It’s not all about money and greed. No Really, it isn’t.

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet

Despite several states introducing Right to Repair legislation to help make it easier and cheaper for people to repair their broken electronic devices, companies such as Apple and Microsoft are hard at work lobbying to prevent such laws from being passed.

So why are companies such as Apple and Microsoft so against you having the right to repair your broken devices?

The popular belief seems to be that the reason why companies are opposed to people being able to fix their own devices is money and greed. If your device is broken then, haha, you have to go out and buy another, so cha-ching. You get the chance to empty your wallet and the company makes another sale, and the consumer capitalism machine continues to march forward.

But it’s not all about money and greed. No really, stop laughing, it isn’t.

The popular belief seems to be that the reason why companies are opposed to people being able to fix their own devices is money and greed. If your device is broken then, haha, you have to go out and buy another, so cha-ching. You get the chance to empty your wallet and the company makes another sale, and the consumer capitalism machine continues to march forward.
But it’s not all about money and greed. No really, stop laughing, it isn’t.

But rather than looking at money in, think of money going out. Dealing with authorized repair centers that employ trained technicians is much easier and a lot less hassle than handholding Jo Public armed with a chewed up Philips screwdriver through an iPhone repair.

The sort of repair documents that companies supply to a competent technician are going to need to be very different to what they’d have to supply someone who’s never taken a device apart before. An expert might be happy with a phrase such as “refitting is the reverse of removal,” but a beginner is going to want a screw-by-screw rundown of how to put something back together.

Then there’s the whole liability side of things, and who is liable when things go wrong. Modern electronics are difficult to take apart, and most of that difficulty isn’t deliberate, but a side-effect of people wanting things that are small and light. While you can stick your whole head inside a big desktop PC, laptops require you to have nimble fingers, while smartphones and tablets force you to use tweezers and tiny probes for jobs. Then there’s having people navigate around glass and lithium ion battery packs, and having to use sharp tools, all of which offer bounteous scope for injury and dismemberment.

Even when a company total and 100 percent disavows any liability for someone getting a shard of glass in their eye, jamming a screwdriver into their femoral artery, getting a heart-jarring zap of current, or burning their eyebrows off in a lithium ion explosion, that sort of thing can generate a lot of bad press.

Same goes for people using crummy third-party parts for repairs, or causing damage to sensitive components. If a device that’s been tampered with blows up downstream, it can again stir up a lot of bad press.

I’m a big supporter of people fixing their own stuff, but that’s also tempered by the fact that I’ve seen plenty of disasters where someone’s tried fixing something, made a huge mess of it, and then hands that disaster off to someone else — me — to repair. People — usually through having the wrong tools — can create a lot of mayhem, and turn simple jobs such as a battery or screen replacement into an expensive job.

Sometimes it’s not only just easier but it’s cheaper to hand these routine jobs over to someone who does them every day (especially if special tools are required). They have the tools and the know-how to do it efficiently.

There’s an old saying in the automotive trade — here’s my hourly rate, and it’s double that if you’ve already tried fixing the problem yourself.

My take on why companies are spending money on lobbying against Right to Repair legislation is that they want to send a clear and definitive message to both the public and lawmakers they don’t support people messing around inside their devices. Period.

As I said I’m a firm supporter of people having the right to repair, but I’m also pro people being clear on what they’re getting into and being aware that sometimes a professional repair might be better. YouTube videos and how-to guides can make things seem easy, but when you’re dealing with old devices, crusty fasteners, and any damage, things can head for the tarpits in short order.

I also fully support Right to Repair legislation, but it would be good to see the narrative on why companies oppose it change from “greedy companies what more of your money” into something that’s closer to the truth.

What’s your take on The Right to Repair? Tell us in the comments below!

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Ladies,

In what can only be described as bizarre, a story popped up this week that is more suited for the plot of a Shondland produced TV show. According to June Williams who writes for a site named courthouse news.com, 2 employees of Microsoft are suing their employer for making them watch “horrific images” of murder, child pornography and bestiality as part of their “online safety” job. They claim “Microsoft failed to warn them about the dangers of the job and failed to provide psychological support.”

Here’s the whole article:

SEATTLE (CN) — Two Microsoft employees who had to watch “horrific images” of murder, child pornography and bestiality as part of their “online safety” job have sued the company after developing post-traumatic stress disorder.

Henry Soto and Greg Blauert say Microsoft failed to warn them about the dangers of the job and failed to provide psychological support. They sued the company in King County Court on Dec. 30, alleging negligence, disability discrimination and violations of the Consumer Protection Act.

The men were customer service workers assigned to Microsoft’s online safety program, responsible for deciding whether content should be removed or reported to law enforcement.

They say they never were told about dangerous psychological impacts of the job, which included viewing child pornography, and were not allowed to turn down the assignment.

“Plaintiffs Henry Soto and Greg Blauert were not warned about the likely dangerous impact of reviewing the depictions nor were they warned they may become so concerned with the welfare of the children, they would not appreciate the harm the toxic images would cause them and their families,” they say in the complaint.

Instead of providing trained therapists for the safety team, Microsoft developed a “Wellness Program” that advised employees who were disturbed by images to take “walks and smoking breaks” and redirect thoughts by playing video games, the men say.

Soto says he was involuntarily transferred to the online safety team in 2008 and under Microsoft policy had to remain in the position for 1½ years before he could request a transfer. The team had just been formed and Microsoft failed to warn him about potential psychological trauma, according to the complaint

“The new Online Safety team had just been created and Mr. Soto was one of the initial employees with the team and had limited information about the position. He did not understand the level of activity in the following areas: assisting law enforcement efforts to break up significant crime rings, the mob, the triad, and other violent groups, reviewing photos and video requiring him to witness horrible brutality, murder, indescribable sexual assaults, videos of humans dying and, in general, videos and photographs designed to entertain the most twisted and sick minded people in the world,” the complaint states.

Soto says the job “took a significant toll on him personally” and he began having nightmares and disturbing hallucinations after viewing a video of a girl being abused and killed.

Soto was transferred to a new position in 2014, but continued to suffer post-traumatic stress symptoms and took medical leave in 2015. Labor and Industries denied Soto’s claim for PTSD injuries, saying the condition is not an occupational disease and is excluded, according to the complaint.

Blauert started working on the safety team in 2011, and like Soto was required to view images of child pornography, bestiality and other disturbing content. He attended Wellness Program sessions to help with his increasing anger and nightmares, but was “criticized in his employment reviews for following his wellness plan” and reprimanded for spending too much time playing video games, he says.

He suffered a physical and mental breakdown in 2013 due to the job and is still in treatment for “acute and debilitating PTSD,” according to the complaint. Labor and Industries also denied Blauert’s claim for worker’s compensation.

Soto and Blauert want Microsoft to provide the online safety team with the same support and protections as the digital crimes unit, which has a larger budget.

“Plaintiffs have recommended many changes to Online Safety. The list includes mandatory rotations out of the program, for pre-vacation vacations, mandatory weekly meetings with a psychologist with specialized training and authority to remove employees when the content is becoming too toxic, a spousal wellness program, as well as changes designed to lessen the impact of continually viewing toxic images. Some of these items were also recommended to Microsoft in approximately 2007 and 2008,” according to the complaint.

A Microsoft representative said in a statement: “Microsoft applies industry-leading, cutting-edge technology to help detect and classify illegal images of child abuse and exploitation that are shared by users on Microsoft services. Once verified by a specially trained employee, the company removes the image, reports it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and bans the users who shared the images from our services. We have put in place robust wellness programs to ensure the employees who handle this material have the resources and support they need.”

Both plaintiffs and their wives seek damages for pain and suffering and economic damages and treble damages under the Consumer Protection Act and Washington Disability Discrimination Act.

Ladies,

Yesterday, Apple released it’s latest Mac OS – Sierra, which I’ve been Beta Testing since this summer. While I find this OS release to be lack luster (I don’t have much use for Siri on my Mac), it does offer a lot of “under the hood” upgrades that make it worth your time to download. Granted, I am something of a software junkie and can never get enough of upgrades, I have to remind myself that other people find software upgrades daunting and change terrifying. So I’m reposting this FAQ of Sierra that was originally posted by Roman Loyola over at MacWorld to ease the unquiet minds of the hesitant.

macOS Sierra FAQ: What you need to know about the new Mac operating system

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