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It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

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Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#81

Post by gruez »

Zababa wrote: post #9

Other submission here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28037039 . For some reason, algolia adds 10 hours to the submission time, this one that's 1 hour ago according to HN is marked as 11 hours ago, and the other that's 10 hours ago according to HN is marked as 20 hours ago.

It's something to do with the "second chance" mechanism. Here's the email I gotten from dang explaining the issue:

>It's an artifact of the re-upping system. '1 day ago' was the original submission time and '1 hour ago' was the re-up time. Lots of explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Sorry for the confusion!

>See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 and links back from there.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#82

Post by erwincoumans »

NortySpock wrote: post #21
dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Great advice, and I echo 95% of it. My observation is that I have found Wifi useful when I need the printer in an odd location in the house, and color is useful for non-professional usage like "the kids need to print out their report for school" and "the med school student needs anatomy diagrams in color" My trusty color Brother laser HL-3170CDW cost ~$300 at the time and has been trucking along for 7+ years now with…

Same here, love the 3170CDW with wifi.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#83

Post by jay_kyburz »

gwbas1c wrote: post #40
Waterluvian wrote: post #2

A lot of good thoughts in here. The one I personally want everyone to take away is that most plastics are not recycled. Unless it’s glass, fibre, or aluminum, you are lying to yourself if it’s going into the blue bin. Glass-contained milk delivery seems great. Someone needs to start a company. Sure it won’t be sexy or use AI but it’s useful. I have a local co-op that delivers local produce. It’s amazing to see a pile…

#1 and #2 are well recycled in the US. It's all the other weirdo plastics that are recycled poorly. Milk usually comes in #2.

There was some scandal here in Australia recently where we discovered our plastics were all getting bundled up and shipped to China. I think it came out because China stopped accepting it. I don't think any of it was getting recycled at all.

Update: After doing some reading to jog my memory. China stopped buying it so there was oversupply here in Australia, so the price plummeted, so it was not economical to do anything with it, so I believe it was stockpiled.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-10/china-ban-on-foreign-...

https://theconversation.com/chinas-recycling-ban-throws-aust...

Anyhow, building things to last and be re-usable is significantly better than recycling.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#84

Post by gruez »

eurleif wrote: post #80
gruez wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. obviously you don't put sensitive docs on that usb drive 2. autoruns haven't worked on USB drives since windows XP SP3. The risk of getting a virus in this case is minimal.

https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-your-own-bad-u...

I appreciate the correction, but the risk still seems minimal.

1. The attack is very situational. There are hundreds of usb flash drive controllers out there (see: https://www.usbdev.ru/files/). The chance that your flash drive a) can be re-programmed b) the malware author bothered making a payload for c) copier is infected are all very small.

2. The attack is very visible, since the user would notice the computer randomly opening command prompts and typing commands. It's also very easy to interrupt. Stray mouse/keyboard inputs would foil the attack, as will unplugging the USB drive.

3. Despite how visible the attack is (see above), the lack of empirical reports probably suggests it's not a real attack that's being carried out

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#85

Post by dexterdog »

gruez wrote: post #77
NortySpock wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I plugged my flash drive into the printer station and all I got was my financial documents uploaded to a Russian server and 4 viruses written to the boot sector." -- my paranoid assumptions about public print stations with USB ports.

1. obviously you don't put sensitive docs on that usb drive 2. autoruns haven't worked on USB drives since windows XP SP3. The risk of getting a virus in this case is minimal.

He's talking about the Staples print kiosk being hacked so they can steal a copy of everything that is printed.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#86

Post by snuxoll »

shp0ngle wrote: post #64
dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

I would nowadays don't buy printer without a WiFi. I am so used to sending things to printer from around the house at this point. The rest I agree

I mean, if you can just hook it up to wired Ethernet you can do the same thing. My Brother MFC-3770CDW only supports 2.4GHz which is hella unreliable, so I run Ethernet to my switch instead and still can use network printing (including AirPrint from my iOS devices) everywhere in the house.

P.S. not all Brother printers have reasonable running costs - my MFC-3770CDW is outrageously expensive for consumables because it had a lower price tag than their higher end color laser MFCs. I needed a printer in a hurry because my old Brother Inkjet died and the better models weren’t readily available at the start of the pandemic, and it’s still cheaper than ink, but so make sure you do your research even with commonly trusted brands.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#87

Post by gruez »

dexterdog wrote: post #85
gruez wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. obviously you don't put sensitive docs on that usb drive 2. autoruns haven't worked on USB drives since windows XP SP3. The risk of getting a virus in this case is minimal.

He's talking about the Staples print kiosk being hacked so they can steal a copy of everything that is printed.

He is? Who needs to print "financial documents" in color? Also, the part about "4 viruses written to the boot sector" suggests the kiosk is also dropping malware onto the USB.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#88

Post by snuxoll »

pmoleri wrote: post #43
dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

+1 for brother laser +1 for duplex I actually find Wifi useful. Question, what's the deal with the toner cartridges plastic? It looks like a lot of thick plastic. I get to buy a new one and throw the old one, or refill one with the "not recommended non-original toner". Does the manufacturer offer some other environment friendly option?

Brother offers free recycling for all their cartridges.

https://www.brother-usa.com/supplies/toner-ink-recycling Go here, print a label, put old cartridge in the box your new one was in and drop it off at the post office or have your postal driver pick it up.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#89

Post by Elidrake24 »

nimbius wrote: post #53

>it looks like a product but secretly a subscription Surely this isnt about playdate.

Can’t see how it would be; you pay up front to own (lifetime access without need to check a DRM server) X amount of games which are released to you over time. If you want another Y amount of games, you can pay again, or you can just keep what you’ve already bought.

Closer to their point would be the battery or the mechanism behind the crank that will inevitably fail.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#90

Post by yinyang_in »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #20

> …so if you are into your environmentalism then milk is the SaaS for you. Dairy isn’t know for being great for the environment.

Imo dairy isn't good if done via industry model i.e. central company provides value for all. All cow in central place, profit oriented. Old cows thrown for slaughter, it becomes very inhumane.

Coming from village where cow is part of family and treatment like family and has name as we do, then same dairy become very beautiful relationship.

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