Microsoft Veteran Ponders World Where Toothbrushes Need Reboots 56
New submitter mastazi writes: In his latest post, veteran Microsoft developer Raymond Chen reflects on what it means living in a world where you might need to reboot your toothbrush, or perform a firmware update to your shoes!
And this is why many reject Microsoft (Score:3)
And this is why many of us reject Microsoft as much as we possibly can.
Even for things like automotive design, we peaked in the nineties as far as interiors go, and we'd mostly sorted having internal combustion engine controls with symmetrical multiport fuel injection and from some manufacturers, variable valve timing.
If I have to spend more time supporting a system that's supposed to make life easier maintaining or monitoring or using some other system than I would have to spend just maintaining/monitoring/using, then the system is arguably making things worse, not better.
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How to tell you haven't read TFA, without saying you didn't read TFA
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I'd say the 2000's was better, from and engine perspective.
High compression direct injected turbo charged engines are much more than fun and capable than the low compression port injected turbos of the 90's.
A combination of direct and port injection would be almost perfect. The cylinder cooling of direct injection with the clean valves of port injection. I think only Toyota does this.
Only a fucking microsoft engineer (Score:1, Flamebait)
Only a fucking microsoft engineer would want to live in a world where you had to reboot your toothbrush or update your fucking shoes.
Why not tell us what they really want to do, and that's have you pay a subscription for antivirus for your fucking shoes.
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open the schools! adults don't know how to read!
This is 2025. If the schools aren't working, take away their funding and blame DEI.
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Only a fucking microsoft engineer would want to live in a world where you had to reboot your toothbrush or update your fucking shoes.
Why not tell us what they really want to do, and that's have you pay a subscription for antivirus for your fucking shoes.
Believe it or not, the connected toothbrush was a big conversation on a musician's message board I'm a part of. Which ones are most stable, which ones report the most about your gum health, etc. I was completely baffled by it. I sorta get using an electric toothbrush and even do myself sometimes, but connected with tracking and reporting tools, all of course connected to some cloud service? WTF? Who asked for this shit and why would anyone pay extra for it? Just to be hassled about updates, and yes, some of
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I'm no luddite but the time it takes to administer this stuff is ridiculous.
That's why I usually avoid most of this nonsense. I have a hard enough time keeping my computers running for the hobbies I want to keep up with. I'm not adding that administration burden to my toothbrush, shoes, hats, gloves, coat, toaster, oven, microwave, washing machine, dryer, and all the other things you can currently buy with IoT tech built in. Not to mention, most of those now need a permanent connection only so that they can share your usage data with the mothership. While I'm not certain what nefar
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Am I missing some key element of modern living that makes these things seem appealing somehow?
I'd say you're missing some magpie gene that makes so many people helplessly attracted to shiny things. Or maybe it's the gene that suppresses analysis and deduction.
Full confession: I never really got social networking either. I do places like Slashdot and regular old message boards. Facebook, or even as far back as MySpace, all seemed like a giant leap too far in the wrong direction. So maybe I am missing something.
Perhaps. I would happily be on Facebook if I wasn't aware of the privacy and tracking implications of it. I tried signing up way, way back - but IIRC I balked at providing a phone number or some other piece of personal info which they absolutely did not need to provide the service they were offering.
I think that folks like us who understand the
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I can't imagine wanting that garbage. Hell, I catch flack for only having a regular speedometer/odometer on my bicycle too. Why do people want tracking everything, cloud everything, connected everything? They're turning themselves into data cattle and begging for more. Am I missing some key element of modern living that makes these things seem appealing somehow?
Dude, we're nerds. There's nothing wrong with wanting a thermostat to have 24 hour graphs of temperature by zone and when the AC is cycling. Or logging your heart rate over your exercise and observing how outdoor temp affects it. Nerd stuff. Toothbrush measured gum health sounds super sketchy though.
Cloud, connected, and social crap are all in a different category. Find other speedos near you, do not want.
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Only a fucking microsoft engineer would want to live in a world where you had to reboot your toothbrush or update your fucking shoes.
Why not tell us what they really want to do, and that's have you pay a subscription for antivirus for your fucking shoes.
For a lot of people I see a run to the opposite; where they simplify their lives with machines that have as few bells and whistles as possible. I'm one. More complexity means more stuff breaks. Don't give me a small machine that requires fuel and software updates to dig small holes in my yard when a shovel and spade will do. I bought a vehicle with manual windows and the simplest, lowest-end electronics package they had. I don't want cars and phones that can do everything my workstation can do. Hell, I don'
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And why reboot? They need an update? Why wasn't it fixed when it was shipped, or did they ship too soon because they were a fly-by-night or kickstarter project? If it is working on day one, and doesn't connect to the cloud and isn't downloading ads, it wont' need an update. If there's a bug it will crash and reboot itself without help.
There's firmware in most microwaves, even from the 80s. Now many times are those microwaves that aren't connected to the internet needing to reboot? If the toothbrush ne
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It's literally five short paragraphs long. Why not read it first before jumping into the colleagues pretending he's actually advocating for any of this?
Spoiler alert: he's annoyed because he had to replace his toothbrush because it wouldn't reboot. And sounds pretty critical of the jerk with the shoes too.
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It's literally five short paragraphs long. Why not read it first before jumping into the colleagues pretending he's actually advocating for any of this?
I kinda agree with you, but I feel compelled to point out that the guy bought a toothbrush with a microcontroller in it. That fact alone implies support for the concept of a fscking oral care product needing the equivalent of Ctrl + Alt + Del.
I mean, what's next? Triboelectric floss that rats you out to your dentist or, worse yet, your HMO?
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Or he just wanted to try it. Chen's a nerd after all.
Plus may be a feature he didn't realize was critical to the operation of the toothbrush.
I wanted to get a better shaver recently, and went with some Philips Norelco that was $100 and advertised "USB charging" (that'd be good) and support for an app. I was wary of the latter but all their decent shavers seemed to have support for an app. So I got it and... well the USB charging thing was a straight up lie (they mean "We don't provide you with a charger, ju
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Good info and a thoughtful perspective - thanks.
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It was BSD that put Unix on a toaster.
In a Microsoft world maybe (Score:1)
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what I'll do when I need to change my old clunker car, as they all seem to be connected 24/7 nowadays...
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what I'll do when I need to change my old clunker car
Luckily we have decent public transport here, so I only need to rent a car once or twice a year for a day. I don't trust new cars and if I do buy a car again in the future, it'll be a "classic" (at least from before 2000).
I won't buy any connected anything either unless there's a logical reason to it. I've seen nothing outside of computing or home security like that so far.
Re: Simple (Score:2)
There's plenty of cars newer than 2000 with no connectivity. My 08 Versa for example has none of that stuff, or at least it didn't before I installed an android stereo. Even now I can just disable networking.
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There are plenty of applications other than home security that have "logical reasons". It's obviously a matter of opinion whether you think they make sense or not.
I very much like having smart water leak sensors in various places, notably at the bottom of the two water heaters. Home Assistant monitors them, and if there is a leak, will not just notify me, but also automatically close the valve to stop water from coming into the house. These are all Z-Wave devices, so they are not directly Internet connected
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I'm glad I don't have a SSN
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Any sensor that merely beeps is useless if you can't hear it, such as if you ever leave your home, sleep deep, are hard of hearing, or don't live in a studio, all of which apply to me.
I had not heard of fridge spoilage stickers. Thank you. They look fairly cheap. Still, they only work after the fact. They won't notify you if your fridge or freezer malfunctions. If you have multiple units in different rooms, like one I have in the garage, you will not know about the temperature issue until it's too late whe
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A beeping leak sensor can't turn off the water by itself.
Coming home to a beep to let you know your basement is already flooded? Not ideal.
Personally, I like being able to turn the aircon on before I get home in the middle of summer.
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As a Linux dev and sysadmin and more, what this means is simple: I do NOT want ANY connected crap in my house besides laptops and phones. When I purchase something nowadays, I always check if it has connectivity, be it an oven, a doll, a fridge, a set of dice, etc... If it's connected, I don't buy it. If someone brings connected crap inside my house, it won't receive a wifi connection anyway. I wonder what I'll do when I need to change my old clunker car, as they all seem to be connected 24/7 nowadays...
Buy used. My last vehicle purchase was a used truck from 2013, pre connected everything. When I bought a house last year, I went looking in the part of town where all the retirees live because it was the only part of town that didn't have auto-connected everything built into the house. Most new homes have surveillance cloud cameras everywhere and connected appliances if they're included. It takes some hunting to find standard non-connected things now.
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Homes around here you supply your own fridge and clothes washer.
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Once you buy the house, you know you can just rip that shit out? Appliances are a bit tougher - but it's basically replace the thermostat to a dumb one and disable the wifi on the water heater(unless you live in California) and oven. Homes around here you supply your own fridge and clothes washer.
I lucked out and the homes in the neighborhoods populated by retirees were also cheaper. Probably because they weren't loaded up with IoT garbage and cameras everywhere.
Re: Simple (Score:2)
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The problem is that using the OEM's app and servers is mandatory.
All 'smart'/IoT devices should, by law, have a simple way of configuring the server adress it talks to via an open protocol like MQTT.
This way, you could easily block it at your firewall if you'd wanted to, and let it talk to some local smart home controller.
Out of control (Score:2)
The only way it would get that far ... (Score:2)
Is if the "brush" was a full mouth device like an upper and lower mouthguard with a thousand bristles cleaning your teeth, massaging the gums and flossing.
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Slow news day? (Score:1)
People post dumb shit on the internet every minute, including yours truly.
I don't understand the clickbait nerd rage trigger for this one. He works for MS, so? Don't cancel Ray for something frivolous.
Next you'll be quoting some rando Facebook employee's thoughts on pineapple pizza.
Agile development (Score:2)
If you ever wondered how Agile development would make a toothbrush...
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Toothbrushes are actually quite carefully designed to screw the owner. The battery is non replacable, but needs to be removable for recycling in Europe. So they design it such that you can remove the battery, but it's a destructive process.
Electric toothbrushes do clean better than manual ones. I suppose in theory if you spent a long time scrubbing manually you might equal their cleaning ability, but realistically nobody will.
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Toothbrushes are actually quite carefully designed to screw the owner.
They might fit, and may even do a decent job, but I'm pretty sure they are not "carefully designed" to be used in that other orifice ;)
"Smart Devices" aren't very smart (Score:2)
I had a "smart" Moen faucet that chewed up 6 D batteries a month until I got it onto WiFi and it performed a firmware update. Then the batteries lasted 10 months.
Now that I've replaced the faucet, I should send it to this Microsoft clown and let him deal with that insanity.
when the battery dies in 1 hour or less you are (Score:2)
when the battery dies in 1 hour or less you are rebooting all the time
Widespread (Score:2)
Lens manufacturers have been offering firmware updates for some years now. And it seems that, like with other devices, the firmware update sometimes goes sideways. Example;
https://petapixel.com/2024/02/... [petapixel.com]
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Cory Doctorow (Score:2)
Pointless (Score:2)
This post was a pointless waste of space and I will never get that 10 seconds of my life back.
If it's internet connected (Score:3)
Internet services are NOT free. As long as you go into it with your eyes open, it's all good.
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Many IoT devices can still operate locally on Ethernet or Wifi, without their cloud servers being up, using their app on a LAN/WLAN, or something like Home Assistant. Some devices require the cloud servers during the initial setup, but not afterwards.
Digital Logic (Score:1)