Text 29375, 93 rader
Skriven 2012-06-01 14:54:16 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
  Kommentar till text 29355 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Dutch parliament officially rejects ACTA
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Hello Michiel,

On Fri 2012-Jun-01 09:35, Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555) wrote to Richard
Webb:

 RW> would have been nice to give  the manufacturers, and those
 RW> of us who depend on their products for our livelihood a bit
 RW> of future proofing in the form of a drop dead date in the
 RW> farther future when techniques that are reliable can be
 RW> developed.

MvdV> <shrug> Back in the early nineties I worked for a company that -
MvdV> among other things - made controllers for industrial soldering
MvdV> machines. Even then it was known that the transition to lead free
MvdV> solder had to be made and led free solder already WAS available
MvdV> then.

MvdV> The industry had TWENTY YEARS to develop the technology but as
MvdV> usual the share holders sat on their greedy arses, more interested
MvdV> in short term money than long term investment in the future. And
MvdV> so they did nothing until the deadline. 

YEah I know, then there's that.  At least there's an
exemption for "communications' equipment, which Neumann and
Sennheiser falls under for their microphones.  IT doesn't
cover the mixing consoles and processing equipment we use,
but at least our microphones which are often high dollar,
and often the best manufactured in the eurozone are still
leaded solder thanks to that exemption <g>.

MvdV> It is always the same story.

MvdV> When working for that same company, in 1992 I was doing some final
MvdV> tests on a piece of measuring equipment that I had designed and
MvdV> had written what we now would call the firmware. The boss came
MvdV> breathing down my neck and asked what I was doing. I explained to
MvdV> him I was doing some final tests to insure that it would keep
MvdV> working after 1 jan 2000. WHAT?! he exclaimed, that is over eight
MvdV> years! Is all the rest working? Yes, I said. Then stop it. Ship it
MvdV> to the customer right now, so that I can send a bill.

Profit before anything else, short term thinking i call it.
TO hell with tomorrow, today's important.  As usual, the
folks at the end of the cahin pay for that short
sightedness.

MvdV> I don't know if that baby of mine survived Y2K. It probably did.
MvdV> The company went belly up in 1996, so I never knew.

Maybe just for that reason, short term thinking as opposed
to long term viability.

 RW> I can understand the immediate mandate on lead water pipes, after all
 RW> everybody drinks water that passes through them, but this one carries
 RW> too high a price tag for those of us saddled with unreliable equipment
 RW> made using lead free solder.

MvdV> The industry had TWO DECADES to migrate. Average life cycle for
MvdV> consumer electronics is three to four years. There was plenty of
MvdV> time. 

True, adn taht's consumer electronics.  Average life cycle
though for, say a mixing console, or an audio amplifier used in the commercial
world is tripple that if all goes well.
This isn't the iPad we throw away as soon as the new version comes out.  I buy
a piece of equipment intending to spread
its cost out over a decade, especially a costly piece of kit such as a mixing
console.

 MvdV>> The same will happen with lead free solder and in the end we
 MvdV>> will have a better world.

 RW> Maybe, we'll still be throwing away a lot of stuff with
 RW> other dangerous chemical involved in it just because it no
 RW> longer works.  The key is intelligent disposal imho.

MvdV> Does not work. With limited production stuff that is used in
MvdV> controlled environments, like medical stuff, controlled disposal
MvdV> is possible. With mass consumer electronics, controlled disposal
MvdV> is wishful thinking. You can't stop people all over the world from
MvdV> just dumping their broken radios or cell phones in the waste bin.

This is true.  Again, I am thinking of folks like me, even
though not medical equipment, I look for equipment that I
intend to own for a decade or more.  Had not the fire taken
it away I'd have microphones which I've owned for a period
of a couple decades, still functioning, still working well.
But then, a couple of those microphones were pretty pricey.

Regards,
           Richard
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 * Origin:  (1:116/901)