@neil I wouldn’t mind all these things having WiFi if it was along the lines of OBD-2 in a car. Just query the internal state of the device. But no, it’s used as a conduit for enshittification.

@neil oh yes. But now I see all these lost socks communicating with remaining friends via Wifi how to make a revolution and leave humans! 😅

@neil I wrote a short story related to this: How my wife got brain-hacked (again). It's the story of a man who finally bought an electric toothbrush for his wife’s birthday. Pdf: https://press.palni.org/ojs/index.php/academfic/article/view/808/737

@neil I also don't understand the urge to connect all devices to the internet. Even your toothbrush. I guess I'm just an analogue old man :)

@neil But Neil you're being heartless
We will just take a peep
(We and our twenty thousand spying partners
And yes we never sleep).

@neil Should these devices need WiFi I’d grant them a WiFi but block internet access 😄

@neil Rage Against The (Aggressively Intrusive) Machine

@neil

do one for my dishwasher!

@neil
@FirewallDragons A problem so pervasive there’s poetry about it now. 🙂

@neil
I hereby nominate this effort of yours, Neil, for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
We usually think of this prize as being for prose authors, but numerous poets have won it in the past, and I, for one, think you deserve to be among their number.

@neil My bathroom weight scale promised all these fancy features, but when the product arrived, none of the features worked with the scales own display or processing. I had to download the app. The app refused to work unless I gave it access to my camera and my contacts! Is the app going to take a picture of me on the bathroom and contact my friends about it? I deleted the app, and to this day, the scales show up as a device waiting for a connection to anyone in my house.

@neil I did an OTA firmware on my car yesterday which took three hours during which time it was not usable and even the alarm was disabled. It also woke me up this morning by messaging me to tell me it was fully charged. Another feature is that it provides its own WiFi hotspot for up to 8 devices to use. OTOH it seems to be incapable of playing a list of MP3s in random order unlike the old car.

@neil We just got a new Whirlpool washer and dryer. No WiFi or Bluetooth. They replaced the Maytags that we bought 30 years ago that I've been nursing along for the past 10+ years with lots of repairs.

@neil 🎯

tbc

@neil immediately singing to the tune of Winona's Big Brown Beaver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYDfwUJzYQg

@neil But how else are they going to show you ads if they dont have internet? Some ceo somewhere probably 😂

@neil in belgium we have a vendor that built his own hardware (washing machine etc), without any wifi etc.

and they sell quite well it seem.

@neil @Lazarou To think that I was once so naive that I wanted to network everything in the house.

@neil They don't _need_ those things, no - and the fridge I still wonder about - but I just upgraded to an LG induction unit and I've got to admit, the preheated notifications are actually really useful as we're not always within earshot, and it gets you over there and putting stuff in the oven quicker so it's not sitting there wasting electricity. The washer and dryer notifications aren't bad either so we don't have to keep going down and checking, especially if we're say, waiting for a blanket so we can go to bed or something.

@neil
aka fuq no to the 3rd.
well said.

*****

@neil both my washer and dryer have wifi. Never even set it up.

@neil As someone who has walked away from an open flame on my stove top, I would appreciate being alerted to potential problems and to be able to check whether I left something cooking when I left the house. 😬

@neil It's like the Keurig does not need Wifi either. Who needs to know what coffee I'm brewing?

@neil
My dishwasher doesn't need internet!
The cups & plates don't need to chat
I don't want ads for tablets
Definitely not that
Data-less, my crockery
Can only communicate with me.

@neil my microwave and stove have wifi - and still can’t set their own clocks. That’s literally the one useful feature I would want from a smart device.

@neil

My toilet does not need WiFi.
That's something I could not bear.
My bowel movements are private.
It doesn't need to share.

@neil Ha ha! We have a tumble drier with wifi because only through the app can you use the scheduling function, which I usually do use to take advantage of cheaper power overnight. A simple delay function, like my washing machine has, would be just as good. It's a con by the tumble drier manufacturer, but the actual machine is good and v low power anyway as it uses a heat pump so I grit my teeth and use the app.

@gadgetoid It is a minefield. I used to have one on top of a warehouse roof that worked... it was the second one I tried, the previous cheap one was total bullshit, did nothign at all ... just going to see if I can find them in the old business Amazon history.

@vfrmedia What a non-boring life you have in Good Old England! Do you have any telecom operators that provide the IAX2 interface? Then run from FreePBX (it's still a PBX for blondes) to a normal Asterisk and you can even use chan_sip for now, it looks like it won't be disable anytime soon. And don't forget to take the system indoors, out of the attic where the prim British rats roam and the Victorian vipers crawl behind them.

@bloor Is that "fused" as in "fused plastic"?

@bloor I suppose it /might/ have a non-replaceable fuse, but I'd be very surprised. Even then I'm not sure it's legal?

@bloor not even close to legal, breaks BS rules in several ways

@bloor I have doubts about the supposed fuse. You could always run more than 5 A through it and see what happens.

@bloor Pretty sure the earth pin shouldn't be part insulated, the dimensions look all wrong, there should be more clearance between the pins and the edge of the housing, and wtf is going on with that fuse? I'd guess there's also a hilariously small amount of copper in that cable (if its even actual copper) and I've seen cables like that where the earth wasn't even connected. Most likely an absolute death trap.

@bloor if nothing else the earth pin isn’t supposed to have a plastic section </bigclive>

@bloor These people pulled one apart.. there might even be an attempt at earthing..

https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2024/01/households-urged-to-check-if-their-christmas-gift-is-a-fire-risk-by-checking-its-plug/

@bloor one of those nearly burned down my office. I have the photos somewhere but seems to be unable to find them. Only a PC was plugged into it but it melted the socket and plug. Ergh.

@bloor 100% not legal. Earth should be all metal, not sheathed (or all plastic if not earthed) and there’s obviously no fuse. Except for what is presumably the bare minimum of copper clad aluminium they can get away with in the cable. It does at least look like the earth pin is longer than the others.

@bloor Get a pair of pliers and rip the prongs off that thing to make sure no one ever plugs it in. Fire hazard and electrocution hazard.

If the seller is UK based then report it to them and to trading standards. If the seller is based abroad then it's up to the individual who imported it to check its compliance with the regulations.

@bloor
I was told as a kid that its never legit to pull things apart at the dinner table. I never got a satisfying answer as to why.

@bloor oh those. The amount of kit that rocks up with those is unreal. Absolutely crazy. zero part of them is compliant.

Bonus points because your example has an earth pin that’s got the insulation on it for extra defeating the entire point of the earth pin being how it is.

@bloor earth pin should not be sleeved (dangerous - means the appliance won't be earthed). The plug dimensions are wrong and may allow fingers to touch contacts (dangerous), almost certainly does not have a fuse, despite saying "fused" (dangerous)... But really, would you trust that it was actually fused when it fails to meet the BS in so many other ways?

Also would not be surprised if it used undersized copper plated aluminium wire.

@stefano ¡Dichoso tu!

@stefano Have a nice evening as well

@bloor I use silicone jobbies for my batch cooking.

@bloor I upgraded to the fancy Sistema ones with the tritan plastic - these ones. https://www.sistemaplastics.com/uk/our-ranges/ultra

They have held up to freezing and dishwashers and all kinds of things so far. I've been really impressed.

@bloor I prefer glass containers over plastic as they can be heated in the oven and are easier to clean. John Lewis have some own brand ones that are decent.

@bloor it is better to avoid plastic in the microwave. The lids are ok, but where the food touches the box it can get too hot and melt the plastic. The fumes et al then permeate your food, not ideal for your daily intake of plastic but obviously we’ve all been doing it for decades. 🙄

@bloor glass base plastic lid systems are great. The bases are usually oven rated too.

@bloor For freezer we use cheap plastic pots with plastic lids; they're thinner and lighter than anything we'd use if we wanted it on a countertop, and don't have the clever seals or anything.

@NAB just use nano instead of that ancient overcomplicated piece of shit

@NAB

I used to work with a guy 30 years ago who was proud of his facility with ed, when vi was not available.

vi is always available now. vi commands, particularly h,j,k,l, are frequently used elsewhere. When you have it under your fingers, it’s extremely useful & powerful. Not to be neglected imo.

@NAB No. The way to edit a text file on a Linux server is

* copy it to a Windows box
* edit it using a real editor
* copy it back.

You have to learn about line endings, but that's about the only hassle.

@NAB vi, not vim, is present on any and all *nix variants. The basic commands is enough to save yourself from bad situations. After that choose your daily driver editor.
Another tip is to t-y-p-e every command manually in the beginning, read manpages not google. That is imho the only way to learn the sysadmin skill, and in the end be able to do things effortlessly on any system.

@NAB I’ve never learned anything with vi beyond how to get into insert mode and how to quit (with or without saving).

I think that’s enough unless someone particularly likes vi as an editor (I don’t, I prefer nano or a gui editor)!

@NAB Fun : https://vim-adventures.com/

@NAB Definitely. If he doesn't get comfortable beyond i a d w q and hjkl, that's enough to feel like the CLI isn't trapped. Whether he wants to do serious editing in vi, emacs, nano, kate, or whatever, is another question

@NAB Exposure to Vim and Emacs is important for people to get used to the idea that powerful software can sometimes have a learning curve.

@NAB

As someone who unexpectedly acquired a project maintaining an old but important system with no fancy tools installed, and who had to fix something immediately... YES!
[Edited to add] I got into vi ok, but couldn't work out how to exit!

@NAB I've got thirty something years of Emacs under my belt, and I still say Yes to that. I don't particularly get on with the VI Way, but dear god it beats the crap out of nano.

@NAB
For user friendliness: mc

@NAB yes, and the core gnu toolset: grep, awk, sed... *regular expressions rule everything around me*

@NAB You only needed to teach him how to install nano. :-)