Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 203 posts

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#151

Post by Ray20 »

fitsumbelay wrote: post #72
djrj477dhsnv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it also a natural consequence of rapidly improving technology. Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better?

> Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better? Someone living in poverty whose life may be markedly improved by having one?

Not really. Building a laptop that will last 20 years is several times more expensive than building one that will last 5-10 years. So they will be less accessible to poor people.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#152

Post by dghlsakjg »

yason wrote: post #147
gloxkiqcza wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All tech is becoming more and more integrated and purposefully locked down. Everything from operating systems to cars. It’s truly a shame. I think many of us tinkerers/hackers have a similar story to yours - something grabs your attention when you’re a child and develops into an engineering knack later on.

Question is what domain/field is the next virgin frontier for hackers, unspoiled of commercial greed and integrated and locked down solutions, where you can still not only buy things but also own them, and rebuild from parts what you bought when it breaks down?

There are all sorts of things like this, but one that springs to mind is drones, specifically FPV drones. You can build a very good drone from basically parts that runs on open firmware. The videos that you see coming out of Ukraine is clearly using flight control software that is basically the standard for non commercial drones. Nothing more cyberpunk than fighting fascists using open source software and commodity hardware.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#153

Post by sandeep1998 »

saidinesh5 wrote: post #15

During my middle school days, we lived in a small town for a little while (read: A place where i was allowed to take my bicycle out onto the main road). After school, I used to spend a lot of time just hanging out around some TV and radio repair shops and just watched them work. They used to be friendly and gave me parts like spare motors, lights that were lying around from broken Walkmans they wouldn't repair. I too…

reminded me of my own childhood.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#154

Post by bubblethink »

InfinityByTen wrote: post #145
gruez wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite direction, given what all problems that has created for the planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of repairing, but how living with constraints births sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :) Isn't this the degr…

I didn't know there was a term to it. I wouldn't think of my stance currently as advocating of purposeful scarcity in an anticipation of better distribution. Instead I do consider it critical to "take a step back" and "evaluate the problem statement at hand". Is the end goal more consumption or better living?

The end goal is progress and prosperity. Semiconductors are one of the few areas where there is rapid progress. Depriving your large working age population of the tools they need to improve their lives is counterproductive. The problem statement at hand is that you have a poor country plagued by graft and bureaucracy with the only sliver of hope being technology that can create upward mobility for your billion+ people.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#155

Post by 9rx »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #152
yason wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question is what domain/field is the next virgin frontier for hackers, unspoiled of commercial greed and integrated and locked down solutions, where you can still not only buy things but also own them, and rebuild from parts what you bought when it breaks down?

There are all sorts of things like this, but one that springs to mind is drones, specifically FPV drones. You can build a very good drone from basically parts that runs on open firmware. The videos that you see coming out of Ukraine is clearly using flight control software that is basically the standard for non commercial drones. Nothing more cyberpunk than fighting fascists using open source software and commodity h…

What seems to be lacking is the path to accidental discovery that underlies these stories from the past. Is there a reasonable way people will find themselves building drones without being intentional about it?

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#156

Post by carlosjobim »

pjmlp wrote: post #33

I remember up to the early 1990's we had repair shops all over Portugal, we would buy devices for life, and any kind of malfunction would be rescued at one of those repair shops, unless it was really a death sentence for the device. Now in a throw away society with planned obsolence devices, most of those shops are gone and the repair knowledge gone with them. Unless goverments fix the planned obsolence culture it is…

Your lord and savior the government cannot do anything about the fact that it's cheaper to manufacture new than to repair. Unless you want to de-industrialize, which of course is a popular ideology among Europeans.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#157

Post by gruez »

InfinityByTen wrote: post #145
gruez wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite direction, given what all problems that has created for the planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of repairing, but how living with constraints births sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :) Isn't this the degr…

I didn't know there was a term to it. I wouldn't think of my stance currently as advocating of purposeful scarcity in an anticipation of better distribution. Instead I do consider it critical to "take a step back" and "evaluate the problem statement at hand". Is the end goal more consumption or better living?

>Instead I do consider it critical to "take a step back" and "evaluate the problem statement at hand". Is the end goal more consumption or better living?

Except the context of this thread is talking about tariffs on laptops, not random trinkets from aliexpress. If someone is willing to part ways with $1000+ to get a laptop/phone, I think that's a pretty good sign the goal is "better living".

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#158

Post by balancesoggy »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #78
ggm wrote: post #2

If the thinkpad community gets behind this, there will be a market for upspecced thinkpads as long as supplies last. the reduce re-use re-cycle part here is nicely inserting itself into the recycle tail side.

Abhas Abhinav of Deeproot Linux runs "Mostly Harmless" which sells refurbished Thinkpads with binary blobs removed. https://mostlyharmless.io/computers/

Highly recommend. Bought a ThinkPad from Abhas and it runs like tank.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#159

Post by saidinesh5 »

yason wrote: post #147
gloxkiqcza wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All tech is becoming more and more integrated and purposefully locked down. Everything from operating systems to cars. It’s truly a shame. I think many of us tinkerers/hackers have a similar story to yours - something grabs your attention when you’re a child and develops into an engineering knack later on.

Question is what domain/field is the next virgin frontier for hackers, unspoiled of commercial greed and integrated and locked down solutions, where you can still not only buy things but also own them, and rebuild from parts what you bought when it breaks down?

Embedded systems for sure.

Eg. Home Automation with custom LED strips + an ESP32 (via. tasmota, esphome etc...), Wireless sensors using the same, FPV Drones and RC toys/cars in general, 3D printers, Custom keyboards are the usual gateway hobbies in my experience. I haven't seen anyone who is into one of these and hasn't explored the others.

Re: India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

#160

Post by vel0city »

midnightclubbed wrote: post #29
throw844849 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I know you are making a flippant and pointless comment, but I’m compelled to respond. Of all the laptops I’ve owned my 2020 MacBook Air is still my personal daily driver, my 2010 Mac mini still works fine for running my 3d printer, my 2014 Mac mini works great for crafting and my 2020 iPhone SE2 is still getting OS updates and is sending this message. Are they repairable? Not easily. Do they still work, absolutely. H…

My 2020 Walmart-brand Motile M141 is still my main personal laptop. I have another Thinkpad T460s (2016) that still works fine. My wife still uses her 2019 Surface Pro. I have an ASRock Vision 3D (2010) in my closet running some SDRs. I've got a Supermicro X11SBA-LN4F (2016) in an old Shuttle SFF chassis (2009). And that's just the old stuff that still gets regular use.

Aside from the Surface tablet they're all very repairable.

I disagree that Mac things tend to last longer. There might be trash out there, but there's tons of stuff that's just fine and lasts a long time. You don't even need to always spend a lot on it; that Motile was like $300 for a 14" 1080p laptop.

Post reply on HN