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[–] 176 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Two days until the screwdriver for this appears on AliExpress if they start using it...

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  • [–] 148 points 10 months ago (10 children)

    Just as a friendly reminder. Here in Germany, BMW would have to provide access to the required tools. After all, we have a right to repair over here in Europe.

    And if you are american: fucking fix your government

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  • [–] 58 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

    And if you are american: fucking fix your government

    I try everyday and I will not give up until it's fixed.

    Your government could end up more like mine if the AfD takes power so I urge you and all Germans to fight that with everything you got. It's terrifying here and I really don't want other people to have to go through what we're going through so please take action now.

    One threat that I believe people in Europe are not taking seriously enough is foreign interference in your elections from our Oligarchs like Elon Musk and our government. Trump's so-called National Security Strategy explicitly calls for interfering in EU countries and the Heritage Foundation (the organization who planned much of Trump's second term) has explicitly called for eliminating the EU.

    Please consider these actions to immunize yourself and your country from us:

    1. Stop using Twitter, Meta products, TikTok and Reddit. These companies all have owners who are sympathetic to the Trump regime or in the case of Twitter it's way worse. I'm personally a big advocate for Bluesky for replacing Twitter and of course goes without saying I really hope Lemmy can fully replace Reddit.

    2. Educate people on how to recognize disinformation and propaganda. This should be taught in school along with classes to mitigate the harmful effects caused by social media. Classes should hopefully cultivate skills like emotional regulation, critical thinking and conflict resolution because cognitive warfare is more successful against people who are weak in these skills.

    3. Try resolving people's frustrations and social differences without them turning towards the far-right. This is part of how Trump got into power some people feel unhappy and vulnerable so the far-right takes advantage of them. I don't understand this well but I've read that part of the AfD's popularity has to do with unresolved differences between East and West Germany. If I'm wrong here or misunderstanding I apologize.

    4. If applicable campaign finance reform especially to restrict foreign money. I suspect Germany is way better than America here but if this is a risk please fix as soon as possible.

    5. Consider simulating what would happen if the AfD were to take power almost like the way a pentester tests software. Figure out what vulnerabilities in your government the AfD could exploit and solve them before they take power. This is really important because for Trump you can think of him almost like a hacker except he's not breaking into computer systems, he's exploiting vulnerabilities in both humans and our government doing things like declaring fake emergencies.

    Obviously this is by no means a complete list. I'm sure there's a lot to do.

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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    And if you are american: fucking fix your government

    I live in a red state where our last two Attorney Generals used the position as a ladder to go to the senate. The first one on the whole Jan 6 attack ran like a coward after fist pumping to the crowd of rioters. The state loved it so much they elected his clone.

    Some states are just choke holded by a cult. This isn't a top down thing, no matter how much the President thinks he is. No, down to the grass roots we are fucked to a level that I don't see how we come back from.

    The worst part, the state I'm in now is an improvement from the last one I escaped.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Someone will just make the required tools. You can buy the keys for TSA locks on Amazon. I think we're past fixing this country. Once the American empire falls, hopefully we'll fall in line with the rest of the world. Though I'd like for someone to fix this country.

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  • [–] 44 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    You know, I think one can drill out a bit in the centre and it'll work with a flathead.

    Not that I'd buy a bmw, or a car for that matter.

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago

    Capitalism breeds the kind of innovation that benefits capital. And that’s it

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago

    Capitalism breeds innovation to make more and more profit sometimes that accidentally benefits people but rarely.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    A lot of screw driver heads started like this.

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  • [–] 60 points 10 months ago (32 children)

    Pardon the circlejerk interruption, and believe me I hate BMW just as much as the next person, but this is just a patent application. Like, if you realize your logo has the potential to be a screw head, why would you not patent it to prevent others from using the design.

    It’s not made it into any cars, and so far as I’ve seen there are no plans. Even if it does I’d think it’d only be used in some customer-facing application; interior maybe, or decorative attachments in the engine like valve covers etc. Slightly asshole that you’d need a different tool, but not exactly the end of the world unless they actively prevented the tool from being made.

    My two cents

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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (11 children)

    Patenting things you don't have intention of actually doing, "just in case", is just shit tbh.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Used to be called patent trolling, but now that all the big corporations that own the politicians deciding patent law are doing it, it's considered "prudent business practice"

    IBM alone files more patents that they'll never use (except for lawsuits in case someone else does something useful with something similar) in a year than most companies file IN TOTAL for several decades.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    That is such fucking bullshit.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    It can prevent others from doing it, which can be a net good.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    How? In this specific case it's about brand identity, so I don't think anyone else would make BMW-shaped screws. But in general, how is "I had this idea, I don't want to make it, but want to stop others from making it" good?

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    how is "I had this idea, I don't want to make it, but want to stop others from making it" good?

    It isn't under ANY circumstances and to think so without being the patent trolling asshole yourself is some Stockholm syndrome level simping for the overlords.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    They will have the patent on the corresponding driver for the screw, and i doubt they will allow third party shops to purchase the drivers for anything resembling a reasonable price. Meaning that you will be forced to take the car to a BMW authorized mechanic. It's taking away the consumer's right to repair.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Did you see the Rossman video about this? The patent explicitly calls out that the reason for this design is to prevent people from using it without the proper "authorization" or told or whatever. It is not about branding or better functionality or anything else

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    So it's just another pattern of tamper resistant screw, this time with tacky branding. Those have been used for decades on cars, idk this feels very blown out of proportion. People are acting like it's evil when it's just a normal thing but cosmetically way uglier.

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  • [–] 18 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Yeah the patent doesn't mention anything about it being a security screw as far as I can tell, it just looks like they patented a dumbass design that's only useful for the aesthetics and people are making some sensational headlines. Like, yeah, we'd just get or make the bits to undo them - they also know that?

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Honestly, it doesn't look like a dumbass screw to me. Phillips heads are dumbass screws. It is a shit design. This actually looks quite solid as a screw head.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    It will cam out and chowder if you're not 100% perpendicular to it, I would say it's actually worse than a phillips screw

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    ... What are you talking about? The design ensures you can't be anything but perpendicular to it in order to have any positive engagement, and Phillips screws are so notoriously bad about camming out at even ideal angles that it's been popularly believed that was an intentional design feature (it wasn't phillips screws just suck) for almost as long as they've existed.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    Not to mention the odds of it having a better torque rating then any standard screw is low.

    You would need a dedicated factory to build these at great expense for fancy looking screw heads.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    the alleged application was critical fasteners that people shouldn't be working with, like frame connections

    of course, this is bullshit, because it's been fine for the past half century, so why wouldn't it be now?

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    This is frustrating but anyone dumb enough to let this be a major hinderance to them working on their own cars deserves to get scammed by the dealership. $30 on a knock off set of these screw heads vs thousands of dollars at the dealership. The main problem with BMW cars is that they're designed to be difficult to work on even in spite of stuff like this. You have to take the whole car apart to do basic maintenance.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    Nono, thats corporatism. Capitalism free market is perfect and this would never happen.

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  • Oooh wow sure would be a shame if someone replaced all those proprietary screws with torx or something 😏

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    There's the illusion that capitalism breeds innovation but ultimately it's just that the only gatekeeper to innovation in a Capitalist society is money while in all the attempted socialist societies, workers can be locked out of attempting innovation by party committees.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    Sweet. I just invented a screwdriver that fits that design! I’ll make sure I farm out the product creation to china so I can sell these for cheap on anmazin and make sure there’s a need for multiples due to the shitty quality of the material. I’m thinking built in faults in the handle that slowly snaps if you tap the end or drop the product.

    I’ll make millions!!!!!

    /s seriously, how does this help humanity? What the fuck does this do other than make sure I can’t choose where or how I repair my car?

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Nerd talk: (putting aside the ethics of the article), would that be a good or bad screw design compared to screws we currently have available?

    Manufacturing the screwdriver/bit would be super easy, one pass with a flat bottom cutter to remove each quarter from the end.

    The two remaining quarters of the bit being separated could maybe be more of a problem than if they were joined together.

    You would get the same contact area as a flathead screw, but with only half the material behind it. But the bit would set so much better than a flathead and would not slide around.

    I'm curious how something like this would compare to a hex or star screw. I would imagine a little bit worse, but the potentially easier manufacturing might make up for it.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago

    The surface that takes the pressure would be very similar to a flat screwdriver. Looks like it has no taper, so it would be harder to put in place but harder for it to skip when applying torque. It's not a good design, but not horrible.

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  • [–] -3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Flathead is superior save for torx in small head situations.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    only benefits of flathead screws are:

    1. ezpz to make if you have to make a custom screw

    2. when you strip a (better headed) screw, you can just cut a single channel and you’re ready to try again

    3. i guess maybe they’re cheaper? idk i really think it’s just the two things

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    It’ll take about 30 seconds for the aftermarket to have a screwdriver that will fit it.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    I mean that shape looks like it’ll turn into a $2 part on Amazon. It looks like it’s more for appearances than anything else

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    I don't know anyone who owns a BMW who would even consider working on their own car

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago
    [–] 6 points 10 months ago

    People who buy BMW’s aren’t doing their own repairs most of the time anyway because they suck at it.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    That looks like a striped screw nightmare waiting to happen

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  • it is innovation. corporations find innovative way to screw the customer and possibly extract rent from them

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Free markets breed innovation, not capitalism. Different things.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Is this not just a slotted one-way with a BMW logo?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (4 children)

    Which companies avowedly still support right to repair?

    I only want to buy from those.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    They do free software now? I thought their software was proprietary. Bad sign for right to repair hardware if not even having right to repair software. And their software facilitates many other proprietary softwares, is my understanding.

    I asked an LLM which computer companies do... and it gave some dodgy answers (admittedly caveated). For example, I know Lenovo are increasingly locking up their thinkpads, preventing right to repair. So take this list with a pinch of scrutiny:

    Here are some companies that sell computers with Linux pre-installed and actively support the right to repair:

    LaptopWithLinux

    Offers laptops with Linux pre-installed and emphasizes the Right to Repair, making replacement parts available for up to five years after release. Customers can also purchase their own RAM and SSD for easy assembly and customization. The warranty remains valid even if you open the laptop yourself laptopwithlinux.com.

    System76

    Known for its Linux-focused laptops and desktops, System76 designs its hardware to be easily repairable and upgradeable. They provide lifetime support and free shipping for repairs during the warranty period techradar.com.

    TUXEDO Computers

    Manufactures Linux laptops and desktops in Germany, offering a 5-year guarantee and lifetime support. Their hardware is designed for easy maintenance and upgrades itsfoss.com.

    Framework

    While not exclusively Linux-focused, Framework is renowned for its modular, user-repairable laptops. They offer Linux compatibility and support, and their design philosophy aligns strongly with the right to repair movement reddit.com.

    ThinkPenguin

    Specializes in computers pre-installed with fully free GNU/Linux distributions and is committed to software freedom and user control. Their products are designed to be repairable and upgradeable linuxpreloaded.com+1.

    Dell and Lenovo

    Both companies occasionally sell laptops and workstations with Ubuntu pre-installed, though their commitment to right to repair varies by model. Some lines, like Dell’s XPS Developer Edition, are popular among Linux users linuxpreloaded.com+1.

    Juno Computers

    Offers a simple lineup of computers shipped with Ubuntu, with branches in the US and UK linuxpreloaded.com.

    Purism (Librem)

    Focuses on privacy and freedom, offering laptops with Linux pre-installed and a strong emphasis on user control and repairability cyberciti.biz.

    Slimbook

    A Spanish vendor shipping notebooks with pre-installed Linux, known for supporting user freedom and repairability cyberciti.biz.

    These companies are recognized for their commitment to both Linux and the right to repair, making them strong choices for users who value openness, customization, and sustainability. Would you like more details on any specific brand or model?

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I was thinking about the steam deck which runs linux out of box, is designed repairable and even replacement parts are available.

    Ahh, and Lenovo has option to ship with fedora, not ubuntu, last I checked.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Oh. Well, that's better than I presumed.

    Steam itself's still proprietary though, right?

    ... Oh, yeah, and then some. Way short of the 4 freedoms of Free Software's philosophy. Steam's https://partner.steamgames.com/steamdirect & https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/ makes quite a contrasting read to Free Software licenses (e.g. WTFPL or GNU GPL 2).

    Reminds of when I compared Microsoft's various licenses and end user agreements to the GNU GPL version 1, when I was switching to GNU+Linux and Free Software over 20 years ago.

    A search for the word "change" in the Steam subscriber agreement reveals "deal with the devil" clauses, where they can change the agreement after you agree.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago

    Meh. Every car manufacturer has brand specific tools. A Ford mechanic has tools that a Toyota mechanic doesn't, and vice versa. This won't require some special $200 tool, it'll take a socket or screwdriver bit.

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