While I agree with your moral theory in practice I think it's a bit lackluster. I'd say a bit of your $ went to cover replacement laptops, a bit went to the parts, a bit went to R&D and quite a bit went to profit. I've never seen a company lower prices because their replacement costs went down.
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Ohh God, the HORROR! New MacBook Pro drowning!!!
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While I agree with your moral theory in practice I think it's a bit lackluster. I'd say a bit of your $ went to cover replacement laptops, a bit went to the parts, a bit went to R&D and quite a bit went to profit. I've never seen a company lower prices because their replacement costs went down.
This is a stupid argument. MacBooks cost thousands of dollars because they are complex pieces of precision machinery, not because a few people can't afford repairs to six month old laptops. If anything, the constant stories that are posted on MR about iPhone repairs being rejected due to the moisture indicators going off when they haven't been wet is proof that Apple is constantly looking for ways to screw the consumer out of as much money as possible. Apple is not some philanthropic organizationthey're a publicly traded company whose only responsibility is to its shareholders.
While I agree with you, and I know other people's money shouldn't be spent towards you just to fix an accident, sometimes you have no other choice. I don't agree with apple having to pay for a customer mistake, but if someone's career depends on that person having their laptop, then it might be necessary just once. I'm not an immoral person, I just believe that sometimes there is no other choice except to be immoral.
to OP: If you can possibly afford fixing it, then pay for them to fix it. If you can't, and you have no other options, then you might want to consider what I previously said.
So you're saying that apple tries to screw their customers as much as possible? What are they supposed to do if the moisture indicator goes off, but the person denies anything happening to it? Are they supposed to believe the customer? Moisture indicators don't lie, but people often do. Apple's not trying to screw the customer, they're trying to prevent the customer from screwing them. And yes, I know what I'm saying is hypocritical seeing as I previously encouraged the OP to basically screw apple.
People lie, but so do moisture indicators. There are plenty of stories of them being triggered by being in very humid locations for extended periods of time.
I just got a ton of water on my MBP
Luckily it's pre-unibody so there are no LSI tabs in it. I'm going to let this thing dry in the sun/tilted for at least a week, and I'm going to track down a Torx T6 to take the thing apart.
I'm curious, what is the difference between what you propose and outright stealing something because you need it for a career? What you are proposing is certainly immoral and unethical and you seem to engage in a contorted degree of post hoc reasoning to justify your proposal while still maintaining the integrity of your suggestion. You are suggesting lying and engaging in fraud for an economic end, nothing more. Are you telling me if the OP's LIFE depended on it he couldn't scape together $40 for an external hard drive enclosure??
The OP has my deep sympathies. Laptops can be somewhat fragile things and we've ALL done stupid things that end up being very costly. I was tired leaving work one day, lapsed for a second and put a big scrape in the side of my car. The facts, however, are not in dispute: Through his sole negligence, he damaged his own laptop. There is no reasonable course of action except for him to pay for its repair or replacement. No one else shared any responsibility in creating the problem.
The Golden Rule is an excellent way to test the ethics of a proposed action: How would you like it if Apple lied to you? How would you like it if you had NOT damaged your laptop through spillage, sent it in, and they activated the LSI and said you had damaged it yourself? Of course the perceived injury to an individual is different than the financial cost to a company but that is about the consequence of an action, not it's ethical foundation.
Some people would additionally argue that lying hurts the liar. It makes the liar believe less in his or her own character. It makes the liar more suspicious of others. When you start acting in a way that is contrary to your beliefs, your beliefs have a funny way of changing. If the OP decides to do this and owns his own business one day, I wonder if he'll be a little more suspicious that other people (his customers, employees) are trying to cheat him because he's looked into his own heart and found it wanting.
If the ethical argument doesn't persuade, I doubt that replacing the LSI sticker is guaranteed to fool Apple. If you replace it with a white sticker, they may test and replace the stickers to see if they've been tampered with. They may have UV indicator ink. Who knows. They place the stickers there because they EXPECT some people to try to defraud them by denying exposure to moisture.
My suggestion would be to not make a poor situation worse. Get a HDD enclosure, get your paper out and defended, and repair your laptop when you've saved up a little bit of money. THAT's character.
Oh, man, I feel so bad for you, OP. I hope are able to wrestle these assorted, linked problems to the ground quickly, and finish your thesis, graduate, get a great job, and laugh all about all this soon! Meanwhile, good luck. Keep us posted ...
P.S. What is your thesis topic?
P.S. What is your thesis topic?
The computer may have indicators, but most of the time it is very obvious when water has spilled on a computer. There are liquid marks and stains on the Logic Board and the little black plasticky piece below the keyboard. It's usually not determined by any indicators.
Ok, let's summerize here folks.
Let it dry out as much as possible. (May be too late, he's already booted up several times. Damage may have been done.) Rice and silica helps here.
Try external monitor. Have you tied this yet?
Restart in Target Disk Mode (Hold down the "T" key on re-start.) Must have another Mac with """FIREWIRE""" (MacBook Air is a no go for THIS... Yes I'm BITTER! Why do you ask?). Once plugged into another Mac via Firewire it will appear on the desktop as an external hard drive... if the hard drive is not fried. At least you can salvage the files if this works.
OR, if the hard drive is ok but there is a problem in the other components you could pull the hard drive out and put into an external case (I know, no money... check with your geek friends from school.) It can be Firewire or USB. Plug into anothe computer (preferably a Mac) and see if it mounts on the desktop.
Give us an update.
Let it dry out as much as possible. (May be too late, he's already booted up several times. Damage may have been done.) Rice and silica helps here.
Try external monitor. Have you tied this yet?
Restart in Target Disk Mode (Hold down the "T" key on re-start.) Must have another Mac with """FIREWIRE""" (MacBook Air is a no go for THIS... Yes I'm BITTER! Why do you ask?). Once plugged into another Mac via Firewire it will appear on the desktop as an external hard drive... if the hard drive is not fried. At least you can salvage the files if this works.
OR, if the hard drive is ok but there is a problem in the other components you could pull the hard drive out and put into an external case (I know, no money... check with your geek friends from school.) It can be Firewire or USB. Plug into anothe computer (preferably a Mac) and see if it mounts on the desktop.
Give us an update.
I completely agree with you. I think you've convinced me enough to make myself disagree with what I suggested. I guess I didn't see how immoral it really was.
No intention to make you feel bad or anything. I have done some remarkably dumb ass things in the to get myself out of some minor problems. It takes a LOT of maturity to reflect on one's thoughts and actions and you have my deep respect for being open to others' opinions even when they've conflicted with yours.
Best,
Michael