This is one of many exploitative habits of Amazon. Others include not ensuring products follow regulation, eg on hazardous substances (lead, etc), or on electrical safety. They also make your local {book, game, hobby, ...} shop go bankrupt.
You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller. Even if they are slower, less things on offer, etc. You probably already know some small local stores you would be sad to see shut down. Support them! (if you don't already)
This one bit me recently when I bought a package of budget light fixtures (in Canada, from amazon.ca) and then my licensed electrician informed me that he wouldn't be able to install them as they didn't have a CSA or UL mark. (edit: originally I had mis-recalled and said CE here)
To their credit, Amazon did allow me to return them without penalty, and now my review there warns other consumers that those are only for DIY use and even then you are risking your home's insurance coverage.
> and now my review there warns other consumers that those are only for DIY use
Actually make sure with a incognito window that this review is actually visible. I've noticed that some reviews of mine have been "shadow-banned" and while it looks like they're still there when I'm logged in, once I try in a incognito window the review doesn't show up publicly anymore. My reviews were just basically facts about the products themselves, and received no word from Amazon about breaking any rules.
I posted a legitimate negative review once and it got immediately memory-holed. I laugh every time they send an email begging for reviews. I'm not wasting my time if you're going to hide the truth.
I've noticed this too. Vine Gold Amazon program member, but sometimes my reviews are rejected or shadow banned for no discernible reason. I think there may be some corruption in the review moderation process (as well as in the commingling process, which I've also had problems with).
> This one bit me recently when I bought a package of budget light fixtures (in Canada, from amazon.ca) and then my licensed electrician informed me that he wouldn't be able to install them as they didn't have a CE mark.
The CE mark signifies compliance with European Union standards and regulations. Why would you expect Amazon Canada to care about that?
IIUC Chinese manufacturers often put the "CE" mark on things that haven't been certified, and rationalize it as the mark meaning "China Export"
I have never heard of a case of a homeowner's insurance claim being denied based on imrpoper DIY work. One of the main points of insurance is to protect you against your own negligence.
Still, I would make the same decision and steer clear of such lighting fixtures!
CE conformity is a self-declaration by the manufacturer, so essentially the honor system, not an actual certification program like TüV. Items without a CE mark cannot legally be imported or sold in the EU, but there is little enforcement.
Ah yes, I'd looked this up before but then forgotten it. My original comment would be better stated as "Chinese manufacturers often put the 'CE' mark on things they haven't designed to conform to the guidelines, and have no intention of standing behind the liability for ..."
The replacement ones that the electrician selected were only slightly more expensive and I was able to clean up the look of them with 3d printed shrouds:
I've really got to get back into 3D printing. I was building a Voron back when it would have been like serial number 20. Got it to the point where I was printing its own parts (using stub parts made of plywood and whatnot). Life happened, I disassembled it to move, and I've still got the frame sitting around plastic-wrapped for the past ten years.
I wasn't even thinking LED fixtures. For LED fixtures with built in power electronics, I would definitely want the product to be NRTL recognized.
I was late to the 3d printing game and in part that was just not wanting it to become a junk factory of disposable toys and fidgets. I've definitely printed a bit of that kind of thing but overall I've been pleased with the number of small household fixups that it's been possible to do using it.
Just last night for example my microwave oven stopped registering that the door was closed, and within a few tries I was able to print a replacement for the latch bracket that had broken off. At any previous time in my life that would have been either a whole new door or replacing the entire unit.
For sure, I've got a list of "household fixups" to print when I finally do get around to rebuilding the thing.
Just a note of caution about the microwave though. I don't know what bracket broke off your microwave, but usually the door switch is a safety mechanism to make sure the door cannot be open while the magnetron is on.. Make sure a new 3D printed bracket isn't able to break off and cause the safety switch to remain on!
Oh yeah, I'm well aware. The PLA bracket is non-structural and only supports the original latch piece.
That said, I was alarmed to see online lots of people who were also replacing the latch itself with printed parts. That sketches me out a lot more, though I guess it could be fine with PETG or ABS.
I couldn't think of something worse than demanding Amazon decide what is counterfeit or violates regulations and policing that rule. The law on both those points is far too complex for the result to be anything but Amazon blocks what the big brands tell them to and protect them from competition.
Amazon is essentially a logistics company with a search engine. It doesn't really make sense to have them enforce regulations or counterfeiting rules than it would to make UPS and google. It's not like they hide who the seller is on any item (it's listed as sold by).
What your complaining about is a fundamental consequence of anything that lowers the barriers to selling goods. You once needed to buy a storefront to sell retail goods, later you at least needed sufficient name recognition for people to visit your website -- that investment gave anyone whose goods were counterfeit as well as regulators assets to seize.
But just like making it easy for every citizen to publish their thoughts means we see lots of hate and dumb shit online -- anything that lowers the barriers to selling retail goods (in general a good thing) will make it easy to sell counterfeit or defective crap.
In the long run, I suspect tech will make reputable 3rd party evaluations easier to access but let's not blame Amazon for not becoming an arm of the state and judging what is and isn't legal.
It's far easier and efficient to have the seller be responsible for what they sell, rather than every buyer learn relevant regulations and research whether any potential buy follows that.
And regulations are necessary since many sellers are without ethics/morals and simply want to sell.
The cost to the individual can be huge (eg cancer, home burnt down), and the society as well (environment etc).
I get the line of thought that "a simple product search engine like Amazon" shouldn't be held responsible for every single small item sold, but I think they should. The information and power balance is incredibly offset here.
Don't forget that Amazon is one of the largest companies on this planet, to a large extent because they take this shortcut of "money first, responsibility later". So I do blame Amazon (among others). The old discussion of privatization of profit and society takes the risk and cost...
> You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller
That is assuming the component is even available locally or from a responsible seller. I live in a small city (half a million people). It is often impossible to find parts locally even for popular products that were purchased locally. Then there are parts where it is impossible to find official replacements, either because it is outside of the product's support windows, or because the replacement parts were never available to start with.
Yup, an important caveat. And sometimes, it may not be available, due to it not legally being allowed to be sold there (eg not following relevant regulations). And that's a valid enough reason for it not to be sold there, regardless of seller.
Yup, an important caveat. And sometimes, it may not be available, due to it not legally being allowed to be sold there (eg not following relevant regulations). And that's a valid enough reason for it not to be sold there, regardless of seller.
It's like with cars - better performing drive trains (et al) is used to increase the power envelope instead of lowering fuel consumption, since that leads to more sales allegedly.
It really isn't. I have a pocket-sized device that would utterly thrash a supercomputer from a couple of decades ago, and it goes a day or two on a 20Wh battery. Going full blast it'll consume maybe 25-30W, which is less than the idle power consumption of far less powerful devices from not all that long ago.
Incidentally, cars are also a lot more fuel efficient these days than they used to be.
I was at the Fagradalsfjall eruption at 2023. Had been to Iceland for two weeks w wife and daughter, and on the last day (since the signs were there) I decided to postpone travel home for two days (w + child wanted to go home). On my last day, the hike opened up and I went at approx 2100 hours to the volcano. That was an approx 10 km hike one way.
Amazing experience. A bunch of us were stupid as can be, but got as close as approx 50 m. Sounds really dangerous, but the sputter were not that violent yet, and the ground sloped away from us. Still, really stupidly dangerous (the sputter wall could've broken down, wind direction change, etc). But it didn't. Lots of moss fires, and walked into a small slope and immediately felt a sting in my nose and lungs from trapped gases so took that as a nope and went back.
Started walking back at 0130 something, boarded flight at 0600, fainted (I had done Mt Esja in the morning too). Sorry other passengers, it was inconsiderate of me and I was an asshole for that. But... that experience...!
IIRC lego had two actual patents: the basic brick, and the classic figure. The brick is expired while the figure isn't. Hence you can find "alternate" bricks, but not figures. They do own a shitload of trademarks, and aren't afraid to enforce them (which they legally must or they risk losing the TM).
Fun story: my wife ordered a couple of those "alternate" sets, and none inflicted on Legos patent nor TM (no lego branding, not a copy of a lego set, etc). The Swedish customs acted on their own (baffling to me) and stopped the package, sent her a letter in stark wording to accept forfeit. She challenged this, then Lego's lawyers got in contact with us and, using the figure patent, claimed this was a copy and we should forfeit or they would sue her. Very harsh letter, very stark wording.
Left a very bad taste in my mouth, haven't bought any Lego (or alternatives either) since.
There is jazz improvisation handbook "Harmony with Lego Bricks" written in the 1980's by Conrad Cork in the UK. It's pretty niche. Conrad approached Lego at the time and they gave him permission to use the Lego name. It's written "LEGO(R)" on the cover. Those were more innocent times I guess.
(edited for a typo)
The patent expired, but the minifigs is also a EU 3D trademark. This is not possible for the brick which (only) serves a technical function, namely to hold on each other. Trademarks do not expire while in use. Another example for a 3D trademark, also in this US, is the Coca Cola bottle.
the minifigure is not patented, but protected by a 3D design mark. design marks don't expire, and attempts to challenge the mark and get it removed so far have not been successful.
LEGO is using design marks to protect all new bricks they create. design marks can just be registered without any review. but they can be challenged, and some of these challenges have been successful.
It's not just cost and ads. It's having the possibility to reduce attempts to manipulate my inner reptile brain. With various clients, you can disable shorts, recommended, you have sponsorblock, you can replace youtube-face-thumbs with actual thumbs and get crowd-sourced titles that better reflect the contents.
I also don't need to manually go set speed to 1.75x and enable subs in english, it's a one-time setting. _Further_ I can download a video locally, for whatever reason (later viewing, bw throttling, risk of deletion, etc).
As if that weren't enough, I don't have to watch videos logged in, my client is just set up to download my select channels.
I would assume, yet _another_ standard. There are a bunch of them, and product builders are taking a long long time to properly implement, and often buggy. And they often result in the consumer need to buy yet another gateway/router, and learn the ins/outs and quirks of another protocol that won't work properly in years, all the while two new competing standards have been introduced. An example - how long has Matter existed? Yet, it hasn't had a profile for smart plugs with energy monitoring (eg the 12$ IKEA one). Such a basic use case...
And all this so Samsung et al can siphon off more user data and show more ads.
> An example - how long has Matter existed? Yet, it hasn't had a profile for smart plugs with energy monitoring (eg the 12$ IKEA one). Such a basic use case...
That was added with version 1.3 of Matter, released in the middle of this year. You just need to wait for your smart home ecosystem to support it and for IKEA to release a firmware update.
As far as ecosystems go, Home Assistant (HA) fully supports it, as does Samsung SmartThings. Google has a public beta, from what I've read. Amazon and Apple are in the on the way stage.
As far as device goes, all my energy monitoring smart plugs are Tp-link Tapo, and they have been quick to update firmware. I'm using several Tp-Link Tapo P110M Matter smart plugs [1] and a Tapo P316M Matter smart power strip [2] with HA.
The P316M, purchased in the middle of October, came with firmware that supported Matter 1.3 out of the box. I simply added it to HA using the "Add device" button on the HA screen and it worked.
The P110Ms, purchased at the start of this month, came with older firmware so they did not show energy use out of the box in HA. A quick trip to the Tapo app to add them to it during which it checks for and installs the latest firmware, brought them up to the latest firmware. After that the energy monitoring information showed up in HA.
I do believe that humor and being funny can be learned, and thus taught. Everything from language structure, pacing, expectations (eg the listener builds an expectation or belief of what the comedian talks about, but in the last few words, it is revealed that you were completely wrong). Hm. I find I have a hard time expressing myself, I lack the words and terminology and frameworks I think...
I can see this being huge for 3d-printing. Apply on a sculpted .stl, reposition and download/save the new pose. There is already stuff in Blender to do stuff like that, but Blender is almost like a hobby in itself, just like the actual printing is like a hobby (to learn and master).
Isn't that the inverse? Ie auto-accept just to get rid of the UI box?
Edit: their FF-page says,
Set your preferences once, and let the technology do the rest!
This add-on is built and maintained by workers at Aarhus University in Denmark. We are privacy researchers that got tired of seeing how companies violate the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Because the organisations that enforce the GDPR do not have enough resources, we built this add-on to help them out.
We looked at 680 pop-ups and combined their data processing purposes into 5 categories that you can toggle on or off. Sometimes our categories don't perfectly match those on the website, so then we will choose the more privacy preserving option.
You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller. Even if they are slower, less things on offer, etc. You probably already know some small local stores you would be sad to see shut down. Support them! (if you don't already)
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