Thursday, June 09, 2005

We Are Stupid Consumers

A couple weeks ago, the oven on my Mother In Law's stove stopped working. She called a repair guy, who told her that it would cost $400 to fix the over. At that price, he advised she get a new stove. Good for him for not taking advantage of MIL.

But here's the problem: In economics, a stoves and other large appliences are what is called durable goods. Durable goods are suppose to have a 15 year life span. The stove in question was 7 years old. Oh, sure, there will be some that will fail in less than 15, but others will last 21, so it evens out-- right?

Turns out, the problem with her stove was that the computer that controlled the ovens temperature had failed. The repair guy explained that it was going to cost him $300 to buy the replacement part. WTF! Who in the world decided that replacing a $3 mechanical thermostat with a $300 computer system was a good idea?

And $300 for the computer? You can buy a bare bones Dell for $300!

Here's the problem: computers do not like heat. As a matter of fact, they prefer being supercooled. So why are we putting a computer inside a machine that is meant to operate at 400 degrees?

This is stupid... But you know what-- It is now the industry standard. I didn't like the stove in my new house and I had to look at about a hundred models to find one that didn't have a computerized oven.

We consumers should nat stand for this; but we will, because we're stupid.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I know how to deal with spam

I loved this exchange over at slashdot. Eventually it slipped into stupidity, but I thought the initial authors had some good momentum. The topic was regarding the comment that Bill Gates is the most spammed person in the world.

by PopeAlien (164869) on Wednesday June 08, @02:34PM (#12760276)
I dont get nearly as much spam as that, but even a few hundred a day is pretty irritating. My solution is to delete all email as soon as I get it.

I figure if its important I'll get a phone call.

by Everleet (785889) on Wednesday June 08, @02:48PM (#12760451)
Funny, I delete all phone calls as soon as I get them. I figure if it's important I'll get an IM.

by DoomHaven (70347) on Wednesday June 08, @02:51PM (#12760479)
Funny, I delete all IMs as soon as I get them. I figure if it's important, I'll get a visit.

by Poltras (680608) on Wednesday June 08, @03:03PM (#12760591)
Funny, I delete all of my visitors as soon as they show up. I figure if it's important, the police will come and circle the house.

by AndersOSU (873247) on Wednesday June 08, @03:07PM (#12760630)
Funny, in Soviet Russia the police delete you.

The original post.