Bonum Certa Men Certa

In Defence of Analog (Sometimes Digital and/or "Smart" is Objectively a Lot Worse)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 27, 2024

Pioneer DJ Mixing Unit

MR. Pocock has just told a long tale about why you should not get a "Smart Meter" (many Brits do not). I myself covered this topic many times in the past and in recent days it was discussed in our IRC network. Many analogies or similarities can be found in the realm of electronic voting machines. A lot can go wrong with data. Physical, mechanical things can be tampered with (so can paper ballots), but it's usually more complicated to do without getting caught or leaving some incriminating signs.

Having already mentioned why we're changing home insurance providers, perhaps it's a good opportunity to bring up a backstory. It's not the sole catalyst/cause of the change, but it's part of it.

This past weekend (2-3 days) I spent a few hours per day saving us 250 - 400 pounds in repair bills. That's savings of over 50 pounds per hour spent, maybe 100 per hour. I fixed and learned the operations of the gas boiler (which has many knobs, but is hardly digital, almost everything is mechanical). I also fixed and learned some of the central heating system, which is made of valves and about 8 radiators. A lot of the joins/links and pipes are accessible one way or another (like unscrewing parts of the floor, ceiling etc.) and the same cannot be said about "modern" buildings with "smart" things, typically made of metal and glass (not solids like bricks) because they're cheap and stuffed with plastic pipes that are neither reliable nor long-lasting. Like many "modern" cars, they're made to just look good; they won't last long though, for a whole lot of reasons that we covered here several years ago. A lot of modern electronics (notably gizmos like "smart" phones) are advertised as good and supported for only a few years. They basically tell people upfront not to expect these to last very long. Remember that DRM is coming to batteries! How cool is that, eh?

Anyway, so I managed to repair everything on my own, one step at a time, and I didn't need to be a qualified electrician or mess about with chipsets. In the process I visited 3 local shops (small and large) in search of tools and material. I also learned a lot from Web pages and some videos that are freely available online (videos help a lot when you see how it gets done "properly"). I also phoned the insurance company (Monday morning) asking if they'd cover anything. After more than half an hour on the phone I realised they're useless and recognised they would barely cover anything other than major floods and house fires. To make matters worse, they make it hard to speak to actual people. It's like all they care about is money coming in; they don't want any claims made and they'd look for excuses to not cover these (I canceled their policy after 10 years for a bunch of other and much older reasons, I won't renew again, I will look for another provider).

Had the boiler been the "new" model, things would be a lot harder because they add complexity and lock people out of the internal mechanisms (maybe to sell more "servicing" or "newer models"). Had the pipes been in a "modern" home, there would probably be no access to them (except by breaking walls and ceilings with heavy equipment, then rebuilding these with visible patching residues).

Sadly, "modern" cars cost a lot more to repair and maintain. They moreover last for a shorter period of time (don't expect a car purchased today to still be on a road somewhere in 2050). The same is true for homes; many have been conned into accepting "smart" locks (with "apps") and those need to be replaced when the company goes under, the "app" get too "old", the proprietary parts suffer wear and tear etc.

Costs of living increase not only because of inflation but also because products are made more poorly (sometimes by intention; planned obsolescence) and things like entertainment are merely rented, not sold. So you must "buy" the same thing over and over again... it's merely temporarily licensed and making backups is neither possible nor permissible.

All in all, I'm managing to fix almost everything in the home (because it is "dumb", not "smart") and it's giving me skills to use in the future. I can use the lessons and can spare some time to learn.

As we typically say, don't be fooled by this mainstream media concept that "new" is necessarily better; they push a lot of this mythology as Deny Friday approaches. As Dr. Andy Farnell put it a fortnight ago: "Hoarders were once maladjusted to late twentieth consumerist excess because, archetypally it was an old person who, having lived through world wars and rationing, insisted on preserving, adapting, repairing and creatively making-do. Every bottle and jam-jar was a useful object, to be kept 'just in case'. Today we have the opposite situation, where manufactured plastic and electronic goods flow into our lives as a river of tat too fast to be eliminated as waste. We are overwhelmed by an intolerable glut of wealth."

Speaking of preservation or repair, some old people say that their marriages lasted longer and were a lot better/healthier because back in their times people tried to keep and repair things, not throw things away impulsively in pursuit of "something new". Mending clothes and making things work again isn't something to be ashamed of; it takes skills, so it really merits pride or respect, not shame. The corporate "overloads" try to tell us to humiliate people who do not buy "enough", leveraging social forces or peer pressure to make themselves richer. The advertising "industry" and Social Control Media help them a lot in that regard, the latter partly based on collective envy - a glorification of extravagance. "Look how huge my wardrobe is! I never wear the same shirt, clothes are disposable to me!"

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