That is the point of this community, you are correct, but unless the Manufacturers can come up with viable alternatives, it isn’t going to change.

Are there any proactive suggestions on how Manufacturers can accommodate third party repairers without compromising the security of their customers vehicles?

I’m pretty sure that no one wants a repeat of the US Kia and Hyundai fiasco of last year?

Car company’s have been doing it for decades. There are legitimate reasoning; theft relevant parts for instance; you don’t want to enable vehicle theft and the “security through obscurity” model did work for a long time. Unfortunately for the manufacturers, most factory security systems are being cracked by locksmiths and vehicle rebirthers.

Another reason is for warranty claims. The manufacturer builds the cars to be the right balance of price, reliability, efficiency and performance. If you modify your vehicles ECU software, the engine may not be as reliable or efficient. If an “unauthorised repairer” changed the programming of the ECU, it can compromise the efficiency and reliability of the vehicle.

There are been plenty of accusations of “planned obsolescence” because a vehicle has died just out of the warranty period, after someone has fucked with the vehicle tuning.

Finally, the other reason, especially for Volume Manufacturers is that their vehicles are sold as a Loss Leader so they can make up the shortfall through aftersales. Some vehicle importers make deals with governments to lower tariffs on new vehicles, but increase tariffs on genuine parts, like what the Japanese industry and the Australian Government made in the 1980s.

Whether you agree with this logic is irrelevant; this is the reasoning manufacturers use for restricting aftermarket parts and labour.

When a “free-market” Aftermarket Aftersales industry causes the Genuine Aftersales industry to fail, Manufacturers will try to make up any losses through other channels, like requesting government subsidies “for the good of the local industry” or selling telematics data (which just “happens” to have personal user data) to data brokers.

When the land on the east of Cyril grove in Yarraman was compulsory acquired for the Peninsula Freeway (which eventually became Eastlink), residents were forcibly evicted and builds were demolished. This included one old lady who had lived in the same house her whole life. A handful of home owners fought for the right to stay until construction began and they lived in their houses for another 30 years.

https://i.redd.it/xz5fc4ae5hpz.png

The problem is that they are not actively asking permission.

They are technically legally asking permission through the EULA, but nobody reads these.

Apple do this differently, they require the user to opt in for each of their services, and except for a pitiful amount of storage, the user has to pay for a useful amount of storage. This makes the user the customer, instead of the product. They could make it easier to roll-your-own “cloud” storage by NAS, but I assume that it isn’t worth their effort.

This is one of the things I love about the Lemmy community. No one wants to argue, every one can be passionate about their opinions, but still respect other people’s passion.

I used Linux back in the 90s as my primary OS. They were simpler times. Since then I have used BeOS, various versions of Windows and (primarily) MacOS.

I am seriously thinking of going over to Linux as my primary OS because of all the TechBro “AI” bullshit that Microsoft, Adobe, Apple and Google are trying to ram down our throats.

The bottom has dropped out of the OEM software licence market. Microsoft have to find a different way of making money. Their loss-leading hardware sales have not borne fruit so they are getting desperate.

All they have left is services, which means that the only way the can actually make money is selling out their customers private information.

Pop-up cafes would also be a great idea in old station buildings along Rail Trails.

The problem is that most stations on Rail Trail routes have been demolished or (if they are lucky) relocated.

Last year I went on a ride from Nyora. It would have been a much nice ride if I had a nice coffee and breakfast at the start of the ride, Lunch at Bena (or if I was fitter, Korumburra) and then ride back for a nice afternoon tea back at Nyora.

Defunct station buildings are the perfect size for a proper cafe or restaurant, and already have a large paved alfresco area for diners; especially on rail-trails or heritage railways.

The PowerWall is a great product for what it is, but Lithium Ion is wasted in a permanent install. Other battery technologies are more reliable, cheaper, safer and simpler.

The only thing Lithium Ion has going is ubiquity due to volumes of scale. It is like putting a ESP32 in something that needs to be connected to the internet because it is cheaper than a separate microcontroller chip and ethernet chip; or how most Lightning headphones use Bluetooth because a single Bluetooth chip with integrated DAC is cheaper and more readily available than an official (or even a bootleg) Lightning chip and a DAC chip.

Great news, but does anyone else get Nanites/Grey Goo vibes from this?

Legislation only works when it is enforced and there aren’t any loopholes.

Tenants; The rent is unsustainable and the heating bills are nearly as high as the rent!

Government; Let’s make landlords improve properties so that they are more efficient.

Green-Energy scammers; Let’s sell a solution that rides the loophole line between being government-compliant and non-functional.

Landlords; We can pay the scammers a pittance and charge our Tenants more.

Tenants; We are still cold and now paying higher rents and higher energy bills.

I maintain that prior to Siri, the Dragon-based iOS Voice Command feature (on iPhone 4) was accurate and functional for most purposes, and did on-device parsing. If I asked “Call Mums Mobile” or “Play Jonathan Coulton” it would parse my contacts for a contact named (or nicknamed) Mum and parse my music library for an artist who’s name matched “ˈdʒɑnəθən ˈkoʊltn̩”.

For whatever reason, Siri records my voice, uploads it to the cloud and decides that I wanted to call “Moms homestyle kitchen” and play Drake.

The baofeng runs at 8Watt, which is higher than the legal power rating in Australia.

https://baofengtech.com/product/bf-f8hp/

The RadTel is even more illegal at 10W.

https://www.radtels.com/products/radtel-rt-470-6-bands-amateur-ham-two-way-radio-station-256ch-10w-air-band-walkie-talkie-noaa-lcd-color-police-scanner-aviation

The power output of the transmitter is not what gets you range, it is the choice of antenna to match the terrain.

Yeah, we have some of the no-name UHF radios in the kids toybox.

We don’t put batteries in them, in case the kids hear something on the airwaves that isn’t suitable for young children.

We have one high-end Chinese UHF in the garage in a box. It was purchased because it could be reprogrammed to pickup all 80 UHF channels instead of just the 40 that were available for public use. It has never been used.

My car is a proper 4WD (albeit small) so I have an Australian-made GME XRS-330C installed with an antenna permanently mounted on the roof.

I have an inexpensive GME TX677 in my glove-box for emergencies and an even more inexpensive TX667 in my centre console as a loaner for anyone I am driving with (for their passenger to use, of course).

I plan on upgrading to an XRS-660 as my portable, but it is at the bottom of my Wishlist.

During the chip shortage, I purchased an XRS-330CP as temporary solution. I loan that to family members on touring holidays so we can use the XRS/GPS feature to keep track of each other.

Speaking of which, the GME XRS app has great maps too!

All maps will have errors.

Even OSM has errors and can sometimes have bad actors and commercial intretests deliberately vandalise content.

If you want to carry a definitive, (relatively) accurate map in Victoria, the VicEmergency App is free and usually has current map data and also has reasonable up-to-date incident conditions. I assume other states have similar services.

I think you are right. In the end, Turn-By-Turn Navigation is just another driver assistance system that can be turned into a crutch, just like Automatic Transmissions and Automated Cruise Control.

The driver still needs to take responsibility for their driving.

That said, using Turn-By-Turn Navigation is much safer than having the driver flip through the Melways or VicRoads Directory and whilst driving, or flipping and folding a RoofTops map whilst driving.

Phone coverage is pitiful in most rural areas, and the death of 3G is only going to make it worse.

UHF CB radios are cheap, lightweight and (as long as you don’t use them while driving legal for anyone to (responsibly) use in Australia.

My number one recommendation for safety feature for any vehicle going into regional areas is a UHF. (Second recommendation is rated recovery points, but these are not really applicable unless you plan on off-roading).

Recovery tracks, ropes, winches can be bought in by whoever is coming to rescue you, but without a UHF, you won’t be able to tell them you need rescuing.

We are not talking about a criminal mastermind here.

It is was a high-risk, low return heist. She could have called the police, liberated her baby, had the stores brick the laptops on purpose and he would have gotten nothing.

The way it was, he (as so far) managed to get away with hot, easily traceable goods and she has suffered a financial loss and serious trauma. No one will win in the long term.