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Re-using this sort of device is super cool. I can imagine a post-apocalyptic scenario where a city is run on a hodgepodge of random computing devices like this.
by x187463 1y ago
Re-using this sort of device is super cool. I can imagine a post-apocalyptic scenario where a city is run on a hodgepodge of random computing devices like this.
I will say, though, disposable vapes with microcontrollers inside (and even full games and screens from recent reporting) are an egregious source of e-waste. Many layers of stupid are present here.
- Mistletoe 1y agoWill the Butlerian Jihad find all the vapes?
- ffsm8 1y ago[flagged]
- zknow 1y agoReally? I thought that it was kind of a ecumenist religion that included themes from many religions.
- overfeed 1y agoI hope gp goes on a tear about the Orange Catholic Bible next, and how outrageous its non-subtle references are.
- NemoNobody 1y agoIt is.
- ffsm8 1y agonot really, pretty old overview on it - but kept up to date it seems (current references to interviews) https://baheyeldin.com/literature/arabic-and-islamic-themes-in-frank-herberts-dune.html https://baheyeldin.com/literature/arabic-and-islamic-themes-... its true that the concept of a _holy war_ isnt unique to the muslim faith though. I never claimed that either however. It's slightly surprising to me how few people seem to be aware of that in HN. Was expecting the general readership here to be a little less obsessively righteous and uninformed on a topic like this, but ymmv I guess
- i80and 1y agoThis is an exceedingly strange comment -- you made up a silly thing to get upset about, and are making fun of people who aren't upset about the thing, because you think it's the sort of thing they would be upset about, even though it isn't and you say as much? This feels like a whole new category of straw man.
- jeej 1y ago"thinking of inventing a new type of person to get mad at on here. maybe people who carry too many keys around.. i dont know yet" -Dril
- staplers 1y agoobsessively woke people Because most "woke" stuff is made up or blown out of proportion by people on the internet. One person might do one thing and the video/meme goes viral and people eat up the story like its some movement
- motorest 1y ago> Because most "woke" stuff is made up or blown out of proportion by people on the internet. I think you are misinterpreting the issue. I'll explain why. There are attention-seekers which were given access to platforms with unprecedented reach. Some of these types tap into outrage culture as their engagement mechanism. This creates a vicious cycle of outrage which feeds on outputting outrageous claims and taking the resulting outrage as input to further double down on outputting outrageous claims. You then end up with opposing outrage camps of whatever subject you can think of which exist to generate a larger volume of outrage than the opposing camp. The problem is that the terminally-online types confuse this sort of discourse with reality, and the outrageous claims as representative of what happens in real life. That's how you end up with people outraged with outrageous claims that are so outrageous to the point they are unthinkable.
- blooalien 1y agoAt least partly because ["woke"] sadly doesn't even remotely mean what it used to mean anymore. It's been "stolen" and abused by those who vehemently hate everything that any part of it has ever stood for. [woke @ wikipedia]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
- Findecanor 1y agoThe word "jihad" has a wider meaning than "holy war". It would better be translated into "worthy struggle" — with "worthy" being very subjective. Islam is in fact the largest religion (by worshippers) in the world today, so Frank Herbert's assumption that a culture derived from it would be dominant in a future society is just extrapolation.
- ffsm8 1y ago> Islam is in fact the largest religion (by worshippers) in the world today, so Frank Herbert's assumption that a culture derived from it would be dominant in a future society is just extrapolation Fyi, > Dune is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herber The distinction you're making wrt Jihad is also super modern and did not apply back then
- kpil 1y agoI think the current estimate is that there are almost a half a billion more Christians than Muslims (in 2025.) One reason is that the number of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa is growing. But extrapolating the trends, yes Islam will probably become the largest religion in the coming decades. Or at least maybe - looking at birth rates, it seems as second generation muslim immigrants to Western countries have even lower birth rates than the native population. That might happen also in regions say like Pakistan and Indonesia and other fast growing regions, depending on economical or other changes.
- int_19h 1y agoThere are many discussions on this exact topic online. TL;DR: while Dune has many references to various concepts coming from Islamic societies throughout, the Fremen are the obvious stand-in for Arabs specifically, and so get the most attention. And, in the context of the first book at least, Fremen are the "good guys" in many ways - if you reframe it in modern terms, they are the natives fighting against a colonial empire that subjugates them in order to extract a valuable resource from their lands, and then on top of that there's also the more subtle ecological angle.
- beAbU 1y agoI've been aware about the perfectly reusable lithium batteries inside these disposable vapes, which is egregious enough. But the one in the FTA comes with a full fat microcontroller and USB-C connector! I'm not clear if these connectors are accessible outside or if you need to break open the packaging before being able to get to it. Like you said: "Many layers of stupid are present here" All that hardware must surely be worth more than half the value of the actual product!
- rglullis 1y agoBetween (a) component that costs tens of cents to mass produce and can be bought off the shelf and is reusable vs (b) component that needs actual experienced electronics engineers working on a single-use design that can not be repurposed later, I think we'd see that (a) might end up being less wasteful.
- afiori 1y ago> can not be repurposed later whether it can be repurposed is worth little in being wasteful if >99% go to the landfill. > I think we'd see that (a) might end up being less wasteful. Monetarily? sure. Environmentally? unlikely
- jayd16 1y agoIt's not so much that 99% go to the landfill, but this product does. Other products that use the same parts might be more reusable. The point is that, most likely, the controller existed before this vape. Buying an off the shelf part can be cheaper than trying to bring up some custom part, both in cost and possibly in overall resources.
- rglullis 1y agoEnvironmentally, there is very little difference at the landfill if the PCB has an 8 bit microcontroller or a 64 bit ARM chip. The only environment-friendly solution is to forbid this product to exist in the first place.
- maeln 1y agoHope you don't get caught in Luddic Path's space with your stash of contraband disposable vape
- patapong 1y agoAnother example: One-time covid tests with a microcontroller, optical sensor to read the result and bluetooth to connect to a phone to display the results. Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29698887 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29698887
- chrisldgk 1y agoDon’t forget the Tom7 video[1] where he made a „hard drive“ from disposable Covid test kits. [1] https://youtu.be/JcJSW7Rprio?t=1560 https://youtu.be/JcJSW7Rprio?t=1560
- kilroy123 1y agoMakes me think of these: https://duskos.org https://duskos.org https://collapseos.org https://collapseos.org
- robterrell 1y agoholy crap, what a rabbit hole you sent me down.
- amelius 1y agoHow do I build a 6502 from just the elements?
- vdupras 1y agoYou begin by making a pen "from just the elements", then work your way up to there. In other words, it's a huge challenge, but 6502 is closer, in complexity, to the pen than to the, say, AMD Ryzen. But the primary idea behind Collapse OS isn't to run from 6502 built from the ground up (although it partly is), but to run from frankenstein cobbled up machines made from scavenged parts.
- amelius 1y agoOK. It would be nice though if Collapse OS contained tools to build an AMD Ryzen.
- mm263 1y agoIf I scavenge any machine today, how likely would I be to find a 6502 vs something more modern? I’d argue that some people might have a NES at home and one could get a 2A03 from it, but in a hypothetical scenario where I need to scavenge some computational power, I’d find an Android phone
- vdupras 1y agoYou're much more likely to stumble one something more modern, but that modern something is also much less repairable. It's great if it works and if it can run Linux or Dusk OS, but when it can't, you're out of luck. With a 6502 or other such CPU, the machines you scavenge them from are much more repairable and adaptable. You can use those components like lego blocks. It breaks? either repair it or strip the working parts to use in another frankenstein computer.
- spicyusername 1y agoIt's a shame negative externalities like this are basically impossible to include in the up-front price.
- reaperducer 1y agoIt's a shame negative externalities like this are basically impossible to include in the up-front price. You mean like add the cost of a MRI to the price of a pack of cigarettes?
- palata 1y agoI feel like a law saying "don't put electronics in disposable products" would do the job.
- Someone1234 1y agoWhat about Smoke Detectors, since they too are a disposable electronic?
- x187463 1y agoYou throw away your smoke detector? Just replace the battery. My guy is out here pulling off the whole thing and tossing it in the trash.
- palata 1y agoThe fact that selling such a thing is profitable means that we lack regulations somewhere.
- spacephysics 1y agoThe fact something is profitable (even vices) does not mean it requires regulations, unless the regulation in mind is direct or indirect cap on profit margins?
- 0xffff2 1y agoThe missing regulation is some kind of tax or other disincentive against e-waste. I believe the premise of the GP is that such things can only be profitable if we chose to ignore their environmental impact.
- strbean 1y agoI think it's a lack of regulation to prevent negative externalities. Particularly with respect to waste management / product lifecycle.
- rixed 1y ago...and consumption/dispersion/degradation of the finite/rare/precious resources used in the manufacturing process, which we could also factor in, if we wanted to be serious.
- palata 1y agoE-waste like this exists because it's legal and profitable. I believe that we as a society don't want e-waste (at least I don't). And when the society does not want something profitable to be done, it sets regulations. If it wasn't illegal to steal your neighbour's car and sell it, then it would be profitable. But we as a society don't want it to happen.
- ramesh31 1y ago>The fact that selling such a thing is profitable means that we lack regulations somewhere. It's the exact opposite. Tobacco is so heavily regulated and taxed that these become profitable. If cigarettes were 3-4$ a pack (which they would be without sin taxes and regulatory overhead), the vape market would come down as well and there's no way these could be profitable. As it is, they retail around $20 and contain the same nicotine as multiple $10 packs of cigarettes.
- hamomrye34 1y ago> "A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard." > Dick writes of the IoT being a source of vast-artificial-living-systems functioning on collective compute.
- schlauerfox 1y agoI do wonder if there would be a workable law where companies are permanently responsible for what they produce, they must always accept back and responsibly recycle/break down to resources what they put out there, and do away with the shifting of responsibility of waste to society? Seems like a terrible engineering challenge but the right thing to do.
- 1718627440 1y agoA lot of EU regulation goes into this direction, but we are still far away from having it for every product.
- Pxtl 1y agoDisposal fees were a thing here in Ontario, the idea being that consumers should pay up-front for the cost of disposal, and therefore expensive-to-dispose things (like things containing batteries) should cost more. We rewarded the government that brought this plan in by replacing them with Doug Ford, the brother of the infamous late Toronto mayor Rob Ford who was a literal crack-smoking drunk.
- ShroudedNight 1y agoI sure as fuck did not vote for Ford, directly or by the local MP proxy. However, I will readily acknowledge that at the time of the election that brought the Progressive Conservative party into power, the Ontario Liberal Party was giving off strong signals that it had essentially given up any attempt at excellence in its execution of public policy, and that it was seemingly bereft of significant insight beyond the then current state of governance. They were also hindered by the public's perception of their performance in the matters of Ornge and Hydro One. It seems strange to me to frame the results of that election as being a reward for re-internalizing the waste management costs of consumer products.
- Pxtl 1y agoI realize it's a small part of a whole, but it's kind of hard to ignore the broad rejection of environmentalism that happened across-the-board in English-speaking Canada. Green Energy Act was hated and cancelled, eco-fees were hated and got cancelled, carbon pricing was hated and got cancelled, bike lanes are hated and got cancelled. It seems like voters will reject any attempt to fight climate change if there is cost or inconvenience involved.
- gadders 1y agoDisposable vapes were banned in the UK. Which in practise has meant that manufacturers have added the cheapest possible charging port which is non-standard so nobody can charge them and no way to open them to refill them. https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/disposable-vape-ban-loopholes-rechargable-refillable-b1230157.html https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/disposable-vape-ban-loo...
- alanbernstein 1y agoThis is amazing, it reminds me of a biology article about a new life form that is not quite virus, not quite bacteria, but something that manages to blur the line between them. Resource extraction eventually fills all niches, for better or for worse.
- chuckadams 1y agoMaybe they should start charging a deposit per vape, and make the manufacturers pay the cost of recycling or proper disposal.
- Cheer2171 1y agoI actually read the article you linked and these are clearly just shopkeepers breaking the law, lying about these being compliant. There is no legal loophole, except if you count a lack of enforcement as a loophole.
- whycome 1y agoAre they an egregious form of Ewaste really? (Serious question). Because there’s so much reusable hardware in so many of the other things we throw out (phones, cars, laptops, etc) but we don’t make reasonable efforts to limit that. I’d love if the vape hardware was standardized to a degree for cool reuse projects like this. Donate a bunch of used vapes as hardware platforms for school projects? Like arduinos…but not.
- bjackman 1y agoMost of these vapes are reusable as vapes. They just get sold as disposable and the manufacturers don't include a refill mechanism. I am very strongly pro-vape more generally but disposable ones should absolutely be illegal. They only serve to a) make them more attractive to casual users (instead of people switching from tobacco) and b) generate waste. Zero benefit to society. There was a time when people could argue "the upfront cost of a proper vape is a problem that could keep people from switching from cigarettes". That's no longer true, there are incredibly cheap and compact refillable vapes now. (Well, there kinda always were, but they used to be crap. No longer). The solution here isn't reuse it's just to stop production of them completely.
- whycome 1y agoWhy are they so cheap? Is this a place where some sort of recovery tax makes sense then?
- estimator7292 1y agoThey're cheap because they're produced in the millions if not billions. At that scale, each individual unit becomes disgustingly cheap. Some factory in China is pumping them out as fast as possible and slapping on the brand name of whoever is buying.
- estimator7292 1y agoIMO the most egregious part is that all of these vapes come with perfectly good rechargable lithium batteries at a time where lithium is one of the most important resources. And they all just go into a landfill without ever being recharged once. It really should be criminal.