Skynet is Coming

Which was probably meant to be "Pimp".

Wrong spectacles perhaps?

Why does everything need to have all this fancy functionality? So that it has more to go wrong and make you buy another. Our electric oven has what appears to be a control unit fault, the mender man says the only thing to do is fit a new control unit. Guess what, it's nearly as expensive as a new oven. All I want is a temperature control, I don't want delayed action, fancy temperature cycles etc etc. A thermostat, a fan and a heating I can understand and fix if need be

But Duncan, if you can understand and fix your oven when it goes wrong what is the poor mender man going to do, his survival depends on selling you a load of expensive rubbish you don't need.

But he can't fix it either, at least not at a sensible cost less than a new one. Most people who are not engineers wouldn't be able to fix a simple one, the mender man would

I thought something like this only last week, with my phone in my pocket, I was showing an apprentice how to grind a tungsten for Tig welding. The next time I looked at Google an ad for a tungsten grinding machine pops up....

Skynet is definitely coming, I remember thinking that a few years ago when watching the Terminator show at Universal studios shortly before Universal shut it down.

Despite the show being 21 years old at that stage I thought it was never more relevant

And then there's the light bulb that is voice activated via an app on your phone.

Here, Julian breaks one apart ...

**LINK**

I loved the one about a toothbrush that has Bluetooth.

Sam

And here's me thinking Bluetooth is what sheep suffer when grazing on't moor in January....

I think a lot of it driven by an insatiable desire in enough people to make it worth exploiting, to want only ever the Very Latest, the Most Up-Grades, most technical-looking, and the like.

A friend whose hobbies include photography told me years ago of fellow camera club members whose photography was good but never outstanding. Now, my mate had some eye-wateringly costly stuff with names like Hasselblad, but he explained that he bought the best equipment he could afford, then used it consistently for many years. Those others though, would be forever chasing the latest, the newest, the extra shutter-speed or shiny chromed button. Consequently they never became sufficiently accustomed to the camera to know how the scene in its view-finder would appear in emulsion.

Perhaps the same is happening here. Although a washing-machine is just that - though use the wrong setting and your blue workshop overalls will turn a pretty purple from the dye it's run from the other-half's red ball-gown - some people would regard some 20 settings as vital. I think mine has that range - only because it was pretty much standard on what was available. Their makers have latched onto the gadget-conscious rather than the discerning or the practical, and found it profitable.

'

Others have told me of having been eavesdropped by so-called "smart" speakers: talking about something then mysteriously receiving advertisements thought "of interest". And it is eavesdropping, cynical, wilful listening-in to private conversations, albeit by a computer programmed to detect particular words. Companies like Google know enough people do not realise or do not care about it, to more than compensate for those of us who try to refuse to kowtow to the company.

I don't use Google now, which also means I cannot see YouTube videos. The reason? Google places an access barrier designed very carefully to make you toe their line.

I try to avoid helping these parasites - and the criminals, come to that. My 3G, very basic portable 'phone is not connected to the Internet. It spends more time off than on - anyone tracing it in 2019 might have wondered how or why I was suddenly in a rural village 300 miles from home, for just 10 minutes. I have no "wi-fi" devices - this PC is on a broadband line and even the pointer is wired. No "smart-speaker". No radio-controlled washing-machine or toothbrush...

No intention of having them, either.

'''

The teenage girls two doors along were getting cabin-fever in last Summer's lock-downs. Occasionally they regaled me, in my workshop with the door open, with "Alexa! Play xxx.! " followed by short bits of the dreariest dirges going but no doubt Top of the Pops. Rarely right through, before poor Alexa was nagged into playing another. I felt like yelling across the intervening garden, "Alexa! Play Sibelius' Fifth" or something. Or "Alexa! Go to sleep!"

I sometimes wonder what the first owner of my 100yr old Drummond felt as he first set it up. No the cheapest small lathe at he time he must have really wanted it and had to save for quite a whle to afford it. But he wanted the latest technology and heck, it could screwcut.

The problem is the public aren’t very bright and fall for all the advertising. A washing machine engineer told me the worst thing you could do to one was put washing powder in it. Undissolved powder he said caused no end of problems in machines but the shops still sell the powder. The best thing he said is liquid detergent, but don’t put it in the drawer but directly in the drum with the washing. I say this because Bosch have now over complicated their latest machines by adding “auto dosing” what could possibly go wrong ... and how much extra does it add to the cost of the machine? You have to open the drum anyway so how difficult is it to put detergent in ... obviously very difficult!

I am continually irritated by the lack of a printed instruction manual on things that I buy.

If I pay a few hundred pounds for a piece of equipment, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a PRINTED Manual in the box.

Lots of Manuals are offered as "pdf' files - especially for computer software. But it's NOT possible to use the software and read the pdf file at the same time. By the time one has followed the first step one has forgotten the second!

Given the choice between two equally appealing items, I will always buy the one that comes with a Printed Manual - even if it cost a few pounds more.

Am I alone in the desire for Printed Instructions?

MC

Back in the 70's the company I worked for used to buy CCTV cameras and monitors from Japan. Every item had a user manual (more a 4 page leaflet actually) but came complete with a circuit diagram. Of course, that was back in the day when it was possible to repair stuff on site.

MC Black,

Im with you there. I want a manual where can look back and forwards easily but if more importance would be a size of print I can actually see. I am fed up if having to use big magnifying lenses to read tiny print.

Colin

MC Black

Roy

Speaking of printed manuals, I remember the days when your new motorcycle's User Manual told you how to whip the cylinder head off, clean the carbon off the valves and piston crown and maybe even give the valves a quick grind before putting it all back together. Today's motorcycle User Manual tells you not to drink the contents of the battery.

An example of technology for the sake of it?. Yesterday I was given a defunct dehumidifier, which appeared to work, but the compressor wouldn't run. Interesting starting arrangement with the start winding in series with a positive temperature coefficient resistor. Memories of the de-gaussing coil on a shadowmask crt. There was also a fusible link in the common supply, but both appeared OK.

The fault was traced to a small PCB, whose function was to interrupt the compressor supply, when a sensor told it the condenser matrix had iced up. Found the relay and its driver transistor which in turn was controlled by a 20 pin IC. Looked up the type number and came up with the following info (I have deleted the chip type number)

I could probably replace that lot with a couple of transistors and a few resistors. Is this just a lazy designer or was he told " We've bought 1/2 a million too many. Can you get rid of them for us?"

Us hardcore bikers used to like a slug of battery acid on a cold day, warms the cockles of your heart, some lightweights just stick to petrol but unleaded leaves a bit of an aftertaste not like 4 star. Avgas is very agreeable for the ladies.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 23/02/2021 11:11:20

Having had to replace the dishwasher, freezer and washing machine during the past year apart from the very cheapest machines I would not choose for their quality, you seem to have to pay more for a more expensive appliance to NOT get this connectivity.

My Amazon Alexa developed a strange fault recently - If you asked it to play a radio station or a music track it would tell you it was going to do it and then there was nothing. Searching the Internet suggested it was due to overloaded wifi. So I made certain everything on wifi was switched off restarted the Alexa ad then turned wifi back on as necessary. All is now well.

Are these two things connected - probably!

I bought a new camera, a brand I knew well. I wanted to adjust the viewfinder visual appearance. Could not find anything in the 315 page down loadable manual. Why? Because I was looking for "viewfinder" data when I should have been looking for "EVF"

Yes you can gues it now, electronic view finder = EVF

Bah Humbug

Don't get pulled over after doing that, Mike, you might get charged by the police...

Rob