The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Here they just use subtitles. No voiceover.

On radio!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

On radio!

Ah, I thought you meant TV.

[Renate]

I was looking at some "Best of" reviews for 3D printers.
Of one they said, "Does not require cloud".
"Huh, why would you need/want/tolerate cloud?"
Apparently most 3D printer manufacturers have the "Amazing feature 21" implemented using their cloud servers.
Nope, ain't going to do it.
I'm not particularly security conscious but I'm not going to rely on the reliability, security or integrity of some random company's servers.
I don't need or want that stuff.
If I do, I'll write it myself.

I recently bought a "WiFi controlled outlet" for 6 €.
How secure or vulnerable do you think the network implementation would be?
I gutted it and made it work on USB instead.

I understand.
Your favorite Android app?
It sends a metric ton of analytics back to multiple recipients.
As a programmer, I would find that very helpful.
But it is evil.

[Quoth]

And then when they lose interest (see Google Graveyard) or go bust the Cloud-enabled 3D printer, thermostat, door intercom, lightbulb, media system doesn't work at all.

Tesco sold a tablet. They lost interest and turned off the update servers, which wasn't unreasonable. What was unreasonable was that a Factory Reset would brick the tablet while you had no WiFi, and brick it forever if the update servers were turned off. See also Sonos and many other things.

Anyone getting a 3D printer needs a PC of some kind. The printer shouldn't need the Internet.

HP firmware on Printers was updated and bricked printers with 3rd party inks. Now the HP inkjets have big text on the box in the shop: Requires Internet and only works with HP ink. Anyone buying such an inkjet or laser printer is mad.

Many claim to automatically get ink from the Internet too, which is a lie. You add a payment method and they bill you and ship more ink when they feel like it. Again madness.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Quoth

HP firmware on Printers was updated and bricked printers with 3rd party inks. Now the HP inkjets have big text on the box in the shop: Requires Internet and only works with HP ink. Anyone buying such an inkjet or laser printer is mad.

There's people on Reddit who say they just go grab whatever printer's on sale because its cheaper than ink refills. lol. Dear god, the waste.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's people on Reddit who say they just go grab whatever printer's on sale because its cheaper than ink refills. lol. Dear god, the waste.

That's why new ones from some makers now only have 1/4 to 1/2 full cartridges.
Printers that use big deliberately refillable tanks are of course more expensive.

Sadly even with good high speed duplex laser printers the cost of a new one is often cheaper than a repair.

It was cheaper to buy a new fridge last time, than the replacement thermostat (just the part and it was x20 overpriced for a thermostat at retail prices). Obviously one off retail parts for repairs do cost maybe x10 the bulk 1000 off factory / OEM price, thus a $1 thermostat might be $10, but it should not be nearly $200.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Renate

I was looking at some "Best of" reviews for 3D printers.
Of one they said, "Does not require cloud".
"Huh, why would you need/want/tolerate cloud?"
Apparently most 3D printer manufacturers have the "Amazing feature 21" implemented using their cloud servers.

The first 3D printer I owned (New Matter MOD-t) was won as a prize at a network dog & pony show. It worked fairly well but the real work was all done in the cloud over WiFi (fairly decent) or on your local computer via USB (I found some odd glitches) and it's filament feed was not great. Move forward a bit and New Matter shutdown. No more WiFi printing and the New Matter desktop application's odd glitches were never going to be fixed. For a while I used it with Cura software to generate the input for the New Matter desktop application but then the heater stopped working. I now had a rather large paperweight.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by DNSB

... or on your local computer via USB (I found some odd glitches)

Many of these printers work on the Marlin software.
This has a pedigree from 8 bit processors and Arduino.
Nowadays it supports an impressive array of hardware and 8 and 32 bit processors.
Therein lies the problem.

The reliability of your printer depends on the Marlin code but also the lower level routines released by the processor manufacturer, Atmel, MicroChip, STM, etc.
People report problems as "glitches". They are not! They are errors which need to be fixed.

I've rewritten sections of the Marlin code running on my printer and (cross my fingers) I don't have any "glitches".

Also, while the data to the printer is somewhat industry standard "Gcode", the responses back from the printer are free form gobble-dee-gook.
The Marlin code base warns you that changing verbose error messages will break somebody's print server.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's people on Reddit who say they just go grab whatever printer's on sale because its cheaper than ink refills. lol. Dear god, the waste.

We bought one of those Epson inkjet printers with the ink tanks. We've have it about 1.5 years and we are still using the ink that came with it.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I now had a rather large paperweight.

You might be able to replace the hot end but... realistically, that's probably throwing good money after bad. If you're going to tinker then you might as well go all in on an Ender 3, and if you're not then you might be better off splurging on a Prusa i3.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's people on Reddit who say they just go grab whatever printer's on sale because its cheaper than ink refills. lol. Dear god, the waste.

I found that with my last inkjet printer I had, even the aftermarket inks were 2/3 the price of a new printer, ridiculous. The problem I had was I use my printer to print a batch of blank invoices each week (each being 1 A4 page printing between 5-10 a week) and the inkjets were drying out before I used up the ink so I was wasting perfectly good ink. In the end I swapped over to a HP laserjet. One toner cartridge lasts me over a year, doesn't dry out and is cheaper than the aftermarket inkjet ink I was buying (and that's an original HP toner cartridge) Downside is it's B+W only but for me that's fine.

[nana77]

Originally Posted by Quoth

That's why new ones from some makers now only have 1/4 to 1/2 full cartridges.
Printers that use big deliberately refillable tanks are of course more expensive.

Sadly even with good high speed duplex laser printers the cost of a new one is often cheaper than a repair.

It was cheaper to buy a new fridge last time, than the replacement thermostat (just the part and it was x20 overpriced for a thermostat at retail prices). Obviously one off retail parts for repairs do cost maybe x10 the bulk 1000 off factory / OEM price, thus a $1 thermostat might be $10, but it should not be nearly $200.

If it might interest (didn't tried it): https://printserver.ink/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43888157).

When searching for a freezer (for the 1,5/2$ per kg fresh chickens sales that supplier does within them exceeds, before them preservation expires, that I buy for the cats - a chicken of 1,250Kg per day), did found that the majority of them now is build in Turkey or nearby, it's a standard (non meaning to deprecate but build quality is different).
I'd found a 10 years old second hand AEG/Electrolux, vertical 160 liters at 150 euros, the owner had to change it because the defrost function broke (due a thunderstorm), also he won't keep it anymore as too big.
Sadly manufactures changed drastically them quality builds, also that company that was making those ones nerby changed owner, as so many others, and the products are not the same (there are tons of different types of "plastic", also).
This one works fine, the previous owner said the repleacement he bought is not near even in consumptions.

[Quoth]

Amazon STILL can't correctly order ebooks by price on a Wish List.
Amazon UK marketplace in Ireland.

Also you can use Amazon's search filter for £1. or £2. to see a list of either of those (though it includes text in notes, but you can't search for £0. (i.e. books from £0.21 to £0.99).

You can't use the web browser's search because the entire list doesn't load. Sometimes it works if you scroll to the bottom first.

You can't put ebooks into a "cart" like on Kobo, or like everything else on Amazon.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Quoth

You can't put ebooks into a "cart" like on Kobo, or like everything else on Amazon.

I never really thought about that shortfall until I stopped using Amazon, all the ebook vendors I use now you can add the books to a cart and then buy them all in one go, but the main thing for me is it lets me see how much I'm spending easily and if it exceeds my monthly budget I just trim the cart until I'm happy. A little thing but makes a huge difference to me.