@QMS My expensive printer crapped out, and after checking out a cheap printer that uses fairly cheap ink, and considering I needed it immediately, I bought cheap rather than order an expensive one. It is quieter, faster, takes up less desk surface, so I am good to go. I was out of copying capability for less than a business day.
I just had a client come to get a document to take to his brother to get his signature. The brother lives in Marquez, TX. According to the 2020 census, the population is 181. The client said it was a different world from here. Quiet, everyone knows everyone else, and people are friendly and helpful to one another. Lots of farming and ranching. Makes me want to go there. After all, they have the "Extreme Midget Wrestling Event".

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Last time I ran out of ink on the HP, found it cheaper to replace
the printer. Went with a Canon all-in-one. They are much more
forgiving with second party cartridges (like LD Products).
Remember reading manufacturers charge about $3000/gal.
for ink. That is just pure greed. Nothing is simple anymore.

Thanks for the OT!

@earthling1
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has skyrocketed in the last few years.
Not just cars. Although, if the US allowed
BYD imports from China, that would put a lid on
some of this insanity.

Had a visit to the ER last month. 4 hours cost my
insurance close to $16k. Crazy shit. But they gave me
a towel to staunch the bleeding. Self service! Had to find
a sink and mirror to figure out where to clean-up my face.

It is really insulting. What is in your wallet?

Just tried to check it. It wouldn't come up.
I had heard it made the big time a few months ago, but this is the first time I've used it.
My son was just relating to me having his work van getting a transmission "servicing" and a brake job.
$3400 total bill, and no sales tax (Oregon) thank the FSM. They charged $1400 just to drain and flush the 6 speed automatic transmission.
Whoa! The Enshittification of dealer services. I've always known that parts and service is where dealers make their money, much like restaurants make their money on booze to go along with food (sometimes good food).
Now I can see why so many dealers are offering free service for the first year or so. They don't want you know what it costs until you are way into driving it.
The servicing costs are probably built into the MSRP.
As an aside, We have been driving our little electric Leaf for almost 10 years now, and have very few complaints. The windshield cleaner pump stopped working in year 7, but we get by without it. The battery pack has lost about 20% of charge, or 124 miles new vs 96 miles 10 years later.
We are happy enough with it that we bought another one, a newer (2025) with 4450 miles on it. It was a repo from California, so I guess we've taken advantage of the spike in failed auto loans nationwide. The guy only owned it for 9 months. A 36k car for 23k.
Did I mention it was used? I am disappointed it doesn't still have that new car smell though. This one is the top model with all the gadgets and has a range of 212 miles, more than enough for our purposes. And we kept the old one for 'round town errands and family and friends when they visit.
With the Chinese blocking rare earths and chips the price of new cars is gonna spike, IMHO. Especially when their will fewer of them built. I see VW has stopped production of the Gulf, due to chip shortages.
Who and what is next?
Really, when you get down to it, the Enshittification of the entire western world is on the abyss.
Thanks for the OT.

@soryang
Had an older one given to us by a son-in -law in 2004, because he just wanted an icemaker and a side by side.
It was already used when he bought it, so nobody knows how old it was.
We used that old refer for 18 years (until 2022) while he went through two more of them and is having trouble with the new one.
I think we can safely remove refrigerator's from the durable goods classification.
Thanks for that beautiful melody.

PS. I still have my Whirlpool washer and dryer from 2000 Still working great (knocks on wood).

Thanks for the OT today!

Problem du jour:

I'm in a relatively new apartment complex maybe 5 years old. The crappy side by side stainless steel Whirlpool refrigerator freezer failed yesterday. We just threw away about $300 or more dollars worth of meat, fish, and other frozen food. I'd actually made a call on this frig not performing well about 3 months ago. They claimed we hadn't used it properly???? This doesn't amuse me because Ms. So was a professional cook for years and years. We had a small pub, and provided food service to a local working class community for a decade. We had maybe ten refrigerator/compressor driven cooling units, going at all times, for beer and food. So we have some experience with refrigerators of various kinds and maintenance issues. It just so happens I saw one of the independent appliance retailers in the community nearby advertising the exact same home kitchen whirlpool unit for just under 1800 dollars a couple of days ago. It's a US made product, so it's a piece of shit. Just talked to the tech, he said it had a few manufacturing flaws.

I bought a brand new whirlpool refrigerator freezer after our house was flooded the first time in fall 2022 to replace one of the 3 units we lost. It was about 1000 dollars or so, white, large, relatively inexpensive like the GE it replaced, basic no frill stand up. The compressor was installed improperly so it made too much noise from day one. After about three days of being unable to sleep with the intolerable noise, I made the warranty claim. Their tech rep came and looked at and said the noise was normal. We gave the freezer to the local Korean church, because nobody sleeps there, (except some older folk during the sermon) and you can't hear it from the auditorium area mostly cause the inner walls are concrete. The two LGs we bought at the same time still work even though the house flooded again 2 years later. We left one there when we sold the house. The other is in the living room in our apartment. You can barely hear an LG operate. You have to put your hand on it to check if it's on. We've never had to get one serviced. Durable goods should have a useful life of 7 years according to business accounting rules.

I don't use our HP printer much, usually I keep PDFs, unless there is some special need to paper copy. I know the print cartridge deal, they'd prefer one to sign a contract, to have cartridges delivered regularly so they can turn it into a rental income. The black cartridges are 35 dollars or more retail at the store. I don't buy color because they cost more. Even though I give it very light use, the cartridge only lasts about 3 months, if that. I think the last one lasted two months.

in a prior post, I mentioned W. Edwards Deming, and the poor quality control on US products compared to our overseas competitors, in his case, specifically Japan. In this video below from the "computer guy," he comments on technical trade issues and concludes near the end of this one, "does the US have anyone that knows how to build a factory?"

Be forewarned, Eli is kind of crude dropping the F bomb and other offensive remarks a lot, but in the two or three videos I watched of his, I liked the points he made, but I'm not a knowledgeable tech person.

Palantir CTO Demands War with China -- US China Hawks Mock Jensen Huang for Chinese Cooperation

This is another: Nexperia in China Ignores Dutch HQ -- Europe Seizing Chinese Company Creates Disaster for EU

I see he has another Nexperia video today.

I was listening to some Japanese manga OST Inuyasha the other day, and imo it was a ripoff of the theme song from Empress Qi, a fanciful but beautiful Kdrama about the Yuan Dynasty in China.

Mostly, I try to avoid the culture disputes between Asian countries. It's really one of my personal rules. This is why I generally avoid the message boards that engage in that. Maybe the Japanese licensed this very similar sounding song track. It's just that the Empress Qi sound track is probably my favorite of all time, so I recognized the melody immediately. On edit, maybe the slight variations in the melody make it safe from copyright attack, I don't know. The melody is very close to my ear. But I'm not a composer or musician.