When the Epson all-in-one device that Steve bought for his mother failed, the error message indicated that the ink pads were worn out. Simple enough: Just replace the ink pads, right? Wrong. When the printer decides, somewhat arbitrarily, that the pads are worn out, that puts the whole device out of commission. It could still be used as a scanner, or to send outbound faxes. But not when the ink pads are worn out. When that happens, you have to throw the whole thing out and buy a new one. [More]
planned obsolescence
HP Sells Ink By Wasting It
By 9.22.09
Reader Michael Dillon recently noticed that the Weather Channel’s “printable” 10-Day Forecast page isn’t exactly printer-friendly: it includes an ad that’s roughly 80 percent solid black. Printing it out would mean wasting ink. That ad is selling… (drumroll, please)… HP printer’s ink.
HP Won't Issue New Drivers For Leopard, Tells You To Buy A New Printer
By 3.15.08
Matt’s Officejet 6110 scans perfectly under Ubuntu, but won’t play nice with Leopard. When Matt called HP for support, he was told that the company has no plans to issue new drivers so he should just buy a new printer. To soften the blow, the tech mentioned HP’s trade-in program, which would give Matt a whopping $16 for his printer.
Make Your Own Replacement Snow Shovel Blade
By 4.25.07
“This last winter broken snow shovels starting appearing everywhere. I tried to track down replacement parts, but it turns out that replacement scoops don’t seem to exist. So I set about to make a simple replacement scoop using basic tools and found materials,” writes the author of this Instructable.
Products Are Designed To Break So You Will Buy Another One
By 4.10.07
Stay Free! has an interview with Giles Slade, author of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America.
