Gadgets everywhere

[The Green Man]

Anyone else see this

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bil ... ation.html

Thanks for the link, it’s what I had suspected all along.
I’ve said for years that the massive push towards electric vehicles is going to bring down the power grid, there just isn’t enough spare capacity to accommodate it and as we have seen recently a number of new nuclear power plants have been cancelled.
It’s madness, now they want to be able to switch off peoples central heating systems remotely!

[pseudonym]

Kryten approved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP51JjnWvLo&t=559s

[redskies]

Technology is like fire. A good servant and a lousy master. As Bosworth has pointed out, it can save your bacon.

But as preppers we also need to consider what happens if the "system" goes down. Can we cope? will that Internet of Things fridge or washing machine still run if the internet goes down in your house?

Can you cope if your phone dies and you do not have GPS? My partner has an acquaintance whose son spent 5 hours trying to get 5 miles home at 2am. His phone had died so his SatNav was down. He did not own or know how to read a map and all the fuel stations and small shops were closed so he couldnt ask anyone or get a battery booster or a map...... He was so reliant on the SatNav on his phone that he was unable to navigate even locally by memory or street sign.

I keep saying this too; it's nice, but don't rely on it. Make sure the backups on your backups have backups. Learn to read a map. Learn your local area*. And if you really must have a house that's online, for the love of all that's sane and sensible, put in flippin manual controls just in case!


*Here, directions go along the lines of ''drive along the road to town til you get to Calums house, him whose uncle worked in the butchers, turn left there and carry on til you hit Mairi Heathers house, her whose grannys uncles son ran away with the woman from that wee shop that DI owned.'' And so on. It doesn't make finding anything even a little bit easy. And if you find two folk together, there's like to be a conversation about who did what to whom, cos they'll both remember it differently!

[GillyBee]

My Dad would direct using the local pub names (of which there were rather more 40 years ago) While another friend always navigates by the churches. God alone knows how they would have coped if they had ever had to direct each other....

[Arzosah]

I'm another one that likes technology - in fact, I got a computer so long ago it was when a ZX81 was the latest thing - you know, the one where you had to run a cassette tape to instal the operating system every time you wanted to use it But I don't use as much tech as I *could*, I just don't want to, and I think it's an unnecessary waste of resources. Definitely not a Luddite! Trying to think of what I have that connects to the web: tv, two laptops, two kindles, camera, phone, I think thats it. Oh, my little radio transceiver can, and I suspect my DAB radio can.

But yes, my backups have backups. I changed my bank account a few years ago (nice fee for doing it ) and I chose one that has a physical branch in my town centre, to use as a last resort. And actually, I went there to work on the setup 3 times, I think. Options are good.

[Arwen Thebard]

Yorkshire Andy wrote;
"Take cars there's the obd II protocols ... Great so they are open access by EU law...BUT. say it says injector 2 failure . ... The injection computer is not on the obd list so you can't code in a new injector without the manufacturers software nor diagnose air bags / abs / esp. "

Dont. Please don't. Just don't. NO REALLY DON'T..............

get me going on main dealer garages and their extortionate charges for two minutes bloody work plugging in their little magic boxes of diagnostic computers to tell me what I already bleeding know is wrong with my car before then pressing two buttons to re-set the cars own computer system so I can drive around faster than 30mph and then charge me £120 per time for the effing privilege.

Breath in deeply, think calm thoughts, and release slowly........think of a different car brand with no modern tech and slleeeeepp.

[redskies]

My Dad would direct using the local pub names (of which there were rather more 40 years ago) While another friend always navigates by the churches. God alone knows how they would have coped if they had ever had to direct each other....

It's insanely funny. We can get where we're going - well, we've been here 13yrs now, so we'd have no excuse if we couldn't! We use GPS, but we can both read maps/use a compass/remember where things are!

[redskies]

Yorkshire Andy wrote;
"Take cars there's the obd II protocols ... Great so they are open access by EU law...BUT. say it says injector 2 failure . ... The injection computer is not on the obd list so you can't code in a new injector without the manufacturers software nor diagnose air bags / abs / esp. "

Dont. Please don't. Just don't. NO REALLY DON'T..............

get me going on main dealer garages and their extortionate charges for two minutes bloody work plugging in their little magic boxes of diagnostic computers to tell me what I already bleeding know is wrong with my car before then pressing two buttons to re-set the cars own computer system so I can drive around faster than 30mph and then charge me £120 per time for the effing privilege.

Breath in deeply, think calm thoughts, and release slowly........think of a different car brand with no modern tech and slleeeeepp.

Comes to something when you need a degree in IT to back up your career as a mechanic

Many family/friends have complained about the sealed units in cars as well - buy a new one, pull the old one out, replace it with the new one. Although we did have fun with a SAAB estate we had a few years ago. Problems with the fuel pump, which, according to Mr Haynes, could have been only in two places. So the mechanic - and hubby, cos, small village, it's that kind of place - opened up those two places and, no fuel pump. So they looked everywhere else. Still no fuel pump. Put it up on the lift, and, you've guessed it, *still* no fuel pump. It ended up being scrapped, and we never did find the bloody thing!

I remember my Dad making bits for cars, including an overdrive switch for an old volvo, one of the original reg run ones. He can't do that with the modern ones. And I don't like the idea that any vehicle I'm in is hackable.

[jansman]

Yorkshire Andy wrote;
"Take cars there's the obd II protocols ... Great so they are open access by EU law...BUT. say it says injector 2 failure . ... The injection computer is not on the obd list so you can't code in a new injector without the manufacturers software nor diagnose air bags / abs / esp. "

Dont. Please don't. Just don't. NO REALLY DON'T..............

get me going on main dealer garages and their extortionate charges for two minutes bloody work plugging in their little magic boxes of diagnostic computers to tell me what I already bleeding know is wrong with my car before then pressing two buttons to re-set the cars own computer system so I can drive around faster than 30mph and then charge me £120 per time for the effing privilege.

Breath in deeply, think calm thoughts, and release slowly........think of a different car brand with no modern tech and slleeeeepp.

Ha ha ha That's why ,when our cars come out of warranty they go straight to the garage in the village.AND they have the pluggy -in- computer stuff! Main dealers are highwaymen in overalls.

[grenfell]

This thread is nuts!

Are you genuinely worried that because a washing machine has lots of red lights and an electronic control, you are at risk? Surely electricity continuity is the bigger risk to your standard of living? Or water supply? Or ability to buy detergent?

That internet-of-things will be used to subvert you? How? A vicious strobe light effect in your kitchen?

A phone with a banking app doesn’t mean your phone can magic your money away. There are precisely zero cases of this. But hundreds of millions stolen through theft plus other related scams where people literally volunteer to give their money away to fraudsters.

This really feels like the wrong place to focus prepping energy.

Genuine question: what am I missing? Is it worth a thread to offer up concerns that could be debated and hopefully rebutted with knowledge, facts, and sensibilities?

What are you missing ? Probably a whack of paranoia which if i may say seems to be on the rise in this forum.
With regards to gadgets i'm neither a technophobe or a technophile . I can see benefits in using some as long as one doesn't become totally reliant upon that tech , it's always good to have a backup. Most houses have central heating but having a woodburner "just in case" makes sense to me , that sort of thing. I tend to agree that more complicated stuff such as the mention of engine management just leads to higher maintenance bills. Then there is the stuff that just seems a little pointless to me. We had a new washing machine a couple of years ago. When it finishes the wash it plays a tune. Why? At most all is needed is a red and green light and to be honest my mother coped perfectly well without those. I'd have no concern buying a washing machine or whatever that is internet compatible or whatever the term is simply because i'm not being forced to connect it to the internet.
I tend to use things until they are worn out or otherwise unserviceable , only then do i replace. I don't have a smartphone because my old nokia still works which means of course that if i wanted to have that covid app i'd need another phone which isn't going to happen.
Oh and i get the irony of moaning about technology via an internet forum.