having a conversation similar to this in front of my daughter. An older friend (~70) was complaining about how modern kids can't fix cars. I pointed out that he couldn't read an astrolabe, but a kid from the middle ages could, and most could even make one. I went on to comment how my kids would probably never learn to tell time either, what with all the digital clocks everywhere.
Fast forward five years. My daughter is 12 now and still steadfastly refuses to learn to read an analog clock. She's a little too proud to be the future generation.
Be careful what you say in front of the kids.
Products are way too sophisticated nowadays for them to be easily fixed. But if we teach our kids programming, then they will have their mechanical/electronic abilities very well developed. Solving problems virtually via software is similar to solving mechanical issues physically.
Devices made in the last 30 years are, for the most part, not designed for maintenance at more than a superficial level. Electronics are so small, most of us can't deal even if we know what and how to do it.
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With the pro's come the con's. So current technology is a mixed blessing. I am just encouraged to see the 'maker movement' get back to building, repurposing, and fixing, rather than buy use trash.
If as a public we DEMANDED fixable and maintainable items, we would get more. But if all we buy is throw away appliances, that is all that will be made.
in an economy which depends on huge multinationals making and selling you new disposable junk all the time, and a recession based on a reduction in demand for all this junk, to repair your old stuff is unpatriotic, antisocial, and subversive. go out and spend.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The internet is providing a real renaissance for repair info for me. I have a sailboat and learned quite a bit about working with epoxy on various internet sites. on my house there is wood exposed in a few places. I've been treating them with epoxy and they are holding up quite well now. At work we have quite a few printers, I told purchasing don't buy any more printers unless they have unjamming instructions are on youtube or somewhere else online. my brother has a farm. he's a pretty good manager and excellent repairer. of 150 farms in one study his income over cost was the best rated because he has so few repair bills. One time he needed to replace cogs on a his older combine. new from mfg would have been 500ea. he found on the internet the right ones (for 50$) but the shaft was wrong. between him and a friend they cut the shaft part out and swapped them. Saved a couple grand on the upgrade without too much extra work. My general rule of thumb, i will repair my self if i can extend the life of the product a few years if the cost is cheap even if the item looks weird and was obviously repaired. I will improvise a repair job as long as its safe and i can do for 20% or less of the cost of the correct repair method. if my improvised repair doesn't work I'm not out too much money.
Look, I could fix my HDTV that burnt out. It's probably only the HDMI interface module.
Or I could spend a tiny bit more and get the same size HDTV now.
Capiche?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
with little to no concern about their end of life.
When you design things for one single use, and design them to be thrown away when they can no longer be used for that one single use, you are simply transferring the real cost of that item, the expense of disposing of that item, to the public.
It's a new century and we still design items and package items wastefully, as single use throw-away objects.
From Styrofoam meat platters to yogurt cups to ground coffee containers, even the packaging is mostly unregulated.
Why not incentivise designing consumer goods so that they are multi-function, multi-use ?
In the future, every object you can buy, needs to be disassembleable, and useful for other purposes.
Attempting to recycle things that were never designed to even be recyclable is simply not enough. Not only do all consumer goods need to be easily sortable for recycling, they need to be designed in the first place to be useable for other purposes.
If young people today don't understand how even the most basic devices work, much less how things are made, we have only our culture and society to blame.
Manufacturing and designing things to be cheap and disposable carries a hidden cost to society, while making some corporations a great deal of money via hidden public subsidies for those products.
Let's talk about how greed destroys everything, and how it's creating a class of people that can't do anything and don't know anything.
In Deli a man's fridge wouldn't work. The problem was tracked down to a transformer that was non-functional, As he said "Here in the States we would just throw the whole thing away but there he found someone who would rewind the transformer with new wire. Problem Solved. So it is not just a problem of how old you are but also where you live.
It strikes me internet troubleshooting is one of today's versions of mending gadgets. And prior to mending gadgets, it was fixing a plow. And each generation says the next is "lost" because they don't want to spend time solving yesterday's problems.
I recently helped a young couple who's car had a flat battery get their car started. They were totally despondent and she was in tears. The car was a manual and pointing down a hill and they had never even heard the term clutch or bump start. Kids huh!
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
I was at New Years party with a guy that has changed out parts on the center layer of a 5 layer board on year when he stayed the winter in Antarctica as a Tech in the Navy. We were at the house of guy that helped pioneer audio on CD-ROM. I am the guy that wrote software for some of their stuff.
I made sure my son can fix a car, tractor, build computers, write code for them or do manual labor in the hot summer sun. He's quit those and herds people. He tells me they more trouble than cattle but a lot easier to drive than hogs. They call him a manager.
I am 72 now. I have fixed almost everything I have come across and most of it worked. I have spent all night rebuilding cotton strippers and cotton planters so the could be in field at dawn. I've written ever line of code sprayer that had 6 networked computer by working 16 hours a day 7 days a week for 3 months to meet a hard dead line and it worked.
I help kids today that make my work look like child's play. I am still useful when they need to get around a problem in the Standard Library [usually something slow or crashing the heap] or find out how to write shell code or write really fast code. I showed one student how to profile existing code. He applied it to some genetic scripts, I saw his optimizations being back ported to work from the 70's.
We live in time with better tools and toys than we have ever had. When I think of the change my grand mother saw in the hundred years she lived from the late 1880's until 1990, I expect I'll see more in the rest of my life than she did in over one hundred years.
Red
Don't mind him. He's playing the "I'm a professional, you noobs don't know shit" card. Engineers/technicians often do this as way to feel superior. I know what I'm talking about too- I'm an engineer and I'm about to throw it back at him.
Technically he's right about electrical tape being garbage, but so is duct tape yet millions use it every day. It isn't ideal, but it works for now. In my opinion, the wire nuts he refers to, I feel, are complete garbage. They don't always bite down correctly and will fall off leaving a completely nude wire waiting to zap someone. They're too damned big to fit in tight spots and like you said are butt ugly. Also you have to realize what they are designed for. Housing electricians aren't the smartest of the electrical techs. A wire nut was a solution for uneducated techs who couldn't solder and it makes installation faster. SOLDERING the two wires and heat-shrinking the repaired area IS the industry correct way of repairing a broken wire. Not wire nuts, not crimp splices, not twist n tape- SOLDERING. But you and I both know that crimp splices are plenty adequate for damned near every wiring job.
:D
SO basically I posted this response just to knock Mr Know-it-all off his high horse for looking down his nose at shade tree mechanics. He was just as technically wrong as you were and felt like calling you an idiot. Well, he's the idiot now and I'm the one feeling superior. He does look pretty dumb down there at the end of my nose
Points never gave me grief, ever. (Is that because I was lucky enough to first learn about them using a dwell meter?) I have replaced more electronic ignition modules and their coil packs than I can remember (dozens).
Of the first 12 failures on my latest car, 11 were electronic engine problems (versus mechanical), half of which, killed the engine without warning while driving.
You could be down in the basement or in the garage showing your children how to fix/build stuff. Excellent parenting, I would say.
The broken windows fallacy is no fallacy when you are a maker of windows. I do not care if you could have bought some shoes instead, I sell windows, and I want your money. Screw the cobbler....
From the age of 5, I had already built a home telegraph. I had bell wire (house wire for doorbells), I got doorbell push buttons, lights, and made a partyline circuit. I learned morse code, at a very few words per minute.
By age 8 or 9, I was fixing tube radios. Usually it was a dead tube, or a bad electrolytic capacitor.
By 11, I was building kits from Heath and Eico. My preferred were from the latter.
By 15, I was fixing all appliances, changing tap washers, and finding out about watch and clock mechanisms.
By 17, I was Mr watch repair for Sears, I was charging bargain prices. And I did all the other stuff too. I was into hi-fi, Vinyl longplay records and the finest of turntables (rec-o-cut, Garrad), I had my vtvm, my sweep generator, and Heath Oscilloscope.
By 19, I was a carburator expert. I had all the tools for changing spark plugs, rotating tires, and knew the V8 engine design by heart.
We were learning sponges in those days.
Today, kids are whiz kids an smartphone apps. They know not about epicycloidal gearing, "angles and draw" for watch anchors and escape wheels, "watch beating" incabloc, jeweling, carburators, plug-changing, welding, and so much more.
I left that for a masters degree in math, but I have never stopped playing and loving it. My thoughts were always impressed with the watch mechanism engineers who could work with near microscopic sized parts and movements.
Ahh them were the fun days. It was an enjoyment to do all that I did as a hobby. Today, I maintain my home and garden, and look at my grandkids. I am disappointed at how little they know.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
If you are gonna throw around racist slang terms, the word you were looking for is "gyp" as in gypsy.
Its kinda fun, finding all these broken gadgets on eBay, buying them cheap, doing a bit of repair or just even reflowing the solder and then turning around and selling something.
The reason is that there really is nothing left to fix in a 2 cm microchip that contains everything. You cannot even replace just that chip because it is surface mounted and has pins so small that any soldering iron would destroy the board before getting the chip out. Also, the vast majority of manufacturers of any gadget no longer offer parts or do so only for a very limited time. And if they do, they charge for a handful of parts more than a new device would cost. And that all assumes that you can get your hand on service manuals. Just look how much they charge for service manuals for cars if they can be bought by consumers in the first place. There is still some 'tech' left that did not change or shrink into tiny packages. As MBGMorden writes, for those cases YouTube is golden. Using YT I learned how to fix my stairs, water heater, bath tub faucet, vinyl siding and a few more things I no longer recall.
Stupid useless article. Or course it was easier and actually an option to fix things in your era, cus you weren't staring down blown capacitors, a fried mobo, a dead PSU, instead you were looking at an almost dead spark plug and revitalizing it with sandpaper or some stupid gimmick. Don't play "get off my" lawn unless you're actually trying to have a two-sided conversation.
I think the problem isn't so much that this generation doesn't know how to tinker. That seems to be a common complaint with every generation. I think the real problem is that, with each generation, we get further and further from the life skills that sustain us. Farming, blacksmithing, animal husbandry, basic mechanics, basic electronics. All are quite accessible with a little training and practice but there is no reason or drive to know the skills. Ask a kid under 10 where the meat in his hamburger comes from. The kid won't know and his parents will yell at you for scaring their precious. So much of this situation is attributable to our restricting the manner and freedom with which children play and also due to technology and infrastructure having advanced so far that our disconnect from self-sufficiency is nearly complete.
There are only 6,863,795,529 types of people in the world.
At the same time they can fix fewer gadgets, as well as more gadgets.
And another reason why we often don't WANT to fix something is because it is too expensive to fix.
Point in case: In the old days, if your radio or TV stopped working, you would take it to a Radio or TV repair shop, and they would fix it for much less than it cost to buy a new one. People would go to TV and Radio repair vocational schools. Now Radios hardly exist, and if the TV breaks after the warranty time, it is cheaper to toss it out and buy a a new one rather than finding someone who can repair it.
I am mostly clueless about electronics, but when my old monitor broke, I was determined to fix it. Googled and found videos on youtube showing me how to go abnout it. Learned that there are things called capacitors in the power supply, and my particular model contained a batch of capacitors that were often failing. When they swell up, they are probably toast. Bought soldering iron and other useful tools. Ordered the spare capacitors, and managed to get the monitor working. The monitor was worth maybe $30 tops, and I probably spent 5 hours in total on the repair and $100 on tools. Could have bought one twice as big, lighter and faster, with modern connectors for a little over $100. Later I was however able to fix my neighbor's laser printer by following same method, looking for bulging capacitors to replace, and I tried a couple more repair project where I was not successful. I have earned the cost of the tools at least. However, I _should_ have just tossed the monitor, if I had acted in an optimal manner. If it had been 1990, I would not have learned how to do this, as there was no youtube to teach me. Such a monitor would have been worth $500 and it would have been worth it to pay a repairman $100 to fix it.
It is not just a generational ting. It is a wealth thing. In poor countries (compared to tech today, UK and a lot of Europe could be considered "poor" in 50's compared to now. Less than 1 car per household, no TV, maybe a radio, working class jobs, hand me down clothes were the norm. So it woudl make sense to repair things and learn how to repair things. Now youth spend small fortunes on brand name clothes. And for the cost of a 1950's TV or radio (in 1950's dollars), you can now buy a ton of advanced electronics, and most of the gadgets are not SUPPOSED to be repaired. If there is no repair shop for a gadget, even in a medium to large city, how are kids supposed to get the idea that they should repair it themselves. Broken items are just taken in return and replaced with new product, the bad ones shipped to china for refurbishing, and the resold. Also, a gadget made today is only supposed to last a few years. My family's black and white TV purchased in 1970, was our only TV until we upgraded to a color TV in mid-80's. I'd like to see someone still running their windows 98 PC today. Or their Nokia analog cell phones? Products today are mostly obsolete by the time they need to be repaired. You can't blame that on the kids.
In poor countries, where they can afford few gadgets, there are plenty of cell; phone repair shops. 20+ year old cars are repaired. Parts are machined. People repair their bikes, using only hammers, nails and pliers as tools. It cost under $1 to get bikes repaired by professional bike repairmen slightly more skilled in the use of hammer, nails and pliers, but in a poor country, $1 is not something you waste on things you can do yourself.
SO the professor can rest his worries. There are plenty of people that fix whatever they can fix. Some in rich countries tinker and repair for fun, but in poor countries they still do it because they can't afford not to. If you add a few more dimensions to the picture, such as economy, history and geography, nothing really has changed with the kids.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Well, churning your own butter is easy. Just accidentally forget about the cream you were beating in your mixer. Done that before.
I'll do you one better. Although I have started with heavy whipping cream to make butter (on purpose), I have also gotten it accidently. I inadvertently purchased some non-homogenized organic milk (it was on sale). The cream had separated to the top of the jug, and the small bit of shaking on the drive from the store to home caused it to solidify into butter. Surprise!
I poured out the milk into a pitcher, cut the jug open to remove the solidified cream, and kneaded a bit of salt into it to make a very usable half-cup of butter.
McFly777
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"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
Parts also become unavailable. We just had to replace an entire LG washer (about five or so years old) because could not get a new mainboard that had burned out.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.