Long overdue rant: I hate modern technology and appliances

[Strat]

Ranting time. It took all my strength not to use the 'f' word in the title.

**** modern technology and appliances. Damn them all to the fiery pits of hell. Send them to swim with the fish.

There's no possible way I could rant on all the modern technologies I have a raging hatred for but they include refrigerators ($100 says your ice machine is broken right now), cell phones with bull**** apps, computers, 80% of modern vehicles (especially Hyundai, never buy that trash), and finally the worst culprit of all: lawn mowers.

I'm not 100% sure but according to my preliminary research, every lawn mower manufacturer worships Satan and works for ISIS. Not positive but I'm pretty sure.

When I was a boy growing up, one of my chores was mowing the lawn. A preteen had the mechanical prowess to mow the lawn because the instructions were basic: start the mower and mow the lawn. The lawn mower would put up with a lot of tough work with no complaints and would last a long time.

When my family bought a new lawn mower it wasn't cause we needed one, it was because we saved up money and wanted a newer fancier one. This carried on from the 80s, through the 90s up till now. Big mistake. This attitude was a big, big mistake. All Americans did this and it's why we have the problems we do now.

Find me a decently priced lawn mower that isn't a made of dog **** and plastic which can last years without repair and I'll give you $100.

I hate lawn mowers.

It's not as though I buy bs no-name brands, I'm buying Briggs and Stratton. But, like modern auto manufacturers, they use plastic parts. And they just ****ing suck. What's with all the directions of "don't do this, don't do that, make sure planetary alignment is just right or the entire mower will break and you will void the warranty." As I said, there used to be very little instructions, just "mow the damn lawn" was all you needed to know.

So now my lawn looks dumb because my brand new plastic mower died half way through the job. Did I mention I hate lawn mowers? Maybe this is why Kim Jong had folks cut his lawn with scissors, he couldn't find a god damn lawn mower that works?

I struggled with the old mower for the last 2 years because I KNEW this would happen. The old mower had issues for years but I always rigged it to keep it going so I could avoid the headache of buying a new mower. It finally got on my last nerve a couple weeks ago.

So yeah, I hate modern technology. We can communicate with robots on Mars, but I often get wifi connectivity problems. There is a space station orbiting the planet but my ice machine wont work for more than a couple months. We can build levitating trains...but I can't buy a decent lawn mower. If hell is real, Satan will force people to mow acres with modern lawn mowers.

[Andynko]

It wouldn't happen to be a whirlpool refrigerator would it?

[Sadieblue]

Ditto on all you said Strat, My plastic John Deere gives me hell...O...
all the time, wish I hadn't ditched my old faithful. Already cracked the plastic
headlight case out of it.

[T Smith]

Here you go, Strat. Better for the triceps anyway...

[conk]

What I despise is the spyware in almost every single product sold, well except for broccoli. I'm sure they are working on an organic RFID for that.

It does seem most items sold are made to break in three years or less. Just this week I had a little gear in my power window mechanism break. The dealership said every single VW sold had been into the shop for the broken gear. They couldn't spend one extra cent and make the gear from metal?! My mom has a thirty year old can opener. Her hands are weaker now, so I bought a brand new one. The little circular knife broke off after about 10 uses. She tossed it and is using the old one again.

And does anyone on Earth need a refrigerator that is connected to the internet?!?!?!?

[petra]

Posted by Strat (here)
So now my lawn looks dumb because my brand new plastic mower died half way through the job. Did I mention I hate lawn mowers? Maybe this is why Kim Jong had folks cut his lawn with scissors, he couldn't find a god damn lawn mower that works?

It's kindof adorable how much you care about the way your lawn looks :-)
I hate them too, they're like the Hitler of grass

[Michi]

While it certainly is true that things are nomore built to last but instead to sell in volumes, I hate to say it has to a large extend to do who is the user.
I hear you Strat, don't get me wrong but I have seen blokes who's gear constantly break down.
It really has to do with attitude, mind-set, care (and love) and at the beginning with due homework in order to get the gear which is of high quality.
My queer viewpoint is that man controlls his gear and not the other way around.

[Ernie Nemeth]

Most people are not aware of the fact that there are clearing houses for defective chips from the big chip makers, Intel and AMD for sure.

These are the chips that get put in our 'smart' appliances.

Is it any wonder they are unreliable?

[meeradas]

Posted by Michi (here)
While it certainly is true that things are nomore built to last but instead to sell in volumes, I hate to say it has to a large extend to do who is the user.
I hear you Strat, don't get me wrong but I have seen blokes who's gear constantly break down.
It really has to do with attitude, mind-set, care (and love) and at the beginning with due homework in order to get the gear which is of high quality.
My queer viewpoint is that man controlls his gear and not the other way around.

Whilst i get where you are coming from with this, and you do have a point (regarding treating gear),
if you can control "planned obsolescence" with "attitude, mind-set, care (and love)", you will get a lot of worshippers soon...

[AutumnW]

Michi,

Your post sounds a bit like the Buddhist refrain, "and then you invite the bell to ring." I'm all for kicking the crap out of things that refuse to work or throwing them against a wall. But I hear you. It's just we don't all have the time or patience to cater to inanimate plastic. And that's the problem. It's plastic and designed to fail and is filling oceans and landfills with debris. Sick, sad. We are in the cancer stage of capitalism.

[Intranuclear]

You need to get one of these highly advanced AI lawnmowers.

[shaberon]

Posted by Sadieblue (here)
Ditto on all you said Strat, My plastic John Deere gives me hell...O...
all the time, wish I hadn't ditched my old faithful. Already cracked the plastic
headlight case out of it.

There isn't a John Deere, it's a Homelite with green and yellow trim.

Same with tires. Same with tape. The same stuff coming out of the same plant is just stamped with different names and prices.

Squishy plastic chokes ruined all the lawn equipment.

Usually, there's a guy who makes the real thing, and everyone else copies. Like the real tools are Snap-On. For instance I have seen a reverse torque meter built ca. 1930 which was still perfect. If you want gas powered stuff, might have to have Stihl or Husqvarna, since they fail to make junk.

I would say a mower, washing machine, etc., is supposed to be a labor-saving device that adds to the quality of life and gives you more free time. It's how the additional time is spent that makes the difference. In most cases, if spent with another techno gadget, or chemical cocktails, etc., the goods only provide degeneration.

Speaking of broken ice makers, the one at my mom's place blew the water supply line, inside the wall. It destroyed everything for who knows how long and started accumulating mold and took something like $4,000 and a Hazmat team for two weeks. I don't even use ice.

A lot of this stuff is intended to wear out so it will be repaired or replaced. Winchester put themselves out of business by making a product that lasts forever, no one needed a new one if grandpa's was still good. Needing repairs keeps you dependent on the system, or industry of waste.

[Constance]

Brushcutter vs Scythe

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BT4VdMLFnfk

Old School vs New School | Lawn Cutting Race

[Satori]

Posted by T Smith (here)
Here you go, Strat. Better for the triceps anyway...

That's what I use. Admittedly, I have a relatively small patch of grass surrounded by rock and desert plants. They call it xeriscape in the Southwest US of A, and elsewhere. Conserve water is the name of the game.

[Philippe]

This is not only about lawnmowers I understood.

Posted by Strat (here)
Ranting time.
There's no possible way I could rant on all the modern technologies I have a raging hatred for but they include refrigerators, cell phones with bull**** apps, computers, 80% of modern vehicles (especially Hyundai, never buy that trash), and ...
.

Strat you are too young to have known our world without that technology pollution. I have a hard time with the concept of unconditional love when I think of the developpers and programmers of all that.
Refraining to pollute the forum with rants I wrote the following in PM to my Avalon Greeter Nasu after a technical query:
Good to read that you are not a coder. In my previous international business work I was forced to use all this electronics for reporting and bookkeeping. I hate it because there are so many bugs and glitches. Now each day I complain to my poor wife and others about all these programmers and codifyers that condition our daily life. And they manipulate to trap with commercial tricks and tracking and it is now used everywhere for official obligations also. No more human contact. These small and bigger hidden programmers are the people I hate most these last years. Even more at times than the international evil masters . Enough for my rant but I see no solution than maybe go and live in Africa or on a mountain or your woods. Sorry ... but you said you are not a coder :-). You are 18 years younger and have not known the world without all those crazy applications , smartphones, technological pollution, hacking epidemics, etc .

[Valerie Villars]

I really miss rolling up a car window by hand and being able to actually fix my car myself. I've always been mechanically inclined and have figured out how to replace and fix many things over my lifetime. Not anymore though.

Two of our cars have windows which won't roll all the way up, unless we push them with one hand while the other is on the "button". It's a real pain in the neck.

We have a Polaris four wheeler that has less than a hundred miles on it. Last year it wouldn't move forward so we took it in to the shop. It was still under warranty. It turns out there was a computer received upgrade required for the damn thing to work. I couldn't believe it.

I fixed a very basic washing machine a few years back. It needed a relay switch. If our current machine breaks, we'll have to call in a master computer programmer.

I'm with you 100% Strat.

My dream car is an old mustang from the sixties.

[Ivanhoe]

After having to help fix a variety of vehicles that my nieces own (they are extremely hard on cars, and the roads here don't help either!), when my '88 ranger finally died I bought a '82 F-100 from my friend, mostly because I could diagnose and repair it myself without the aid of a computer. You have to try really hard to kill it.
I purposely will not buy a newer car just because of the hassle of diagnosis and cost of repairs.
The only concern I have now is availability of parts,...and having to decline offers to buy it from me.

[toppy]

Dear Strat,

I really love yor post.

[Strat]

Posted by Valerie Villars (here)
I fixed a very basic washing machine a few years back. It needed a relay switch. If our current machine breaks, we'll have to call in a master computer programmer.

I'm with you 100% Strat.

My dream car is an old mustang from the sixties.

I hear ya. When I was taking auto repair courses the instructors said if you want to get rich in this field then work for Mercedes. They are over engineered junk. They have high level technicians that get flown over the country from dealer to dealer because the technology is so complex the dealer can't fix it. I believe this is the case with a lot of modern vehicles now.

My mother bought a new Hyundai and it's garbage, she's going to get rid of it. It's brand spanking new and the trunk paint is flaking off on one side. It has to be occasionally taken to the dealer for software upgrades. One of which reduced fuel efficiency. 2 of her a/c vents stopped working, it took them forever to diagnose the problem and they determined there is a metal plate in the back of the dash which is shorting them out. It would require them removing the dash to fix the problem, so repair cost would be over $1000. Brand new car.

As I said in another thread I'm getting rid of my 2000 tacoma and going back to a vehicle I used to own: '78 f150. Getting rid of it was a huge mistake but I was young and dumb. I wanted a 70 firebird which I couldn't afford but got anyway, then a 90 Lincoln, which was far more costly than the firebird. I'm getting rid of the tacoma because I need a full size truck and the 1st gen tacomas suffer from severe frame rust.

I have a 66 Mustang sedan. I bought it as a kind of learning tool for welding. Long story. Like I mentioned in another thread I'm on disability and my bucket list is to get off it by working on these old cars. Resto mod is my thing. It's built like a death trap so I can modify all that as well as upgrade the electronics. I have a lot of little ideas. I'm keeping the 8 track player cause I love stuff like that (I have turntables and outdated audio gear polluting my man cave).

Posted by Ivanhoe (here)
After having to help fix a variety of vehicles that my nieces own (they are extremely hard on cars, and the roads here don't help either!), when my '88 ranger finally died I bought a '82 F-100 from my friend, mostly because I could diagnose and repair it myself without the aid of a computer. You have to try really hard to kill it.
I purposely will not buy a newer car just because of the hassle of diagnosis and cost of repairs.
They only concern I have now is availability of parts,...and having to decline offers to buy it from me.

See above, agreed 100%. I don't have an issue with OBD I/II, I actually like it, but many vehicles have secondary computers that only the manufacturers can hook up to. I'm sure there's a way to connect to them but I assume it's pricey. I dunno, above my skill/care level.

My old f150 was just the best damn (work) truck in the world. Very very cheap to maintain since ford made identical parts that that were compatible with several lines of vehicles. Also, living in US, the salvage yards are stuffed full of the same truck so used parts are also readily available. The only issue would be if you couldn't weld because the body would rust. But that's not so much a problem for me. At least the damn frame didn't rust like on my tacoma.

Servicing was a dream. I could lay on my back on my creeper, grab the frame and roll to wherever I needed to get. With the I-6 (300) you had plenty of room on to access any component necessary. I could go on and on.

[AutumnW]

I believe it was Karl Marx who described the "crisis of over production," where capitalism failed, (in the past before built in obsolesence) because everyone had everything they needed after a certain point as things were sturdily built. It was the goal of business to make a truly superior product. But....if products last a life time, it creates a collapse of business.

As capitalism is in it's death throes at the moment, there are various work arounds that have been adopted to get around this inevitability. We still have business cycle, boom bust events but have avoided outright collapse and we can thank plastic lawn mowers for that.