ysabetwordsmith | Poem: "The Right to Repair"

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Poem: "The Right to Repair"

This is the freebie for the May

crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from

alexseanchai. It also fills the "WILD CARD: Repair" square in my 6-1-19 card for the Cotton Candy Bingo fest.

"The Right to Repair"

If you can't fix it,
you don't own it.

If someone else gets
to decide what you can
do with something --

if they can turn it
on and off, change
its settings, make it do
what they want it to do --

then it's not yours, it's theirs.

You only own what you control.

Repair is better than reuse
or recycling, because it keeps
things as high up the ladder
as long as possible, before
entropy drags them down.

Repair saves you money --
it's cheaper than replacing things,
and if you learn to do it yourself
then the labor costs you nothing.

Repair teaches engineering
and creative problem-solving.
To know how something works
is to have power over it.

Repair saves the world.
Earth is a finite planet with
a limited amount of resources,
which repair conserves for
sustainable use in the long run.

Repair connects people and things,
and people to each other and
things to all different things.

We have a right to devices
that can be opened and
stickers that can be removed.

We have a right to documentation
for everything, to error codes and
wiring diagrams, to flowcharts
and troubleshooting instructions.

We have a right to standard tools
and non-proprietary fasteners,
to service parts at fair prices.

We have a right to choose
our own technicians, or to make
repairs in the privacy of our own homes,
and to replace consumables ourselves.

We have a right, and if corporations
won't give it, then we'll take it.

We'll take it with better products
and customer relations, with
transparency and sustainability.

Corporations that mistreat customers
are just like any other bad part:
they can be replaced.

Repair is a right because
it grants independence, it
inspires pride in ownership, and
it makes consumers into contributors.

Repair is a war on entropy, and
that may not be winnable, but it
can achieve a fighting retreat.

Repair is syntropy with
duct tape in one hand
and WD-40 in the other.

* * *

Notes:

The right to repair is detailed in this manifesto. I used a lot of the same phrases in this poem, but much of this is stuff I've been saying for years. You may also remember the one I got from my grandparents:

Eat it all, use it up, wear it out.
Make it do or do without.

Repair instructions are available for clothes, electronics, toys, and other household items.

Repair kits are essential for effective repairs. While specialized kits are available for many items, some general kits are good for many purposes. These includes a backpacking repair kit, roadside emergency kit, sewing kit, and long-term survival kit.

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I disagree vehemently that your time is free. Time is how we get things we can't make or build ourselves. Like, poetry. Time is also housework and other things that the patriarchy doesn't value, but would collapse without. (Don't I know it! We've been sans housekeeper during quarantine, and while that's a benjamin-plus a week we're not putting out, actually keeping things liveable has been a STRUGGLE...)

The real question here is whether The Man is _stealing time_. Hauling a tractor in to the dealership for a ten-minute fix that could be done in the field is stealing a whole day, and with a harvest on the line that can mean losing the farm. (Plus he's gonna charge you an exorbitant shop rate on top of that.) On the other hand, when "fixing" dinner would take an hour or more after a long day, sometimes throwing semolians at the problem .... is worth one's time and mental health. (Turn that one around, a good home-cooked meal? Priceless.)

There are different ways to count value.

Women's unpaid labor contributes so much to the economy that without it, the country would cease to function -- much like the collapse that followed Emancipation.

But it matters whether you can fix something yourself without having to pay cash for someone else to fix it. That's a whole different issue.

I just found this: World Wide Words: Simoleon (alternate spelling "semolian")

1) Now I want to use this somewhere. Feel free to request it in a relevant prompt call.

2) I am inclined to read "simoleon" as a noun and "semolian" as an adjective, probably in context meaning "concerned with money."

There's a delightful show available on Netflix called The Repair Shop. It's in the same genre as Great British Bake Off, which I call "Soothing British People Being Nice To Each Other Over Low Stakes Things". Each episode several things are brought to a repair shop, and fixed up by the artisans there, and then returned to their owners. It's lovely.

(Also, small typo alert, instead of finite planet, you have finite planed.)

>>There's a delightful show available on Netflix called The Repair Shop. It's in the same genre as Great British Bake Off, which I call "Soothing British People Being Nice To Each Other Over Low Stakes Things". Each episode several things are brought to a repair shop, and fixed up by the artisans there, and then returned to their owners. It's lovely.<<

Cool.

One thing I've seen in "reality TV" is a totally predictable, potentially very dangerous exploitation of humans' tendency to mimic other humans, especially humans in authority. So for instance, what's the first rule people learn about cooking? Usually it is some version of "Don't rush, because a kitchen is full of things that are sharp or hot, and you could get hurt." Cooking reality shows tend to use time limits, often unreasonably short ones, which pushes people to rush, because it's "entertaining." I saw one show where two different people got injured in the same episode, because they were rushing. That's not just bad for those people. It's encouraging all the viewers to exacerbate a known bug in human wetware by making it seem okay not only to rush, but to push other people to rush and get them hurt, and to enjoy watching that.

I find it off-putting, beyond the embarrassment squick that the shows also run on. Humans are very imitative. When I see "entertainment" that encourages their worst habits, I worry how much damage that's doing. And these shows don't even come with "Don't try this at home, because rushing in the kitchen gets people hurt."

>>(Also, small typo alert, instead of finite planet, you have finite planed.)<<

Fixed, thanks!

If that's your prime objection to reality TV, Repair Shop may actually be up your ally. There's not an unreasonable time limit set on anything, the time is set by the artist or mechanic working on the piece, and usually the goal of the owner of the object is way lower than what actually happens, so you know every time the goal can totally be met.

(Although even in Bake Off the limits seem a little more reasonable than on American competition shows and usually when people run up against time it's because they bit off more than they could chew and the judges warned them they would end up rushing and that's Bad.)

>> If that's your prime objection to reality TV,<<

It's one of several, but they depend on the configuration of the show.

Some shows are real but don't include any of the stupid things. I used to love Crockett's Victory Garden because it basically ran in real time -- he just went outside and did things in the garden with a camera crew there. Don't see much of that style anymore, but it was very nice.

There have been a few shows where what people made was so interesting I watched the whole thing ("Blown Away") and others where I just had my partner call me in to see the finished pieces ("Lego Masters").

>> Repair Shop may actually be up your ally. There's not an unreasonable time limit set on anything, <<

That's thoughtful.

>> the judges warned them they would end up rushing and that's Bad.)<<

Smart judges. The show I saw, the people in charge kept saying things that led to rushing. >_

Being an ally to LGBTQ, non-white, and other oppressed minorities is right up my alley.

Go you!

When I first subscribed to Make magazine, one of their slogas was, "If you can't open it up, you don't own it." I was lucky that my father taught me what to open up, for what reason, how to do it safely, and how to figure out what needed to be fixed. (Most of what I own is not labeled "No user-serviceable parts inside"). I know that, if a button comes off my coat, I don't need to buy a new coat, although I may want to buy a new button. I know what to do about a BSOD. It frustrates me that I can't repair my cheap meat suit without expensive pharmaceuticals, expensive surgical procedures, and other heroic measures. I have a strong tendency to think of myself as "the person who fixes things".

I had to look up BSOD, and now I know a new term! :-)

I figured that every computer user on the planet knew what a Blue Screen Of Death was! (Occasionally you'll see some computer-driven device like the schedule display in an airport or train depot, or a machine that gives you money for your recycled bottles and cans, and the display shows a perfect BSOD instead of what it's supposed to show.)

The original failure mode was specific to one program, and I don't think the later versions do that, so not everyone may have seen it. Interesting to see that it has spread, though!

... now I'm imagining this not as a code error, but as some secret AI periodically deciding to flip off the humans.

Well, yes, it's a Windows thing... but those schedule boards and coin machines are running Windows 95!

I don't know what a Mac or Linux system failure looks like, through lack of exposure. But each system must have some sort of screen saying "This machine just barfed all over what you were trying to do."

I'd be amused if it were an AI trick ;-)

>> I don't know what a Mac or Linux system failure looks like, through lack of exposure. But each system must have some sort of screen saying "This machine just barfed all over what you were trying to do."<<

Operating systems customarily come with a number of error screens, some fixable, some kernel errors that jam the system until it's turned off, or even permanently.

But it's also fairly common for a screen device to have a failure mode that doesn't even produce text -- it's just blank in a particular color, or sometimes has static or another frag pattern, because the program is so crashed it can't even talk to the screen anymore and what you see is either a default blank mode or a weird display caused by chaotic signals.

Which is really not that different from the Heroic BSOD as the brain overloads and ceases to give coherent interaction.

>> I'd be amused if it were an AI trick ;-)

Feel free to prompt for it. One obvious place for it would be An Army of One.

The internet itself is sentient and self-aware, but I'm not going to try to explain how I know that. If I can clear a bit of the quarantine fog out of my brain, I'll try to ask the internet.

Oh, I certainly know the Blue Screen of Death, since when the Internet was just ARPAnet. But I wasn't familiar with the initialism.

And a BSOD is most often caused by an ID 10T error...

Many thanks for the iFixit link! Useful. (Or potentially useful; they don't seem to rate many of the devices I actually use.)

Repairability applies to software, too, which is why I strongly favor open source.

>> Many thanks for the iFixit link! Useful. (Or potentially useful; they don't seem to rate many of the devices I actually use.) <<

I'm happy to help.

>>Repairability applies to software, too, which is why I strongly favor open source.<<

That makes sense.

With proprietary software, if something is broken, you have to rely on the company fixing it, which they won't do unless it makes the product so dysfunctional that most customers won't use it.

With open source software ...

Victim: "My creepy ex is stalking me through this program and there's no way to stop him."

Geek1: "I'll plug in this standard Block User module."

Geek2: "I'll write a patch for stripping or hiding history so he can't use that against you."

Geek3: "Wanna learn how to hack?"

If I had my way, the only things in the house with no user serviceable parts inside would be the cats and the humans. I've done my own dishwasher and dryer repairs. With electronic control systems, that's no longer possible. >_

>> If I had my way, the only things in the house with no user serviceable parts inside would be the cats and the humans. I've done my own dishwasher and dryer repairs.<<

I am impressed.

Though come to think of it, even mammals have some user-serviceable parts inside, if you know things like lifestyle changes. Gods know I've had far better results with that approach to personal repair than with the vast majority of professionals.

>> With electronic control systems, that's no longer possible. <<

Yeah, that sucks. It infuriates me, because the electronic controls malfunction or break much more often. Also I resent the stampede toward making everything internet-connected, thus vulnerable to virus problems and also a security leak, and often less usable.

Edited 2020-05-17 21:25 (UTC)

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Poem: "The Right to Repair"

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