Yesterday, one of the younger electricians was telling me about the beauty of the new alarm systems he installs.
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@elston_ if the cell towers go down, there's the ethernet module that will still send me an email and notifications using ntfy, thanks to a custom python script I've created years ago
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Yesterday, one of the younger electricians was telling me about the beauty of the new alarm systems he installs. While acknowledging the quality of my current one, he said, "It uses a SIM card and calls you. The new ones are 4G or Wi-Fi and use the cloud, so notifications go straight to your smartphone, it's not calling anymore."
I asked him, "And what if the cloud stops working? Why should I have to depend on the company’s cloud to receive alerts from my alarm? My alarm is 10 years old and works perfectly. Can you say with certainty that the company’s cloud will still be effective 10 years from now?"
He looked puzzled for a moment, then admitted he had never thought about it.
The real problem is that people do not realize what this means until things actually happen.
@stefano We're having a new kitchen, to replace one that's around 40 years old. The salesman was trying to sell us all sorts of gizmos. Our response to most was:
* Will the server still be working in 40 years time when this new kitchen wears out?
And even for things that didn't need servers
* Isn't that just another complicated gadget to break down? - will the spare parts still be available in 40 years time?
