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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • Want to drop some info here, not related to your question since it’s still out of your price range, but just for others who might be browsing, since I see HM chairs come up a lot in this thread and the other one.

    A lot of these fancy ergo chairs work similar to other furniture and use a network of dealers. This is important, because dealers often sell for way less than MSRP, especially when they’re buying for clients making big offers for office buildings buildouts. Some dealers can get you a great price by basically adding your chair to a big order for another client. I wanted a HM Embody and talked to 3 dealers in my area. One of them was able to get me the chair for about $1000, and this was also customized with the fabric that I wanted. Really shows the huge markup that MSRP is on this kind of item. Dealers are sometimes also willing to give you a loaner so you can try the chair at home before you buy.



  • Maybe so, but under the Act, the burden is on the company to prove that the modification directly caused the failure in question.

    They can’t just deny deny for no reason. But that’s the tactic as consumers are largely unaware of their rights under the law, and they typically get away with it until the FTC sends a bunch of nasty letters telling them that they’re breaking the law. See “warranty void if removed” stickers.

    There’s some good discussion of this very issue in this article from a few years back. They touch on the sort of “overclocking” situation that you’re talking about.

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp3nax/jailbreaking-iphone-rooting-android-does-not-void-warranty

    In my personal opinion, even a modification that can be used to push the hardware to operate beyond it’s design limits doesn’t inherently void any part of a warranty if it’s not used for that purpose. Let’s think through a few examples.

    Does obtaining root on a Windows PC void the hardware warranty since it’s now possible for you to install a kernel driver that lets you overclock?

    Does the presence of MSI Afterburner installed on a machine void hardware warranties? Regardless of whether you use it for overclocking or just for graphing and monitoring?

    Does installing Linux on a PC that you own void the hardware warranty?

    In my mind, the car example is a bit different. I don’t quite know what you mean by “tune”, but I’m going to assume it’s something like ECU remapping. To me, remapping an ECU seems similar to the act of overclocking, since you’re modifying the physical inputs to the engine itself. And I can see how out-of-spec physical inputs could cause irreversible damage to an engine. But that doesn’t mean that every conceivable ECU modification would be grounds to deny a claim for engine failure.

    (Disclaimer: I have no experience with ECU remapping so I’m making some assumptions)

    As another example, let’s say your car comes with an ECU that has some security mechanisms to prevent reflashing. Could the manufacturer deny a warranty claim on engine failure just because you circumvented the security mechanism? Even if you never remapped the ECU parameters?

    What if your ECU fails, and you decide to install a 3rd party ECU. The new ECU has no security mechanism preventing you from reflashing, but the map that it comes with, while provided by the 3rd party, is functionally equivalent to that in the stock ECU. Can the manufacturer deny a warranty claim on an engine failure, just because without the security mechanism you could have reflashed a new map designed for more performance than stock? Even if you didn’t? Could they deny the warranty due to the 3rd party map? Even if physical inputs to the engine stay within safe parameters?

    I think you do raise a good point about the logical connection that Samsung could make between the modification (root) and the failure (battery). But the point I’m making is: the legal burden is on them to make that connection, and show how one caused the other.

    On the other hand, some of the questions and examples that I raised are admittedly messy, and might not have a clear answer unless tested by a court.

    I guess what I’m saying though is: if the cost to seek legal relief here is relatively low (e.g., arbitration or small claims), then if I were OP I would probably go down that route, personally, and make arguments based on Magnuson Moss.

    IANAL

    Edit: just saw elsewhere that OP lives in Greece. Looks like the legal principles are pretty similar when it comes to warranties in the EU. The burden is still on the manufacturer to show that the modification caused the failure in question.

    https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230807-01.en.html



  • If the color is what’s bothering you the most, there are black and white emoji fonts out there. For example, Noto Emoji.

    I get where you’re coming from, and don’t entirely disagree, but at the same time I’m grateful to emojis for spurring interest in and adoption of Unicode. The situation a little over a decade ago was much different, with many devices supporting only ASCII. It was also so much more complicated to use a computer for multiple languages, with so many different encoding standards. Nowadays Unicode seems to work well for most languages. And users have come to expect support for it on whatever platform they’re using. Even if it’s true that some users only demand that support due to emojis, I certainly don’t want to go back to how things used to be.






  • The term “public record” usually refers to records that a government is required to maintain and make accessible to the public. In most states, I believe SMS messages sent by government employees while conducting official business are considered in-scope (though there may be other laws that make certain messages private).

    As far as whether your SMS messages can be accessed by law enforcement without a warrant, it gets more complicated.

    Older than 180 days? Fair game. A court or government agency can subpoena your provider without any requirement to notify you, per the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.

    Newer than 180 days? A warrant is required, but there are exceptions. For example, administrative subpoenas are allowed in cases of national security.

    Records of incoming/outgoing calls require only a subpoena, same with cell tower geolocation data and IP addresses. However, wiretapping of actual calls requires a warrant.

    The reality of how and when the government accesses your data in the real world is probably different than the laws as written, so of course take everything with a grain of salt. The best solution with text messages is at least E2E encryption so that the provider cannot store them. (Accessing messages stored on your device itself does require a warrant).