Bob Cassette Rewinder: Hacking Detergent DRM
github.com
github.com
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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)
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.
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.
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...
reminds me of medications and antibiotics which include their own datasheets that not all medical providers cross-check against your current medications.
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)
Nobody else cares, your meaning was clear.
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.
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)
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?
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.
That's rich, considering that I'm 18 and I have the same views.
is switching channels or otherwise ignoring the TV while ads are on also stealing?
Not using a piece of a service (the ads) is not stealing, nor likely is it violating any service contact.
How do you react?
1. Tell me to go to hell.
2. Try to figure out a way to eat the cake without getting your thumb smashed.
3. Accept the offer.
1 & 2 are perfectly rational human reactions. 3 probably indicates some degree of mental illness on your part.
There's also probably a deep sickness in the society and culture that allowed me to make the offer in the first place.
--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.
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.
Now? Youtube is nuts.
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.
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
- 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.
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.
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.
I regularly hear people complain about their devices, because usability wasn’t considered due to different root causes. Some people don’t know anything about usability (not a “Senior Support Engineering Manager”), some people buy cheap, some people don’t get to choose (rent), many people don’t think to check usability, some people let their partner buy something unsuitable.
If you use a kitchen, then pay attention to what other practical friends use. Your appliances are tools you work with: spend effort to buy good tools.
I bought a Breville Quick Start microwave, chosen for combination of brand trust, price, and usability. It has a rotating power knob, a rotating timer knob, a 30 second quick start button, and a bunch of feature buttons which I don’t use hidden in the door jam. Rotate the knobs to change power or time while the microwave is running: https://www.breville.com/au/en/products/microwaves/bmo735.ht...
I inherited this current microwave from the previous owner, and it will be eventually replaced.
As an example pre-steaming has become a well rounded feature, and it will be done as a separate phase during the pre-heating, to switch to full-blown oven mode from there. I could totally time and set it all myself, but honestly I wouldn't bother half of the time and settle for the worse result to spare my time.
Same for cycle like lower temperature fermentation -> cooking for bread dow, or auto-stop by temperature detection for simple reheating.
All of these actually work well, and I feel in the "before" time we were just more accepting of mediocre results and/or spending half a day on it.
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.
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.
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 €30 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.
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.
I deliberately picked them as textbook examples. I can fly to pretty much anywhere in Europe for under £50 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.
For instance, since I was 25 (I'm in my 40s), I've worn a suit, tie and sometimes a vest whenever I travel internationally. Especially aboard a train. I learned this when I was a poor traveler living from hostel to hostel, and camping. You will be surprised how you're treated if you dress well. You're showing respect to the people around you.
I think you're willfully missing the point I'm making, which is that the act of putting on better-than-your-usual garments is just one part of a whole set of customs which signal behavioral ideas that society has completely chosen to forget. The problems with social media could be solved by moderating and kicking people off. The problems with casinos and airlines could be solved by rejecting people who don't take the time to look in the mirror.
Those people aren't owed a flight, a seat at a blackjack table, or a voice on a private social media platform. These problems are all of a single piece.
You have to earn a position in society by your bearing and actions and speech. No one is owed it. No one is born "noble" and no one rich is born with what we call class.
But take a man who works in a clothing factory 6 days a week, and tell him he's going to see a show in Las Vegas: The man will buy a suit. And he will keep that suit in the closet for the rest of his life and say: That's the suit I wore to the show in Las Vegas! He wants to have class.
These experiences are not supposed to be cheap. They're important and memorable precisely because they are expensive. No one learns good behavior without receiving a certain amount of social disdain for bad behavior. The rituals and clothing and the imaginary world of luxe that we clothe ourselves in is for each other's and our own benefit; this is the meaning of civilization. What we have now is a kind of barbarism, with people barely worth the air they breathe. Put a suit on the man and see if he can stand and act like a man.
Surely that in and of itself exactly proves _my_ point - it doesn't matter that you're forced to dress up and be respectful, the person doesn't beget the clothes. What matters is the intent that you've made a decision to go to an occasion that demands respect.
> You will be surprised how you're treated if you dress well.
Having been forced to dress up for various events over the years, I can't say I've noticed a difference in how I've been treated when dressed up vs when in my civvies. One thing I _have_ noticed is I am treated more formally - don't confuse formality for being treated well. Formality means procedure and rituals. Being treated well means care, politeness and attention to detail. If you're on an easyjet flight from London to Alicante, no amount of dressing up is going to get you any better treatment. Similarly, if you fly business class Emirates from London to Dubai, as long as you meet their dress code you'll be treated like royalty - the difference is how much you're paying.
Here's an experiment for you - go into the fanciest bar in your town, order two beers and tip the bartender $50 and see how well you're treated for the rest of the night. Speaking from experience (accidental - stupid american notes are all the same colour), you will get the service you _want_, not the service they _offer_.
> I think you're willfully missing the point I'm making, which is that the act of putting on better-than-your-usual garments is just one part of a whole set of customs which signal behavioral ideas that society has completely chosen to forget.
No, that's not what you said. You said, and I quote:
> 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.
That's not claiming that society has chosen to leave behind the customs associated with formal dressing, that's saying that the decision to do so has led to more and more bad behaviour. I _do_ agree that society has decided to leave behind those customs, but that in and of itself has not caused more bad behaviour. The advent of cheap air travel is almost certainly the single biggest cause of behaviour changes in air travel, and the increased individualism is (IMO) responsible for the changes in other areas - to use your magic castle example again, the reason people _behave_ there is because they have their invitee's standing to uphold. Remove that, and the magic castle becomes just like any of the other expensive bars in the area.
I always tip well at bars, and I get served well. But that's not the test. The test is walking up unknown to a crowded bar and having the bartender come to you first, knowing you're going to be a good customer. It almost makes you feel the need to tip extra well. And that's what society should be about.
I don't care that flights are cheap. Great. I just want people to live up to that. I don't blame them for being maleducated, but I think they should be educated in showing some class.
Well, for me, it's a lifetime (nearly) of observing how people who dress up for an occasion behave as opposed to those who don't. Churches would make for an interesting exploration in regards to this topic, some still dress, many don't. I don't think your points your other three points are invalid, though.
I didn't know that the Castle had become so expensive. I was a member for about three years in the 80's. At the time, as a blue-collar stiff, I found it quite affordable -- of course, I paid no cover charge.
While some hoped to see celebrities there, a not infrequent occurrence, I was thrilled to meet close-up magic icons like John Carney, Derek Dingle, and Dai Vernon, and to watch many other notables such as Daryl, Bruce Cervon, Eugene Burger, Paul Harris, and Earl Nelson.
One day, a couple of blocks over, at Hollywood Magic (a magic retailer) I watched Harry Anderson of Night Court fame, throwing three-card monte on the customer side of the counter while holding his three-year-old daughter in one arm as he did it -- perhaps he just stood her on the counter with his arm around her as he threw? Not sure, it's been many years. Despite, being very familiar with the sleight, I could not follow the movement of the queen any better than any mark would/could. He was about as humble as they come, and I couldn't have cared much less about his celebrity, but I sure was impressed with his technique.
I've only been once as an invite, from what I recall it was ~$50 for the cover charge, we paid about ~$50 a head per meal, and spent probably another ~$100 on drinks each. It was a unique evening, I had a great time, and wouldn't take it back, but it was definitely one of the more expensive evenings I had in LA.
Short take: Going to the Magic Castle is roughly equivalent to flying on the Concorde. It's an expense well worth it for an unforgettable experience.
[edit: yeah, I'm not dead, I know the Concorde isn't around anymore but that's the point]
There is no objectively right opinion. It just depends on how much you are bothered by either downside.
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.
There is a market for it.
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.
...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.
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 .
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.
Searching for the concept now, I can only find this article:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/make-dishwashers-that-clean-aga...
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...
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!
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
I don't claim authority on the matter though.
Video on the subject: https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
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.
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.
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.
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...
I've seriously considered taking it apart to remove the buzzer.
I have friends with cheaper dishwashers and they do not clean well at all on eco modes.
Everything's relative.
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
Wash on delicate with Cold water my friends!
I can’t say I have ever really cared about the time taken for a dishwasher as it’s set and forget.
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.
Here’s Wirecutter doing an actual comparison:
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/speed-queen-revie...
Anyone else use Consumer Reports?
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.
There’s a Canadian company Victory that sells a couple PCB-free models at prices that are reasonable.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
* I know not all MBAs are like this but there's considerable damage *
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...
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
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)
> 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...
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.
This is what Bollinger Motors was going to do, but then they pivoted to building platforms for commercial vehicles instead.
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.
Is there a way to dumbify a car?
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.
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:)
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Unauthorized Bread, Cory Doctorow
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
Bingo!
It's just the next layer of business types because they dominate this fucking system... Yes, it is the system: shameful.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I agree that more honest marketing can help ameliorate the problem, to an extent.
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...
"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.
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.
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 £5~/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.
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.
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.
It's perfect for our needs and saves us a lot of both time and water.
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.
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
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.
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.
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. :(
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
Fun device though, buying a similar countertop dishwasher was without question the best purchase of my adult life.
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.
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!
Has anyone put together a list of RE "use cases" like this one where people are looking for help solving the puzzle?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27013880
1260 points | 2021-05-02 | 406 comments
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.
EDIT: not sure why you're getting downvoted, you don't deserve it from what I can see. Have an upvote.
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.
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" 99€ delivery charge.
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.
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…
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.
This feels like the perfect dishwasher to wash your glassware after using your Juicero!
"£43 ($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.
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.
0xa1 is calculated as Washes left XOR 0x50The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. (...) The continued development of technology will worsen the situation.
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
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?
I'll take detergent DRM any day over being a medieval serf.
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.
There's nothing magic about persistence balance in nature. It happens in millions of ecosystems.
There are many others that I can't think of right now, I don't really keep a list.
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.
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.
Note that settlements have naturally occurred around rivers because of agriculture (e.g. Mesopotamia), so "cities", in some sense of the word, have existed long before the industrial evolution.
I am aware that civilization brings good stuff with it - it's hard to not be aware of it - but I don't think the tradeoff is worth it. I think it can be, and ought to be, much better than this. It is my opinion that each and every human deserves to (be able to) live in an environment that is pleasant to them. I see it as a fundamental human right.
It helps tremendously.
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.
Come on, you can’t find something to support your ideas that doesn’t help glorify random murders?
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
If this were a unique idea not repeated since by others, I'd be more likely to agree with you... but it's not.
If you were recommending this reading as a cautionary tale about extremism, I'd also be more inclined to agree with you.
But in reality, all of the information found in the unabomber's manifesto can be found from sources that weren't serial murderers... so what does recommending this writing, and not other related writing accomplish? from my perspective it only serves the murderer. The original publication of the manifesto was also forced under the threat of murder.
You're trying to shift the burden of justification to me, when you are the one trying to censor.
What does censoring me accomplish in the real world?
Does me talking about him make his murders worse then they are?
Are Kaczynski's murders going to disappear once every single person stops talking about him?
Why should I even bother figuring out alternative sources, what difference does it make in the real world whether I talk about him or about any other anarcho-primitivist?
Edit: in case anyone was wondering, the industrial revolution, namely the dye industry, started mass production of antibiotics, without the industrial revolution = no antibiotics
Also, do you know what the adult life expectancy was in pre-industrial times?
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.
> "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."
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).
Edit: Kindly tell me where I'm wrong.