Not “just” a creative but understanding the business side too!

As a retro enthusiast, I’ve fixed my share of electronics that only needed an hour and a $2 capacitor. But there was also $7 shipping for the cap, and 30-60min of labor, and my knowhow in troubleshooting and experience. If the company had to send someone out, they’d likely spend well over $200 for time, gas, labor, parts, etc. not including a vehicle for the tech and the facility nearby and all that good stuff.

This is exactly it. I used to work for a manufacturer that made devices they would often need to repair. They would bill non-warranty labor at $100/hour, plus the cost of parts. Their products were primarily used by professionals, so that was fine when it was being done to repair something that cost between $700-$4,000 new, especially for people who were making money using the product. When they launched a product at a $500 MSRP, though, it started to get harder, and even more so when competition forced them to lower the price to $400. When I left they were about to launch a product targeted at amateurs, originally aiming for a $200 price. It was actually being built by a Chinese competitor, with our software guys contributing to the system and putting our logo on it. Spending $100 labor to repair a $200 device was going to be a tough sell, and when I left the plan for warranty “repairs” was to just give the customer a replacement unit and scrap the defective one. And I’m sure the repair labor rate was going up; they had a hard time hiring qualified technicians at the rate they wanted to pay, and most of the department had quit/moved to new roles when I left, so they were surely having to increase pay and the rate they billed.

When something’s being built on an assembly line mostly by machine and/or low-cost Asian labor, it’s harder for a company to justify paying a skilled technician’s labor in a western country when that makes the cost of repair close to the cost of a new unit.

I’m assuming that change would be Euros, though; can they really use that in Switzerland?

!anythingbutmetric@discuss.tchncs.de

I wish they would do an HD release of the show. NBC only ordered it as an SD show for most of the series, because that was the era of the transition and only some shows were ordered for HD and budgeted to use the HD production equipment. The Director of Photography shot the whole thing on 16mm film, though, and framed everything so there was a 16x9 safe shot in case they ever went back to upgrade it for syndication or home release. “All” it would take is re-scanning the original film into HD and taking the edit list from the original version and applying it to the same timecode.

I don’t think there are many shows I can take more than 4 episodes at one time. I remember visiting my cousin, and when I was leaving we watched Arrested Development until it was time to go to the airport. I found it funny and was enjoying it, but by hour 3 I was done and have never been able to get into it since.

Hadn’t checked out the Apple shows yet but also didn’t know they were Bill Lawrence; that bumps them up the list some

Unironically I like that

Yes, normally Neutral Good but will go Chaotic Good if the corral is empty or pretty much empty. I’m lawful good if I only have a free things or there is no corral, but in those cases I try to avoid bringing the cart back to the car.

I’d be more inclined to think teenagers took it for hijinks, but I’m not familiar with the neighborhood where you found it, of course

Spent the past couple weeks in France visiting my wife’s family, and was surprised that most of the stores had the coin locks but were not using them, as in they had all been disconnected so you didn’t need to use a coin to release them. I think the only store we needed coins at was E.Leclerc.

Fries are usually not going to get you laid. But sharing a couple fries would’ve improved anon’s likability among that girl and maybe her friends, which is probably not a bad thing.