Minor things that bother you

[mgk920]

This is just another front in the whole 'Right to Repair' war.

<sign . . .>

Mike

[formulanone]

From PC Gamer:

'Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription' says HP CEO gunning for 2024's Worst Person of the Year award
Not satisfied with merely bricking printers, HP now wants to own them all forever!

It was only the other day we reported how HP has been slapped with a lawsuit in response to measures that disable its printers when fitted with a third-party ink cartridge. Now the company's CEO, Enrique Lores, says HP wants to "make printing a subscription." Nice. Not.

It's well known that printers are routinely sold at a loss, with the real revenues made from selling replacement ink cartridges. The move to a subscription model, as reported by Ars Technica, is just another attempt at maximising that profit stream.

"This is something we announced a few years ago that our goal was to reduce the number of what we call unprofitable customers. Because every time a customer buys a printer, it's an investment for us. We're investing in that customer, and if this customer doesn't print enough or doesn't use our supplies, it's a bad investment," Lores says, turning "selling at a loss" into a neat "investment" euphemism.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

If the CEO of HP wants to act like a James Bond villain, then it's Brother products for me. I already dislike inkjet printers and prefer duplexing color laser printers with a Ethernet connection... for whatever little I print nowadays. My Brother HL-L8350CDW has a manufacture date of May, 2015, and I really should investigate replacing the rollers on the manual feed.

I decided to make the switch to a Canon printer about five years ago, because I was tired of HP's crap. The ink isn't much less expensive, it's slow to boot up, and at least twice a year, I have to manually unplug it for 20 minutes to start working again; but I can use it like a giant Polaroid Land Camera during parties, and it never tells me my ink is expired. 

[mgk920]

From PC Gamer:

'Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription' says HP CEO gunning for 2024's Worst Person of the Year award
Not satisfied with merely bricking printers, HP now wants to own them all forever!

It was only the other day we reported how HP has been slapped with a lawsuit in response to measures that disable its printers when fitted with a third-party ink cartridge. Now the company's CEO, Enrique Lores, says HP wants to "make printing a subscription." Nice. Not.

It's well known that printers are routinely sold at a loss, with the real revenues made from selling replacement ink cartridges. The move to a subscription model, as reported by Ars Technica, is just another attempt at maximising that profit stream.

"This is something we announced a few years ago that our goal was to reduce the number of what we call unprofitable customers. Because every time a customer buys a printer, it's an investment for us. We're investing in that customer, and if this customer doesn't print enough or doesn't use our supplies, it's a bad investment," Lores says, turning "selling at a loss" into a neat "investment" euphemism.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

If the CEO of HP wants to act like a James Bond villain, then it's Brother products for me. I already dislike inkjet printers and prefer duplexing color laser printers with a Ethernet connection... for whatever little I print nowadays. My Brother HL-L8350CDW has a manufacture date of May, 2015, and I really should investigate replacing the rollers on the manual feed.

I decided to make the switch to a Canon printer about five years ago, because I was tired of HP's crap. The ink isn't much less expensive, it's slow to boot up, and at least twice a year, I have to manually unplug it for 20 minutes to start working again; but I can use it like a giant Polaroid Land Camera during parties, and it never tells me my ink is expired.

A few years ago I said "Buh Bye" to Canon when they 'bricked' my former four color inkjet printer (that I really liked), but the printer head expired and the model was discontinued.  This sounds no different than a car builder putting 'kill chips' in the headlight sockets.  'Right to Repair!'

Mike

[webny99]

People who can't be bothered to use the correct line and then cut in line and make you wait even more.  I attempted to get my car washed today, and ended up getting pissed off.  The place I go to has two lines, the one on the left for lanes 1-2, and the one on the right for lanes 3-4.  This is clearly delimited with a solid white line.  ...

Oh no. I could feel my blood pressure rising as I read this, because I have had my fair share of annoyances with car wash lines. They're kind of like rush hour traffic in a big city (first world problems, I know), but even worse because the front of the line only moves at a crawl. But ironically, my first point is that the Albany area needs Delta Sonic, because even despite my gripes with them, their setup is a whole lot better than what's going on here.

First off, this setup is counterintuitive to me because I'm used to Delta where you start off in 3 or more lines and zipper merge into a single file line to enter the wash. This one looks like four vehicles can all go through the wash at once, which would theoretically speed things up, but is still limited by the speed of the wash and how fast the transactions can be processed. I definitely understand your frustration with people cutting from one line to the other, but the problem is that the lanes are so spread out that it's not realistic to get equal length lines in each lane. In order to make wait times equal, the line for lanes 1-2 would be back to the road while the line for lanes 3-4 would only be to the bottom right corner of the building. But of course, people aren't going to pass up what looks like an open lane in 3-4 to wait in the line at 1-2, so (I assume) the lines end up ending at a roughly equal place but the line for 3-4 is close to 10 cars longer. So from a wait time perspective, it actually does make sense for some of the cars in the 3-4 line to cut over so that the 1-2 line is shorter, but slightly slower moving; however, it's almost impossible to track down to a science which cars should be shifting when, and it will never be the "right" cars doing it, only the pushy ones, so that certainly creates its own set of problems as you experienced. To put it bluntly I think the only solution is a redesign that somehow straightens out the lanes.


(Just to "quickly" summarize my problems with Delta: the BayTowne location has three approach lanes, the leftmost with an attendant in the booth, and the right two are gate operated for Super Lane customers. Those three lanes file down to two to go through the pre-wash, but all Super Lane customers must merge together first, so they're lined up with the rightmost pre-wash, and the regular customers are lined up with the leftmost pre-wash. But of course, when it's busy, this means that the regular lane moves twice as fast because they don't have to merge with anyone prior to the pre-wash. Therefore, Super Lane customers start using the regular lane, so you end up with a long line of cars at all three booths but the regular line moves twice as fast (unless there's a really slow customer in the regular lane, but that's the risk you take by cheating to use that lane). So, my move to resolve this inherently unfair situation is to use the center Super Lane, but then cut over into the regular lane's pre-wash as soon as I get past the bollards, thus "alternating" into the regular lane traffic to go through their pre-wash. I'm just doing my part to make things fair for everyone, and fortunately never had anyone get mad at me for doing it. Once you get past the pre-wash, the final merge from two lanes down to one is timed so that it's obvious who goes first, and that part typically operates smoothly.)

[Scott5114]

At the car wash whoa whoa whoa whoa talkin' about the car wash, girl come on, ya'all and sing it for me (Car wash) Ooh ooh ooh (Car wash, girl)
Well, those cars never seem to stop coming (Work and work)  Keep those rags and machines humming (Work and work) My fingers to the bone
(Work) Can't wait 'til it's time to go home

That sounds like management isn't adequately monitoring the customers. Any time customers are left to negotiate who is next it's bound to be a mess because if you ask anyone in line who's next they'll say they are. So employees have to occasionally be the ones to lay down the law and kick people to the end of the line.

If there's nobody there to do handle that, and the customer volume to make it necessary, I would probably find another car wash and let the owners of the first one know why.

(Or wash the car in the driveway, if you have one. You're allowed to do that where you live—in Las Vegas you aren't.)

[Scott5114]

A few years ago I said "Buh Bye" to Canon when they 'bricked' my former four color inkjet printer (that I really liked), but the printer head expired and the model was discontinued.  This sounds no different than a car builder putting 'kill chips' in the headlight sockets.  'Right to Repair!'

Mike

Assuming your printer was like the venerable Canon BJC-3000 I had for something like 15 years, the print head needed to be replaced from time to time since ink would dry up in it and clog the head. Discontinuing the production of replacement parts isn't bricking the machine; while it's unfortunate, surely it would be unreasonable to expect them to continue making the parts indefinitely.

I replaced that Canon inkjet with an HP printer-fax-scanner and hated it because I don't print very frequently and it seemed like the cartridges would be dried up every time I needed to print something urgently. So I got rid of it and got a Canon laser printer/scanner. I'm quite happy with it and would like to keep it in service for 15 years as well if I can.

[J N Winkler]

My solution to the problem of lines at car washes is not to go to a car wash when it has a line.  (Yes, really.)

Unfortunately, this leads to another annoyance--car wash bays out of order.  At the car wash I normally use, one out of the five self-wash bays has been roped off for at least a month, and at this point I think just one or two of the five still have working credit-card scanners.  I had to wash one of the family cars earlier this week to get road salt off the underbody before I changed the oil, and I ended up having to feed a bill slurper to get quarters for the coin slot.

I don't like to do driveway washes because I have no easy access to deionized water, but I am at the point of entertaining the idea of doing underbody rinses with the garden hose.

[webny99]

At the car wash whoa whoa whoa whoa talkin' about the car wash, girl come on, ya'all and sing it for me (Car wash) Ooh ooh ooh (Car wash, girl)
Well, those cars never seem to stop coming (Work and work)  Keep those rags and machines humming (Work and work) My fingers to the bone
(Work) Can't wait 'til it's time to go home

If there's nobody there to do handle that, and the customer volume to make it necessary, I would probably find another car wash and let the owners of the first one know why.

(Or wash the car in the driveway, if you have one. You're allowed to do that where you live—in Las Vegas you aren't.)

One of the reasons the customer volume is what it is is that washing your own car outside is not practical in upstate NY during the freezing temps of winter. With the amount of salt we get, car washes are needed very frequently, and the automated washes do as good or better a job and can be had for a reasonable price with a season or monthly plan.

Also I am not sure additional staff directing traffic would solve the issue here (but see my prior post for more on that).

My solution to the problem of lines at car washes is not to go to a car wash when it has a line.  (Yes, really.)

Although most of our car washes are automated and move cars through relatively quickly, getting through when there's no line still presents a challenge. From November (or first snow) through April, whenever its not actively snowing or recently rained to wash the salt away, lines start early and persist through closing times. And forget about it on a Saturday after a snowfall.

[ZLoth]

For the local car wash I use, I usually picked up their "unlimited" monthly plan (one wash per day) which is just over the price of two single washes.

[Rothman]

For the local cash wash I use, I usually picked up their "unlimited" monthly plan (one wash per day) which is just over the price of two single washes.

Everyone needs a good money launderer.

[ZLoth]

Assuming your printer was like the venerable Canon BJC-3000 I had for something like 15 years, the print head needed to be replaced from time to time since ink would dry up in it and clog the head. Discontinuing the production of replacement parts isn't bricking the machine; while it's unfortunate, surely it would be unreasonable to expect them to continue making the parts indefinitely.

This goes into the category of gripes when people insist in keeping a item operational when it's no longer really cost-effective. In this case, the manufacturer no longer makes the print head, and a refurbished one keeps getting more expensive and harder to find.

I replaced that Canon inkjet with an HP printer-fax-scanner and hated it because I don't print very frequently and it seemed like the cartridges would be dried up every time I needed to print something urgently. So I got rid of it and got a Canon laser printer/scanner. I'm quite happy with it and would like to keep it in service for 15 years as well if I can.

The whole "ink drying up" is why I prefer a laser printer over a inkjet printer, not to mention the cost of the ink cartridges. And, as long as Windows supports my printer model, there is no need to replace it for whatever little printing I actually do.

[ZLoth]

For the local cash wash I use, I usually picked up their "unlimited" monthly plan (one wash per day) which is just over the price of two single washes.

Everyone needs a good money launderer.

SHHH! Don't let the secret out!

[J N Winkler]

Or wash the car in the driveway, if you have one. You're allowed to do that where you live—in Las Vegas you aren't.

One of the reasons the customer volume is what it is is that washing your own car outside is not practical in upstate NY during the freezing temps of winter. With the amount of salt we get, car washes are needed very frequently, and the automated washes do as good or better a job and can be had for a reasonable price with a season or monthly plan.

[. . .]

Although most of our car washes are automated and move cars through relatively quickly, getting through when there's no line still presents a challenge. From November (or first snow) through April, whenever its not actively snowing or recently rained to wash the salt away, lines start early and persist through closing times. And forget about it on a Saturday after a snowfall.

I checked temperatures in Rochester for the past month and it appears there were 20 days out of 31 with the high above freezing.  With an outside source of water (I realize most apartment dwellers won't have this), it should be fairly straightforward to find a time to perform an underbody rinse with a garden hose, which is the really critical part for staving off corrosion--certainly much easier than finding a car wash without a queue in the immediate aftermath of a snowstorm.  (This is also a problem here, though we spend less time overall each winter with deicing salts on the roads.)

As an aside, I've never understood the economics of subscription car washes.  They cost around $10-$20 per month here, whereas I typically spend just five dollars on each car wash and generally do no more than three or four a year per vehicle.  I have heard that some car-wash chains around here stay in business by making it very difficult to cancel subscriptions, but I have no direct experience with this.

[vdeane]

First off, this setup is counterintuitive to me because I'm used to Delta where you start off in 3 or more lines and zipper merge into a single file line to enter the wash. This one looks like four vehicles can all go through the wash at once, which would theoretically speed things up, but is still limited by the speed of the wash and how fast the transactions can be processed.

This is the difference between a touchless car wash and something like Delta Sonic.  It's probably about the same if not slower, given that Delta Sonic is basically an assembly line where the conveyor belt moves the cars through each stage of the wash.  Thus, multiple cars can be washed at the same time from the same line.  Wet Willy's (the name of the car wash in question), by contrast, has the cars stop in the bay while the machine rotates around the car, performing every stage of the wash.

That sounds like management isn't adequately monitoring the customers. Any time customers are left to negotiate who is next it's bound to be a mess because if you ask anyone in line who's next they'll say they are. So employees have to occasionally be the ones to lay down the law and kick people to the end of the line.

If there's nobody there to do handle that, and the customer volume to make it necessary, I would probably find another car wash and let the owners of the first one know why.

(Or wash the car in the driveway, if you have one. You're allowed to do that where you live—in Las Vegas you aren't.)

I'm not sure if they're monitoring anything.  The car wash is fully automated and I think I might have seen someone around maybe once in the entire decade I've lived in the area.

Assuming your printer was like the venerable Canon BJC-3000 I had for something like 15 years, the print head needed to be replaced from time to time since ink would dry up in it and clog the head. Discontinuing the production of replacement parts isn't bricking the machine; while it's unfortunate, surely it would be unreasonable to expect them to continue making the parts indefinitely.

This goes into the category of gripes when people insist in keeping a item operational when it's no longer really cost-effective. In this case, the manufacturer no longer makes the print head, and a refurbished one keeps getting more expensive and harder to find.

I replaced that Canon inkjet with an HP printer-fax-scanner and hated it because I don't print very frequently and it seemed like the cartridges would be dried up every time I needed to print something urgently. So I got rid of it and got a Canon laser printer/scanner. I'm quite happy with it and would like to keep it in service for 15 years as well if I can.

The whole "ink drying up" is why I prefer a laser printer over a inkjet printer, not to mention the cost of the ink cartridges. And, as long as Windows supports my printer model, there is no need to replace it for whatever little printing I actually do.

I wonder if that's why HP printers chew up a ton on ink on "calibration/cleaning" (to the point where almost all of the ink I would buy went to that and not actual printing, given that I don't need to print often).  Now I have a Canon that uses ink tubs instead of cartridges and I've never needed to deal with that (in fact, I'm not even sure if the ink levels have even moved since I got the thing 13 months ago).  Hopefully this isn't leading the print head or anything else to have problems, but my Mom has the same model printer and she hasn't had such issues, so hopefully not.

Unfortunately, I do need to scan occasionally, and the only laser "all in one" printers I've seen are sized/priced for corporate offices, not home users.

As an aside, I've never understood the economics of subscription car washes.  They cost around $10-$20 per month here, whereas I typically spend just five dollars on each car wash and generally do no more than three or four a year per vehicle.  I have heard that some car-wash chains around here stay in business by making it very difficult to cancel subscriptions, but I have no direct experience with this.

There are people who wash their cars weekly.  I presume that they are the intended customer.

[zachary_amaryllis]

Phone number for you?

(776) 867-5309

If Jenny lived in Fort Morgan, she could be 970-867-5309.

[1995hoo]

Phone number for you?

(776) 867-5309

If Jenny lived in Fort Morgan, she could be 970-867-5309.

Wikipedia claims there is a pizza joint in Fort Collins with that number.

[formulanone]

A few years ago I said "Buh Bye" to Canon when they 'bricked' my former four color inkjet printer (that I really liked), but the printer head expired and the model was discontinued.  This sounds no different than a car builder putting 'kill chips' in the headlight sockets.  'Right to Repair!'

Mike

Assuming your printer was like the venerable Canon BJC-3000 I had for something like 15 years, the print head needed to be replaced from time to time since ink would dry up in it and clog the head. Discontinuing the production of replacement parts isn't bricking the machine; while it's unfortunate, surely it would be unreasonable to expect them to continue making the parts indefinitely.

To be fair, many car parts are no longer produced by their original manufacturer at somewhere between 10-15 years, unless they're still frequently used (think relatively inexpensive parts like nuts, bolts, filters, washers, gaskets), if the part is still used on some in-production vehicle, or there's a serious demand to continue its production. Most electrical/electronic equipment is going to phase itself out, and 15 years is not an unreasonable amount of time.

I wish I could get a do-it-yourself kit for repairing my old Canon AE-1, but that's another matter.

I replaced that Canon inkjet with an HP printer-fax-scanner and hated it because I don't print very frequently and it seemed like the cartridges would be dried up every time I needed to print something urgently. So I got rid of it and got a Canon laser printer/scanner. I'm quite happy with it and would like to keep it in service for 15 years as well if I can.

One of my old HPs had a clogged inkjet head (some 30 second research into the error code), so I just washed it out in the sink, and let it dry out. Kind of messy to disassemble, but it worked for another two years (some sort of "unknown" error message, which turned it into a scanner with more blinking lights). But the fix was pretty easy, though I insisted on letting the printer head dry out for several days, since it would come in contact with the printer's wiring and its connectors.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Phone number for you?

(776) 867-5309

If Jenny lived in Fort Morgan, she could be 970-867-5309.

Wikipedia claims there is a pizza joint in Fort Collins with that number.

I recall someone advocating for my posts to be deleted after I attempted to create a fake phone number as part of a joke that inadvertently turned out to be a working line.

[webny99]

Or wash the car in the driveway, if you have one. You're allowed to do that where you live—in Las Vegas you aren't.

One of the reasons the customer volume is what it is is that washing your own car outside is not practical in upstate NY during the freezing temps of winter. With the amount of salt we get, car washes are needed very frequently, and the automated washes do as good or better a job and can be had for a reasonable price with a season or monthly plan.

[. . .]

Although most of our car washes are automated and move cars through relatively quickly, getting through when there's no line still presents a challenge. From November (or first snow) through April, whenever its not actively snowing or recently rained to wash the salt away, lines start early and persist through closing times. And forget about it on a Saturday after a snowfall.

I checked temperatures in Rochester for the past month and it appears there were 20 days out of 31 with the high above freezing.  With an outside source of water (I realize most apartment dwellers won't have this), it should be fairly straightforward to find a time to perform an underbody rinse with a garden hose, which is the really critical part for staving off corrosion-certainly much easier than finding a car wash without a queue in the immediate aftermath of a snowstorm.  (This is also a problem here, though we spend less time overall each winter with deicing salts on the roads.)

The key phrase there is the bolded one. Although the majority of days had a high above freezing this past January, from some quick research a variety of sources are in agreement that 40°F is a good minimum temperature for a DIY car wash. A big reason for that is the frequent, almost incessant freeze-thaw cycles we get here such that even if temps rise above freezing during the day, water left on the driveway or the vehicle can freeze back over on short notice - especially considering that near perpetual cloud cover means we can go weeks without a day where the sun will warm the pavement enough to dry everything out. Increasing the threshold to 40°F reduces the number of suitable days from 21 last month to just eight - and several of those eight featured rain, mixed precipitation, or both. That leaves just a handful of days or less, and for those working full days, you'd have to hope one was a weekend day or risk doing it outside the warmer midday hours.

And while an underbody rinse would help with the corrosion issue, you'd need to be more thorough to get your car entirely clean which requires more time out in the cold so you may end up going to the car wash anyways. And if one lucked out and got a nice day for rinsing off the salt, it would only be in time for more salt to appear in the next few days. So between that and the availability of automatic car washes in this region, perhaps it's not all that surprising that I don't think I've ever seen anyone doing a DIY car wash between the months of December and February.

As an aside, I've never understood the economics of subscription car washes.  They cost around $10-$20 per month here, whereas I typically spend just five dollars on each car wash and generally do no more than three or four a year per vehicle.  I have heard that some car-wash chains around here stay in business by making it very difficult to cancel subscriptions, but I have no direct experience with this.

There are people who wash their cars weekly.  I presume that they are the intended customer.

Or those like me who don't have a set schedule for washing the car and just do it whenever it's dirty. That could range from every few months (or after a big road trip) in the summer, to multiple times per week during the peak of winter. The past few winters have been relatively mild, but I recall several winters in the 2010's where a few dozen car washes per season was not uncommon at all. That was also the era of the $12.99/month craze for Delta Sonic's unlimited program, which has since been steadily ticking up in price. I think it's now close to $30/month and nearly $12.99 for a single wash, but I am fortunately locked in at a lower rate. But even if one didn't want to keep the program year-round, it would be easy enough to start it in November and cancel in April if one was prepared to pay the going rate each season.

[Rothman]

I have never hosed the underside of my car.  I have yet to have corrosion related problems with any car I've owned, except for the first:  An 11-year old 1981 Honda Civic that was already a rustbucket.

There is such a thing as being too careful.

[roadman65]

When typing good. I sometimes get goid which makes no sense. Being my finger hits the same spot twice in a row the second letter should not be different.

If giid was spelled, I could see that mistake, but one right and the other not shouldn't be.

[Scott5114]

I replaced that Canon inkjet with an HP printer-fax-scanner and hated it because I don't print very frequently and it seemed like the cartridges would be dried up every time I needed to print something urgently. So I got rid of it and got a Canon laser printer/scanner. I'm quite happy with it and would like to keep it in service for 15 years as well if I can.

The whole "ink drying up" is why I prefer a laser printer over a inkjet printer, not to mention the cost of the ink cartridges. And, as long as Windows supports my printer model, there is no need to replace it for whatever little printing I actually do.

Heh. Fortunately, I'm on Linux, so the driver is open source. I could, in theory, keep the driver working forever, even if I'm the last person on Earth with a Canon printer.

When typing good. I sometimes get goid which makes no sense. Being my finger hits the same spot twice in a row the second letter should not be different.

If giid was spelled, I could see that mistake, but one right and the other not shouldn't be.

You're hitting the space between the I and the O. Your second finger touch is probably a few pixels off from the first one, which is enough to cross the border between the I and O.

The imprecision of touch screens is one of the reasons I hate them and couldn't imagine doing real work on a phone. If I can't select the exact pixel I want, what good is it as in input device?

Phone number for you?

(776) 867-5309

If Jenny lived in Fort Morgan, she could be 970-867-5309.

Wikipedia claims there is a pizza joint in Fort Collins with that number.

I've been told that (405) 867-5309 goes to the high school library in Maysville, OK.

The top hit on Google for (702) 867-5309 is a realtor in Henderson whose name appears to actually be Jenny.

[ZLoth]

The whole "ink drying up" is why I prefer a laser printer over a inkjet printer, not to mention the cost of the ink cartridges. And, as long as Windows supports my printer model, there is no need to replace it for whatever little printing I actually do.

Heh. Fortunately, I'm on Linux, so the driver is open source. I could, in theory, keep the driver working forever, even if I'm the last person on Earth with a Canon printer.

At which point does the costs of maintaining a driver or parts on an old printer outweigh the benefits of keeping an old printer running? The HP Laserjet 4 printer (which I owned at one point) was introduced in 1992, and the drivers stopped being available in Windows sometime in 2018. That's 25 years of driver availability. Part of that longevity is that it was a popular printer driver that was emulated by other printer manufacturers, part of it was that the printer was a tank in term of longevity (minus the "accordian fold" that required regular roller replacement). Per Amazon, a Brother HL-L2350DW Duplexing monochrome printer that prints at 32 pages per minute with USB/WiFI Connectivity is $150. Since I prefer ethernet connectivity, that would be the Brother HL-L2370DWXL with a slightly higher 36 ppm for $260. Both of these printers are faster and more energy efficient than the HP Laserjet 4 I purchased in 1995 and lasted me for multiple years. Problem is, I can find a inkjet printer for less than half of those costs. Some people look at the short-term costs rather than long-term value and efficiencies.

[Scott5114]

The time spent to spite a large corporation is an asset, not a liability.

[ZLoth]

Why do toll entities advertise and advocate the usage of toll tags?