Apple's LCD Pixel Policy: Part 2 [Archive]

fluffy

Aug 17, 2003, 12:39 AM

Of course, the policy only applies to monitors still in the warranty.

I know that is obvious and all, but one week after the warranty on my 17" Studio Display expired, it developed a vertical green stripe of pixels on the right-hand side of the screen (obviously just a couple of connections going bad or shorting out or something). And since the warranty had expired a week previously (they refuse to give case-by-case warranty extensions, since that's what AppleCare is for), Apple refused to do anything about it except to offer to repair it for $450.

The funny thing is that I've totally gotten used to it being there, and it almost never bugs me. Actually, sometimes I use it as a vertical guideline. :D

Trimix

Aug 17, 2003, 01:37 AM

From what I can see, Apple's LCD monitors are among the most expensive I can buy here in Europe.
I have learnt that prices are so high for this stuff because there are so many monitors which after testing go straight back into recycling -

Anyway, when I will go out and take the 23'' home and it is not right there will not be any consideration - they will give me new one or they will not see my bizz again.

My LCD TV developed a one-pixel phenomenon, and Philips offered me an exchange immediately - if Apple would not act in a similar fashion, then that would severely disturb our otherwise splendid relationship.

gooddog

Aug 17, 2003, 02:24 AM

I will certainly sound off and thank Apple for this !

I posted at apple.com several times , on how I rubbed my flat-panel iMac's blue shiner away.

I can imagine the disappointment of someone who puts thousands into a 23" HD only to find that they are supposed to do photoshop work with a bright dot in the nostril of some gorgeous face : I had this with Lauren B. when I played Casablanca in my superdrive.

But with the bigger displays, a plastic screen protects the LCD and one cannot rub away these flaws -- opening it up would kill the warranty . So I would be between a rock and a hard place.

I would never risk that much $ on a policy that isn't completely satisfactory.

I suggested a kind of insurance plan with "slightly defective" LCD's going , at a discount, for institutional ( or private for that matter) end users who are not as picky as they would be with a personal display at home.

I'd be willing to pay an extra $100 if someone will buy it for $100 less , who does not mind the flaws.

THANK YOU AGAIN APPLE .

---gooddog

SiliconAddict

Aug 17, 2003, 02:56 AM

I'm wondering if this "amendment" has anything to do with people walking into the apple store and bitching about their devices. I’m also wondering how widespread dead pixels are in LCD’s. What’s the ration of perfect to near perfect displays? Hmm.

Someone mentioned in the other thread that this isn't limited to just Apple. Honestly that doesn't matter. In the mind of the person who purchased the device the only thing that matters is that they spent X on a new system and it isn't perfect. I can understand Apple doing all they can to keep their customers with what? 2.5% market share. They need to have people happy with their Mac experience and having people come back and complain about a dead pixel and having Apple reps say sorry your SOL would leave a bad taste in just about anyone’s mouth. Esp someone who may have just switched.

That leads to another question. Does anyone think switchers might get preferential treatment in a situation like this? :confused:

Seamaster

Aug 17, 2003, 03:08 AM

It was a battle, but I succeeded in getting the display in my brand new 17" iMac replaced because of one stuck pixel.

However, this was only after a lot of back-and-forth with Apple UK, and a trip with the iMac to my local Apple Repair Centre demanded by Apple for "evaluation". The repair guy said that strictly speaking it shouldn't be replaced, but they wouldn't turn the work down.

Seamaster

richie

Aug 17, 2003, 03:11 AM

The thing is, Apple contracts themselves to buy LCDs from their manufacturers at certain levels of failure. This is so that the costs aren't ridiculously high. Even a high-end plant will have a failure rate, and have to take this into cost consideration.

Say Apple agrees to buy all LCDs with 0 malfunctioning pixels (say, for example, 40% of output), 1-4(20%), and 5-8(20%). But the manufacturer also produces, simply through the complex construction process, displays with >8 pixels malfunctioning (20%). If Apple insists on no more than 4 bad pixels, say, that means a *double* in waste for the factory, in my example, reflected in massively increased cost to Apple, and subsequently to us.

In other words, the relatively high cost of producing LCDs means that faulty ones (just like are produced in CPU construction, etc) are more expensive to offset, and until we can increase the reliability of production, this doesn't change unless we're willing to pay more.

Rshea

Aug 17, 2003, 03:41 AM

To me one dead pixel needs to be fixed period, no questions and no excuses. I will buy CRT over LCD any day of the week untill I have 100% fix and 100% Customer satisfaction...

Snowy_River

Aug 17, 2003, 04:01 AM

Originally posted by Rshea
To me one dead pixel needs to be fixed period, no questions and no excuses. I will buy CRT over LCD any day of the week untill I have 100% fix and 100% Customer satisfaction...

Even CRTs can have problems that aren't covered under warranty. I had one that had a slight trapazoid effect going that couldn't be adjusted out. When I called the manufacturer about it, they told me that it was within their tolerances. (I did in fact measure the degree of the effect so I could talk to the tech.) Luckily, I had purchased the monitor from a store that had a 30 day no questions asked return policy. So, I was able to replace it, and the next one was better.

Now, you might say 'What's the big deal about that?' Well, when you're doing CAD work, and you need to be able to see that a line is straight and parallel to another, a slight distortion is far worse than a pixel or two being stuck.

My point is, there's no such thing as a perfect piece of technology. It's all about statistics, and acceptible tolerance levels.

SiliconAddict

Aug 17, 2003, 04:05 AM

Originally posted by richie
this doesn't change unless we're willing to pay more.

Therein is the question of the week. How much for a perfect screen everytime. $100? $500? $1000? $5000? I’d be more then willing to ante up a few extra hundred if it guaranteed that I’d get a perfect screen or that if it isn’t perfect Apple would replace or repair no questions asked.

vwcruisn

Aug 17, 2003, 04:24 AM

I just bought a new 17 inch powerbook for 3200 bux. it has 1 stuck pixel and one dead one.... do i have a chance at getting this thing replaced? is it even worth my time? if so.. what is the first step i should take? ive never had to deal with apple before...

Snowy_River

Aug 17, 2003, 05:32 AM

Rshea

Aug 17, 2003, 06:50 AM

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Even CRTs can have problems that aren't covered under warranty. I had one that had a slight trapazoid effect going that couldn't be adjusted out. When I called the manufacturer about it, they told me that it was within their tolerances. (I did in fact measure the degree of the effect so I could talk to the tech.) Luckily, I had purchased the monitor from a store that had a 30 day no questions asked return policy. So, I was able to replace it, and the next one was better.

Now, you might say 'What's the big deal about that?' Well, when you're doing CAD work, and you need to be able to see that a line is straight and parallel to another, a slight distortion is far worse than a pixel or two being stuck.

My point is, there's no such thing as a perfect piece of technology. It's all about statistics, and acceptible tolerance levels.

My iMac and eMac is adjustable on that and iMac was repaired on that issue because the analog board went almost right away. eMac is in solid health there. ...

visor

Aug 17, 2003, 06:54 AM

Originally posted by BaghdadBob
Oh yeah, overwhelmingly negative for the last article, but does anyone care about this one? Nooooooo....

Well, I'd consider this a very normal announcement. much contray to the very bad previous one.
There's not much reason to comment on something like this...

bikertwin

Aug 17, 2003, 07:12 AM

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Therein is the question of the week. How much for a perfect screen everytime. $100? $500? $1000? $5000? I’d be more then willing to ante up a few extra hundred if it guaranteed that I’d get a perfect screen or that if it isn’t perfect Apple would replace or repair no questions asked.

That brings up the question that I've had for a while: What about refurbished monitors? Does Apple sell refurbished at a lower price because they're returns and have more than their fair share of dead/on pixels?

I normally have no problem buying refurbished stuff to save a few hundred bucks, but LCD monitors always seemed iffy.

Anyone have any experience with this?

LethalWolfe

Aug 17, 2003, 07:30 AM

Originally posted by gooddog
I can imagine the disappointment of someone who puts thousands into a 23" HD only to find that they are supposed to do photoshop work with a bright dot in the nostril of some gorgeous face : I had this with Lauren B. when I played Casablanca in my superdrive.

Well, if you do a lot of work in Photoshop and you purchased and LCD monitor having a dead pixel isn't your only problem. ;)

Lethal

mechamac

Aug 17, 2003, 08:47 AM

Does anyone have more specific info about this policy shift? How new does a "new" computer have to be? I bought an otherwise perfect 17" iMac in February that has 2 (count em!) stuck pixels. I'd love to call Apple about this, but I'd like to have better ammo than "a rumor site said your policy changed" to get me past the first few Apple operators.

(of course, macrumors.com is a fantastic rumor site, but I don't think that'll help with Apple)

ZeppelinArmada

Aug 17, 2003, 09:43 AM

Maybe they should have been more clear on the packaging with their earlier policy.

Now sharper images than ever in amazing 1280x1024 +/- 25 resolution.

sanford

Aug 17, 2003, 09:52 AM

Maybe somebody could explain this to me, but I have a few pixel anomalies on my TiBook and on a 17" Studio Display that only show up when using Pixel Check, and really only when I use the black or "all pixels on" option. They are uniformly a pale blue and look like sub-pixels, if you will. I say that because we also have a 15" Studio Display from the Cube era and it has one stuck on red pixel that is noticeable under a lot of normal use conditions and is quite a bit larger than these little faint blue sub-pixel anomalies that I see with Pixel Check on the other displays.

I don't have any intention of returning either the TiBook or the 17" for service because you just can't see the anomalies under any kind of normal use conditions, but I'm wondering what they are since they don't seem to be the glaring, large stuck on/off pixels that tend to bother people.

babydoc

Aug 17, 2003, 12:06 PM

Originally posted by bikertwin
That brings up the question that I've had for a while: What about refurbished monitors? Does Apple sell refurbished at a lower price because they're returns and have more than their fair share of dead/on pixels?

I normally have no problem buying refurbished stuff to save a few hundred bucks, but LCD monitors always seemed iffy.

Anyone have any experience with this?

Yes they do sell refurb monitors. Go to the Special Deals section of the Apple Store page and see what they are offering right now. There aren't any monitors today 8/17/03, but I have seen them there on several occasions.

Here is the link...

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/70507/wo/IrQyK9oKzeJw304HU8x1SfiD5LQ/0.0.7.1.0.5.13.0.6.0.0.0.0.3.1.1.0?43,55

bd

fluffy

Aug 17, 2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by sanford
Maybe somebody could explain this to me, but I have a few pixel anomalies on my TiBook and on a 17" Studio Display that only show up when using Pixel Check, and really only when I use the black or "all pixels on" option. They are uniformly a pale blue and look like sub-pixels, if you will. I say that because we also have a 15" Studio Display from the Cube era and it has one stuck on red pixel that is noticeable under a lot of normal use conditions and is quite a bit larger than these little faint blue sub-pixel anomalies that I see with Pixel Check on the other displays.

It could be that the blue subpixels are in parts of the screen where you usually have blue on to begin with. Also, the human eye isn't as sensitive to blue as to red or green; according to one opthamologist I used to know, only 1% of the cones in the eye are sensitive to blue, and most of what we perceive as blue is filled in from those. So unless you're directly looking at the lit blue subpixels and they have a high degree of contrast to the surrounding area, then you're not likely to notice them.

SiliconAddict

Aug 17, 2003, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Wow. There's a switch. Someone asking for Apple computers to cost more!

Sorry. I was just thinking that maybe a guarantee on the quality of the screen would be worth the price. I know if I ended up spending over 3 grand on a powerbook that another few hundred to insure that the screen was flawless would be worth the additional costs. Maybe bundle it in with an apple care package. Call it AppleCare+ or something.

gooddog

Aug 17, 2003, 05:45 PM

With all the places that exist to unload a slightly defective LCD , there should be no need for asnyone to insist that private-use consumers eat one and keep quiet about it.

Schools, colleges, universities, security agencies, etc. all could tolerate a few bad pixels. I am not nearly as picky about computers I use at the school where I teach as I am about the unit that sits on my desk top at home.

Most people I ask feel the same way.

Rather than hassle with replacement/recycle/ etc. and all the administrative overhead for complaint resolution, AND the BAD "word-of-mouth" and lost sales that result from these; Apple could manage a PIXEL-INSURANCE program that charges a little extra for the policy and discounts a similar amount from the institutional buyers who prefer $avings over absolute perfection.

This would turn a multi-LOSE situation into a double-WIN one : lower prices for schools etc. AND happy praise from unafraid private-use buyers.

Also, I seriously doubt that it is impossible to set up a PIXEL REPAIR facility to return the duds to stellar specs.

I know machinery exists that tests chips, finds bad elements, and replaces them - automatically. I saw one in action when I interviwed for a job in Fremont, CA.

If I can fix stuck-on sub-pixels with a lens brush, I just bet that Apple et al can do a heck of a lot more.

The poster who got a 17" panel replaced for one bad pixel --- I could have saved Apple hundreds of dollars on that one alone. What else is possible ? I don't know, but it's worth the effort.

Blue-lit nostrils are NOT OK .

---gooddog

fluffy

Aug 17, 2003, 05:54 PM

Originally posted by gooddog
Also, I seriously doubt that it is impossible to set up a PIXEL REPAIR facility to return the duds to stellar specs.

I know machinery exists that tests chips, finds bad elements, and replaces them - automatically. I saw one in action when I interviwed for a job in Fremont, CA.

Do you have any link to back this up? I'm highly skeptical.

Replacing transistors on a logic board is easy. Replacing transistors on a TFT (or in an IC) is so far away from being cost-effective that it's impractical. Many pixel defects can be fixed by "massaging" the screen, to make an intermittent contact or short get better (at the risk of possibly damaging other contacts), but it's beyond impractical to try to repair the circuitry of an LCD monitor directly. You can't just take a soldering iron to the screen and make new electrical connections.

Also, many pixel defects on LCDs are simply a side-effect of how TFTs are manufactured to begin with. A little speck of dust getting into the manufacturing plant can foul up the entire screen.

That said, I agree that discounts on the defective screens (keeping the price on good screens lower) is better than just discarding defective screens (keeping the price higher), and I've wondered for years why manufacturers *don't* give a graded price scale based on LCD quality like what CPU manufacturers do.

bikertwin

Aug 17, 2003, 07:14 PM

Originally posted by babydoc
Yes they do sell refurb monitors.

bd

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. The question is: Are refurbished monitors held up to the same standard, or is the deal that since you're saving a few hundred bucks that there might be more dead pixels than a spanking new LCD panel?

Has anyone bought a refurbished monitor--from Apple or anyone else? Were there no dead pixels? Did they blow you off if you complained about bad pixels? Did they say "refurbished != new", you get what you pay for?

SubGothius

Aug 18, 2003, 05:10 AM

Originally posted by fluffy
...Also, the human eye isn't as sensitive to blue as to red or green; according to one opthamologist I used to know, only 1% of the cones in the eye are sensitive to blue, and most of what we perceive as blue is filled in from those. So unless you're directly looking at the lit blue subpixels and they have a high degree of contrast to the surrounding area, then you're not likely to notice them. I'd heard that the human retina has NO "blue cones", just red and green ones; indeed, blue wavelengths supposedly don't even focus at the retina at all (hence the claim that "blue blocker" sunglasses purportedly produce sharper vision, tho' I hear that blocking the blue light can introduce other perceptual problems).

How do we perceive blue, then? Simple -- the rods react to overall intensity of light, whereas the red and green cones react to intensity of light in their respective hues. The brain subtracts the sum of red and green cones' intensity from the rods' overall intensity, and the difference (light intensity unaccounted for as being red or green) is perceived as blue.

This is why color-blind folx tend to perceive their deficient color (due to insufficient or absent red or green cones in their retinas) as being some shade of blue. A former manager of mine where I used to work in Web development was color blind, and we often solicited his perceptual opinion in design issues where we suspected color blindness could account for a user-reported anomaly that we couldn't see; he always "saw" a lot more blue in things than we did, which could cause weird effects (to him) such as text blending into a background.Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Therein is the question of the week. How much for a perfect screen everytime. $100? $500? $1000? $5000? I’d be more then willing to ante up a few extra hundred if it guaranteed that I’d get a perfect screen or that if it isn’t perfect Apple would replace or repair no questions asked. It's called AppleCare, and costs about what you're willing to ante up for that extended guarantee (warranty, actually :-).

gooddog

Aug 18, 2003, 05:19 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by fluffy
[B]Do you have any link to back this up? I'm highly skeptical.

*******************

Maybe someone out there knows what it was. I didn't raise an eyebrow because I knew nothing of the industry. I did get that some of the work was military and the chips very expensive. Maybe this speaks to the cost-effectiveness of it.
I remember that Microsoft had just started a huge ad campaign about "windows" near that time. An Apple rip-off, to me.

No link, sorry. It was a silicon valley job interview at a place where you have your face and card and palm biometrics scanned to get in. I went in as a guest of the gentleman I interviewed with -- very spooky security, for a recent M.S. Physics graduate. The building had no signs outside, but it was near a hospital. The device was about the size of a wine barrel ( I don't drink ) with a circular table that had a 6" diameter stage in the center. This is where the defective IC chip went. Above it was a CRT/microscope like set-up and some very solid looking arm-like extensions that seemed like micro probes and such.
I asked if they were controlled with piezo-electric actuators and he said "that's right" and seemed pleased that I had guessed. The stage had a moat-like opening surrounding it -- part of an anti-vibration system. I think there was a gasket around the perimeter of the entire top. I assumed it was to keep a clean, non-reactive environment, but I saw no glass bell. I was totally out of my element with a theoretical physics degree in quantum physics and zero IT or engineering experience. I didn't get hired - thank goodness :) --- I really didn't want to, except that I needed to mitigate loss of income for a suit I eventually won against a college. I had to interview at any possible opportunity.

I did ask if he went into the various layers of the chip, and he said sometimes. The probes included electrical contacts, laser, suction, optics, and drilling. It all looked extremely well machined and solid if a bit small.

That's about all I know --- this was back in 1988 and I was referred by a fellow prof at the college where I was part-timing evenings.

LCD's were not a part of this. And it was a research operation so I can't say he was running an industrial repair facility.

That's my story and I am sticking with it. ----- sorry though, no aliens or saucers etc. (I don't smoke either).

---gooddog

fluffy

Aug 18, 2003, 10:01 AM

Ah. It sounds like it was an experimental device, then, and not something which would scale up to the physical size needed for modern ICs, much less TFT displays (which are basically a gigantic IC in many respects). Not to mention that modern ICs have *much* smaller gates. :)

Taylex

Aug 18, 2003, 03:39 PM

I bought my cinema display about 1.5 years ago and it has about three stuck areas a little smaller than a dime. How mite i get apple to fix/ replace it

Thanks

fluffy

Aug 18, 2003, 03:42 PM

Originally posted by Taylex
I bought my cinema display about 1.5 years ago and it has about three stuck areas a little smaller than a dime. How mite i get apple to fix/ replace it

You pay them $900 for an expensive repair (which is basically just an innard swap), which is enough to just buy a new monitor anyway.

Unless you got AppleCare, anyway. But if you didn't, you're SOL.

gooddog

Aug 18, 2003, 11:51 PM

Originally posted by fluffy
Ah. It sounds like it was an experimental device, then, and not something which would scale up to the physical size needed for modern ICs, much less TFT displays (which are basically a gigantic IC in many respects). Not to mention that modern ICs have *much* smaller gates. :)

*********************

Well, he was having success at the time.

It's been over a decade.

It only took a few minutes ( under 30 ) for the average repair.

If they can manipulate individual atoms and spell words with them, I don't think a sub-pixel that I can image with the loupe in my Swiss army knife should be such a challenge... punch out the pixel as a cylinder, from behind the glass face. Pop a pre-fab micro cookie pixel in its place, a little laser work, a little epoxy or acrylic, and you have replaced a whole pixel... in the center of an Apple HD 23" display.

Not a bad deal.

I can even imagine LCD's manufactured by popping pre-fab pixels, as little cylinders, that are "pushed" into the holes of a black mask similar to that used in CRT's. The necessary contacts already etched onto the vertical walls of the cylinders to mate with their correlatives along the walls of the holes of the mask. The lit pixels would bloom against the glass face and obliterate the black mask. Dark pixels would not and the mask would yield a very high quality "black" for dark scenes.
Repair would consist of "pushing" a bad pixel plug through and out with a good pixel plug.

Of course one would not want to do a display with half the screen gone bad.

I don't think LCD's are nearly as complex as a modern IC.

The circuitry of each pixel ass'y is identical to all others and very simple in its topology.

And the transistors are not as small.

The repair is virtually identical for each case.

The geometry too.

This cries out for pre-fabricated pixel plugs

... and automation.

When you figure $2,300 for a display trashed vs. some five minutes to repair -- sounds like a good deal to me.

But this is all academic, I expect OLEDS will take care of the problem in economic terms: a roll of FOLED can be tested, on the fly, and CUT where the flaws are. This will certainly work statistically for far fewer trashed screens. The current method loses an entire piece of mother glass due to a flaw. The roll-edit way, you get a smaller screen (say, 15" instead of 17") coming out the other end to be grouped with its like, followed by several perfect 17" screens. The rectangular 2" ribbon edit could be further trimmed for use in cell phones, etc. In the end, only a tiny square with a bad pixel at it's center would remain.

Fun, huh ?

---gooddog

*****************************

fluffy

Aug 19, 2003, 12:56 AM

Hm, that's an interesting idea. But considering the way that the transistors are deposited onto the glass screen to begin with (IIRC it is a very tightly-controlled vapor depositing process), it still might be unfeasible to actually repair the circuit itself, though.

Maybe a very careful mask which deposits a new circuit onto new glass or something... like, remove the glass layer, cut out a circle around the bad transistors, put a new glass circle in, heat it up (to join the glass together), polish off the transistor layer where the heat was, then do the vapor depositing within the repaired area.

That's still probably too sci-fi to be worth even researching, though, especially (as you said) with OLEDs coming around now.

I envision OLEDs taking over the low-end display market with high-end TFTs for pro end, with CRTs for the few holdouts who still insist that LCDs can't reproduce color as well as CRTs (because they haven't looked at a properly-calibrated modern LCD).

gooddog

Aug 20, 2003, 03:19 AM

Originally posted by fluffy
Hm, that's an interesting idea. But considering the way that the transistors are deposited onto the glass screen to begin with (IIRC it is a very tightly-controlled vapor depositing process), it still might be unfeasible to actually repair the circuit itself, though.

Maybe a very careful mask which deposits a new circuit onto new glass or something... like, remove the glass layer, cut out a circle around the bad transistors, put a new glass circle in, heat it up (to join the glass together), polish off the transistor layer where the heat was, then do the vapor depositing within the repaired area.

That's still probably too sci-fi to be worth even researching, though, especially (as you said) with OLEDs coming around now.

I envision OLEDs taking over the low-end display market with high-end TFTs for pro end, with CRTs for the few holdouts who still insist that LCDs can't reproduce color as well as CRTs (because they haven't looked at a properly-calibrated modern LCD).

****************

Sure, those details may be a challenge. But we do more amazing stuff all the time. The glass deposition would need to be replaced by black mask & plugs : I don't see any obstacle to layering a RBG pixel ass'y with contacts along the plug's vertical wall. Positioning and laser welding or other energy-transfer bonding would be no big deal.

Doesn't it sound like something they would have tried already, though ?

But , you never know :)

---

I just got my LG VX600 picture phone with Verizon and it has a crude OLED for the external display. For a tiny layer of self-luminescent ink, it is incredibly brilliant and colorful ! Can't wait for full , active displays. The phone rocks all around !

---gooddog

PS, there is a SOBIG worm spoofing our Mac email addresses as senders. The email then returns to the mac (who never really sent it anyway ) as returned unsent , by the server, due to "irrepairable virus" in OS X and with SOBIG mentioned in the case of OS 9. It scared the pants off me, but www.symantec.com (search sobig) made me breathe again. In four years with 3 macs, it is the first time I even got close to a virus :)

---gooddog

fluffy

Aug 20, 2003, 07:36 AM

Originally posted by gooddog
PS, there is a SOBIG worm spoofing our Mac email addresses as senders. The email then returns to the mac (who never really sent it anyway ) as returned unsent , by the server, due to "irrepairable virus" in OS X and with SOBIG mentioned in the case of OS 9. It scared the pants off me, but www.symantec.com (search sobig) made me breathe again. In four years with 3 macs, it is the first time I even got close to a virus :)

---gooddog

Yeah, automated email virus warnings are worse than useless, because most email viruses spoof the sender anyway, so even when they go to Windows users they usually don't go to the people who need to know about them. It just adds to the blind panic, people going "Oh my God! I have an email virus and I don't know how to get rid of it!"

So this is the sort of message I've been sending to administrators of email systems with automatic virus warnings:

Hi, um, considering that most of these email worms, including w32/Sobig, just spoof the sender of the message, don't you think it's a bad idea to send out indiscriminate "the message you sent had a virus" messages? All it ends up doing is causes a lot of blind panic (telling people they have a virus they don't, similar to a doctor telling a patient "You have only 24 hours to live") without actually getting the message to the infected people.

Hopefully that'll work better than my previous attempts, namely explaining that there's no way I could have the virus (running Linux and MacOS, but not even having an email program on my one Windows computer which almost never even touches the Internet at all) and pointing out that the sender is spoofed, and then getting responses from clueless admins along the lines of, "Well, you could STILL have it ANYWAY so take this as a WARNING that you might get it!" or whatever.

bedlam

Aug 24, 2003, 02:44 AM

Originally posted by gooddog
[B]****************

Sure, those details may be a challenge. But we do more amazing stuff all the time. The glass deposition would need to be replaced by black mask & plugs : I don't see any obstacle to layering a RBG pixel ass'y with contacts along the plug's vertical wall. Positioning and laser welding or other energy-transfer bonding would be no big deal.

Wow. Neat idea, but I think the issue is not what could be done, but what it's cost-effective to do. You're suggesting setting up an entire manufacturing facility (or portion of one) where manual repairs are done to individual items. I've never been inside an lcd manufacturing facility, but I'd be very surprised if they are not made on a completely automated line at a rate of (at least!) dozens per hour. If I'm right about that, it'd be impossible to set up a repair depot: the defect rate can't be high enough to support the r&d and implementation. It's a problem with high-tech manufacturing that distresses me: it's hardly ever worthwhile to repair stuff like this; a lot of times that means more landfill-bound, almost perfect stuff...

B

gooddog

Aug 26, 2003, 03:17 AM

Well, it's only impossible if we make LCD's to be non-repairable. With my method, a robot could easily spot and position actuators over any defective pixel then replace it. The whole idea behind this system is to MAKE it repairable.

As long as we buy crappy confetti screens, they won't give us anything better. I am now buying a $24 window crank handle for my Civic, because they didn't make it so that the knob could be replaced separately. This is a ripoff, not a necessity.

I am no expert in these processes, but I suspect itcould have been done.

But, again -- OLED's will leapfrog over the problem.

Those pixels, being far thinner, might possibly be punched out and a replacement bonded in place -- they are 50,000 thinner than a human hair.

And trimming roll batches would be even easier.

---gooddog