• 29 Posts
  • 232 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • The last I read, de minimis still applied. I didn’t know until now that was done with.

    As an avid collector of vinyl records: FUCK! I’ve got no problem sending $50 to a European artist who’s selling a limited run of records out of their living room. Hell, if it’s an artist I really like, I’ll spend $70. I’m not about to spend $70 and the artist get half of it.

    Spending ludicrous amounts of cash of 12-inch pieces of plastic is totally fine with me, but I want my money going to the artist who’s making the music I love, not a government I voted against.











  • I’m one of those people that has the technical knowledge to repair most electronics. I still buy new sometimes.

    A while ago, I had to repair a faulty pellet stove. It was obvious that the main control board was bad (there was a single small circuit board connected to a handful of relays and sensors, all of which tested as good). This board contained a small cheap microcontroller, a few MOSFETs, and a handful of discrete components. A replacement was $500. Maybe $10 in parts at the most, and they wanted to charge me half the cost of the entire appliance.

    I was able to isolate the problem to a bad MOSFET and order a new one for about 50 cents. Had this been a complex circuit, there’s no way in hell I could have found the problem without a schematic.

    So in my opinion, the problem is twofold. Manufacturers want ridiculous prices for replacement parts, and no documentation exists to repair the parts themselves. They obviously have schematics from when they designed the board. They should be forced to release them.










  • Not OP, but it always rubs me the wrong way when people suggest bikes. I don’t know your situation or theirs, so I’ll use my own.

    If I wanted to ride a bike to the grocery store, it would take me an hour, and I’d somehow have to lug everything back on a bicycle. If I rode a bike to work, it would take multiple hours. If I wanted to pick up building supplies, dirt, concrete pavers, whatever, I’d have to rent a truck.

    Public transit doesn’t exist in my city, much less my neighborhood.

    What you’re suggesting works great in a major metro area. For many of us, a car isn’t a luxury, it’s an absolute necessity. Not to mention, who wants to wait for a bus or train to take them home after work? Bicycles are good for exercise in a controlled environment. They are not appropriate for everyday transportation, and they are a hazard to drivers; they absolutely should not be allowed on the same roadways as cars. Buy a motorcycle or a scooter if you want to. Ride a bike off-road if you want to burn calories.