Are we talking theoretically, or are we talking practically? Because practically there are many choices out there for a cheap laptop that is capable of running arbitrary code.
In theory, sure, there could be a product that fills a niche at the expense of other potential users - that's just not the case here.
The only way that would work is if there was a trivial, fool-proof way to tell if the firmware had been modified. A blinky light on the external case would probably do it... obviously the light would need to be controlled by a dedicated circuit that cannot be modified by the user. If I were administering a laptop cart full of these, I wouldn't want to have the job of periodically booting each into a bios screen - but checking for blinky lights isn't too onerous.
That's simply not true. People built dikes and levees all throughout history. It's only in the last 20 years that we've had credible climate science. What makes you think that people will suddenly become fundamentally different?
How do I discern between a laptop with SecureBoot turned on and one that has corrupted firmware that pretends to have SecureBoot turned on? If this takes more than a few seconds, then your product is less compelling to one that is simply locked down.
Your list of features is directly at odds with the goal of making a laptop that is immune to malware and brainless to administer. The whole system needs to be protected against any kind of modification by the end-user. So no, this will not meet your needs. And that's OK, because not every product needs to be for Slashdot readers to use directly. I imagine there are a lot of us whose lives have been made way easier by the broad adoption of Chromebooks, even if we don't use them ourselves.
No, that would ruin it for this niche. You can buy a cheap laptop right now that is not locked down. The benefit to a Chromebook or Chromebook clone like these is that you can hand it to a school age kid and not worry at all about viruses, malware, misconfiguration, etc. It just works all the time.
I completely agree that it makes these things unattractive to a large number of Slashdotters. I'm one of them, and I only have Chromebooks for the kids and wife, not myself. I have spent _zero_ hours screwing around with the Chromebooks*, which is something I cannot say about any other computer that I've ever owned.
* So technically, I did screw around with them because I'm a big dork. I played with developer mode, but my wife blew away my efforts by hitting the space bar on boot. Which is for the best. Also, printing can be hard to set up but I got lucky because I already had Chrome set up to share a printer.
When the water's up around their ankles, they're scream bloody murder for levees, but that's about it. If it's somebody else up to their ankles they'll come up with some way to rationalize how it was always a risk and the climate hasn't actually changed, and how it's the fault of those who chose to live there.
OK, but how does that have anything to do with what is causing the climate change? As you say, no one can deny that things have changed once there are people standing around ankle deep in water. At that point they can choose to help those people or not, but this has nothing to do with their feelings on anthropomorphic climate change. A libertarian or small-government conservative who believes in climate science is still going to advocate for no assistance while a liberal or social conservative who denies climate science will still advocate for assistance. While I concede that there is a strong correlation between political beliefs and climate denial, that does not mean that climate denial is the causal factor in whether or not the person believes in government mitigation.
It's analogous to vaccine denial - just because anti-vaxers are retards doesn't mean they will sit around and let the plague wash over them. When the shit hits the fan, they'll deal with the mitigation even while denying that they had a thing to do with it.
which means there's little hope of policy directed at mitigating man's effects on climate
Why? So they don't call it man-made climate change and they call it God-made climate change... either way, the water comes up and mitigation has to happen. In places with a lot of infrastructure investment, it can make sense to shore things up. In other places, as you say it makes more sense to relocate. But none of that has anything to do with what causes the climate to change.
I also have the SP. I bought mine about 5 years ago from a local appliance shop, and I knew ahead of time that I would have to adjust the water level. From descriptions online, it sounds like the newer washers ship with the water level 3 "holes" down from the top. That's actually quite close to where I adjusted mine - 2 holes down. It was lower than that from the factory. I'm fairly convinced that the low ratings in Consumer Reports are entirely because of the low factory water level, because I find the wash quality to be excellent. The washer is built like a tank - I'd be surprised if I need to replace it before I move from this house.
Last September, I got a Speed Queen top-load washer with manual controls (AWN432).
I'm glad they've fixed that. My neighbor and I both bought one a few years ago and the factory level was quite low. He initially didn't know that it could be adjusted and was complaining that he had to manually stand there and hold down the fill knob - so it wasn't just my unit. I wonder how they get around the EPA rules?
You are right about shopping around... I'm tempted to leave the upstairs laundry large enough for two side-by-side traditional machines just so I have the option. It used to have a really crappy all-in-one stacked unit that was way too small and the dryer had a felt drum bearing surface that would eat clothes with straps, even when I replaced the felt.
I have nothing against electronic controls in principle. A little microcontroller should be a better pick than a clunky mechanical timer in this day and age. In practice, though, the mechanical timers are cheap to replace and the custom PCBs are at least double the price. I have PCBs made in tiny batches as a hobbyist that are cheaper, so we're simply being gouged. I suspect that companies leverage copyright law with their firmware to prevent 3rd party replacements. Timer wheels aren't subject to copyright, despite being functionally the same thing.
A popular brand here in the US is Samsung, and the decent ones sell for around $800 on up. Another is Whirlpool. One Whirlpool brand is Maytag, and the cheapest front loader they have is around $650. The downside to the low cost is its cycle time is around 2.5 hours. A more typical price would be a Kenmore at $1000.
As for repairs, the parts cost for the Samsung PCB might be around $100, but most people also pay the guy to come out to diagnose and repair. I think $200-250 is the typical repair cost. In any event, I don't see the need for a custom PCB when a simple mechanical timer is sufficient to swoosh clothes around in soapy water for a little while. The little machine I used in the UK had a mechanical timer. The US market machines are needlessly complex so that they can save water that is ample in my area. Just because people decided to live in the desert in Arizona doesn't mean that the entire US needs to be subjected to water restrictions. Sorry for that little rant at the end:)
I could pull off a $35,000 car financially, but if the Model 3 is anything like the other $35,000 electric cars then I would never do it. The Leaf is not fundamentally any better than the $15,000 Versa, for instance. Yes, there are some performance advantages to the electric drivetrain, but not $20,000 worth. Interestingly, you can pick up a gently used Leaf for around the price of a new Versa (they don't hold their value well), so that does seem tempting. At this point I am still leaning toward a Subaru as our new 2nd car - we don't get much bad weather, but when we do my wife still needs to get to work (doctor). The Camry does not cut it.
I think our front-loaders are substantially different from yours. They only caught on here because the EPA enacted very aggressive water usage limits. A $250 front-loader is unheard of. Even most top loaders are really the same machine just turned on it's side. My top-loader is from a company that skirts the rules by shipping a 30-year-old design (of very high quality, meant for laundromats), but sets the factory water level to the EPA maximum. If you don't adjust the water level up, it can hardly even be called a washer, but once you do you have a commercial grade washing machine of the classic variety.
I can't imagine myself in a $100,000 car (or even a $60,000 car), but I think in the next 10 years we might actually see some electrics that compete well with gasoline - especially if gasoline goes back up in price. I have 2 cars, and I think we could probably replace one with an electric if the economics worked out. We have a garage. I think 150 amp service to the house should be enough, though to be honest that would be pushing things with the AC running. I'm anxious to see how battery technology improves over the next few years. Between solar cell prices and battery capacities, it seems we are on the threshold of something very cool.
Yeah, while I sympathize with "think globally, act locally", I also reject it as ineffective. The only way to reduce use of fossil fuels is through coercing everyone to do it. My use of $0.20 worth of natural gas to dry my clothes will mean absolutely nothing. In fact, abstaining would simply make the price of gas a little lower and someone else's consumption will go up slightly to take up the slack on the supply/demand curve. I could buy an electric car, but unless the government keeps raising CAFE standards, all that will do is slightly drop the price of gas. Despite all of that, I still pay the idiot guilt charge for "green" electricity. Anyway, I'm not going to feel particularly guilty about using a dryer, especially in light of the obscene amount of gasoline I use in the car and the copious natural gas used to heat my home.
Well, I have kids and a wife so I'm doing more than 4x the laundry that you are. If I air-dried indoors and had to wait 3 hours, then I would be limited to 1 load per night. That's 4 nights of air drying laundry laying around the house instead of your single night. The dryer costs almost nothing to run as it uses natural gas, so for us it is a no-brainer. It sits in an ugly part of the basement, so the space it uses is not significant nor is it obtrusive. Even the unwelcome heat in the summer is not noticed because it is down in the cool basement. My wife grew up in the third world and even she uses the dryer rather than our line.
Ha... hate away then. I'm an engineer, so I can't help but plan my laundry for maximum efficiency. I like to let it pile up during the week into at least three loads and then pound it all out at once to minimize my total laundry time. The first load, true, you just put it in and come back later - it could take 4 hours and it wouldn't matter. But the 2nd load has to finish before the first load is done drying so that I can empty the dryer, move the washed stuff to the dryer, and then start another wash cycle. While the wash cycle is going, I fold the stuff that just came out of the dryer, go do something else for a few minutes, repeat. If I used a 3-hour cycle washer, one load would be all I could manage in a night, so I'd constantly be doing laundry.
Slashdot Mirror
Are we talking theoretically, or are we talking practically? Because practically there are many choices out there for a cheap laptop that is capable of running arbitrary code.
In theory, sure, there could be a product that fills a niche at the expense of other potential users - that's just not the case here.
If we let them put lead and mercury in the plastic to meet this directive, then we can also get rid of all our dangerous heavy metals.
The only way that would work is if there was a trivial, fool-proof way to tell if the firmware had been modified. A blinky light on the external case would probably do it... obviously the light would need to be controlled by a dedicated circuit that cannot be modified by the user. If I were administering a laptop cart full of these, I wouldn't want to have the job of periodically booting each into a bios screen - but checking for blinky lights isn't too onerous.
Plastic is lower density than water, so it floats to the top.
Duh.
That's simply not true. People built dikes and levees all throughout history. It's only in the last 20 years that we've had credible climate science. What makes you think that people will suddenly become fundamentally different?
How do I discern between a laptop with SecureBoot turned on and one that has corrupted firmware that pretends to have SecureBoot turned on? If this takes more than a few seconds, then your product is less compelling to one that is simply locked down.
Your list of features is directly at odds with the goal of making a laptop that is immune to malware and brainless to administer. The whole system needs to be protected against any kind of modification by the end-user. So no, this will not meet your needs. And that's OK, because not every product needs to be for Slashdot readers to use directly. I imagine there are a lot of us whose lives have been made way easier by the broad adoption of Chromebooks, even if we don't use them ourselves.
It wouldn't matter because the virus would go away on the next boot - just like Chromebook.
No, that would ruin it for this niche. You can buy a cheap laptop right now that is not locked down. The benefit to a Chromebook or Chromebook clone like these is that you can hand it to a school age kid and not worry at all about viruses, malware, misconfiguration, etc. It just works all the time.
I completely agree that it makes these things unattractive to a large number of Slashdotters. I'm one of them, and I only have Chromebooks for the kids and wife, not myself. I have spent _zero_ hours screwing around with the Chromebooks*, which is something I cannot say about any other computer that I've ever owned.
* So technically, I did screw around with them because I'm a big dork. I played with developer mode, but my wife blew away my efforts by hitting the space bar on boot. Which is for the best. Also, printing can be hard to set up but I got lucky because I already had Chrome set up to share a printer.
When the water's up around their ankles, they're scream bloody murder for levees, but that's about it. If it's somebody else up to their ankles they'll come up with some way to rationalize how it was always a risk and the climate hasn't actually changed, and how it's the fault of those who chose to live there.
OK, but how does that have anything to do with what is causing the climate change? As you say, no one can deny that things have changed once there are people standing around ankle deep in water. At that point they can choose to help those people or not, but this has nothing to do with their feelings on anthropomorphic climate change. A libertarian or small-government conservative who believes in climate science is still going to advocate for no assistance while a liberal or social conservative who denies climate science will still advocate for assistance. While I concede that there is a strong correlation between political beliefs and climate denial, that does not mean that climate denial is the causal factor in whether or not the person believes in government mitigation.
It's analogous to vaccine denial - just because anti-vaxers are retards doesn't mean they will sit around and let the plague wash over them. When the shit hits the fan, they'll deal with the mitigation even while denying that they had a thing to do with it.
which means there's little hope of policy directed at mitigating man's effects on climate
Why? So they don't call it man-made climate change and they call it God-made climate change... either way, the water comes up and mitigation has to happen. In places with a lot of infrastructure investment, it can make sense to shore things up. In other places, as you say it makes more sense to relocate. But none of that has anything to do with what causes the climate to change.
I also have the SP. I bought mine about 5 years ago from a local appliance shop, and I knew ahead of time that I would have to adjust the water level. From descriptions online, it sounds like the newer washers ship with the water level 3 "holes" down from the top. That's actually quite close to where I adjusted mine - 2 holes down. It was lower than that from the factory. I'm fairly convinced that the low ratings in Consumer Reports are entirely because of the low factory water level, because I find the wash quality to be excellent. The washer is built like a tank - I'd be surprised if I need to replace it before I move from this house.
Last September, I got a Speed Queen top-load washer with manual controls (AWN432).
I'm glad they've fixed that. My neighbor and I both bought one a few years ago and the factory level was quite low. He initially didn't know that it could be adjusted and was complaining that he had to manually stand there and hold down the fill knob - so it wasn't just my unit. I wonder how they get around the EPA rules?
You are right about shopping around... I'm tempted to leave the upstairs laundry large enough for two side-by-side traditional machines just so I have the option. It used to have a really crappy all-in-one stacked unit that was way too small and the dryer had a felt drum bearing surface that would eat clothes with straps, even when I replaced the felt.
I have nothing against electronic controls in principle. A little microcontroller should be a better pick than a clunky mechanical timer in this day and age. In practice, though, the mechanical timers are cheap to replace and the custom PCBs are at least double the price. I have PCBs made in tiny batches as a hobbyist that are cheaper, so we're simply being gouged. I suspect that companies leverage copyright law with their firmware to prevent 3rd party replacements. Timer wheels aren't subject to copyright, despite being functionally the same thing.
Great rundowns! Disagree that it's an effective form of resistance, but I'm very happy to see that things are becoming competitive.
A popular brand here in the US is Samsung, and the decent ones sell for around $800 on up. Another is Whirlpool. One Whirlpool brand is Maytag, and the cheapest front loader they have is around $650. The downside to the low cost is its cycle time is around 2.5 hours. A more typical price would be a Kenmore at $1000.
As for repairs, the parts cost for the Samsung PCB might be around $100, but most people also pay the guy to come out to diagnose and repair. I think $200-250 is the typical repair cost. In any event, I don't see the need for a custom PCB when a simple mechanical timer is sufficient to swoosh clothes around in soapy water for a little while. The little machine I used in the UK had a mechanical timer. The US market machines are needlessly complex so that they can save water that is ample in my area. Just because people decided to live in the desert in Arizona doesn't mean that the entire US needs to be subjected to water restrictions. Sorry for that little rant at the end :)
Holy crap, you aren't kidding. $2000. For that I'll just pay a service. I was being spendy when I bought my $700 washer.
I could pull off a $35,000 car financially, but if the Model 3 is anything like the other $35,000 electric cars then I would never do it. The Leaf is not fundamentally any better than the $15,000 Versa, for instance. Yes, there are some performance advantages to the electric drivetrain, but not $20,000 worth. Interestingly, you can pick up a gently used Leaf for around the price of a new Versa (they don't hold their value well), so that does seem tempting. At this point I am still leaning toward a Subaru as our new 2nd car - we don't get much bad weather, but when we do my wife still needs to get to work (doctor). The Camry does not cut it.
Haha, yup. Our washer happens to be in the "mud room", too. :)
I think our front-loaders are substantially different from yours. They only caught on here because the EPA enacted very aggressive water usage limits. A $250 front-loader is unheard of. Even most top loaders are really the same machine just turned on it's side. My top-loader is from a company that skirts the rules by shipping a 30-year-old design (of very high quality, meant for laundromats), but sets the factory water level to the EPA maximum. If you don't adjust the water level up, it can hardly even be called a washer, but once you do you have a commercial grade washing machine of the classic variety.
I can't imagine myself in a $100,000 car (or even a $60,000 car), but I think in the next 10 years we might actually see some electrics that compete well with gasoline - especially if gasoline goes back up in price. I have 2 cars, and I think we could probably replace one with an electric if the economics worked out. We have a garage. I think 150 amp service to the house should be enough, though to be honest that would be pushing things with the AC running. I'm anxious to see how battery technology improves over the next few years. Between solar cell prices and battery capacities, it seems we are on the threshold of something very cool.
Oooor, I could buy a washer that doesn't take 3 hours :)
Yeah, while I sympathize with "think globally, act locally", I also reject it as ineffective. The only way to reduce use of fossil fuels is through coercing everyone to do it. My use of $0.20 worth of natural gas to dry my clothes will mean absolutely nothing. In fact, abstaining would simply make the price of gas a little lower and someone else's consumption will go up slightly to take up the slack on the supply/demand curve. I could buy an electric car, but unless the government keeps raising CAFE standards, all that will do is slightly drop the price of gas. Despite all of that, I still pay the idiot guilt charge for "green" electricity. Anyway, I'm not going to feel particularly guilty about using a dryer, especially in light of the obscene amount of gasoline I use in the car and the copious natural gas used to heat my home.
Well, I have kids and a wife so I'm doing more than 4x the laundry that you are. If I air-dried indoors and had to wait 3 hours, then I would be limited to 1 load per night. That's 4 nights of air drying laundry laying around the house instead of your single night. The dryer costs almost nothing to run as it uses natural gas, so for us it is a no-brainer. It sits in an ugly part of the basement, so the space it uses is not significant nor is it obtrusive. Even the unwelcome heat in the summer is not noticed because it is down in the cool basement. My wife grew up in the third world and even she uses the dryer rather than our line.
Ha... hate away then. I'm an engineer, so I can't help but plan my laundry for maximum efficiency. I like to let it pile up during the week into at least three loads and then pound it all out at once to minimize my total laundry time. The first load, true, you just put it in and come back later - it could take 4 hours and it wouldn't matter. But the 2nd load has to finish before the first load is done drying so that I can empty the dryer, move the washed stuff to the dryer, and then start another wash cycle. While the wash cycle is going, I fold the stuff that just came out of the dryer, go do something else for a few minutes, repeat. If I used a 3-hour cycle washer, one load would be all I could manage in a night, so I'd constantly be doing laundry.