It’s a good idea to have these two lumped in a single book, seeing as individually they’re short by high fantasy standards. Still, this reduced size is probably what makes the story somewhat fall apart at the seams at times, as the author is trying to cover too much action, and too much ground, in too few words, and some similar names and characters that are presented far too briefly certainly don’t help.
On the other hand, this is more or less the only complaint I have, as otherwise pretty much all the right elements are there, presented coherently and in a way that makes sense. No complaints about the writing style either, and seeing certain scenes and actions that many others would perhaps focus too much on presented so matter-of-factly is, at this point, refreshing. In addition, at least so far, certain parallels that can be drawn between the story and “reality” seem to send a message that I can agree with. Whether I’ll say the same after the next book as well remains to be seen.
Rating: 4/5
If we are to ever develop in a sustainable manner, one clear prerequisite is to move away from growth, and from planned obsolescence, and towards products that are truly built to last. This will obviously benefit the environment as well as the tremendous majority of people. Of course, a small number, those who always want to have the newest and best things, replacing them as soon as something better comes along, will not be interested in this, but on the one hand that’s a behavior that should often be discouraged, and on the other even those people would stand to gain by having products guaranteed to continue functioning long after they won’t want them anymore, as they’d be able to obtain greater benefits for trading them.
Currently, in the European Union, all products from categories considered to have a typical usable lifespan of at least two years are required to have a warranty of no less than two years if purchased by individual customers, though that drops to a single year if purchased by companies. As a result, while manufacturers are still allowed to sell such products with a shorter warranty, if the product fails within that amount of time, the shop it was purchased from is required to repair it free of charge instead. However, while this is an improvement over the situation that exists in other parts of the world, the legislation is both flawed and far too weak compared to what should actually be done.
Firstly, I don’t see why companies should enjoy less benefits when it comes to product warranty compared to individual customers, especially since, with few exceptions, companies are less likely than individuals to even want to replace such products after less than two years. And secondly, two years is far too little, seeing as the vast majority of these products could easily be built to last at least several years, and even decades when it comes to items such as furniture or building elements, if the manufacturers would want to do so instead of trying to force consumers to replace their products as quickly as possible, which obviously results in waste and an unsustainable economy from the point of view of resource consumption, not to mention a lower standard of living as a result of needing to keep purchasing replacements instead of enhancements.
As such, I first propose a gradual, though rapid, increase in the minimum warranty for most such products, starting with any and all electronics and all other products that perform similar functions. This process could start with an increase to three years on January 1, 2015, then four years on January 1, 2017, and eventually five years on January 1, 2019. On the other hand, the minimum warranty for furniture, household items such as carpets, as well as for building elements such as windows, should be set to five years on January 1, 2015, and then increase by one year every year, reaching ten years on January 1, 2020. Though impossible in practical terms, this change should ideally apply worldwide, so all manufacturers would be required to offer this warranty, without shops being forced to take on the burden for products manufactured outside the area where such a law would be in effect.
My second proposal has to do with the availability of extended warranty. If the customer so desires, they should be able extend the warranty period for their purchased products by purchasing extended warranty services. The maximum number of years that may be added in such a manner should be no less than the base warranty of the product, and the cost shouldn’t exceed 50% of the price of the product if the maximum number of years are purchased. The cost per year should obviously start very low and increase proportionally with the number of additional years that are desired, to reflect the fact that the risk of malfunctions increases with time, not being calculated to spike shortly after the base warranty period expires, as it often happens now due to planned obsolescence.
Last but definitely not least, I wish to see clearly specified rules when it comes to handling products that fail under warranty, starting from limiting the amount of time the customer may be left waiting for the repaired product to no more than 15 working days, the manufacturer being required to offer the option of an immediate refund or replacement if repairs require more time. In addition, products repaired under warranty should be thoroughly verified and any other potential defects must be fixed before they are returned, so if such a product fails again, for any reason that can’t be clearly proven to be the user’s fault, twice within 90 days, three times within 365 days or five times during the entire warranty period, not counting the amount of time the product wasn’t in the customer’s possession, the manufacturer will be required to let the customer choose between a full refund and having the product replaced with a new one. Replacements should obviously be of an identical model if at all possible, and if that’s no longer possible then they should be clear upgrades, without requiring the customer to make do without any of the old product’s functionality.
Obviously, these are mere initial proposals, the minimum warranty potentially increasing even further after 2020. I see no reason why most electronics and similar products couldn’t be built to last ten years, and certainly see a clear need for furniture and other household items such as carpets to last decades without issues, and for building elements to last a lifetime, if not more.
Of course, all of this would also imply a certain amount of care and maintenance from the user, but currently the problem starts with the manufacturers and is firmly entrenched in the way society works, so that’s what needs to be changed first. There was a time when, in many parts of the world, things could be built to last, and advances in technology should make them last even longer, not less, so why shouldn’t we use laws to get this back on the right track?
As anyone interested should know by now, the Japanese whalers announced their worst result since the start of their annual “scientific” campaign, namely that they only managed to kill 103 minke whales out of their self-allocated quota of 935 minke, 50 fin and 50 humpback whales. Obviously, they blamed Sea Shepherd for this, which is one more reason for the rest of us to thank them for a job well done despite the difficulties they faced after the whalers finally managed, after many years of trying, to find some judges sympathetic to their cause, or perhaps to their bribes, in Costa Rica, Germany and the United States.
Still, as Sea Shepherd’s official statement says, one whale killed is one whale killed too many, so 103 is definitely 103 too many. Worse, 103 is even higher than their initial worst-case estimate of 100, which was later revised down by Paul Watson, to 75. Yet it is under 10% of the total quota and clearly their best result so far, the previous record being 17%, which once again proves that they’re far more effective than any negotiations, Japan having previously agreed to halve their quota if other countries would prevent Sea Shepherd from interfering. Even better, this success comes during the campaign that required the most funds and effort on Japan’s part, which should generate some encouraging reactions from the Japanese public.
Of course, the war is probably far from over and Sea Shepherd’s situation is worrying, seeing as Sea Shepherd USA is now legally forbidden from participating in the next campaign in any way and Paul Watson is a wanted man who’ll need to stay in hiding and away from any official position in the organization. The first issue will cause serious problems when it comes to funding, since the vast majority of donations were obtained by Sea Shepherd USA, so please donate to Sea Shepherd Australia if you are willing and able to do so. The second will create leadership and public image problems, not to mention the fact that, also taking his age into account, Watson’s health may seriously be at risk as a result. Still, with their hard work and our firm support, we can definitely win this, even if it’ll take a few more years!
I’ll continue the series of short posts, which seem to become the rule lately, because I have some catching up to do and more events seem to be happening even now. Besides, if I’m to write any significant amount today, my story is waiting for me, seeing as I keep failing to achieve even my own pitiful goals when it comes to that and last night was one of the worst ever since I started writing in it in terms of what I managed to add. And then there’s this week’s second post to think about and somehow try to get myself in the mood to write over the weekend.
After recovering enough from the cold to do so, I attended yesterday’s protest and can say that, from the point of view of making the cause visible and showing our support for it, everything turned out quite fine. Of course, having pretty much every faction and every known figure that had any sort of visibility during last year’s protests attend, there were bound to be conflicts despite the common cause that brought them all there, but it was managed reasonably well and the only moment that was actually heated was when Remus Cernea, who decided to attend despite obviously being unwanted, was challenged by Alex and offered a chance to explain himself. As expected, he failed to do that and only earned himself some 15 minutes of openly hostile shouts and chants.
The unpleasant surprise was waiting for me when I got back, when I noticed that I had been banned from our Green Party’s Facebook page as well, most probably because of the last message I had posted there, in which I was saying that I personally expect Green Party members to attend, with the exception of Cernea, though I also stated that I might be able to just curse him out mentally if he will decide to attend after all. But I learned that our Greens used yesterday as a chance to suspend or even kick out some members that stayed close to the activists all along instead of fully backing this dreadful alliance Remus arranged with USL, so there are worse problems there…
Otherwise, two days ago I made a mistake that will haunt me for quite some time to come, because my mind was extremely scattered all day and I somehow “managed” to completely forget to do the click to donate thing on Care2. I must have opened the site, then either closed it accidentally and then noticed that the tab was no longer open and just assumed that I had done everything already, or closed the browser for some reason and forgot to open all the tabs again afterwards. The problem with that is that they now track the number of consecutive days you click and give some more credits when you hit certain thresholds, plus that I was getting a few more each day from people sending green stars to all those who show up in the daily clickers list, so by missing that one day I lost all that and from now on it’ll take that much longer to earn enough to pick what other little donation I want to make.
Over here, clocks were set forward one hour last night, which of course made me think of this again. Seriously, even if it might have had some purpose at some point in time, there’s currently little excuse for setting the clocks forward and back like this, but the negative consequences of doing so remain. In fact, considering how connected our society currently is, how much people travel these days, the role computers and other “smart” devices play in our lives, such negative consequences probably increase in significance every year, and will continue to do so for as long as we’ll manage to continue on the path of development.
The original purpose was reducing the amount of electricity used for lighting, wasn’t it? Well, today we have technologies that can achieve that goal much more efficiently, and other technologies that can generate electricity sustainably, so how about we leave behind such outdated concepts and get to work on what is actually effective? After all, daylight saving time is now little more than a cultural relic… Oddly, a cultural relic that is mainly observed in the Western world, which tends to take pride in being modern and at the forefront of development.
Still, before I end this, I want to point out that I’m quite aware that daylight saving time is also some sort of modern attempt of adjusting people’s schedules according to natural cycles, but the approach is wrong and the effects negligible overall. I’d be completely in favor of altering schedules according to the time of year, the weather and Nature in general, but such alterations should be much more significant and responsive to changing conditions, and they should actually take the form of changes in the “standard” schedules, not of claiming to control time. This last part may appear to be a small detail to some, but to me it’s one more proof of mankind’s arrogance.
