[HN Gopher] Bob Cassette Rewinder: Hacking Detergent DRM
___________________________________________________________________
Bob Cassette Rewinder: Hacking Detergent DRM
Author : dreamcompiler
Score : 556 points
Date : 2022-05-30 13:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| dylan604 wrote:
| ohmuhgawd! Until now, I had never seen this "tech". It is so
| obviously the ink jet of washers. why on earth would this seem
| like a good idea to anyone other than the manufacturer knowing
| the ink jet games that could be played. as a consumer why would
| this ever sound like a good enough idea to actually purchase?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > as a consumer why would this ever sound like a good enough
| idea to actually purchase?
|
| Because as far as I know, there's no competing small sized
| kitchen-countertop dishwasher; that said, there's enough money
| on HN and its investors to start a company that does the same
| thing without the DRM and custom cartridges.
| dylan604 wrote:
| But isn't in the HN investor types that push startups to do
| things exactly like this to monetize quicker so they can get
| their ROI sooner?
|
| Startup: We have a product/service that we can offer that
| will make money.
|
| Investor: If you collect/sell data, sell ads, etc, you can
| make more money.
|
| Startup: We don't want to go down that path.
|
| Investor: I want my money NOW!
| boudin wrote:
| It's mentioned briefly in the writeup but those cardridges
| are not needed, the dishwasher works with standard tablets as
| well. It's sold as a convenience thing.
| ElDji wrote:
| So their business model is to basically sell plastic and
| detergent at very high price using DRM.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| > No need to manually measure and add detergent each wash, very
| convenient!
|
| No difference between adding a dishwasher tablet in the detergent
| holder of a regular machine. In both cases you're manually adding
| 1 item into the machine.
|
| Except in the case of the dishwasher tablet, it comes from a box
| of 40 that you can easily buy in any supermarket.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| In this case you put a pop case in the machine once every 30
| washes.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| ... and the makers of the dishwasher even sell their own
| dishwasher tablets. The DRM cartridges are totally optional!
|
| Fun device though, buying a similar countertop dishwasher was
| without question the best purchase of my adult life.
| lozenge wrote:
| I wonder if the covid chip shortage caused them to give up on
| their DRM?
| [deleted]
| dagurp wrote:
| I will never buy tablets or those little bags after watching
| Technology Connections
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04
| [deleted]
| RektBoy wrote:
| OP, any chance you dump their firmware from dishwasher? If people
| have this connected to net, it could be fun.
| belval wrote:
| The article is cool but:
|
| "PS43 ($60) for 90 washes" is roughly in line with puck-style
| detergent, might even be a bit cheaper so it's not THAT
| outrageous to me.
|
| Not that we should overpay for no reason, but I thought it's
| still important context.
| lapser wrote:
| Not sure what you mean with "puck-style" detergent, but here in
| the UK, I always tend to buy 100 dishwasher tablets for PS12,
| which works out to PS0.12 per wash, and Rinse Aid for PS3.50,
| for which the company claims 80 washes (though I haven't
| measured), which works out to PS0.044 per wash, for a total of
| PS0.164 per wash. PS43 for 90 washes is pretty outrageous.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| And these are much smaller washes.
| chinathrow wrote:
| So we overpay for puck-style detergent too then.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Brilliant! I looked at one of those too a while back. Didn't
| realize they had gone the way of printers who get you addicted to
| their product and keep stringing you along. :)
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Another reason to repeal DMCA Section 1201.
| causality0 wrote:
| I see the point of that dishwasher for someone who doesn't have
| easy access to a sink like a student in a dorm, but I can't
| fathom why you'd put one in a house or apartment. With such a
| tiny capacity you're better off hand washing.
| Wohlf wrote:
| If it was my only option due to lack of space or not being
| allowed to install a full-size, I'd still find it worthwhile
| now that I eat at home much more often.
|
| One to two loads a day would handle everything but the pots and
| pans for me and my partner while we can do other things, plus
| it would still use less water and electricity.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I feel like my full size dishwasher doesn't hold enough
| dishes...
| seu wrote:
| Exactly. And especially considering the costs, which would have
| been very easy to calculate before purchasing the thing.
| hguant wrote:
| 1. Handwashing is water inefficient compared to a lot of
| dishwashers; if this is something that's important to you, a
| device like this makes ecologic, if not necessarily economic
| sense
|
| 2. Dishwashers are expensive to people not on tech salaries.
| All upfront costs are difficult; a smaller upfront payment with
| a recurring monthly/quarterly subscription payment is much more
| manageable for many people.
|
| 3. There are many homes in America that aren't configured for a
| dishwasher and it would be expensive/difficult to remodel to
| get one to fit. Anecdotally, my cousin out in <small town
| outside a college> has this problem - he and his wife would
| greatly appreciate a dishwasher in their lives, but their home
| was built in the 1940s and renovating isn't happening on a
| post-doc + special ed teacher's combined salary
| bpye wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think this would really have a market in much
| of the US or Canada where even older apartments typically
| have dishwashers, maybe in cities like NYC there are folks
| that would find it useful?
|
| But lots of U.K. homes don't have a dishwasher and the
| kitchen without probably a full renovation wouldn't
| accommodate one. In that context - I think this is a pretty
| great product. I wouldn't be surprised if the situation is
| similar elsewhere in Europe, where the buildings predate
| dishwashers being a common appliance.
| theturtle32 wrote:
| > renovating isn't happening on a post-doc + special ed
| teacher's combined salary
|
| It just makes me sad that we so deeply undervalue skilled,
| highly educated people who choose to dedicate their lives to
| helping raise up and advance the next generation, and help
| empower and enable those with disabilities and other
| disadvantages. The fact that it just seems obvious that these
| people based on their professions won't be able to afford a
| remodel goes to show just how deeply ingrained this
| undervaluing is in our collective psyches. :(
| DantesKite wrote:
| 4. Dishwashers catch on fire fairly easily and commonly.
| Perhaps that one is a safer design.
| tomohawk wrote:
| > water inefficient
|
| Only if you don't know how to wash dishes by hand. Hand
| washing can be more efficient.
|
| If you live in one of those unsustainable cities built in a
| desert, this probably matters, but as someone who doesn't,
| I'm sick of subsidizing that lifestyle by having to deal with
| cleaning devices designed for those conditions that don't
| work well.
| detritus wrote:
| How much would this have to be used to offset the
| (materials/energy/water) cost of manufacturing it though?
| spiffytech wrote:
| > Handwashing is water inefficient compared to a lot of
| dishwashers
|
| My grandmother insisted the right way to hand-wash dishes was
| to plug the sink and fill it up, scrub with your hands in the
| water, then drain and rinse everything all at once.
|
| That should be similar efficiency (or greater?) vs a modern
| dishwasher, but I'm not sure anyone does that anymore.
| Everyone else I've seen leaves the water running the whole
| time.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| It looks like this dishwasher uses only 3 litres of water
| for a full cycle. That's probably significantly less than
| you're filling your sink up.
| lupire wrote:
| But it takes more than one cycle for a full load of
| dishes.
| menage wrote:
| That's the standard UK way of washing dishes, but usually
| with a soak in the hot soapy water first to reduce the
| scrubbing effort.
| oehpr wrote:
| >2. Dishwashers are expensive to people not on tech salaries.
| All upfront costs are difficult; a smaller upfront payment
| with a recurring monthly/quarterly subscription payment is
| much more manageable for many people.
|
| I really think this line of thinking needs to die. Micro
| financing isn't helping the poor, it's exploiting the poor.
| It doesn't help to make the total cost of everything much
| more expensive.
|
| What's the difference between the Bob dishwasher and buying
| this[1] and financing with a a payday loan center?
|
| [1](https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Countertop-Dishwasher-
| Vegetab...)
|
| As far as I can tell, the Bob dishwasher still costs this
| much anyway.
| miralize wrote:
| That definitely works if you have two functioning hands, and
| some may not. I would love a product like this.
| wombat-man wrote:
| I did my own dishes for a while. It wasn't so bad, but if I
| didn't have a machine now I'd love something like this to
| handle the small plates and flatware.
| ameesdotme wrote:
| Bob- and apartment-owner here. We have a small kitchen and just
| don't have the space for a full-sized dishwasher. Bob fits
| snugly in the cabinet under the sink and runs once a day for a
| 2-person household.
|
| It's perfect for our needs and saves us a lot of both time and
| water.
| fundatus wrote:
| Same! Also it washes at up to 70degC which you simply can't
| do when hand washing - but it gives you a much better result
| with less water usage.
| geewee wrote:
| Much more energy usage though!
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I'm guessing you're not from Europe? Most flats are very small
| and there's simply no space for a traditional, large American
| style dishwasher.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| why? I just put my dishes in and press a button. Dishes come
| out clean, I spend no time washing.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I wonder if OP did things the hard way. I2C eeproms, including
| their 24C02 has a write-protect line.
|
| They could probably enable write protection and the chip would
| never decrement.
|
| Just cut WP off from gnd and attach to vcc (with a pull-up for
| good measure), or vice-versa and voila.
|
| Depends if the machine's MCU verifies writeability or if the
| decrement actually happened and cares.
|
| Early paytv satellite systems didn't care...
| castratikron wrote:
| Wondering the same!
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I didn't read their other guide, but yea, they did that. You
| do have to keep track of your reservoir manually.
|
| https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/mast.
| ..
|
| > The easiest way is to melt the solder on the WP pin, and
| gently lift it up off the pads so it is no longer making
| contact
|
| (And then bridge it to vcc).
|
| FYI for anyone that breaks the pin, you can usually scrape
| into the chip a bit and solder onto the rest of the leg past
| the point of fracture.
| kache_ wrote:
| unnecessary DRM like this should be illegal
| alaricus wrote:
| DRM should be illegal.
| refurb wrote:
| Precisely. Congress should get off their butts and decide what
| kind of washing machine America needs. I hate having to choose
| between glossy black and matte black finishes. Why won't Chuck
| Schumer help me?
| px43 wrote:
| You can't outlaw stupid. It would be nice if things like this
| that were obviously "anti-competitive" were treated as such
| though. Maybe a nice exception for bypassing anti-competitive
| DRM carved out specifically in the DMCA, or something like
| that.
| alaricus wrote:
| How long do you think it takes Microsoft to take down this repo?
| shalmanese wrote:
| Given that the repo has already been up for 15 months now, the
| answer is "at least 15 months".
| jffry wrote:
| See prior discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880
| squarefoot wrote:
| Great project and writeup; just one more example why we should
| always be cautious about "smart" devices, for that smartness
| nearly always aimed at eliminating customers choices.
|
| I wonder what does the device electronics do beyond checking for
| the original cassette and its eeprom; it doesnt seem it would
| have to do anything more complex than opening water, and
| detergent valves/pumps for a certain time while keeping the right
| temperature; nothing that even the simplest uC and couldn't do; a
| further development could involve probing all signals at sensors
| and actuators during normal operation, then getting rid of the
| old electronic to allow the device taking detergents directly
| from the tanks, so resetting the cassette eeprom wouldn't be
| needed anymore because there would be no need to insert one. This
| of course would invalidate the warranty, but for some of us that
| is a plus point:)
| shaman1 wrote:
| Why buy such a thing in the first place? It's 300e and for that
| money you can buy a full sized one. I'm seeing similar priced
| mini dishwashers on amazon.
|
| As a sensible cosnumer you should have considered buying
| something standard and invest you time in something else.
|
| If they would sell the dishwashers and 1/2 price and rely on
| recurrent income from detergent that's a different story but in
| this case I see no really reason why would someone even consider
| it. Let these companies bite the dust.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| The entire reason why this category of small dishwashers exist
| is because some people don't have space for a full sized one.
| nicbou wrote:
| Not everyone has room for a dishwasher in their kitchen
| shaman1 wrote:
| As I mentioned, there are many similar mini dishwashers or
| table top dishwashers in the 300e price bracket.
| mariusmg wrote:
| For some reason my brain was "disputing" the word "Detergent"
| when reading the title, i thought it was "Deterrent" misspelled
| :)
| sschueller wrote:
| Talking about a 20 year old dishwasher in the
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31555629 post I doubt this
| company will still sell you a cartridge in 20 years making it yet
| another paper weight although it would still function.
| boudin wrote:
| The cassette is not required, it also works with standard
| detergent
| low_tech_love wrote:
| Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but if you buy a product
| because you like it and admire the design and engineering on it,
| isn't this type of hacking actually a disservice to the company
| who made it? I mean, I'm not saying this should never be explored
| (hacking is fun), but in a way you're cutting the resources from
| the company and potentially helping to bring it down. After all,
| a business is not made only on top of "cost + small profit
| percentage". Maybe their business model requires such prices and
| is impossible without them (especially if it's a small company).
| ok123456 wrote:
| No. Someone else decided to do some 'growth hacking' on a
| finished product. This sort of feature isn't something that
| originated from the person doing the actual design.
| barnabee wrote:
| It's perfectly reasonable to think both "neat design" and "fuck
| them" at the same time.
|
| No-one's nice design has a right to exist nor does their
| business have a right to work out. Personally I'll do what I
| can do make DRM fail and companies that implement it go bust.
| ssl232 wrote:
| You'd have a point if there hadn't been countless hardware
| manufacturers in the 20th century who didn't have to rely on
| DRM for their success.
|
| EDIT: not sure why you're getting downvoted, you don't deserve
| it from what I can see. Have an upvote.
| nicbou wrote:
| I don't owe that company a damn thing
| [deleted]
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| Plenty of John Deer loving farmers would disagree with you.
| prasadjoglekar wrote:
| Hacking is capitalism at it's best. If someone else can do the
| same thing faster/better/cheaper, then they should! No one owes
| your business anything - certainly not patronage for bad ideas.
| j-bos wrote:
| Just for fun:
|
| Maybe this is a popular opinion, but if you sell a product
| because you want people to continue giving you money and
| freedom to make make money, isn't it a this type of DRMing
| actually a disservice to the guy who gave you money? After all
| person is not made only to prop up companies. Maybe their life
| requires not ballooning costs on brand name generics and is
| impoverished without them (especially if it's a family).
|
| The idea of buying to transfer ownership in exchange for a
| good. Ownership implies responsibility for the single good
| purchased, not for the coalition of sellers who relinquished
| their claim in exchange for my wealth.
| tomrod wrote:
| I am, more and more, deliberately choosing boring technology.
| Knobs in the car and on appliances. No screen interfaces. Low-
| tech where possible.
|
| We just replaced our "high tech" Maytag dryer and its "advanced"
| feature set for a low tech SpeedQueen, the same dryers you find
| in most Laundromats. Why? Repairability. While we could
| _technically_ replace the burnt out fuse in the Maytag, it would
| take at least two hours for a skilled technician (translated to
| several days for me and my spouse spread across a few weeks) and
| frankly we want to repair and get back to life. After a few days
| of looking into the issue and considering the option, we bit the
| bullet and bought a new one. The old one just had too many fault
| modes to consider even if we did successfully repair it.
|
| I take the same neo-Luddite view on a lot of recent "technology"
| improvements. The BoringTechnology.club website has the right
| idea.
| iratewizard wrote:
| It should be noted that the Bob cartridge is completely
| optional you can also just add regular detergent as per the
| manufacturer.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I know an executive working for Haier who doesn't really think
| the smart home thing is going to work out in it's current form.
|
| His view is that people probably want a washing machine that
| can keep track of it's duty cycles and let you know if water
| quality is affecting it's performance or if a part is getting
| close to end of life and organize purchase of the part and an
| repairer to do the fix. The gimmicks of being able to get
| alerts about the status of appliances to your phone are just
| fluff. But it's early days and people at the top who make this
| decisions are still working them out.
| linker3000 wrote:
| I baulked at installing the 'Homewhiz' Android app for my
| Beko washer/dryer because not only did it want access to my
| mic and camera, but also GPS and contacts.
|
| Instead, I installed a smart plug with power sensor and
| hooked it up to a phone dashboard via MQTT and Node-RED so I
| can work out the current state of the machine (by power
| draw), and as a fun bonus I get an email at the start and end
| of each wash/dry cycle.
|
| That's good enough for me - I can't see the point of being
| able to set the wash program by phone as I have to be
| physically at the machine when loading it.
|
| If I could use an official app to see machine anomalies or
| predicted failures without the feeling that I am being bugged
| or data mined that would be handy.
|
| Allegedly, the Homewhiz protocol is 'Open', but references
| lead to ISO/IEC 30118-4:2021, which is a multi-document spec
| for which you have to pay. I also would not be surprised if
| the appliance's Bluetooth connectivity won't play nice unless
| there's an outbound 'heartbeat' to a remote server via the
| phone.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > people probably want a washing machine that can keep track
| of it's duty cycles and let you know if water quality is
| affecting it's performance or if a part is getting close to
| end of life
|
| Sounds good, but you can do it with a few sensors leading to
| an LCD screen (and a manual in a yellowing clear plastic bag
| taped to the back of the machine.) And you don't have to
| disable the machine if that microprocessor burns out, or god
| forbid put an entire computer in there.
|
| > and organize purchase of the part and an repairer to do the
| fix.
|
| Not only do I not need any appliance to do this, but
|
| 1) if they cared about parts and service, they could have a
| nice website for this stuff, and they don't. So judging them
| based on that, this will also be neglected (after being
| marketed.)
|
| 2) this would really be a way to _prevent_ people from
| getting parts who don 't have a current service contract, and
| to screw them on the prices. It would also be a way to take a
| huge cut from the repair companies who participate in the
| program, who would also be large rent-seekers (who could make
| a deal with device manufacturers to be included in the
| software) skimming just as much by farming out the work to
| subcontractors.
|
| End result: single thing goes wrong, repair and parts cost
| more than the device. Don't worry, they're running a
| promotion that gives you credit towards buying their latest
| model.
| pettycashstash2 wrote:
| I keep hearing about speed queens. Are they available in the us
| market? Where would one purchase one ? What is the cost for
| one?
| tomrod wrote:
| Yep. Check out their website in the sibling comment. The
| places around me tend to be for "luxury" homes --
| surprisingly, the items at these shops tend to be quite low
| tech. Low tech == modern luxury?
|
| We went with a lower end model that cost about 50% more than
| the similar sized models available at Lowes/Home Depot.
| Considering we'd already repaired the old unit a handful of
| times and it cost in that range, we only need it to last
| about 4 years before we break even.
| pettycashstash2 wrote:
| I definitely will. I'm getting frustrated with the cleaning
| of the front load Samsung. Supposedly top end model but
| maintenance is exhausting
| memcg wrote:
| https://speedqueen.com/where-to-buy/
| nicbou wrote:
| I do the same.
|
| I avoid anything that ties me to the manufacturer. Once one of
| their MBAs decides that the product line is no longer
| profitable, the servers go offline, the software stops getting
| updates, the cartridges stop being produced.
|
| I like self-contained products that I can repair myself (within
| reason). I have growing faith in my ability to repair things.
| However, manufacturers find it profitable to withhold the
| tools, parts and knowledge I need to do this.
| boringg wrote:
| I loathe MBAs and business schools - I strongly feel like
| that have seriously ruined much of the last 30 years through
| wasted talent and short sighted profiteering. That and they
| are so self assured. Oh add in VC for putting such high
| pressure and excess returns. The model is broken.
|
| * I know not all MBAs are like this but there's considerable
| damage *
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| SpeedQueen owner here as well. Even more important than
| repairability is that the SpeedQueen _actually cleans my
| clothes_.
|
| In the 80s I remember coming home with mud caked on my clothes,
| shaking them off and throwing them in the washer. I'd even
| throw my muddy sneakers in the wash. If I try that with a
| modern low-water unit there's still dirt on them after a wash.
| The SpeedQueen will handle this kind of heavy soiling.
|
| It seems like modern washers are designed for modern (mostly
| indoor) living. They freshen clothes, but they don't really
| wash them.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| This is about dishwashers, but I once read about regulation-
| enforced water/energy-saving cycles resulting in ineffective
| cleaning, which backfired, as people then got in the habit of
| always selecting the heaviest cycle or even re-adopted pre-
| rinsing.
|
| Searching for the concept now, I can only find this article:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-dishwashers-that-clean-
| aga...
| dkurth wrote:
| Exactly. We pre-rinse the dishes, get the water running hot
| before starting the machine, and choose the heavy cycle.
| Even so, the dishwasher barely cleans our dishes. And it's
| a Bosch, well reviewed by Consumer Reports when we got it!
|
| People in this thread are talking about the SpeedQueen
| washing machine. Is there something similar for
| dishwashers? I would pay good money for a dishwasher that
| actually cleaned my dishes. I don't even care if it's loud!
| jitl wrote:
| Are you using pre-wash detergent? My parents struggled
| with pampering their washer for 20 years, turns out a
| spoonful of detergent in the body of the washer gets the
| same performance as all the pre-rinse etc etc.
|
| Video on the subject: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
| dkurth wrote:
| Thank you! Another comment recommends the same video, so
| I will certainly check it out.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Are you perhaps using tabs? Dishwashers need detergent in
| the rinse cycle, otherwise they don't rinse well, and
| tabs don't let you do that. I've had friends who have
| always pre-rinsed because of wrong dishwasher use. Once
| they switched to powder and put some in the rinse cycle
| their dishes don't need pre-rinsing.
|
| See https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
| dkurth wrote:
| Thank you, I will definitely watch this. We have tried
| pre-wash detergent, tabs, liquid soap, powder detergents,
| in various combinations.
|
| There may be something unusual wrong with our dishwasher.
| Although we clean its filter regularly, sometimes a kind
| of brown slime forms along the walls and around the
| filter, and I have to give it a deeper cleaning. Bosch
| had no idea what this was! I'm curious if anyone else has
| experienced something like that.
| finnh wrote:
| whoa. sounds like your drainage might be at fault. i have
| never heard of anything like this. I'm not a plumber, or
| anything related, but dishwashers should not have slime
| and should not need cleaning. yikes.
| ac29 wrote:
| That almost sounds like your washer isnt using hot water.
| It would explain the poor cleaning performance and the
| weird growth in the filter.
| OJFord wrote:
| > get the water running hot before starting the machine
|
| Interesting if this is a US difference - but here (in the
| UK) at least dishwashers (usually? I suppose I don't want
| to claim to speak for 100%) only have a cold water inlet;
| they do their own heating.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| They usually are the same in the US too based on my own
| anecdata of having ~10 different ones over past twenty
| years.
| dkurth wrote:
| I admit that I'm not actually sure. We got this advice
| from a local appliance shop.
| nagisa wrote:
| This depends on the manufacturer. Some manufacturers make
| dishwashers that can utilize both hot and cold water and
| others only work with cold or hot water.
|
| As an example Frigidaire, GE, KitchenAid, Whirlpool will
| only work with hot water; Samsung, Ikea, Beko will only
| work with cold water; and Bosch, Miele, Electrolux, LG
| will work with either.
| OJFord wrote:
| Interesting, I don't think it does here other than
| extreme minority of cases - because it's just not
| standard plumbing. You typically have a washing machine &
| dishwasher hookup & waste under the sink; it's pretty
| standardised and it's on cold.
|
| > As an example Frigidaire, GE, KitchenAid, Whirlpool
| will only work with hot water
|
| Yeah, afaik without actually looking into it, of those
| only Whirlpool is distributed here (KitchenAid stuff yes
| for sure, but not I think dishwashers) and as above I'm
| pretty sure they must be different models, just like
| LH/RH driver cars.
|
| Of course you can import whatever you want, but then you
| should probably expect to deal with some such plumbing
| (and potentially electrical, at very least changing the
| plug) oddities.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| How do you handle softened water in the UK?
|
| In the US, it's common to have a water softener on the
| hot water line, intended to soften the inputs for
| appliances and showers. The cold water line is not
| softened, to avoid drinking sodium-laced water.
| OJFord wrote:
| I wouldn't like to estimate an installation percentage,
| but it's probably not quite 'standard' to have at all. In
| the systems I've known, I believe it's been on the cold-
| water line pre-boiler; in the scullery with the sink
| there pre-softener so you get one (cold) tap without.
|
| I don't claim authority on the matter though.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| We have a Bosch 800 that is capable of heating its own
| water, but it's still plumbed for hot just because the
| gas-heated water is cheaper, and the only cold supply
| under the kitchen sink is unsoftened.
|
| Overall I've been quite happy with my premium-dishwasher
| experience, though there are a few little things that I
| don't love, like the fact that the rollers on the middle
| rack are no longer independently-replaceable. Seems like
| a huge step backward to have to replace the entire rack
| for like $200 just because one of those fails.
| ddingus wrote:
| Ours is a US model, has a pre-heat water cycle. I think
| it does have a hot water inlet, but we do not use it.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'm constantly confused by these threads; the only time
| I've seen these sorts of problems with dishwashers of any
| vintage is where people aren't cleaning the filters.
| You're cleaning the filters, right?
| dkurth wrote:
| We are now, but there's a little more to it. When we
| first got this dishwasher, we never cleaned the filters.
| Our previous washer didn't need that, and we didn't know
| better.
|
| So it got pretty bad before we realized we needed to do
| that. We cleaned it very thoroughly at that point and now
| clean the filters at least weekly, but we still have
| these problems.
| amluto wrote:
| My "modern" (20-year-old, which is solidly modern by this
| standard) dishwasher cleans much better than I remember my
| childhood dishwasher cleaning. It also doesn't melt plastic
| on the bottom rack, which is a fantastic feature. The main
| downside is it takes two hours, and I think my childhood
| dishwasher took one hour.
|
| My modern front load washer gets clothes clean. It also
| doesn't severely abrade them. As I understand it, this
| combination of features is unavailable in a top-loader.
| Top-loaders with agitators clean well but damage clothing
| due to rubbing against the agitator. Top-loaders without
| agitators don't clean well.
|
| (Fundamentally, front loading is just a better design.
| There is no reason to submerge clothes for the whole cycle;
| to the contrary, one wants the clothes to _move_ relative
| to the water. With a top loader, the clothes and the water
| move as a unit and gravity doesn't help at all except to
| the extent that it avoids needing a seal on the door. With
| a front loader, gravity actively assists the process. And,
| aside from saving water, the fact that less water is used
| means that less detergent is needed to achieve a given
| concentration.)
|
| Make fun of modern low-water appliances all you like, but a
| lot of them are much better than the things they replaced
| even if you don't care about water usage.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > My modern front load washer gets clothes clean. It also
| doesn't severely abrade them.
|
| I had rented a place with a washer that ruined all of my
| clothes. I didn't figure out whats happening untill it
| was too late
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Yeah, I've had front loaders trap a sheet in a seal and
| then scorch a bunch of stuff when it spun at a bajillion
| rpm against the 0rpm fabric.
|
| Wash on delicate with Cold water my friends!
| amluto wrote:
| I've had a top loader get clothing stuck in regrettable
| places on the agitator and shred them. I've never met a
| washer that was impossible to misuse.
| gambiting wrote:
| My new(2 years old) Bosch dishwasher cleans much better
| than any other dishwasher I used in my life. I'm like 60%
| sure that the buttons on the front don't actually do
| anything, because it cleans equally well in all modes,
| from ECO(50C) to Heavy Load(70C). Yeah the eco mode takes
| 3 hours by default, but press "Vario Speed" and is done
| in 1:05h with the exact same result.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I have a modern Bosch benchmark washer and it also cleans
| better than anything I've ever used from past decades.
| It's also extremely expensive.
|
| I have friends with cheaper dishwashers and they do not
| clean well at all on eco modes.
|
| Everything's relative.
| maccard wrote:
| > Yeah the eco mode takes 3 hours by default, but press
| "Vario Speed" and is done in 1:05h with the exact same
| result.
|
| I wonder about people complaining about this - whether it
| takes 1 hour or 3 hours, are you sitting in your kitchen
| waiting for the dishwasher to complete? Put it on after a
| meal and next time you're in the kitchen it will be
| done...
| gambiting wrote:
| I mean, it's nice to have an option for a quick programme
| when you have guests over and actually it's good to do a
| couple loads in a single day. But yes overnight I don't
| care, it can take 6 hours and I wouldn't mind.
| edzillion wrote:
| Time it to finish when you get up and it will release a
| lot of warm (humid) air to help you warm up your house
| gambiting wrote:
| It's on a timer anyway because we have cheap electricity
| from 00:30-04:30, so I just run it alongside all the
| other appliances within thouse hours(and charge our car
| too).
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Honestly my only complaint is that my Bosch dishwasher's
| beep cannot be disabled. If I start it late, the damn
| thing wakes me up in the middle of the night.
|
| I've seriously considered taking it apart to remove the
| buzzer.
| amluto wrote:
| A quick DuckDuckGo search for "bosch dishwasher turn off
| beep" comes up with some promising results.
| celticninja wrote:
| I cook a large meal for family maybe and bake some desert
| and then rest of the days build up and it's full. Put it
| on the 3hr cycle and by the time dinner is finished there
| is a while new load to go in, which has to sit around
| until it is complete (still 1.5 hour to go after we
| finish eating)
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Exactly. I read "Eco mode" (which can be found on virtually
| any product today) as 'ignore entirely'.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| The Department of Energy actually banned the SpeedQueen
| TC5 washer model a few years back because it didn't have
| a sufficient eco mode (read this as: it automated more of
| the washing work for you than the government would allow)
|
| The workaround is that modern SpeedQueen washers have a
| "normal/eco" default mode which doesn't do a good job at
| all. This mode exists to satisfy the DoE policy. The
| washer is intended to never be run on this mode, and all
| the other modes do a fantastic washing job.
|
| I have the newer TC5 with the bogus "normal/eco" cycle.
| It's a great washer as long as the government mandated
| useless mode isn't selected.
|
| Here's a nyt/wirecutter article about it:
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/speed-queen-
| revie...
| distances wrote:
| I have a dishwasher and washing machine from Siemens
| (nowadays the same as Bosch, just different branding).
| European models around 400EUR each. Eco mode washes
| perfectly fine on both of them, that's what I always use.
| Takes over three hours but that's not an issue for me.
| adrianN wrote:
| I choose the eco-mode setting and lie to the machine that
| it's only half-full and my dishes are still cleaned
| properly. This is a newish Bosch model.
|
| I also choose the eco setting on my washing machine and
| wash at 30 degrees and my clothes become clean (but I don't
| roll around in mud very often). That's a cheap Beko model
| that is about 8 years old.
| amluto wrote:
| What low-water unit are you comparing to?
|
| Here's Wirecutter doing an actual comparison:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/speed-queen-
| revie...
| [deleted]
| tzs wrote:
| My house came in 2007 with a quite old fashioned GE washer [1]
| and GE dryer [2]. The washer was made in August 2003 and the
| dryer was made in April 2004.
|
| They still work fine and have required no repairs in the 15
| years I've had them.
|
| [1] https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/GE-3-2-Cu-Ft-Super-
| Pl...
|
| [2] https://www.geappliances.com/appliance/GE-7-0-Cu-Ft-Super-
| Ca...
| NVQXE23I wrote:
| The bearing of my Whirlpool washing machine got corroded due to
| a leaking seal. So when the drying cycle started, the bearing
| started screeching so loud that my kids woke up.
|
| I decided to replace the bearing and (after measuring) found
| the correct SKF bearing. After picking it up at the local
| dealer and paying 7 euro's, I started. But what did Whirlpool
| do? They made it impossible to remove only the bearing and
| seal. You had to replace the whole drum, which costs about half
| of the machine.
|
| Why? I emailed Whirlpool and got a reply where I could buy the
| new drum.. _SIGH_
| jahewson wrote:
| Repairability is great but it does often come at the cost of
| efficiency. I found this to be the case with my washer. You can
| end up spending so much extra on electricity that you could
| have replaced the washer anyway.
|
| This was also the case with my subcompact car. It needed a $400
| repair but the entire powertrain is integrated so you have to
| spend $4000 in labor disassembling and reassembling it.
| tomrod wrote:
| This sounds more like forced obsolescence.
| memcg wrote:
| I bought a Whirlpool washer and dryer set in 1982 based on
| Consumer Reports testing. In 2017, I replaced the washer with a
| Speed Queen. It was recommended by a friend who owns a few
| rental houses. The Whirlpool dryer is still running.
|
| Anyone else use Consumer Reports?
| sseagull wrote:
| I do. I bought a house a few years ago, and needed to buy a
| whole bunch of stuff (lawnmower, generator, washer, dryer,
| freezer, bed, etc). Really helped pare down what was out
| there. Largely use it for bigger items, though.
|
| I just didn't have it in me to "research" all that stuff
| online. On one side, you have scummy review sites or sites
| with uneducated reviewers, and on the other, very opinionated
| aficionados who want you to spend $$$$$ on every little
| thing, or else it's just an inferior experience (of mowing
| the lawn or something).
|
| I'm sure CR isn't perfect, but sometimes I just need a
| recommendation that's not complete garbage and then to move
| on with life.
| ikurei wrote:
| > Knobs in the car and on appliances.
|
| I want knobs in my car, but I specially want no GPS tracking,
| no connection to the internet. My not-that-old dead-dinosaur-
| powered car doesn't have it, but I'd like to switch to an
| electric car in the next few years and I'm fearing it.
|
| Will anyone build an electric but dumb car? I know some of the
| earlier electrics were dumb (in this desirable sense) but they
| also had significat compromises. Will it be possible to buy a
| privacy-respecting, good, new-ish electric car in a few years?
| It looks unlikely...
|
| (I'm honestly asking, someone here will know way more than me
| about this)
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It ought to be possible to locate the cellular antenna on any
| car and disconnect it or wrap a Faraday cage around it. (The
| latter is probably a better solution because it makes it
| harder for the software to detect a fault. You want the
| software to think the car is simply in a no-cell-coverage
| area.)
| Bud wrote:
| I'd say Apple is basically your only hope. And it remains to
| be seen whether Apple's car will ever ship, and if it does,
| it might not be available for the public to purchase.
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| Essentially every modern car is deliberately optimized to
| fail within 10 years and requires expensive subassemblies
| primarily made from fragile plastic.
| edzillion wrote:
| Well if you're in the EU then no, unless you can overturn the
| legislation.
|
| > The Background: In 2019, the European Commission and the
| European Council jointly approved a regulation that will
| require new safety measures in motor vehicles starting July
| 2022, including the installation of so-called "Event Data
| Recorders," a device similar to "black boxes" in aircrafts.
|
| From what I heard the car company has access to this device
| at all times and does not need a court order to listen in.
| They are supposed to only use it when the car has had an
| accident but it's a terrible precedent.
|
| Edit: forgot the link
| https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/black-boxes-in-
| automobiles...
| ikurei wrote:
| Thank you, I didn't know about this. I'll have a read but
| at first sight I wonder if this Event Recorder couldn't
| just work offline like an airplane's black box; would that
| just be super expensive?
|
| My car recording what happens for accidents doesn't sound
| awful. It could even record my last 30 minutes of
| locations, all you would need to analyze a crash.
|
| It recording my locations long-term, and specially sending
| them somewhere, sucks.
| throwxxxaway wrote:
| Can it be that we are just getting old? The new generation will
| have their brains wired to ignore ads, will be ok with devices
| spying on them (it will be called something else).
|
| And we will be something like that grandpa that can't unblock
| the mobile phone. (for example, use that new blockchain smart
| contract to open the fridge and order some food NFTs)
| lbotos wrote:
| Maybe? My microwave has something like 20 buttons, I really
| wish it had two knobs:
|
| - Time - Power
|
| Hell, print a guide on the inside of the door on how to
| adjust power for defrosting or whatever. I rarely ever press
| more than :30 button, and changing power is more annoying
| than it should be.
|
| https://ellis.fyi/tag/knobs/
| tzs wrote:
| Some of the fancy microwave features can actually be useful
| though.
|
| The "sensor cook" on mine does a really great job with
| potatoes for example. They come out about as good with that
| as they do when I bake them in the toaster oven or regular
| oven using a thermometer to determine the cooking time, but
| the microwave is a lot faster and less effort.
| Beltalowda wrote:
| The other day I accidentally grilled my instant meal
| because I selected the wavy grill icon instead of the wavy
| microwave icon on my combi-oven. Molten plastic everywhere
| :-/ It does have a knob for selecting the time though.
|
| I get that icons are easier because you don't need to
| translate things for every country, but surely it can't be
| _that_ much effort or expensive? My washing machine has
| text in Dutch and French, and it was one of the cheaper
| options.
| nicbou wrote:
| My bomann microwave is exactly that, and it's great
| bombcar wrote:
| We are getting old - but part of getting old is remembering
| things that could be repaired instead of thrown away.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| The door on our $1200 2 year old refrigerator started
| cracking at the hinge. I had a credit card warranty on it,
| so I foolishly tried to hire an appliance repair company to
| fix it. They charged $150 to look at it for 10 minutes and
| say all they could do is replace the whole door, and quoted
| $900. I spent 45 minutes fixing it myself with some
| extruded aluminum and some rivets. The warranty coverage
| allowed for self-repair, so I ended up "earning" roughly my
| equivalent hourly rate as a software engineer.
| 7952 wrote:
| I think it depends on the specific technology. I know older
| people who were excited to get a smart TV where younger
| people use a phone, dongles or even a laptops. Sometimes they
| need the smarts more and are less able to escape it. And
| there are still older tech fans who love finding the future.
| Frost1x wrote:
| Societies and culture go in wrong directions frequently. The
| older you grow, the more experience and knowledge you have to
| recognize bad trends, anticonsumer practices, and outright
| abusive behaviors. While some of getting old for many is
| turning into a creature of habit fighting off any and all
| change, for many it's rejecting what is identified as
| bad/harmful change or change that exists for no apparent
| reason.
|
| Not all old people are luddites or simply too inept to deal
| with change, sometimes they make conscious decisions to
| reject a given change yet are forced by the rest of society
| on occasion to deal with it. New technologies need to clarify
| the tradeoffs that exist and what the real value add is
| beyond marketing propoganda.
|
| Many are obsessed with social media and smart devices all
| over their home (regardless of age). Meanwhile, people who
| frequent this site are largely technologists who are very
| tech savvy, sometimes the people creating these very systems,
| and many of them actively reject such technology and systems
| because they know exactly how harmful things can be. It's not
| because they're old, it's because they're informed.
|
| More and more business practices are losing their alignment
| with society and pulling more value than they create and
| people simply don't want to deal with it. I applaud markets
| actually functioning healthily and rejecting abusive
| practices. This DRM may exist for a lot of good reasons,
| refillability simply may be impractical after skimming over
| the writeup for some. Meanwhile you have systems like DRM on
| KCups coffee makers that are completely ludicrous.
| noduerme wrote:
| I remember my grandfather in Vegas lamenting that allowing
| people to wear trashy street clothes or anything less than
| formal wear / suit and tie into the casinos, or on
| airplanes, would lead to more and more bad behavior. This
| seemed incredibly uncool and old-fashioned at the time, but
| it turns out he was right. Decades of increasingly lax
| social codes around how people present themselves in public
| have led to generations of people who don't know how to
| behave politely in public.
|
| This struck me with full force when I was invited to the
| Magic Castle in LA, one of the last venues to require
| formal wear at all times. One of the most magical things
| about that place is how it transforms a whole range of
| everyday visitors who might be people you wouldn't want to
| hang out with at their local bar into highly civilized men
| and women on their tip-top behavior. Vegas and air travel
| both used to operate on this principle. Now we might call
| it "LARPing" but when it was a social norm it was called
| "going out".
|
| I don't think it's my getting older that caused me to think
| more like my grandfather. I think time proved him right.
| maccard wrote:
| > I remember my grandfather in Vegas lamenting that
| allowing people to wear trashy street clothes or anything
| less than formal wear / suit and tie into the casinos, or
| on airplanes, would lead to more and more bad behavior.
| This seemed incredibly uncool and old-fashioned at the
| time, but it turns out he was right.
|
| I don't agree at all. A huge amount has changed since
| airlines enforced formal wear - for example, I can fly to
| Prague/Budapest/Amsterdam for under EUR30 from most of
| Europe, and I can fly return to New York from London for
| less than weeks wages of minimum wage.
|
| > This struck me with full force when I was invited to
| the Magic Castle in LA, one of the last venues to require
| formal wear at all times. One of the most magical things
| about that place is how it transforms a whole range of
| everyday visitors who might be people you wouldn't want
| to hang out with at their local bar into highly civilized
| men and women on their tip-top behavior.
|
| What makes you think that the dress code is what made
| them behave, and not that they were invited by someone
| who put their neck out for them, or the $50 cover charge,
| or the $20 drinks? Anecdotally, I've seen plenty of
| people behaving terribly in formalwear over the years.
| noduerme wrote:
| >> I can fly to Prague/Budapest/Amsterdam for under EUR30
|
| The three flights guaranteed to have a stag party.
|
| The common way to look at this is that flying has gotten
| cheaper. Another way to look at - the way the Soviets
| would have looked at it - is that the masses have gotten
| much wealthier.
|
| So if you agree that rich people are not necessarily
| better-behaved than poor people, and that anyone who can
| afford to fly for vacation is wealthy by the standards of
| 40 years ago, then there's some other explanation for why
| people feel alright making complete asses of themselves
| on RyanAir. I submit that when people feel like trash,
| they act like trash. When they feel like they're shown
| respect, they act with respect. _When the people around
| you are dressed formally it 's a sign of respect for the
| place and for each other, which creates a circle of
| respectful behavior._
|
| This is why in my grandfather's time even the poorest
| folks had "Sunday clothes" and acted a certain way in
| them. Certain activities like flying or going to a casino
| called for your Sunday best.
| maccard wrote:
| > The three flights guaranteed to have a stag party.
|
| I deliberately picked them as textbook examples. I can
| fly to pretty much anywhere in Europe for under PS50
| return. Air travel has gotten incredibly cheap - last
| time I flew back to Ireland it cost me as much to get to
| the airport than it did to fly.
|
| > When the people around you are dressed formally it's a
| sign of respect for the place and for each other, which
| creates a circle of respectful behavior.
|
| And yet formalwear is often seen at parties, weddings,
| work holiday nights. Go to a bar in Manhattan, Vegas,LA
| where people are wearing dresses and suits that cost as
| much as my car and see the behaviour.
|
| > This is why in my grandfather's time even the poorest
| folks had "Sunday clothes" and acted a certain way in
| them.
|
| They behaved a certain way because of the environment
| they were in, not because of how they were dressed. It
| was, and still would be unacceptable to show up to church
| being loud and boisterous, and in my time attending s
| church(albeit it's been about 20 years) I don't ever
| recall seeing anyone removed or acting out other than
| children, despite wearing "normal" clothes.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| No. It's that the UI, privacy leakage, software, and
| electronic engineering of these things is simply horrible.
|
| I'd be happy with IoT appliances iff:
|
| --They weren't designed to fail because of poor power
| conditioning and thermal management.
|
| --They weren't vectors for botnets due to poor security.
|
| --They ran on my personal cloud or LAN rather than some
| godawful Chinese server.
|
| --I had veto power over all SW updates, and I could roll them
| back.
|
| --They didn't constantly beep at me as if I were _their_
| servant, rather than the other way around.
|
| --Their MTBF was _longer_ than "dumb" appliances rather than
| shorter.
|
| I can design systems like this, but apparently the big white
| goods manufacturers cannot, or don't want to.
| tomrod wrote:
| They don't think there is a market for it OR they don't put
| it into their core principles.
|
| There is a market for it.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I think part of this is inevitable, but I am still very
| concerned because we cannot rewire our brains in less than
| single generation, and despite what many _think_ you are
| paying attention to those ads. My parents might struggle with
| technology but I 'd argue it's because they are trying to do
| something basic (like access the internet) or of value (like
| watch their favourite streaming series). I'm not convinced
| these new "value extraction" pain points that cause us
| hardship are the same.
| jotm wrote:
| No, I can ignore ads very well. I just buy what I need after
| a lot of research (and sadly good/real reviews are harder to
| come by).
|
| All new advancements in "tech" have actually been in money
| making. Like appliances that require special cartridges for
| no good reason other than it being more profitable for the
| manufacturer. They finally adapter the printer-ink model,
| heh.
|
| Did you know most contracts forbid recycling companies from
| taking out parts and selling them? Because it would cut into
| profits on overpriced spare parts, of course (official reason
| is "we can't trust that they'll perform well"). And so they
| go to landfills or at best, are melted down into something
| usable at huge energy costs.
|
| Yes, people will put up with it. I hope not for long. I know
| people making 50k/year (good salary for EU) and literally
| spending it all on the "best" shit, who wish to buy a house
| and saying it's impossible. Then there's the people making
| 20k/year who save for many long years and buy a 300k+ house,
| or at least an apartment.
|
| Willing to bet who will be better off in a decade or so? Or
| whose kids? Ha ha, I might actually lose that bet if a war or
| catastrophic natural events happen.
| [deleted]
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > The new generation will have their brains wired to ignore
| ads
|
| ...upon which the brain wiring experts get bought and rewire
| those brains to only see "approved" ads which gives the wheel
| another push. Around and around it goes, like a circle game.
| fifticon wrote:
| I've justed installed 5 years' worth of Revit on my new
| laptop today, and with each year the UI on their installers
| are getting worse. On Revit 2022, some of the splash screen
| prompts are not resizable and not MOVABLE, ie they don't
| respond to alt+space for windows menu. This is not OK. On one
| of them, I had to answer input prompts that they rendered OFF
| SCREEN. I solved that by changing display resolution..
| Another showed a clipped path of a missing install file,
| which thus couldnt be identified.. I solved that by moving
| the install files to c:/2/ (to get a shorter path it could
| display). No, things are getting worse, today's ui is made
| with crayons :-/
| j-bos wrote:
| Revit installs are the worst. Iused to freelance for an
| engineer and once I moved on from that it was amazing how
| much cruft from Autodesk was left on my machine. I'm
| guessing most of it was based on anti piracy measures. I
| often wonder how much overlap there is between anti piracy,
| ani cheat, and "productivity" measuring tech.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I often wonder how much overlap there is between anti
| piracy, ani cheat, and "productivity" measuring tech.
|
| I've never heard it put this succinctly. Are the same
| companies doing all of these things because the expertise
| transfers? Do they have journals and conferences
| together?
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Reminds me of Adobe. The sheer number of dubious services
| and "stuff" and god awful updates is insane. All this
| just for Acrobat.
|
| Using Firefox to read PDFs now and its a pleasure. Its
| blazingly fast and does exactly what I need.
|
| Adobe can jump off a cliff.
| entropyie wrote:
| I advise you to go visit a Stasi museum in Germany sometime,
| look at what they were able to do with paper documents and
| film/tape.
|
| Now imagine what they could do with today's telemetry
| obsessed economy.
|
| When I was in my 20s I thought democracy was a given...
| "getting old" might just mean you've been alive long enough
| to realise that democracy is fragile and the shit sometimes
| hits the fan... We are one misguided vote away from handing
| over the ultimate panopticon to a malevolent government, and
| we will never be able to organise a resistance to win power
| back, because it will be snuffed out in its infancy .
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Having seen the confusion on my daughter's face when pressing
| skip ad on the TV didn't work I'm inclined to agree somewhat.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Sounds like she hates ads as much as the rest of us.
| netr0ute wrote:
| > Can it be that we are just getting old?
|
| That's rich, considering that I'm 18 and I have the same
| views.
| LoveGracePeace wrote:
| It's encouraging to read that young people are starting to
| get a good foothold on the ground. Tech is cool and helpful
| but only as far as we can throw it when it breaks.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Agree! please keep up the fight. Use the benefits (like
| ad blocking making YT watchable) to encourage other young
| people to fight too!
| LoveGracePeace wrote:
| Hold on there. Ads popping up on YT are annoying but it's
| up to the user to decide if they are worth the content
| they're watching, same as TV or print or the radio. Using
| an Ad blocker in my view is no different than stealing.
| progman32 wrote:
| Toss in SponsorBlock to auto skip time wasters and Unhook
| to hide the manipulative recommendation feed and other
| noise, too! Life is too short to waste it on
| advertisements.
|
| Not using a piece of a service (the ads) is not stealing,
| nor likely is it violating any service contact.
| feanaro wrote:
| Nope. Website sends information to my computer, my
| computer displays it the way I want it to be displayed.
| The website sending the information doesn't own my
| computer.
| detaro wrote:
| > _same as TV_
|
| is switching channels or otherwise ignoring the TV while
| ads are on also stealing?
| mynameismon wrote:
| Hey! I'm 17 here :D
| gonzo41 wrote:
| If depression rates in children and young adults are anything
| to go by, younger people absolutely cannot ignore adds.
|
| --for example, use that new blockchain smart contract to open
| the fridge and order some food NFTs.
|
| So in this instance grandpa would be using the smart contract
| to buy ledger space for a NFT about food? Because NFT's arn't
| food.
| tunap wrote:
| >If depression rates in children and young adults are
| anything to go by, younger people absolutely cannot ignore
| ads(sic).
|
| If you had toddlers in the early 00's(the only time I
| witnessed it), or were a toddler then, you were likely
| exposed to plenty of Disney Channel and the frequent
| barrage of 10 second commercials. Bad programming, IMO.
| MandieD wrote:
| This is why my near two year old is unaware that there is
| an uncountable number of hours of video made specifically
| to appeal to his age group. I know he'll find out sooner
| or later, and that it can even be called up on demand if
| your mommy is nice enough, but I want to keep those
| little brain cells engaged primarily with the quiet,
| physical world as long as possible.
| tomrod wrote:
| Typically parents at that time had to pay for it.
|
| Now? Youtube is nuts.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > younger people absolutely cannot ignore adds.
|
| The very same people will claim that you can ignore ads and
| they aren't a problem, and that free market is efficient
| and doesn't waste resources
| rsynnott wrote:
| > If depression rates in children and young adults are
| anything to go by, younger people absolutely cannot ignore
| adds.
|
| There's some reason to think that this has already happened
| to some extent. In particular, many of the changed
| purchasing habits of millennials vs genX and boomers are
| usually attributed to ad-blindness. You'd expect this to go
| even further in the next generation.
| zen_1 wrote:
| I've been semi in the market for my first car, and fully touch
| interfaces are a hard deabreaker for me, as are subscription
| services. I don't want to have to look away from the road to
| change the volume or turn the Radio off, and I don't get why so
| many cars force you to these days.
| yojo wrote:
| I did the same thing with my range hood. Just no reason for
| those things to have electronics in them.
|
| There's a Canadian company Victory that sells a couple PCB-free
| models at prices that are reasonable.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| > PCB-free
|
| Interesting coinage. I wonder if something like it will gain
| traction. I see 'silicon-free' has been used on HN twice in
| relevant contexts so far:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=silicon-free&type=comment
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >I am, more and more, deliberately choosing boring technology.
| Knobs in the car and on appliances. No screen interfaces. Low-
| tech where possible.
|
| But how much time is still possible to find boring technology?
| Unless you find used? And you won't find used for a very long
| amount of time.
|
| Maybe this is a good business case, produce boring technology
| for people who don't want connected cupboards and dish washer
| and prefer physical controls over digital interfaces.
| heretogetout wrote:
| It might be easier to produce retrofit (pun intended?) kits
| for appliances that have good core components but could be
| improved with some tactile dials and what have you.
| [deleted]
| blagie wrote:
| What I'd really like are normal keys for my car -- not $300
| remote starters or whatever other nonsense. I put it in, and
| I turn it.
|
| Is there a way to dumbify a car?
| grogenaut wrote:
| yes, people will take the chip out of the key and glue it
| to the sensor in the steering column for the ines that are
| still key based. for prox based ones, not sure.
| alaricus wrote:
| I agree fully. There is a lot of "unnecessarily complicated
| technology" which should be simplified.
| jkestner wrote:
| A big note of appreciation for the writeup. These are the service
| manuals of the future.
| z3ugma wrote:
| I love reverse engineering. I've done it a few times in software
| to pull the encryption keys out of proprietary vendor software to
| be able to decrypt the customer/consumer files they write on
| disk.
|
| Has anyone put together a list of RE "use cases" like this one
| where people are looking for help solving the puzzle?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Wow. So I'm watching the Techmoan review and it's just amazing.
| You've got this pretty awesome product.... up until you can
| clearly see the business types shoving their grubby hands in the
| way of UX and good engineering.
|
| Oh no no no. We can't just sell a product. We need recurring
| revenue. So we'll make DRM proprietary detergent pods that
| require electronics in each one. Ah, but people will reject that
| because they know (and we clearly know) it's a horrible product
| design. So we'll include an option to just use your own. Of
| course, we'll turn the screws over time, incentivising use of our
| proprietary detergent until eventually we just get rid of the
| other option.
|
| That whole thing seems to offer absolutely no added value to the
| customer. It's just making a good product inferior in order to
| grift more money from the customer.
|
| If your business model requires this kind of thing, you should
| feel unceasing shame and failure.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I'm only playing devil's advocate, I actually agree.
|
| But people are ignoring the fact this tiny dishwasher likely
| REQUIRES commercial grade concentrate. If you look at the
| design of it, it is almost identical to countertop commercial
| dishwashers but scaled down (and using plastic instead of
| stainless steel). Those also need to use concentrate. If that's
| the case, then the manufacturer had to figure out a way of
| selling commercial dishwasher concentrate directly to consumers
| that was both safe but also makes it hard for them to use the
| wrong product (e.g. avoid them buying off-the-shelf dishwasher
| liquid/gel at the supermarket).
|
| Again, I'm totally playing devil's advocate here, but I do feel
| like they _maybe_ started out with an actual design goal here
| (reduce mistakes, improved UX, protect detergent during
| shipping) then got greedy when they decided each "cassette"
| only contained 30x washes, and that they'd cost like PS5~/per.
| So I'm giving them credit for solving one problem while
| criticizing them for getting too greedy anyway.
|
| I feel like they could have struck a nice middle-ground by
| copying "ink tanks" from inkjet printers. Just downward facing
| 1 liter bottles of commercial concentrate, with the reset being
| done in software exclusively rather than tank-DRM (simpler/more
| reliable anyway). They could still upcharge, but with less
| waste/less re-ordering.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem here is that in a perfect world this would not be a
| viable business model. This device makes so many trade-offs
| (both in terms of performance as well as eco-friendliness -
| shipping back spent cartridges for recycling significantly
| offsets if not completely eliminates the benefit of recycling)
| that it wouldn't exist.
|
| The only reason why this exists isn't because it's a good
| product, it's because they can use marketing to mislead people
| into thinking it's a great eco-friendly product, grift ecology-
| related government grants or raise investment to keep their
| sinking ship afloat (this is where the DRM comes from).
|
| The issue here is that in today's world we've normalized lying
| and screwing people over, both the investors and end-users
| alike.
| [deleted]
| javajosh wrote:
| Devil's advocate: the only reason the product is so nice is
| because the grubby handed business types could raise the money
| by promising MRR to the investors. Reverse devil's advocate:
| and this is why hacking is so essential, so that some of us get
| to have our cake (meticulously and expensively designed stuff)
| and eat it too (opt out of MRR). Although this does create a
| new kind of 1%, but its one based on merit so its okay?
| car_analogy wrote:
| > Devil's advocate: the only reason the product is so nice
|
| No - the only reason the up-front price is so low, while the
| _hidden_ price is much higher. This is nothing more than
| technologically enhanced exploitation of information
| asymmetry and and human behavioral quirks that cause poor
| financial decisions.
| layer8 wrote:
| There are a lot of similar mini dishwashers that don't have
| that business model and use regular detergent. This is more
| like a lifestyle product, designed by a French startup rather
| than a Chinese manufacturer.
| jsymolon wrote:
| Interesting story on how it could go.
|
| Unauthorized Bread, Cory Doctorow
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-
| bread-a-...
| II2II wrote:
| Unfortunately, some business people seem to be using his
| writing as a manual to create the future.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Hah great read. Reminds me of this copypasta:
|
| https://imgur.com/r/4chan/dgGvgKF
| piva00 wrote:
| > the only reason the product is so nice is because the
| grubby handed business types could raise the money by
| promising MRR to the investors.
|
| Bingo!
|
| It's just the next layer of business types because they
| dominate this fucking system... Yes, it is the system:
| shameful.
| tinco wrote:
| Did you see the price tag? This device is super cheap for
| what it is, same as inkjet printers are. It's easier to
| sell a $50 printer and recover your losses through ink,
| than it is to sell a $200 printer.
|
| You could solve the "system" by regulating that companies
| are not allowed to sell products at a loss, but that would
| be unamerican.
| spiffytech wrote:
| > You could solve the "system" by regulating that
| companies are not allowed to sell products at a loss, but
| that would be unamerican.
|
| To memory, Nintendo is the only console maker that turns
| a profit on the hardware (which is part of why their
| hardware specs are always outdated). Sony & Microsoft
| don't turn a profit until you buy ~3 games.
|
| I think people would be surprised at how often products
| are sold at a loss.
| tinco wrote:
| Definitely, this is also why the "this is unamerican"
| (meaning of course the argument is against free market)
| is not an unjustified argument. It is very likely that
| inkjet printers have become much better due to inkjet
| printer manufacturers being able to compete much better
| having such an effective marketing strategy.
|
| Buying these devices is effectively the same as taking
| out a small loan, that you're repaying by buying the
| games/cartridges, and it's a well known fact that loans
| leverage economies. I wonder if some day we'll have a
| less intrusive ways of establishing these micro loans to
| enable consumers access to excellent technology.
|
| Inkjet printers, this tiny dishwasher, the Sony
| Playstation 4, they're all incredible devices that people
| get through this scheme. It's not just that the price is
| spread out by the way, a consumer could easily achieve
| that by using a credit card, but also the consumer is
| shielded from a bit of risk. If that $50 inkjet printer
| turns out to be shit they can simply not buy any
| cartridges for it, and won't be out $200 bucks on it.
| javajosh wrote:
| Anthropomorphising companies is a trap. I mean, it's a
| trap that SCOTUS fell into, but still. Companies are more
| like organisms in nature, responding to incentives in a
| mindless way. Just as it seems foolish to hate a tapeworm
| for its 'exploitative' life-cycle, it seems foolish to
| hate this kind of business model, or any other. Are
| herbavores really the only good animals, and farmers the
| only good workers? I find that hard to accept. It's
| almost impossible to judge good or evil, especially in
| the long run. Consider that mitochondria probably started
| out as an infection, or a parasite. Your gut flora, too.
| Not to mention all the weird ways ecosystems interlock,
| until its no longer clear who's exploiting whom. (That
| said, I think it's reasonable to want to live in
| Mayberry, but its highly unfair when the only people who
| get to live there are the ones who make the rest of the
| world Hamsterdam.)
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I agree there's an argument to be made for the mechanics of
| capitalism to create such a product. I think it's still
| disgusting and shameful.
|
| I also think, as I think you're pointing out, we should be
| incredibly careful to appreciate that over 99% of customers
| won't have any awareness of, or capacity to hack the problem
| away.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| > Although this does create a new kind of 1%, but its one
| based on merit so its okay?
|
| I think about this a lot. There are so many ways that the
| people who can least afford to be fleeced are getting fleeced
| the most, while people with the right savvy and some spare
| time, who are more likely to be earning well, are also able
| to avoid a ton of unnecessary cost. It's kind of a double
| whammy on the poor and unskilled.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I don't want to quote Elon Musk as a matter of preference but
| I'll do so anyway:
|
| "If they[people] have, um, implicit, um, assumption that the
| economy is zero-sum, then the only way for one person to get
| ahead is by taking from one another".
|
| The context is that the economy is ever expanding, values are
| being created, and future is bright, but my thought is it
| characterizes the market today precisely if it had not been for
| the context.
|
| ref: https://youtu.be/XP5k3ZzPf_0?t=1579
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > The context is that the economy is ever expanding
|
| Quality of life is not the economy. If housing and healthcare
| costs double, and everyone works ovetime to afford them,
| economy grows.
|
| If people drop dead as soon as they reach pention age, and if
| we put children to work, economy grows.
| eecc wrote:
| Well, is it perhaps the case that the device would cost a ton
| more if consumables weren't DRM'd?
|
| I'd say the problem here is disingenuous marketing. If
| producers honestly communicated beforehand that it is not
| really a sale, but rather a sort of pay-as-you go leasing, it
| would be clearer for everyone.
|
| Even HP -- for all its faults -- have started selling honest
| ink subscription services and unless they DRM the printers to
| reject after-market refills and refuse to sell unlocked ones
| for a premium, I would accept it as fair.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| The device costs a ton more because of DRM. It's a shell
| game, intended to trick people into thinking it's cheaper.
| They're just happy to put you on an installment plan forever.
|
| I agree that more honest marketing can help ameliorate the
| problem, to an extent.
| Tomdarkness wrote:
| I mean you can get pretty comparable counter top dishwashers
| for a similar price or even less that just use regular
| dishwasher detergent with no DRM features.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > you should feel unceasing shame and failure
|
| I care about music, the details, the style.. others know that,
| but only care about selling the tickets, the cash and the
| control. It has been this way always.
|
| Your call to shame is not only naive, it is sheep leading sheep
| to slaughter. Economic Darwinism is only a shade of the
| Horesman called War. Do not forget, your countrymen might let
| you starve, it has happened before and it will happen again.I
| will stop there, but there is more to that...
| a4isms wrote:
| It's interesting that we have already had this exact same
| transition with pure software: It is increasingly difficult to
| just _buy_ an indefinite license to use a program that is
| dowloaded or shipped to you on physical media, to be run on
| your device.
|
| Instead, companies find increasingly flimsy reasons to ship
| "Software as a Service," which in many cases exists solely to
| generate Annual Recurring Revenue, or "ARR."
|
| I'd like to make a joke about ARR Growth Hacking, or "ARRGH,"
| but I'm too depressed to take pleasure in it. Sure, there are
| convenience factors involved in apps you can just use from a
| web browser. Sure, many apps require a centralized aspect to be
| valuable, like social media. And sure, maintaining
| compatibility requires ongoing overhead, and companies need a
| revenue model that is aligned with their expense model, or they
| will close their doors.
|
| But the end result is still a world where the ability to just
| buy a thing--whether physical or not--is rapidly shrinking.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Imagine how much we're wasting with inkjet printers.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| I bought a cheap black and white laser printer and it's been
| working great for me. I don't print that much, and if I do it's
| text anyway or things like plane tickets which don't need
| color. I don't have to worry about refilling four inks at once,
| I don't have to worry about ink spilling.
| praptak wrote:
| Hacking inkjets to use continuous refill has been a thing for
| like 20 years at least.
|
| I mean I don't know the current situation (a happy laser
| printer user here) but last time I checked you could buy kits
| to convert many inkjet printers to just refill from a bottle.
| popcalc wrote:
| InkOwl is a godsend for public school teachers.
| vultour wrote:
| Had a look through the website, and while the headline sounds
| pretty upsetting I think it's important to note that the thing
| works just fine with regular detergent tablets. This DRM'd
| monstrosity seems to be an "upgrade" so you don't have to
| manually put detergent in every time.
| thisisjasononhn wrote:
| This was a fantastic read! The Bob seems like a very cool device
| for those in specific situations (small apartment, van-life,
| etc).
|
| I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for similar write-
| ups, whether tech related or anything else really? I was
| thoroughly engaged with this in a way I can't seem to get with
| books or many other articles and written documentation.
| kkdaemas wrote:
| This is true cyberpunk.
| ssl232 wrote:
| Reminds me of the Juicero [1]: an attempt to bring DRM to fruit
| juice.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ
| lostgame wrote:
| I often wonder what the CEO and investors of Juicero actually
| felt when the video of the ease to self-squeeze was released. I
| can't imagine that level of just _instantly_ knowing everything
| you 've worked on is absolutely fucked and there can be
| absolutely no recovery or hope for it.
| witheld wrote:
| It actually caused their golden goose investor to drop out in
| the middle of a deal- that single video killed the entire
| company.
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| Not gonna like, this dishwasher looks ridiculously ineffective
| even without DRM.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| In older buildings in Europe it's a royal pain to install or
| upgrade plumbing for a dishwasher or washing machine, or even
| install a dryer vent to the outdoors. Plus kitchens are often
| quite tiny by US standards. This device shines in that market.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| Nice to see that after being let go from Microsoft, Bob is doing
| something productive albeit menial.
| javajosh wrote:
| Am I the only one who looks at these projects with a combination
| of awe and apathy and jealousy? I do software, not hardware, and
| I like knowing how things work. When an expert in a different
| field glances at a PCB and identifies components, their purpose,
| by sight, and then rummages around a loose parts bin to go
| deeper, it dawns on me: this is someone's life. The same way I've
| been swimming in (application) software, and could do similar
| things with a repo, or even running processes, this person can do
| in hardware, and it's a set of interlocking skills that took an
| entire life to grow.
| layer8 wrote:
| I believe you could get to that particular level (identifying
| and reprogramming an I2C EEPROM) pretty quickly as a software
| engineer. Just get started!
| incanus77 wrote:
| I'm here to say that you can. I spent many years in pure,
| high level software, but about five years ago, got an
| interest in electronics. Started with a learning kit, but
| just kept at it and now a project like this, while
| impressive, is 100% within my understanding and, while not
| underestimating or discrediting the amount of work and
| ingenuity put in by the author, my abilities. You can do it!
| Look to places like SparkFun and Adafruit to get started.
| kosma wrote:
| You just described my joy of doing hardware better than I would
| have been able to describe it myself. Thank you.
| cybrox wrote:
| There's something very enjoyable about seeing knowledgable
| people dissecting things. As someone who can do - and has done
| - both hardware and software work, I also understand why people
| like to share these experiences. Every step in reverse
| engineering is a huge success and a nice boost of you ego,
| confirming that your accumulated skillset is powerful.
| NavinF wrote:
| > jealousy
|
| For what it's worth, you could do a similar hack with 5 minutes
| of work and zero background knowledge if you're willing to take
| a leap of faith:
|
| 1. Break open a used detergent cartridge and notice that
| there's only one chip inside
|
| 2. Google the number on the chip and click the first link to
| figure out that it's a "I2C Serial EEPROM". Clearly it's some
| sort of memory chip since they advertise its capacity
|
| 3. Without knowing exactly what an "I2C eeprom" is, google
| something like "i2c eeprom rewriter" and buy the first result:
| a $10 BIOS programmer for desktop PCs (which use the same 24
| series eeproms)
|
| 4. Clip the programmer onto the memory chip and plug it into
| your PC's USB port.
|
| The author went a lot further because that's what he wanted to
| do, but you don't have to. He figured out the USB connector's
| pinout, but your programmer comes with a clip that attaches
| directly onto the chip. He reverse-engineered the data on the
| chip and built a custom programmer, but you could just click
| the read button in your programmer's software to back up the
| data from a brand new cartridge and then write that data to
| used cartridges.
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| For those willing to take leap of faith: be careful about
| electronic element orientation aka polarity: on each element
| (where it makes difference) pin number 1 is marked in some
| way (a dot, cut corner, red wire, coloured band, ...), though
| rarely there is physical restraint preventing you from
| putting the clip the other way around. Doing this will fry
| the eeprom and/or rewriter (on this particular chip it
| switches power rails and this will cause excessive current
| flow), but most importantly, it might cause frustration worse
| than failed compilation for syntax error. Like missing
| semicolons, this will eventually happen to you. Just be
| prepared for it.
| javajosh wrote:
| So, I don't want to sound ungrateful But the what you say is
| true for ALL the roads someone else has traveled. It's true
| for electronics and learning the french horn and bread-
| making. It's true for making jewellery, learning to sew, to
| cook thai cuisine, and grinding your own optics. That's why
| the "apathy" in the list of emotions. I want to marvel at
| others who dwell in interesting spaces, without feeling the
| need to join them. I know I could, and it's tempting. But I
| already have a long list of interests, historical and
| current. Sailing, billiards, photography, piano, writing. I
| also know how to write in cursive, drive a stick, and change
| a diaper with one hand. I get that more is available; I want
| it, and I don't want it.
| blibble wrote:
| pretty much all of that should be part of any reasonable CS
| degree
|
| was certainly part of mine, and mine was more theoretical than
| most
|
| (I certainly remember peering through datasheets of various
| obscure TI chips during afternoon labs)
| rrss wrote:
| Many reasonable CS degrees have no electronics or hardware in
| the curriculum.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I think you have the right mindset, you don't need that much to
| start hacking digital electronics. Analog is harder for
| programmers because there is less skill overlap but simple
| hacks can't be that hard if you are willing to do it.
|
| What always frustrated me with electronics was material
| considerations. You need all sorts of stuff, like a good
| soldering iron, oscilloscope, hot air station, magnifying
| glass/microscope, all sorts of wires, basic components, lab
| power supply, multimeters, probes, prototyping boards, etc...
| For programming, you just need a computer, but for electronics,
| you also need one.
|
| It is not just expensive, in fact it is not that expensive for
| a full startup kit, thank you China. But what you also need is
| space, if you don't have a dedicated room for your workshop
| (i.e. not your bedroom or living room) it is going to be really
| annoying real quick. You need a bench to put all your stuff,
| and also enough space to store all the crap you will either
| repair or cannibalize part from. It also makes moving more
| difficult.
|
| While it is not an absolute necessity, and there are things
| like hackerspaces, but there is a barrier that is not present
| when you are just working with computers.
| tyingq wrote:
| >It is not just expensive, in fact it is not that expensive
| for a full startup kit, thank you China.
|
| It is amazing how much more accessible it is these days. An
| oscilloscope or signal generator (even a used one) in the
| 80's and 90's, was a lot of money. There's also a lot of
| multi-purpose test equipment now.
| MandieD wrote:
| Yeah, I've learned that my new amateur radio hobby is not
| very compatible with a newly-climbing, curious little human.
| Thank goodness I have my own little office so I don't have to
| unplug and carefully pack EVERYTHING every time, but forget
| anything involving soldering - there's just not enough room
| for even a small workbench anywhere I can close the door to
| the little guy who loves anything shiny or with a cable.
| kortex wrote:
| I was in the same spot when I met this brilliant hardware
| hacker at this hackerspace who had no formal EE degree but
| could design circuits in his sleep.
|
| "How do you do it?"
|
| "I read data sheets and a lot of wikipedia".
|
| I already spend tons of time on wiki, so I started reading data
| sheets. And he was absolutely right, datasheets for components
| are often chock full of information on how to use them, often
| with recipe books for circuits that use them.
|
| It's kinda bland and tedious but highly informative.
|
| I think there is a bit more that goes into that (in particular
| a willingness to fry stuff, that's unavoidable in hardware, and
| MOUNTAINS of patience), but like software, it's pretty easy in
| today's day and age to teach yourself hardware stuff.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| Same goes for construction materials. So many people fail to
| read the wood/adhesive/countertop/screw/paint datasheets
| which sometimes include recommendations against the way the
| product is often used.
|
| reminds me of medications and antibiotics which include their
| own datasheets that not all medical providers cross-check
| against your current medications.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Oh c'mon, if I read those things I wouldn't ever use a
| q-tip again in my life.
| timoteostewart wrote:
| Just for god's sake don't put a Q-Tip in your ear!
| There's even a warning on the package
| [deleted]
| matthews2 wrote:
| The application notes for microcontrollers are usually pretty
| good. They don't just explain how you do something, but why
| you do it a particular way.
| mynameismon wrote:
| > datasheets for components are often chock full of
| information on how to use them, often with recipe books for
| circuits that use them.
|
| Curious, I looked into the datasheet linked in the post[0].
| While I get what you mean by "chock full of information", I
| can't make the head or tail of it. Where do I get started?
| (genuinely)
| flaviut wrote:
| I'm not sure what your question is.
|
| When you don't understand a thing, you can google for it.
| Like it says it uses a Schmitt trigger for noise
| protection. How does that work? Wikipedia explains:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmitt_trigger
|
| If you have a specific goal for the chip, look up the words
| that seem to be related to that goal. Once you do that a
| bunch, you get better at figuring out which words matter.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| I (being not a hardware person but able to blink a LED)
| would start with the diagrams of talking with the device on
| page 7 and refer to them while reading the text
| descriptions of same on pages 5-6, maybe refresh my memory
| on how I2C works[1,2] as well. At the same time, almost any
| controller you can get is happy[3] to talk I2C for you, so
| it's unlikely the details matter beyond "controller writes
| device address and RW bit then (either!) reads from or
| writes to the peripheral accordingly until end of
| transaction" (whence the "dummy write" the datasheet says
| is needed to set the read address). Many even come with
| libraries that will talk to I2C EEPROMs specifically
| (because they are everywhere), so the diagrams might not be
| so important either.
|
| The rest of the datasheet is (as commonly happens with
| simple digital components) concerned with "how do I wire
| this up", "how good of a digital signal can I expect to get
| out", "how bad of a digital signal can I get away with
| putting in", a refresher on I2C, and miscellanea like power
| consumption, operating temperature, and sizes of little
| plastic boxes it comes in. Necessary if you want to design
| a board properly, not so much if you're just going to wire
| it up for a quick hack (the device seems to have a supply
| voltage and logic levels of "whatever").
|
| The only thing you maybe do need these for is to look at
| the board photo and figure out how they wired it. Dot
| indentation marks pin 1. Pins 1-4 shorted, picture on page
| 1 says 4 is ground and 1-3 are address, so per page 4 it
| ends up with[4] address 1010 000. Power (called Vcc for
| reasons that are not important here) is on pin 5, wired up
| to top pin of connector on the close-up photo; the next one
| down goes to data (SDA as I2C calls it) on pin 8; following
| one goes under the chip but is almost certainly the bus
| clock (SCL) on pin 6 because that needs to go somewhere;
| and the bottom is at first glance only connected to an
| isolated island of copper but the small holes ("vias") to
| the other side of the board probably connect it to the
| other islands so it has to be ground. That leaves write
| protect on pin 7, unconnected to anything but Vcc (through
| a dummy "pull-up" resistor to limit how much power the chip
| will waste examining it), which, to do a sanity check, page
| 3 says means writes are permitted (so the name of the pin
| is a bit unfortunately).
|
| There. Done. You still need to find or make something for
| the other side of the I2C conversation, but either an off-
| the-shelf programmer or a tutorial for a cheap board with a
| controller should be sufficient for that. (Won't be
| completely trivial the first time around, but it's a one-
| time thing like any other development environment.)
|
| [1] https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/i2c/all
|
| [2] https://learn.adafruit.com/i2c-addresses/overview
|
| [3] https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob
| /6227...
|
| [4] https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob
| /6227...
| iancmceachern wrote:
| There is usually an example circuit in the datasheet. I
| start there. Many ics now also sell that example circuit on
| a pcb you can buy from the same supplier you buy your ics
| from. Then to make your own custom thing you just start
| with that example circuit, change it or add to it as needed
| for your specific application, and then you can physically
| make those same modifications or additions to the example
| circuit board you bought and test your design before
| ordering custom boards.
|
| It's basically like tracing an outline of a drawing with
| tracing paper and then filling it in with color. You trace
| the example design, add your own color.
| gaze wrote:
| you should just try it. It's not as bad as it looks. You're
| reading an article in 5 minutes that contains probably a week's
| worth of work or something.
| xattt wrote:
| Consider this a metaphor for any field expert. A chef looks in
| a fridge and sees a combination of ingredients that will make a
| tasty dish. A teacher looks at a struggling student and sees
| what strategies will help them succeed. A lawyer looks at a
| case and sees specific circumstances that help come to an ideal
| solution.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| "The Internet of Shit Things interprets DRM chipped consumables
| as damage and routes around them."
| [deleted]
| lots2learn wrote:
| Interesting how there are still many internet connected products
| that don't have subscription fees and don't (as far as I can
| tell) track and sell my info. Some stuff from my home: Lutron
| Caseta lights, Bali motorized blinds, Secure360 outdoor security
| lights, MyQ garage opener, simplisafe entry sensors, cameras, and
| door lock (assuming you don't pay for the monitoring service). LG
| thinq products also (fridge, oven, dishwasher, washer/dryer)
| minus LG tvs (which I believe sell my info/deliver ads). Most of
| these products are something a household would buy once in many
| years (if ever a second time). So what's the business model here?
| High up front cost to subsidize the service for X number of
| years? There has to be some point where they are losing money on
| old customers.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| There is still a market for one-time purchases. I'm not
| surprised if companies don't build planned obsolescence into
| blinds, doorlocks, cameras and ovens.
| cvccvroomvroom wrote:
| The Juicero of washing machines deserves to be hacked for trying
| to waste money and plastic through anti-consumer proprietary DRM.
| _0ffh wrote:
| After reading through the thing, I don't see any DRM at all. Just
| a simple counter for the machine to know when the cartridge is
| empty. Frankly, I feel deliberately mislead by the headline, as
| seems to be getting the norm these days.
|
| Edit: Kindly tell me where I'm wrong.
| lb1lf wrote:
| As far as the average end user is concerned, this amounts to
| the same thing as full-blown DRM; rather than being allowed to
| do the sensible and (for you as a consumer) cost-effective
| thing, this counter forces you to replenish detergent supplies
| at an artificially inflated price.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Article: "you can [...] add detergents manually [...] however
| they strongly suggest against this", so I can't see how
| anybody is forced to buy the cartridges. Also, they did
| obviously not put any work in making their "DRM" secure. At
| the most, they're hoping that people would buy the expensive
| new cartridges, because it's more convenient than manually
| adding the detergent. It's a grey zone at best.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Using regular bulk detergent is supported, it's not a printer
| ink situation. The cartridges are just slightly more
| convenient.
| Frenchgeek wrote:
| I should buy one for my own but turns out you can put detergent
| between washing cycles, as long as you don't connect the
| dishwasher to a water line (well, I didn't check the other way
| around to be fair)
|
| So I'm still weighting the convenience of turning it on and
| forgetting about it versus being able to buy the detergent for
| cheap at the mall...
|
| Finding where you can buy the correct products for the cartridges
| can be quite the puzzle, last time I found a cheap-ish one with a
| "nice" 99EUR delivery charge.
| retSava wrote:
| That connector cassette <-> washing machine does not look very
| robust to me. 50-100 insertions?
| xrd wrote:
| Wouldn't it have been better to use rot13 instead of this?
| 0xa1 is calculated as Washes left XOR 0x50
| kilotaras wrote:
| rot13 is text cipher (for a-z). XOR 0x50 is a number operation.
| xrd wrote:
| I know, I'm just making a joke that this looks like an
| attempt to hide the value behind a simple operation, and
| rot13 is the ultimate low cost way to do that.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| I had to click on the link to be sure it was really a detergent
| for a washing machine. I feel like we are all becoming crazy
| tyingq wrote:
| I wonder if you could just tie pin 7 (VCC) to pin 8 (Write
| Protect). I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they didn't check
| for success on the write. Would be a much simpler hack.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| Yep, exactly that is also described on the tutorial page.
|
| https://github.com/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/mast...
|
| (Hmm, the images are loading in way after my browser has
| scrolled to the anchor, pushing it far offscreen--first time
| I've had that in a while, actually)
| tux1968 wrote:
| Well, now that everything is understood, there is no need for
| every user to get destructive with a cartridge (it's not easy
| to access the board) in order to tie those pins together.
| tyingq wrote:
| Looks easy enough to me if you have a dremel and a cutting
| disk. Then you just solder the one you removed/modified into
| the 4 wires in the machine, leaving the machine socket wired
| to nothing. And never mess with it again.
| darkwater wrote:
| But then you would have to manually keep count of the used
| cycles to know when manually refill the cassette.
| tyingq wrote:
| Ah, yeah, that is one downside. I suppose you could just
| weigh it.
| tyingq wrote:
| Oh, and there's a continuous feed mod too: https://github.c
| om/dekuNukem/bob_cassette_rewinder/blob/mast...
| dgb23 wrote:
| A funny quote if you put on your layman's glasses:
|
| > It's simply a 24C02 EEPROM with 4.7K pull-ups on I2C lines, a
| bypass cap, and some diodes, probably for reverse-insertion
| protection.
| mgdlbp wrote:
| Hence the Rewinder as a product: just plug it into the cassette
| and reprogram at the press of a button.
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| We do the same, right? Oh, it's simply routed to by a reverse-
| proxy nginx behind a round-robin load balancer with a long
| deregistration delay, probably to let the application shut down
| gracefully. If I try to forget for a second.. what the fuck did
| I just say?
| tinco wrote:
| It is very heavy on the jargon indeed. Just in case someone's
| wondering, the author isn't being facetious it really is a very
| simple thing. If you google 24C02 you'll get a PDF that
| probably has this exact schematic in the application examples
| section.
|
| If you want to take up electronics design as a hobby, you'd
| probably be at the level where you could have this designed and
| manufactured within a month or two of evening/weekends studies.
|
| edit: Just for fun, let's go through the jargon. 24C02 EEPROM
| is the name of a popular chip that stores a tiny bit of
| persistent memory. Mouser at the moment has more than 80
| variations of this chip with hundreds of thousands in stock and
| hundreds of thousands more in back order. 4.7k pull-ups, this
| means there's a small resistor between the signal lines and the
| positive voltage rail. This enables the chip to communicate by
| pulling the signal low (by shorting it to ground) this way of
| signalling is very common, someone told me it's because how the
| telegraph worked but I'm not sure if that's true. I2C is a
| simple communication protocol that works if chips are really
| close together (i.e. I think guideline is within 10-15cm). A
| bypass capacitor is a component that blocks continuous voltage
| but lets oscillating voltage through. Most chips don't deal
| well with oscillating voltages on their power supplies so the
| manufacturer will recommend you (through that PDF I mentioned
| before) to put a bypass capacitor between the power supply line
| and the ground, so that the dirty oscillations go directly to
| ground instead of into your chip. A diode is a component where
| current can only go in one direction, in this case that's handy
| because chips usually break if you wire them in reverse
| polarity. If a user would force this cartridge in backwards,
| instead of the chip blowing up, the diodes will simply block
| the current from coming in the wrong way and the device won't
| work.
|
| And that's it, I think all you need to understand how this
| cartridge is designed.
| walski wrote:
| Seems to have gained a lot of popularity since it's last posting
| a year ago :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26787002
| mgdlbp wrote:
| That post went directly to the product page, but having
| 'Hacking' and 'DRM' in the title probably didn't hurt the
| previous submission of the repo:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880
|
| 1260 points | 2021-05-02 | 406 comments
| walski wrote:
| I knew I saw this here! Very likely on that submission.
| Thanks for digging.
| andai wrote:
| >Detergent DRM
|
| The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a
| disaster for the human race. (...) The continued development of
| technology will worsen the situation.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| That quote (and the work it is taken from) is becoming more
| relevant by the day. I am very pessimistic about the future and
| I don't believe that we can fight against the enormous power
| that technology gives to those that can use it on a massive
| scale.
|
| I just hope that the eventual dictator will be a "soft-hearted
| leftist" and decide to turn the world into a huge human zoo,
| instead of some sadistic overlord that will turn the world into
| a huge human cage.
|
| EDIT: soundtrack for today: "1000 eyes" by Death
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I always considered that work to be optimistic in that he
| considered the predicted dystopian future to be avoidable. I
| never did. The ability to manipulate humans with technology
| is improving more rapidly than the ability to resist
| manipulation and there is no way to stop it.
| WJW wrote:
| I personally quite enjoy many of the things that the industrial
| revolution has brought us, such as cheap and ubiquitous
| electricity, food safety, the internet and even cheap
| countertop dishwashing machines. Detergent DRM is a bit much
| though.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| The kicker here is that the "industrial revolution" (aka, not
| living hand to mouth and dying in the wilderness) also
| provides a way to avoid things like dishwasher DRM. Now this
| guy has a product that solves the problem:
| https://www.tindie.com/products/dekuNukem/bob-rewinder-
| renew...
|
| The real problem here isn't the availability of technology as
| much as broken laws which prevent us from modifying the
| things we own to best suit our needs.
|
| I don't have much issue with selling convenience. Most people
| I know will happily pay multiples of an optimal price for
| small convenience (most people I know will buy bottled
| water). As long as the law doesn't interfere with people who
| want to add their own caustics and detergent this way, then
| what's the actual issue?
| marcinzm wrote:
| >The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a
| disaster for the human race.
|
| I'll take detergent DRM any day over being a medieval serf.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's not a dichotomy though. I've got a boring dishwasher
| which works fine and I'm not a medieval serf, so I get the
| benefits of the industrial revolution and the big scientific
| leap (or to use hipster phrasing, I've got a dishwasher
| robot) at the expense of money (a new dishwasher would be a
| week's worth of wages).
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| You still are a serf, stop paying your taxes and see what
| happens.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| Same. But capitalism's driving force, profit above all, is
| simply going to consume everything in the end.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Growth above all else is in many ways humanities driving
| force.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Nonsense, humans are no different than any other animals
| and survive best in equilibrium and _always_ die out in
| cases of uncontrolled growth.
| marcinzm wrote:
| >Nonsense, humans are no different than any other animals
| and survive best in equilibrium and always die out in
| cases of uncontrolled growth.
|
| Yet left on their own they will uncontrollably grow like
| what happens with invasive species. Then they'll
| collapse. Repeat a few times and some type of equilibrium
| may happen for a while until something else breaks it.
|
| Animals have no magic "equilibrium" sense but rather the
| surviving ones have evolved to have an equilibrium with
| their environment. That doesn't even mean the animal
| changed genetically but rather that other animals (ie:
| the environment) did to provide competition.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > Animals have no magic "equilibrium" sense but rather
| the surviving ones have evolved to have an equilibrium
| with their environment.
|
| There's nothing magic about persistence balance in
| nature. It happens in millions of ecosystems.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| If it was _just_ detergent DRM, I 'd probably agree with you.
| Semaphor wrote:
| So which parts are bad enough that you'd prefer medieval
| serfdom?
| concordDance wrote:
| It's a shame we can't go back to the pre-serfdom days,
| before mass agriculture.
| andai wrote:
| See also: The Agricultural Revolution Has Been a Disaster
| for The Human Race[0]
|
| [0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdjP0NZO-CU
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Noise pollution is my number one. There is simply no way
| to escape it living in the city, and there are no job
| opportunities for software engineers on the countryside
| (not that it's perfect on the countryside either - given
| all the motor-based tractors, chainsaws, lawnmowers,
| leafblowers...). I hate it and it's driving me crazy and
| all I want is peace and quiet, but apparently, that's too
| much to ask and I'm spoiled and it's all in my head and I
| should shut the fuck up and stop bothering the
| noisemakers.
|
| There are many others that I can't think of right now, I
| don't really keep a list.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| When I worked in San Francisco I lived in a quiet suburb
| a few miles from BART. I couldn't hear much of anything.
|
| In any event, nowadays it's extremely easy to get a full
| time remote gig and live in a truly remote location -
| especially factoring in lower cost of living. This
| doesn't seem like an actual problem. Actually, it seems
| like the industrial revolution has provided an idyllic
| outcome for people in your situation.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| That's a good point, and one I have considered many
| times. It has its tradeoffs. I suppose right now it's
| much more important for me to be close to humans and to
| learn and develop myself, so it's a necessity for me to
| be here. Once I get a good enough remote job I will
| definitely move somewhere far away from everything.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Sure. I think that's a really reasonable choice.
|
| Regarding the original point, I think it's important to
| highlight that without the industrial revolution humans
| wouldn't be able to live closely together in cities.
| Living in a city is a choice, and you've chosen the
| modern option because it's superior.
|
| This doesn't seem like a disaster as much as a net-
| positive with some fairly mild tradeoffs.
| marcinzm wrote:
| I mean with the growth of renewable energy, satellite
| internet and WFH you can work from the middle of the
| woods (and there's actually many woods out there still).
| All of that thanks to ever progressing technology.
| hulitu wrote:
| In theory, yes. In practice it is a bit mote difficult.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you own your house, spend the money for triple-glazed
| windows and have a sound/insulation gap check.
|
| It helps tremendously.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Unusually high levels of noise sensitivity (low
| tolerance) may be an indication of an underlying genetic
| condition like hEDS.
| andai wrote:
| Interesting, what makes you say that? Autism also
| typically comes with noise sensitivity and is about 100x
| more common than hEDS. Or were you suggesting that it may
| have a genetic basis in general (which would be useful to
| diagnose)? That makes sense.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It's an example I'm more familiar with, but yes it's a
| behavioral indication of a genetic condition. hEDS is
| massively under diagnosed (by at least an order of
| magnitude) and many with hEDS have ASD. Someone who is
| high functioning ASD has a much greater probability of
| having hEDS. Fewer people have heard of it and it is more
| treatable.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It's a prescient manifesto by Ted Kaczynski (an MKUltra'ed
| domestic terrorist). I often show it to friends who doubt
| that todays state of mass manipulation and over socialization
| could have been predicted.
|
| I highly recommend reading it. His killing people to get it
| published put me off reading it, but a friend recommended it
| so I relented. I found it a good read.
|
| I should point out that the consequence he was warning about
| was being made into a techno serf and that the danger was so
| great that it was worth abandoning technological comforts to
| prevent it.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| You're seriously recommending the manifesto of an anarchist
| that lived in a cabin in the woods without running water
| and sent dozens of mail bombs to innocent people?
|
| Come on, you can't find something to support your ideas
| that doesn't help glorify random murders?
| [deleted]
| paskozdilar wrote:
| You're seriously trying to censor one of the most
| influential anarcho-primitivists in the world, on the
| basis that talking about his work somehow "glorifies
| random murders"? Talk about oversocialization.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| he killed several people and tried to blow up an
| airplane... I'm saying maybe find literally any other
| person to support an idea
| andai wrote:
| >While Kaczynski's violence was generally condemned, his
| manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be generally
| shared among the American public.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah maybe try one of the people expressing similar
| viewpoints that weren't also serial murderers, they're
| not unique ideas...
| paskozdilar wrote:
| I don't support his murders in the least. He is
| rightfully locked up. I just think some of his ideas are
| interesting. I see ideas as entities separate from humans
| - one human can have many ideas and one idea can be had
| by many humans. The ideas would be the same even if
| someone else wrote them down.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| If you spend a few minutes looking you'll find that many
| other people have written them down, even pre unabomber.
| His manifesto is popular because he blew people up, not
| because he was an original thinker.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I am recommending it. He is clearly a smart person. If it
| was the ravings of a lunatic I would not. He is not a
| random murderer, he was psychologically tortured by the
| government as part of MKUltra before he killed anyone.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| You just need to get on with the times. To read somebody
| now, you must: A) Be sure that whatever they wrote you
| agree 100% with. B) That person must share your full
| worldview and must have a pristine moral reputation.
| Anything else is dangerous, wrong and frankly subversive
| so I dont mind if you get punished by violating these
| simple principles.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| there's a very wide chasm between "don't agree with an
| opinion" and "serial murderer"
|
| you're talking about the unabomber like he's a victim of
| cancel culture instead of a guy that killed 3 people and
| maimed a dozen more
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| I've read books or articles by far worse people. Reading
| != morally approving the character of the author. Even
| easier in this case when the content is very interesting
| and relevant and the criminal author is not getting any
| revenue from me reading his content.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah this isn't reading it though, this is going online
| and praising a serial killer. Imagine a loved one dies
| from a mail bomb and someone online says "yeah but he
| made a good point tho"
| refurb wrote:
| Exactly I hate the industrial revolution. I much preferred
| getting a splinter and then dying of a bacterial infection a
| week later.
|
| Edit: in case anyone was wondering, the industrial revolution,
| namely the dye industry, started mass production of
| antibiotics, without the industrial revolution = no antibiotics
| concordDance wrote:
| What's that have to do with the industrial revolution?
|
| Also, do you know what the adult life expectancy was in pre-
| industrial times?
| secondcoming wrote:
| What has DRM got to do with the Steam Engine?
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Steam implements DRM:
| https://blackshellmedia.com/2017/06/28/steam-employs-drm-
| mea...
|
| Non-joke answer: DRM wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Steam
| Engine. That argument is central to anarcho-primitivism -
| industrial society will enslave people more and more through
| technology, and there is no way to prevent it, therefore
| industrial revolution is a mistake.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| Well, most games did not have online DRM and such until
| Steam spearheaded the way. You needed to activate the game
| online through Steam to play Half-Life 2, in a move very
| criticized back then. Fast forward 15 years and people are
| threatening not to buy the game unless it's released on
| their DRM platform of choice.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Nor would you, in all probability.
| paskozdilar wrote:
| Okay.
| lupire wrote:
| And yet you haven't decided to move to a remote bush
| village, which you could easily afford to do.
| lettergram wrote:
| Should read -
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto
|
| > "We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to
| conform to society's standards. That, and we're too plugged in.
| We're letting technology take over our lives, willingly."
| Nicksil wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber_Manifesto
| mrtksn wrote:
| It's just a business model, similar with printers, coffee
| capsules, software and music.
|
| Essentially, the idea is that you get your payment for your
| work and resources over the course of use without using
| intermediary for financing the customer. You spend the
| resources upfront(record music, film a movie, produce appliance
| and give it away for cheap) and later you enforce payment per
| use where usage almost doesn't cost you anything.
|
| From consumers perspective, you can achieve similar savings on
| games, music, movies and software if you use torrent trackers
| and a seedbox.
|
| IMHO, it's only a problem when prevents legitimate use cases
| like lending it to a friend(was not a problem with DVDs, huge
| problem with DRM protected video purchases).
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