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The smartest things I own are not digital at all. My plain old mechanical garden tools, my hammer, saw, mechanical kitchen equipment handed down to me from Gran

The smartest things I own are not digital at all. My plain old mechanical garden tools, my hammer, saw, mechanical kitchen equipment handed down to me from Grandma... The dumb things I have are all digital. They're finicky. They're unintuitive. They break in a few years, and it's almost always the electronics that are to blame. My dad spent his career as a general manager in manufacturing. He had some machines that were over 100 years old, still running like a champ. The newer ones caused nothing but headaches (but did run more efficiently when they were working). When someone came to him with a problem, the root of it was almost always TMDE (Too Much Damn Electronics). I used to make fun of him for being a stodgy old fart... But after spending ~20 years as a software engineer, I'm beginning to think he was right.

skadamou 9y ago
Sometimes I think that the Hacker News crowd overlooks how terribly fussy tech can be. For those with technical literacy, spare time, and a genuine interest in electronics, figuring out how to get their <insert smart device here> working again probably isn't that big of a deal. However, if you are not this person, you are probably better off sticking with the analog version. At least for now.
- achamayou 9y ago
  There's mostly no way you're going to fix recent compact electronics with integrated SoC and fused screens at home. It would require absurdly sophisticated tooling, and would make no financial sense at all. Virtually nothing on sale these days has components far apart enough on the board for you to replace with a basic soldering iron. Not that the trend towards gluing everything together would let you access the boards easily in the first place.