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The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#101

Post by FiatLuxDave »

CaptSpify wrote: post #77

I used to do after-market repair medical equipment (MRI's, CT's, X-Ray, etc). One of the biggest frustrations was: $manufacturer wants $5000 to repair a CT. We'd charge $1000. We'd repair the CT, and it would pass all the built-in diagnostic tests. But then when the customer went to make a scan, a pop-up would appear saying "Unauthorized Repair! Call $manufacturer to fix!". $manufacturer repair tech would come in, pl…

So, if you do an after-market repair on a medical device, and a patient dies as a result of poor device performance, who does the FDA usually come after, you or the device manufacturer?

I suspect the liability for medical device mess-ups is at least partially responsible for that situation. The tech who didn't run any diagnostics would be in serious shit if a patient died after he did nothing aside from typing in the error-clearing code on your repair.

In many cases, the FDA requires the device manufacturer to maintain training records and updated repair procedures for any repair shop doing repairs on their devices. This could be the source of that error message.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#102

Post by warkdarrior »

CaptSpify wrote: post #77

I used to do after-market repair medical equipment (MRI's, CT's, X-Ray, etc). One of the biggest frustrations was: $manufacturer wants $5000 to repair a CT. We'd charge $1000. We'd repair the CT, and it would pass all the built-in diagnostic tests. But then when the customer went to make a scan, a pop-up would appear saying "Unauthorized Repair! Call $manufacturer to fix!". $manufacturer repair tech would come in, pl…

3rd party repair + $manufacturer "re-activation" were still cheaper than the original cost quoted by the $manufacturer.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#103

Post by andrei_says_ »

foota wrote: post #70
mikeash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Per hour" is rather ridiculous. I'm talking about per crash . There are a couple million vehicle crashes in the US each year, so if it really is 99.9999%, that's two or three ethical crises per year here. Among a billion vehicles it would be maybe ten per year. And honestly I'd be surprised if it's that many. When have you ever heard of a crash where there was any kind of ethical dilemma in the response? People keep…

I'm actually familiar with a situation like this, the person was on a highway at night and came around a corner to see a deer lying in the road and a crowd right behind the deer. There was a couple of people off to either side. They couldn't brake in time to stop and not harm the people on the other side of the deer.

They also could not think. If you've ever been in an accident, you know that there's no time for thinking. Reflexes take over.

Ascribing ethical decisions to the driver in such a situation is not rational nor ethical.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#104

Post by marcosdumay »

jackhack wrote: post #93
saidajigumi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the ethical question is greatly overblown. Agreed. At least at the level these cars are likely to enter the market, the whole concept of what the car "knows" isn't likely to extend to "other people", "my passengers", "inanimate objects" and a probability matrix of injury/death/damage among these categories. Instead of this heavily anthropomorphized view, cars are much more likely to have a highly simplified…

More likely than one might want to think. A car traveling the same direction swerves into your lane, crowding you off the road. Does your self-driving car allow the collision and push the offending car back in order to hold your lane? Or does it avoid the collision and run you off the road? (As a person who drives in the mountains, this could have deadly results. If you live in the plains of Kansas, maybe not so much…

It does not run off the road... And it pushes the break hard.

What kind of ethical dilemma should it have on that example?

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#105

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

mikeash wrote: post #74
foota wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually familiar with a situation like this, the person was on a highway at night and came around a corner to see a deer lying in the road and a crowd right behind the deer. There was a couple of people off to either side. They couldn't brake in time to stop and not harm the people on the other side of the deer.

What's the ethical dilemma there? From your description it sounds like they were just screwed regardless.

Self-driving cars can also limit speed such that they'll always be able to stop for stationary obstacles. If it's a blind corner, they'll slow down.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#106

Post by jdboyd »

Nullabillity wrote: post #75
extrapickles wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mind them gluing things like the battery in since it make for a more rigid phone provided they use a glue that a moderate amount of heat can greatly weaken. The problem with upgrading parts of something like a phone is that the components interfaces change frequently. Even desktop cpu/memory sockets change every few years. Compact form factors are worse as you dont have room for the connector, and for the lar…

> Even desktop cpu/memory sockets change every few years. Amusingly, AMD seems to manage fine without nearly as many socket changes as Intel...

It may be stretching things to say that AMD is managing fine.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#107

Post by msandford »

marcosdumay wrote: post #104
jackhack wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More likely than one might want to think. A car traveling the same direction swerves into your lane, crowding you off the road. Does your self-driving car allow the collision and push the offending car back in order to hold your lane? Or does it avoid the collision and run you off the road? (As a person who drives in the mountains, this could have deadly results. If you live in the plains of Kansas, maybe not so much…

It does not run off the road... And it pushes the break hard. What kind of ethical dilemma should it have on that example?

It has 0.5 seconds until collision so no hope of stopping. Push the brake all you want, unless that car gets back in its lane, people die.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#108

Post by marcosdumay »

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #101
CaptSpify wrote: post #77

I used to do after-market repair medical equipment (MRI's, CT's, X-Ray, etc). One of the biggest frustrations was: $manufacturer wants $5000 to repair a CT. We'd charge $1000. We'd repair the CT, and it would pass all the built-in diagnostic tests. But then when the customer went to make a scan, a pop-up would appear saying "Unauthorized Repair! Call $manufacturer to fix!". $manufacturer repair tech would come in, pl…

So, if you do an after-market repair on a medical device, and a patient dies as a result of poor device performance, who does the FDA usually come after, you or the device manufacturer? I suspect the liability for medical device mess-ups is at least partially responsible for that situation. The tech who didn't run any diagnostics would be in serious shit if a patient died after he did nothing aside from typing in the…

> So, if you do an after-market repair on a medical device, and a patient dies as a result of poor device performance, who does the FDA usually come after, you or the device manufacturer?

I don't know the answer to that question. But I do hope it is "the party that was negligent".

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#109

Post by belorn »

twblalock wrote: post #98
zerohp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent and copyright are an external force created by a bureaucracy that prevents a free market for these products.

It is certainly not a logical conclusion of my argument that all bureaucracies that interfere with the market ought to be abolished, or that the market should be free in all cases. My point was that in this particular case , the market would be a better way to solve the problem than a bureaucracy. Therefore, advocating the existence of some bureaucracies and not others does not contradict my argument, nor is it incon…

Your post above does not say why this particular case is better handled by the market.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#110

Post by [deleted] »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #105
mikeash wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the ethical dilemma there? From your description it sounds like they were just screwed regardless.

Self-driving cars can also limit speed such that they'll always be able to stop for stationary obstacles. If it's a blind corner, they'll slow down.

[deleted]
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