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Maybe a better analogy is: You have a problem with your living room light dimmer not working. The solution is to move all of your furniture out of your house,

Maybe a better analogy is: You have a problem with your living room light dimmer not working. The solution is to move all of your furniture out of your house, or being generous, just the living room, and then moving it back. Would you consider that reasonable? Assuming you have a backup, then lets say some movers come out (for free) and do the moving. That's not inconvenient, right? After all, you don't have to do any of the moving. Just wait an hour or so and the movers will move everything back and quietly disappear.

m463 6y ago
It is ridiculous, but I can't help but think of cars. I had a car a couple years back, where I had to get behind the side panel of the trunk to get to something (tail light?). The (ford) trunk panel was not held on by a screw, but y a weird fastener that had to be pried out (and I felt like I was breaking it). When it was out, the fastener looked like a christmas tree, and went into a hole easily in one direction and the design really didn't support coming out very well. Turns out all cars are designed this way. They are "designed for assembly". Pretty much everything in the world is that way or moving that direction. I think the computer equivalent is package managers and app upgrades and os upgrades and modular data. But it's different. "designed for assembly" for cars becomes "designed for re-install" and the more troubling "designed for one-way upgrade"
- Marsymars 6y ago
  The push fasteners are usually removable if you're able to squeeze on the underside of them. Otherwise best way to pry out is with a Y-shaped tool that digs under three sides. I treat them as disposable, like tape or glue, but easier to replace without making a mess of it. They're dirt cheap, so I just rip them out and replace as necessary.
  - m463 6y ago
    I eventually bought a bunch of them, but the thing is, the car was gone before I pulled any of that apart again. So now I have a bag of fasteners that match no car I own. :)
brundolf 6y ago
Depends how often it happens. If I had to move all the furniture out of my house to fix the dimmer every five years then it still wouldn't be a huge deal. Anecdotally, I've been using MacBooks for six years and never had to reinstall the OS.

m463 6y ago

It is ridiculous, but I can't help but think of cars. I had a car a couple years back, where I had to get behind the side panel of the trunk to get to something (tail light?). The (ford) trunk panel was not held on by a screw, but y a weird fastener that had to be pried out (and I felt like I was breaking it). When it was out, the fastener looked like a christmas tree, and went into a hole easily in one direction and the design really didn't support coming out very well. Turns out all cars are designed this way. They are "designed for assembly". Pretty much everything in the world is that way or moving that direction. I think the computer equivalent is package managers and app upgrades and os upgrades and modular data. But it's different. "designed for assembly" for cars becomes "designed for re-install" and the more troubling "designed for one-way upgrade"

Marsymars 6y ago
The push fasteners are usually removable if you're able to squeeze on the underside of them. Otherwise best way to pry out is with a Y-shaped tool that digs under three sides. I treat them as disposable, like tape or glue, but easier to replace without making a mess of it. They're dirt cheap, so I just rip them out and replace as necessary.
- m463 6y ago
  I eventually bought a bunch of them, but the thing is, the car was gone before I pulled any of that apart again. So now I have a bag of fasteners that match no car I own. :)

brundolf 6y ago

Depends how often it happens. If I had to move all the furniture out of my house to fix the dimmer every five years then it still wouldn't be a huge deal. Anecdotally, I've been using MacBooks for six years and never had to reinstall the OS.