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Nora Reed

do you want to know the cool thing about kilns, mastodon

so kilns are really heavy and kind of humongous. they have a lot of insulation. so it's hard to take them to a place to get them repaired

so because of this they are user servicable. the parts that break can be taken out and replaced by the artists who use them. there are good youtube tutorials.

the thermocouple is the most common failure point and in almost every kiln you can change it out with a screwdriver and connecting a couple of wires, it takes about 15 minutes and most of that is looking at videos

when my jen-ken kiln broke it was still under warranty and they sent us the parts and repair instructions and my husband managed to get the heating elements replaced in about an hour. (he is already good at that kind of thing, it would have taken me longer)

we live in a world where very few of our machines give us those kind of control and kilns are one of those things that really make you realize it

we have little to no agency over our phones, our computers, our medical equipment, our cars

it made me think: how do i get this level of control over other technologies on a day to day basis.

how do we make a world where people have agency over the machines we own and depend on?

people talk about "enshittification" as everything getting worse, which it is. but the really damaging part of it is that we are forced to cede control over our tech and hand it to people who see consumers as exploitable resources without much power to switch to something else

i think if we can expect what we get from kilns, from sewing machines, from bicycles, and apply that to the other things we depend on, we could be in a better place with our relationship to technology

so much of the trauma of living in the modern world is about lack of agency, a death by a thousand cuts of the indignity of having our lives controlled by microsoft, by facebook, by google and apple

the thermocouple repair on my little evenheat kiln opened something in my brain. i already cared about right to repair but it made me imagine a structurally different and better relationship to technology

sometimes it's hard to imagine what a better world would even look like; my kilns give me a glimpse of what that could be.

please stop giving me individualist solutions to what i am pointing out is a structural problem. if i could turn comments off i would. fuckin mastodon

@nora thought they were hot

@nora yeah whats the cool thing about kilns? :3

@nora I’m here for a hot thing about kilns!

@outie i don't think that one is even really a kiln. i think it's some kind of drying room

@nora Is there only one? I would have thought there were several.

@nora so what you're saying is the kiln market is absolutely ripe for disruption, for an app to control your kiln remotely, for a "smart kiln" that empowers users to subscribe to different heat settings and durations... a premium tier for bisque... a Raku box (presumably for streaming the firing process to other devices in your home)

@ptoothfish thank god they do not seem to know how to use computers well enough to have that be a problem, based on their websites and manual layouts

@nora @ptoothfish Just wait. I thought about this, even just putting a smart plug on a kiln would be a cheap, single step.

IMO, the problem is voltage and heat resistance. Most digital devices use lead solder and have tiny circuit board connections also made of low-melting-point materials, that are generally pricey.

ROI. If it's "worth it" they'll do it.

@nora

my most recent glimpse came from working with 70s computer hardware at our computer museum. it's very serviceable, with full diagrams, docs and maintenance manuals available.

my hot take is that many or most aspects of today's computing are actually "agency friendly", but a couple of bad apples (pun not entirely unintended) are doing a lot of damage and governments are either not helping, or helping to make it worse.

@sqx @nora This was going on even into the 80's .. a Gould minicomputer I worked with came with a whole shelf of documentation.

I really love this story about kilns though. How much less e-waste and unnecessary life churn would we have if everything was this way?

@nora

Cool thread. ^^^

We need to teach people - and especially children - how to make. Knitting, carpentry, the sculptural arts, cooking, you name it, are all empowering because when you're a maker you're an agent, someone to does, not someone who is being done to.

Right to repair laws also go a long way, but first people need to convince themselves that they *can* repair.

@nora

Group problems need group solutions.

The "rugged individualism" that the broligarchs promote, it is just "divide & conquer" in disguise.

@nora
> so much of the trauma of living
You had me up to this point

@nora Yesssss, this!

But also: by facebook, by google, by apple, by microsoft, by the bosses, by the bureaucrats, by the police, by the government, by the judges, by the lawmakers. Our agency has been stolen from us and it hurts.

@nora I still remember as a kid, one of our earlier TV came with schematics.

@dryak @nora My grandma used the same CRT TV for 20-25 years. At one point it was upgraded with a remote control module by a local electronics repair shop. It’s infuriating that people today so readily accept that a TV is to be replaced after 5 years and a smartphone after 1-2 years.

@dryak @nora
For example:
Here's the "instruction manual" for my old oscilloscope, showing that it contains the complete schematic of the instrument. Also text about how to perform "factory" adjustments
#repair

@nora Right on. I think the corollary to this is the realization, for tech workers and users alike (ntm market analysts etc), that there is no separate destiny for digital tech that requires it to grow in unbounded exponential arcs of performance, influence or profitability — that there is good, honourable work to be done producing apps like we produce stereos and telescopes, which nobody thinks have to be revolutionary all the time. Without that story, #enshittification would wilt.

@nora bicycles are getting worse - more and more proprietary and. non-compatible parts on e-bikes and high end ones.

@nora Well... Older sewing machines. Though even industrials, while repairable, aren't necessarily easy. And it's sadly starting to become a dying art to be able to fix the non-electronic components - more because it requires skills and knowledge that aren't really being taught anymore (except by people already doing the work, which means it's only accessible to people with a good enough relationship with those people and while those people have the time and ability to teach it - so it might as well be inaccessible).

And domestic sewing machines are becoming more and more of a crapshoot, but they mostly seem to be thriving through suckering newbies or people with little time and lots of money. There's a reason for the thriving market in vintage machines. (Unfortunately, the companies already managed to lock in some truly outrageous regional pricing long ago, by making the power supplies impossible to swap out - though I'm extremely distrustful of adaptors.)

With that being said, I also hate how so much of the modern world is so goddamn fragile. I'm always shocked to see videos like a GoPro surviving being dropped in the ocean, because I've gotten so used to new stuff being of the 'blink at it the wrong way and it shatters in a zillion unfixable pieces' level of durability, unless you specifically look for something that can take heavy use (if that exists in the category you're after). Even if you can repair something easily, what good is it if you're repairing it every couple of days? But maybe I'm just weirdly rough with my belongings, IDK.

@dartigen yeah i think mine is from the 70s

@nora

@al

I only saw this thread at: 'if we can expect what we get from kilns, from sewing machines, from bicycles,...'

Anyone that suggests kilns as a exemplar for sewing machine and bicycle design has to be worth checking out.
👍

On a barely related note - I once repaired an Android phone #WiFi fault by baking the phone in an oven.

@coffee2Di4 @al i once got a broken phone good enough to get contacts off by sticking it in the freezer

@nora Agreed. I think they're just softening us up for the complete elimination of net neutrality, with a more starkly stratified system of haves and have-nots. I think that might be one way the control manifests.

@nora It's explicitly not *everything*

Only corporate software being used primarily as a way to suck money from consumers as efficiently as possible

Not software written with pride

@nora you’re right though it just increases appreciation of Mastodon all the more. You need to raise your shit shield 🛡️(*Credit coffee with Karen on YouTube) up and fill your life with enprettyfication keep positive Nora.

@nora sometimes I think people say "enshitification" when we'd all be better off calling nazification.

@llewelly i think that might be somewhat overbroad but any single word is going to lack nuance and require definition

@nora
Well for computer/desktop/server, buy the parts and build your own: motherboard, cpu, memory, disks, etc it's not that hard, they have standard connectors ... if you haven't done it before you might want to get someone to walk through it with you though.
Then install a free OS like Linux or BSD. You're then off to the races. If you were careful with purchases you would have avoided having to pay for a MacOS or Windows license, that's a great start.

@bjb this was a rhetorical question about society not an individualist question for me

@nora Yes, this was an answer not just for you but also for the readers of this thread. Thank you for the opportunity to point out this possible action. Sorry if this is hijacking your thread, I thought it might be relevant for some.

@nora Free Software, and then some. RMS has been right about everything (software related anyway), which sucks.

@Crell @nora Yes Free Software and more. Certainly any software effectively mandated by the government must have a Free Software implementation available.

But, we also need solutions without involving a central authority or centralized infrastructure. Somehow, culture needs to change (return to?) a situation where any device you are expected to use, you are also provided enough information to maintain and customize AND, if you discover some new approach to either of those, you can share that information.

It is hard to imagine a reality where hiding technical information isn't a competitive advantage, so either we have to end competition (ha!) or we have to make doing so have such a social cost (shunning, boycotting, etc.) that the cost overwhelms the advantage.

@BoydStephenSmithJr @nora Legal social cost is the most efficient way. Or insurance premium costs.

The odds of those any time soon, though...

@nora
you are not alone in this thought or this fight.
Stallman was early in seeing this coming.
I'm glad you've noticed too. The more people that know and support open movements the better.
Vote with your money, support "open" projects instead of closed. Choose android over iOS, choose linux over windows/mac, read and understand the licences and their implications (GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache).

@tim_abell i am not interested in this

@nora
well you specifically asked "how do we make a world where people have agency over the machines we own and depend on?" and this is the best answer we have as a society at the moment

I'll leave you in peace if it's not a cause that interests you like it does me

all the best