activistPnk

Every Lemmy instance chooses its own name for the meta community. Some don’t even have one. Some choose quite bizarre names.

That’s shit. If you walk into an office building, the receptionist is almost always close to the main entrance. When you enter a restaurant, the host(ess) is either close to the front door or there is a clear path to the host(ess). Yet Lemmy is terribly organised in this way. The power of defaults can go a long way here. A meta community should be created by default with a default name. And by default it should be listed at the top on the communities list.

Best way to cope with the madness is sort communities chronologically with oldest first. But it’s not solid. Sometimes the meta community is created late in the game.

I generally avoid credit cards but sometimes rare circumstances make checks or cash inconvenient. A contractor did some work for me. The contractor’s bill was essentially:

• $2500 if paying by credit card (actual result: I pay $2475, he receives <$2425)
• $2500 if paying by other means

It became stark how foolish that pricing is when I saw that I received $25 cash back. Most consumers are easily exploited as they foolishly think they are $25 richer -- without thinking about the big margin the MitM took. It means the contractor paid a fee of at least $25 but likely much more¹. Surely he would have profitted more if I paid by other means, like cash. Why didn’t the contractor offer a discount of ~$25—50 for paying cash? I know some do but it’s not as common as it should be.

The merchant agreement generally bans traders from surcharging credit cards (which govs tend to ignore when they accept credit card and add a surcharge). But there’s a loophole for everyone: the rules do not ban giving a discount for other forms of payment. It’s perfectly legit for a merchant to give a cash discount so long as up-front quoted prices match what is charged to cardholders. They should be doing this more.

When a consumer pays by credit card, it would be good for transparency & awareness to print on the receipt: “credit card fee of $75 paid by Bob’s Roofing”.

¹ ~1% is a fee cap in Europe but in the US there is no cap so fees are often in the 3—5% range. So the US contractor likely paid at least $75 in fees.

I’ve been stock-piling electronics that either people throw away, or things I bought 2nd-hand only to find they are broken.

Looks like the right to repair law is in very slow motion. Not yet enacted be the European Commission. And once it is, member states have like 2 years to actually enact it in their law. Probably even more time before consumers begin to see results.

(edit) I think some US states were the first to enact right to repair laws. So some consumers could perhaps pretend to be from one of those states to demand things like service manuals. But parts and repair is likely more out of reach ATM.

You can follow their Mastodon account here:

https://mastodon.archive.org/@internetarchive

People are rightfully angry. I hope this helps the world relize that we need more than one public digital library in the world. When the EU (for example) does not have a digital public library and relies on archive.org, it heightens everyone’s vulnerability to a single point of failure.

For me, I cannot access roughtly half the world’s websites right now because Cloudflare blocks me -- which makes me almost wholly reliant on archive.org and to some extent google caches via 12ft.io.

(update)
Looks like there is a project underway -- a Digital Knowledge Act being proposed:

https://communia-association.org/2024/10/09/video-recording-why-europe-needs-a-digital-knowledge-act/

The avg. age of a car bought in Africa at the time of purchase is 21 years old. All these people buying EVs think they are taking a gas-burner off the road. But in fact cars do not get thrown away. They get shipped to Africa where they live on and continue to emit GHG for decades longer.

So what’s the answer? Destroying the car is a non-starter, as no one would throw away value. It would be like asking people to set some of their cash on fire.

Why not remove the engine and repurpose it as a backup power generator for power outtages? Then convert the rest of the car into an EV.

Conversions are being done. There are some companies offering to do the work. But these are very small scale operations that are rarely spoken of. I have to wonder why (what seems like) the best solution is being overlooked.

In the past few years I have salvaged 4 LCD screens from curbs. All of them function without defect. I have no idea why people are tossing them out. One of the 4 was perhaps tossed due to size (it was about the size of a laptop screen). But the other 3 are a decent size. Most of them even have DVI connectors. I think one of the three only has a VGA connector, so perhaps the owner did not know that could be adapted.

If you notice a dumped LCD, grab it. Don’t assume it’s broken.

I also often see flat screen TVs being dumped. They are too big to easily carry on my bicycle so I’ve not made the effort to collect them and test them. Has anyone? I just wonder if I should make the effort. Why are people tossing them? Is it because ”smart” (read: cloud dependent) TVs are becoming obsolete and owners are not smart enough to use the HDMI inputs? Or is it more commonly a case of broken hardware?

(update)
Saw ~4 or so big flat TVs in the “proper” city e-waste collection. The city provides a pallet with walls (a big box) where people dump their electronics. Then the city goes through it and gives anything that works to 2nd-hand shops. They also try to repair some things. In principle, it’s a good idea to have a process like this. But I’m somewhat gutted by this:

• no one labels the waste as working or not
• the designated middleman who sorts through it does not bother testing most things.. e.g. printers are categorically destroyed.
• the public gets no access to the waste in the step between salvage and dump (I need a spare part for a particular device and have no hope of getting it)
• the stuff is just dumped unprotected in this big box. So other appliances get tossed on top LCDs and edges of those things damage screens in transport

It’s illegal to dump e-waste on the street or in landfills in my area. They must follow the above process because persnickety neighborhood cleanliness people have pressured the gov to enforced the ban on curbside dumping. But curbside dumping is actually more environmentally sound because locals have a chance to grab something in a less damage-prone way.

I could not fetch a user manual because of protectionism, enshitification, and red tape.

The problems:

• The current right to repair laws obligate vendors to supply documentation. Yet many manufacturers are in walled gardens or deploy an access restricted website. If someone must compromise their privacy rights (data minimisation in particular) as a precondition to getting a manual, that’s effectively not a right but rather an exclusive privilege to repair.

• Some manufacturers operate under unknown short-lasting generic brands and support vanishes before the need for it even arises.

• There are several 3rd party enshitified middlemen pimping manuals that you cannot download unless you solve CAPTCHAs and disclose personal information. Then these shitty motherfuckers “optimise” search results so their booby-trapped manuals get higher search ranks than manufacturer websites.

So, new rules:

① The government shall form a public library for manuals. It shall comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 21, thus be open to ALL people without restrictions. It shall electronically publish all manuals it receives. If it receives a paper manual for which it has no electronic version, it shall scan it and make the electronic version available.

② Copyright protection is reduced in scope to exclude manuals. Manual creation is an obligation of producers of products and thus needs no incentive of copyright. Copyrights only serve as an obsticle to rights to repair.

③ Manufacturers shall send a copy of product manuals to the library established under rule ①, on paper or electronic. If an electronic manual includes or requires code execution (e.g. JavaScript) then it is not a document (it’s an application), thus a paper version must be supplied to the library regardless of whether an electronic version is submitted.

④ Gatekeepers who deploy web search services (Microsoft, Google) must ensure links to the library established under rule ① and manufacturer websites outrank 3rd party enshitified data-abusing manual suppliers. If the 3rd party manual supplier blocks archive.org from mirroring manuals, gatekeepers must de-index those 3rd parties entirely.

⑤ Manufacturers who restrict access to their own website must give an informative access refusal message. “403 Forbidden” is not informative. It must state why someone is blocked and give them options.

⑥ Manufactuers must respond to written requests for manuals even if it comes by postal mail and costs them postage. (As incentive to make their website functional)

⑦ The government shall establish a consumer protection agency that:

• Enforces these rules
• Collects metrics on failures to repair
• Publishes statistics on repair successes and failures by brand

Corporations in the US operate like criminals in the sense that they will willfully break any law that is unenforced or has no enforcement mechanism. For example, there is a law requiring credit bureaus to disclose the source of information they collect to the data subject it pertains to. But they blatantly ignore the law because enforcement is nearly impossible. The penalty for concealing info sources is $1k. Theoretically every credit bureau in the US is liable for a statutory penalty of $1k for every consumer they have a file on. But they escape this because case law shows that a consumer cannot win damages unless they can prove damages. How do you prove you were damaged by not knowing who the source of your credit file info is?

So new rule: if a corporation breaks a law, you only need to prove that the law was broken, not damages, and you can claim $1k for your small claims court action effort.

One of my banks is threatening to freeze my account unless I disclose my residential address where I sleep at night (with proof! Thus all info that proof comes with). Their privacy policy starts with the standard “we take privacy seriously” then they go on to say deeper in the doc that they may share my personal info around to the full extent allowed by law (using weasel words that try to imply the contrary to sloppy/fast readers), vaguely to credit bureaus (who I have no contract with and who will share the data further, or leak it in a breach). This bank claims “regulations require…” No, they do not. The regs say they must collect residential address OR business address, or if those are not available an address to a family member. So the bank is bullshitting.

At the same time, another bank says in so many words: sorry to inform you we were breached. Cyber criminals have all your sensitive info. We take privacy and security seriously. We offer you a credit monitoring subscription to compensate you. If you are interested, you can share your sensitive info with that monitoring org, who in turn will share the info with their subcontractors. And anonymous access is blocked so you must also share your IP address.

In light of these two shitty¹ banks, I would like to give a big fuck you to those who say:

• “You don’t want your bank to know where you live? What are you hiding? What kind of dodgy shit are you into?”
• “You expect your bank to let you access your account from Tor? LOL. Why don’t you trust your bank with your IP address? Why don’t you want your ISP to know where you bank? What kind of dodgy shit are you into?”
• Bruce Schneiere: “cryptocurrency is a solution looking for a problem”
• “Cash is for tax evaders. You have no legitimate cause to demand cash payment or to pay in cash.”
• “A cashless society protects us from criminals & money launderers”

In the very least, we need a general right to be unbanked.

¹ I don’t mean two imply these to banks are exceptionally shitty. They are just like any bank. All banks, credit unions, etc, are shitty in the same way.

(edit) Bank B also waited several months after they knew of the breach to inform me. So I imagine there were months of backroom chatter: “can we hide this? Do we have to tell the press and the victims?” They must have spent those months debating about whether or not to tell victims. Makes me wonder how many other breaches I was exposed to by banks without my knowledge.

FedEx is known for shipping:

• shark fins
• hunting trophies
• slave dolphins

Shark fins are rightfully illegal in environment-respecting animal-welfarist countries. FedEx does not give a shit.

A FedEx defender once argued: “but FedEx is respecting your privacy by not inspecting the contents of your pkg.” (Nevermind the fact that there are photos showing a FedEx shop with hundreds shark fins in open crates in plain view.)

It was a partially fair enough argument though. But still failed to acknowledge that FedEx could ban shark fins in their policies and respect privacy at the same time. No obligation to snoop but also no obligation to pay insurance claims when the content is declared as shark fins.

Now that FedEx has been caught allowing police to do a warrantless search on packages containing cash, the “FedEx respects your privacy” argument debunked.

When police search for cash and keep it, it actually undermines law enforcement. How would you catch a tax evader? Of course you would record the cash transaction and let it happen (after all, paying cash is not a crime in the US.. only places like Europe). Then 2 years later you would see if their tax return accounts for the cash. When the police take the money for themselves, they are actually preventing crime prevention.. working against the purpose they were hired for, because they cannot catch a tax evader by doing a money grab a year before the crime is committed.

So new rules:

• police must stop using cash-sniffing dogs to arbitrarily fish in shipping facilities for pkgs that do not even contain any contraband.
• police must train dogs to sniff for shark fins because shark fins are contraband, and it’s not like drugs (a crime against one’s self) it’s a crime against the environment and wildlife.

Heat pump water heaters already exist. These are hybrid things where a traditional electric water heater is fitted with a heat pump. The heat pump can increase the water temp but cannot deliver enough, so heating elements are still needed to reach a usable temp.

I’m wondering if that design can be improved on this way: instead of powering the heat pump from the wall, the heat pump can be connected directly to a PV. I think that would be more efficient and cheaper because PV output is not normally directly usable. IIUC, it’s variable D/C which must be regulated and/or inverted to A/C involving more hardware, conversion, and waste. But exceptionally, I’ve heard that a PV can directly power a compressor with no middleware. Any reasons this would be infeasible or uninteresting?

Of course the tank still needs wall power for the heating elements, but would use less wall power and entail less conversion loss.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13145612

(edit) Would someone please ship some counterfeit money through there and get it confiscated, so the police can then be investigated for spending counterfeit money?