Right to repair

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0000

– Image generated by Microsoft Designer AI.

“You should take a look at the hair dryer; the cord is damaged,” my wife tells me. I immediately think of the usual issue: the protective sheath near the strain relief is damaged. A perfect opportunity to try out that pack of Sugru-like putty I haven’t opened yet, hoping I grabbed the black one.

But the problem is more serious: the electrical wire is exposed, and half of the copper strands are broken, so it needs to be replaced immediately. There’s no point trying to explain to my wife, “Using the hair dryer in this condition is dangerous, blah blah blah…” She wouldn’t listen anyway. The best thing is to thank Saint Nikola (Tesla) that nothing bad happened.

How hard can it be to replace a cord in an electrical appliance? Just remove a few screws, cut off the damaged section of the wire, reconnect the intact part, and put everything back together. Ten minutes of work, tops.

But no. Not anymore. These days, even the casings of hair dryers aren’t held together with regular, stupid screws. They aren’t even secured with plastic clips, which, with a bit of practice, are still manageable to open. No, they’re glued shut. As if it were an iPhone.

Long story short, it was impossible to open the hair dryer without breaking it. Everything was glued, even the strain relief. Once assembled in the factory, it’s designed to be thrown away at the first sign of trouble—which is exactly what I ended up doing.

I stubbornly took it apart anyway, just to sort the pieces into recyclable and non-recyclable materials, but all the while, I was thinking about the damage these reckless industrial policies are causing our planet.

The right to repair your own electronic devices isn’t just an obsession of a few slightly fanatical nerds; it’s also a crucial way to reduce the waste of polluting materials.

Being green doesn’t just mean eliminating plastic from packaging; it also means ensuring that the products we make can be easily repaired. Anything else is nonsense.

The New Dial

Sun, 27 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0000

I’m always baffled when I hear English expressions thrown around in the corporate world, just to sound trendy or smarter (if only that were true!).

From the legendary smart working instead of remote work or working from home, terms used by actual Brits and Americans,¹ to location, briefing, trend, target, brand, performance, challenge, not to mention the number one, my absolute favorite, team building.

But there are also words used daily by people who couldn’t put together two sentences in the Queen’s English, like sentiment (a buzzword especially trending these days), skilled, cringe, job, or absurd verbs like shoppare, checkare, plannare.

But guys, calling a dialysis center New Dial beats them all.²

New Dial, thanks a lot that you exist!

Also, if I’m smart when working from home, does that make me a fool when working in person? ↩︎
The word “dial” is used here as an attempt to shorten “dialysis”. But “dial” has a different meaning in English, and using it to refer to a medical center in this context sounds rather awkward. ↩︎

Società on Melabit

Right to repair

The New Dial