# Phonebloks



## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

phonebloks: a modular + customizable smartphone

So I keep hearing people talk about this idea so I finally decided to look into it. The idea seems interesting but its way too idealistic.

Essentially it is about a phone that you can customize almost completely. The parts are replaceable individually and detachable like blocks. 

Have any of you guys heard about this? Would you buy into it? Even if it were technologically do you think people would actually purchase it?


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Modular design isn't exactly new and, if it were popular, people would be buying modular cars with interchangeable parts. Instead, every industry in the world is currently researching printing and self-assembly methods that, eventually, could produce disposable paper phones you buy from a vending machine or whatever. Making things more modular merely adds to the expense and people want functional phones rather than nice cubes to assembles.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

wuliheron said:


> Modular design isn't exactly new and, if it were popular, people would be buying modular cars with interchangeable parts. Instead, every industry in the world is currently researching printing and self-assembly methods that, eventually, could produce disposable paper phones you buy from a vending machine or whatever. Making things more modular merely adds to the expense and people want functional phones rather than nice cubes to assembles.



Disagree.

Industry doesn't push for modular design because that would mean less sales as people only want to replace individual parts, instead of the current way which is to sell complete units, which of course means a greater profit.

New car designs are hardly new. They have like one extra little thing. An eco model is hardly an eco model when you consider the manufacturing behind it. If a vehicle company really wanted to push for better sustainability, they wouldn't sell complete new cars, they'd sell engine swaps, for example.

Modular design is a great idea and the only reason it isn't happening is because it would mean a gigantic drop in profit for all the companies who got their footing by selling complete units off the shelf.

Printing complete disposable items is not the way to go. It wastes far too much resource. Modular design greatly negates that.


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

I surmise it would be horribly slow in actual operation. The bus would be a nightmare to engineer. 

BTW, I remember a wonderful modular software system from years ago, called OpenDoc. In theory it was great, but in practice, it was a memory hog, and horribly slow. I was a big fan of it, and was one of few I knew (even online) who actually invested time and money purchasing components for it. But in practice, I could never get it to work the way I wanted. I suspect a phone like this would suffer the same fate--reality seldom approaches the ideals of theory.


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

ferroequinologist said:


> I surmise it would be horribly slow in actual operation. The bus would be a nightmare to engineer.
> 
> BTW, I remember a wonderful modular software system from years ago, called OpenDoc. In theory it was great, but in practice, it was a memory hog, and horribly slow. I was a big fan of it, and was one of few I knew (even online) who actually invested time and money purchasing components for it. But in practice, I could never get it to work the way I wanted. I suspect a phone like this would suffer the same fate--reality seldom approaches the ideals of theory.


Wasn't opendoc a software thing?


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

Diligent Procrastinator said:


> Wasn't opendoc a software thing?


Um. Yeah. The two big apps I used were Cyberdog (internet suite) and WAV, the word processor. Oh, maybe Wikipedia...

OpenDoc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But my point was that these sort of modular, do-it-all systems seldom work out in real life. Imagine buying a car that way. Sheesh, even Linux seems to be moving toward a unified system, as Ubuntu is slowly becoming the backbone behind several other distros (sheesh, even Puppy Linux has hopped on board the Ubuntu bandwagon!!!) ;-) A modular phone like this, with each component having to enter the system bus like this, I can easily see having speed issues. Speed is one huge reason for the reduction in chip sizes. Hence my doubts about a phone like this working in practice. Cool concept, but my own experience suggests less than stellar success.  

Not that I would want to discourage anybody from trying! I'm just offering my own perspective.


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

ferroequinologist said:


> Um. Yeah. The two big apps I used were Cyberdog (internet suite) and WAV, the word processor. Oh, maybe Wikipedia...
> 
> OpenDoc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> ...


Well, Desktops allow you to do pretty much the same thing, and they work just fine... Get a CPU that meets your needs, GPU, HDD or SDD, wireless adapter if you need to use wifi, bluetooth adapter, etc, etc... I think it could work if they can make the mother board efficient.


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## ferroequinologist (Jul 27, 2012)

Diligent Procrastinator said:


> Well, Desktops allow you to do pretty much the same thing, and they work just fine... Get a CPU that meets your needs, GPU, HDD or SDD, wireless adapter if you need to use wifi, bluetooth adapter, etc, etc... I think it could work if they can make the mother board efficient.


So, is that comment directed more towards the phoneblok concept or OpenDoc? :-0


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

ferroequinologist said:


> So, is that comment directed more towards the phoneblok concept or OpenDoc? :-0


Phoneblok. Software is different because they have a lot of dependencies, and much of the performance relies on proper programming and implementation.


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Disagree.
> 
> Industry doesn't push for modular design because that would mean less sales as people only want to replace individual parts, instead of the current way which is to sell complete units, which of course means a greater profit.


I take you don't shop at Walmart. Most people could not care less about modular design or whether it saves them money in the long run. They're often so stupid they'll buy the same cheap plastic crap repeatedly because it keeps breaking.


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Disagree.
> 
> Industry doesn't push for modular design because that would mean less sales as people only want to replace individual parts, instead of the current way which is to sell complete units, which of course means a greater profit.
> 
> ...


Companies act on demand, if there was a high demand for stuff like this then they would invest more into it. 

They could just as easily overcharge for parts as they do the whole phone.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

wuliheron said:


> I take you don't shop at Walmart. Most people could not care less about modular design or whether it saves them money in the long run. They're often so stupid they'll buy the same cheap plastic crap repeatedly because it keeps breaking.


Yes but they only buy that same plastic crap because it's the only thing they're presented with. Imagine a culture where modular design is the number one consideration, where everyone thinks first and foremost about how they can maximise their given resources. It's quite an easy thing to achieve, given the correct upbringing with the right amount of social conditioning. It's not much different from the sort of conditioning we see through propaganda in the world today. Only difference is that it would be in the name of good, rather than in the name of profit.

Basically, we just need to tell people that repair is better then replacement. It's a very simple case of altering the base education of the populace. From that they could be changed drastically.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> Companies act on demand, if there was a high demand for stuff like this then they would invest more into it.
> 
> They could just as easily overcharge for parts as they do the whole phone.


Companies only act on demand because the owners are brought up into the capitalist mindset where everything should be maximised for profit, rather than being optimised for the good of the the people.

All it needs is the right amount of socio-cultural change.

100 years ago most major new items were sold with a manual with detailed information on how to fix every last fault. And if you needed a tiny new part, you could get hold of it. Whereas these days we're given a shiny object wrapped in plastic that we're expected to replace as soon as it gets the slightest scratch.

In just one century the consumer culture has evolved greatly, and for the worse. In just as much time, or less, this culture can be u-turned into one that is far better for the species as whole.

You can't shun the modular design idea just because 'current society' isn't used to it.


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## wuliheron (Sep 5, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Yes but they only buy that same plastic crap because it's the only thing they're presented with. Imagine a culture where modular design is the number one consideration, where everyone thinks first and foremost about how they can maximise their given resources. It's quite an easy thing to achieve, given the correct upbringing with the right amount of social conditioning. It's not much different from the sort of conditioning we see through propaganda in the world today. Only difference is that it would be in the name of good, rather than in the name of profit.
> 
> Basically, we just need to tell people that repair is better then replacement. It's a very simple case of altering the base education of the populace. From that they could be changed drastically.


LOL, according to the National Science Foundation one in five Americans still believes the sun revolves around the earth, which also happens to be the number who believe Jesus is returning in their lifetime. Education and intelligence have little to do with the issue and denial is not the name of a river in Egypt. All the ranting and raving over education and intelligence is classist capitalistic propaganda. The sad fact is the only thing ever proven to distinguish people with successful careers is the amount of working memory they have rather than education or intelligence.

In fact, I have friends who have high school diplomas and are largely self-taught who make more money than people with doctorates. Tends to piss them off a lot.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

wuliheron said:


> LOL, according to the National Science Foundation one in five Americans still believes the sun revolves around the earth, which also happens to be the number who believe Jesus is returning in their lifetime. Education and intelligence have little to do with the issue and denial is not the name of a river in Egypt. All the ranting and raving over education and intelligence is classist capitalistic propaganda. The sad fact is the only thing ever proven to distinguish people with successful careers is the amount of working memory they have rather than education or intelligence.
> 
> In fact, I have friends who have high school diplomas and are largely self-taught who make more money than people with doctorates. Tends to piss them off a lot.


I think you're misunderstanding the concept of cultural conditioning,

Right now everyone is born into a consumer world where everything is replaced as a whole unit. It's all they know. They aren't even give the chance to think about resourcefulness. Of course some people are morons, but that doesn't mean they can't be indoctrinated with some good ways from birth.

Bring people up into a society of modular design and that'll be all they know. If, for example, a person's phone screen breaks, they certainly won't replace the whole thing, because they know full well that the only part they need to change is the screen.

"Oh my screen is broken. Better get a new phone." - that's not a normal thing to say.

You could just as easily imagine a world where people more usually say things like, 

"Oh my screen is broken. I'm gonna go and get a new screen."
"Oh my screen is broken. Does anybody know how to fix this? Oh I need to replace the screen."

Kind of obvious that anyone in the world can be brought up with the correct mindset, if only such an action were promoted as the norm.

It's not about innate intelligence. Anyone can be indoctrinated to think a certain way.


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Companies only act on demand because the owners are brought up into the capitalist mindset where everything should be maximised for profit, rather than being optimised for the good of the the people.
> 
> All it needs is the right amount of socio-cultural change.
> 
> ...


You cant compare the technology from a hundred years ago to now. You can actually find how to replace parts online its just that no one bothers, its not really worth the effort. 

Im not shunning modular design because of society, Im shunning it because the people that tend to promote it are the ones that have absolutely no idea about how electronics work.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> You cant compare the technology from a hundred years ago to now. You can actually find how to replace parts online its just that no one bothers, its not really worth the effort.
> 
> Im not shunning modular design because of society, Im shunning it because the people that tend to promote it are the ones that have absolutely no idea about how electronics work.


But what changed in the last 100 years? Why does no-one bother any more?

It's just cultural conditioning.

Profiteers present everything in complete units because its easier to sell. Simple as that. They don't care about how much of a massive waste of resources it is.

So now everyone thinks it's the norm to go out and buy a whole new item just because one little piece is defunct.

Clearly that mindset can be reversed. It just depends on how people have their choices presented to them.


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> But what changed in the last 100 years? Why does no-one bother any more?
> 
> It's just cultural conditioning.
> 
> ...


Well quite a lot really. Especially with the creation of computers and the internet, society needs to change along with it. 

Well its easier to make, sell, distribute. If it wasnt easier to make the prices would be much higher. 

Its not really that electronics are built not to last its just that they dont. 
Actually a modular design will probably create more waste then less.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> Well quite a lot really. Especially with the creation of computers and the internet, society needs to change along with it.
> 
> Well its easier to make, sell, distribute. If it wasnt easier to make the prices would be much higher.
> 
> ...


I have no idea how you're managing to link the technological advance of society with the wastefulness of consumer culture.

Modular design is always going to be far more resourceful than complete disposable units.


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> I have no idea how you're managing to link the technological advance of society with the wastefulness of consumer culture.
> 
> Modular design is always going to be far more resourceful than complete disposable units.


Thats because when you replace only one part, it wont run as properly along with the other parts. Eventually you are going to have to replace all the parts. And that eventually will come a lot faster in this society. Everyone will want the latest and best. But in order to have the best all the parts would have to be the latest. 
So now instead of upgrading once ever two years and producing one item of waste, there will be little upgrades much more often.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> Thats because when you replace only one part, it wont run as properly along with the other parts. Eventually you are going to have to replace all the parts. And that eventually will come a lot faster in this society. Everyone will want the latest and best. But in order to have the best all the parts would have to be the latest.
> So now instead of upgrading once ever two years and producing one item of waste, there will be little upgrades much more often.


I don't think people would more freely upgrade just because the parts are more widely available. There's still the case of pricing and requirement.

Ask anyone who knows about desktop computer hardware. When they want to upgrade their computer, they don't throw away the whole thing, they just hunt down a new graphics card or whatever. And they only do it when they need to. Of course there are some people who must have the best parts and want to keep their stuff at the peak of techno advance, but the average user just wants something that works well and will last a long time. They aren't gonna go spending mega bucks just because it's easier to perform self-upgrades on their devices.

The simple fact is that when the average person's phone (or whatever device) starts coming to the end of its life, they won't think to throw it straight in the bin, they'll think about how to fix or upgrade it first. Way more resourceful!


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> I don't think people would more freely upgrade just because the parts are more widely available. There's still the case of pricing and requirement.
> 
> Ask anyone who knows about desktop computer hardware. When they want to upgrade their computer, they don't throw away the whole thing, they just hunt down a new graphics card or whatever. And they only do it when they need to. Of course there are some people who must have the best parts and want to keep their stuff at the peak of techno advance, but the average user just wants something that works well and will last a long time. They aren't gonna go spending mega bucks just because it's easier to perform self-upgrades on their devices.
> 
> The simple fact is that when the average person's phone (or whatever device) starts coming to the end of its life, they won't think to throw it straight in the bin, they'll think about how to fix or upgrade it first. Way more resourceful!


Im saying that average person doesnt know any better and would do something like that. The people that know about desktop hardware would never do something like that. The average consumer doesnt build their own computer. 
This phone would be marketed to the average consumer. Thats where the problem is. People wont think that they can fix a single part and wont know how to. Its much easier and cheaper to build and upgrade your own computer and people still choose not to do it.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> Im saying that average person doesnt know any better and would do something like that. The people that know about desktop hardware would never do something like that. The average consumer doesnt build their own computer.
> This phone would be marketed to the average consumer. Thats where the problem is. People wont think that they can fix a single part and wont know how to. Its much easier and cheaper to build and upgrade your own computer and people still choose not to do it.


Because the retailers don't present that fact so openly.

It's far more profitable to sell bulk units.

"Oh you think you need more RAM? Nahhhh just buy a whole new computer!"

People just need to be brought up with better ideologies ingrained into them. To me, that's an off-shoot of what the phoneblok idea is about.

We live in an age where our needs can just be paid for and we have a 'service' for every requirement. We throw everything away because it's easier to just get a new off the shelf. Have you seen the film 'Wall-E'? The humans in that are basically the epitome of consumer culture. It's not good. Replacing whole items is always wrong. Particularly since so many commercial goods are made of plastic, which comes from oil, which we wont' have forever.

Humans need to start thinking more sparingly. Even if the pure, idealist concept of the modular design idea doesn't take hold, we're still gonna be stung by our ways at some point.

That's why I like phonebloks. From an idealists perspective, it's simply a way for you to own a handset that doesn't need to completely thrown away as soon as one part of it gets old.


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Because the retailers don't present that fact so openly.
> 
> It's far more profitable to sell bulk units.
> 
> ...


No people need to make the extra effort to find this info themselves, its not like its hidden from them. And by extra effort I mean just a google search, if they cant even do that then they arent going to build their own stuff for sure.
Well a lot of the times people buy so cheap that they literally cannot upgrade anything at all. If you spend 200 on a laptop you are just going to be throwing it away because it was built with maximum RAM to begin with, thats why its so cheap. 
But people will continue to buy cheap, just like they buy cheap household appliances. That part isnt going to change.
If you want humans to think more sparingly then they need to start off not buying cheap crap that has to be replaced in a year, and thats not going to happen.

Phonebloks is just an idea. It is also technologically not possible and consumer wise will also fail. To make technology real, you cant think big picture.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> No people need to make the extra effort to find this info themselves, its not like its hidden from them. And by extra effort I mean just a google search, if they cant even do that then they arent going to build their own stuff for sure.
> Well a lot of the times people buy so cheap that they literally cannot upgrade anything at all. If you spend 200 on a laptop you are just going to be throwing it away because it was built with maximum RAM to begin with, thats why its so cheap.
> But people will continue to buy cheap, just like they buy cheap household appliances. That part isnt going to change.
> If you want humans to think more sparingly then they need to start off not buying cheap crap that has to be replaced in a year, and thats not going to happen.
> ...


Gyahhh not true! People already do think for themselves. Problem is they think in the way they're being old to think. All it needs is a shift in cultural values, and the only way to do that is to implement a different education system, way more than just a google search. It's a big leap but it's necessary. Only problem is nobody can be bothered because they think everything around them is fine as it is.

The only reason the phoneblok will fail is because of the current consumer culture. Which is a bad culture, might I add.

Buying cheap does not mean buying throwaway items. It might be low quality so it'll break more quickly, but you should never have to just put the whole thing in the bin if a tiny part of it goes wrong. And, often than not, you'll find that the higher priced things are only expensive because of the brand name. So what is 'cheap', when really the primary function is the same?

Consumer culture is a massive fuckaround of profiteers telling people they need things when they don't. That is why we now waste so much. We don't want to fix our old stuff, we want to totally change it for the apparently better stuff. Because that's what the adverts tell us to do. It's not normal. Go and live in the wilderness somewhere and you'll soon come to understand the difference between wastefulness and resourcefulness! No animal is an innately 'throwaway' species. We're having our mindsets dictated to us by the people who want us to think that way. Advertising is very powerful.

I guess I'm too much of an idealist. We'll have to agree to disagree. You're right about the way people _currently_ are, but that sure as hell doesn't mean we can't have a better and more resourceful culture in the near future.

Anyway I'm interested - Why do you think phonebloks technologically impossible?


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Gyahhh not true! People already do think for themselves. Problem is they think in the way they're being old to think. All it needs is a shift in cultural values, and the only way to do that is to implement a different education system, way more than just a google search. It's a big leap but it's necessary. Only problem is nobody can be bothered because they think everything around them is fine as it is.
> 
> The only reason the phoneblok will fail is because of the current consumer culture. Which is a bad culture, might I add.
> 
> ...


I dont really understand what you mean with the education. It wont fail only because of consumer culture.

It such a poorly designed idea, and clearly this designer did little to no research at all.
Smartphone parts are tightly packed because they must be connected certain ways and also for speed. You cannot move these parts as you please like the idea suggests. The parts must be connected to certain processor pins. You also cannot not upgrade certain parts while leaving others as old models. If you want to move parts like this even a little it will increase bulk and you will also sacrifice speed. Speed and size is not something people would want to sacrifice for a phone. You can change a phone by millimeters of space.

There is also the issue with heating. Which I dont really want to go into detail but there a a coolant systems placed in phones that distributes depending on the parts so that the system doesnt overheat. With the parts upgrading/moving there is no way to have an effective coolant.

Also like I said before upgrading one part will cause a domino effect to where you will eventually have to upgrade all of them so the phone that you have will end up changing completely in about 2 years (which is when most people upgrade their phone to begin with). So nothing would change with that.

Also this is just touching the surface with hardware issues and are also major issues. This is with not even going to the software issues this will cause.


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> I dont really understand what you mean with the education. It wont fail only because of consumer culture.
> 
> It such a poorly designed idea, and clearly this designer did little to no research at all.
> Smartphone parts are tightly packed because they must be connected certain ways and also for speed. You cannot move these parts as you please like the idea suggests. The parts must be connected to certain processor pins. You also cannot not upgrade certain parts while leaving others as old models. If you want to move parts like this even a little it will increase bulk and you will also sacrifice speed. Speed and size is not something people would want to sacrifice for a phone. You can change a phone by millimeters of space.
> ...


Consumer culture is currently geared towards things being disposable. Nobody would be willing to try modular design for anything - electronic, automotive, etc - because they're told that it's better to buy a whole new unit. For example, people are told to buy the latest 'eco model' of a car, and then they buy the _whole_ car?! Really all they need to do is stick a new engine in! That way the cost of metal, plastic, glass etc is pushed down to a minimum, because you keep your old model and just swap the desired part. It's also a form of modular design.

People need to be educated to have a better concept of resourcefulness. Consumer culture is complicit in the eradication of these values because profiteers directly tell people to buy buy buy buy buy. Everything is about education, understanding and awareness. Right now the world is getting dumber, people are spoonfed the most damaging social and political ideals, because it benefits those who are in it for their own personal gain. But that's kind of going off onto another point. I just mean that people are wasteful because their own society makes them that way. And how to change it? Alter education.

Interesting points with the technological issues of the phoneblok. I concede it might not even be possible, but still I think it's odd that you can't see the positive side to this idea! Mainly in that it applies to many things, not just mobile phones. Phonebloks or not, there is still the growing issue of goods being needlessly sent to the scrap heap.


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Consumer culture is currently geared towards things being disposable. Nobody would be willing to try modular design for anything - electronic, automotive, etc - because they're told that it's better to buy a whole new unit. For example, people are told to buy the latest 'eco model' of a car, and then they buy the _whole_ car?! Really all they need to do is stick a new engine in! That way the cost of metal, plastic, glass etc is pushed down to a minimum, because you keep your old model and just swap the desired part. It's also a form of modular design.
> 
> People need to be educated to have a better concept of resourcefulness. Consumer culture is complicit in the eradication of these values because profiteers directly tell people to buy buy buy buy buy. Everything is about education, understanding and awareness. Right now the world is getting dumber, people are spoonfed the most damaging social and political ideals, because it benefits those who are in it for their own personal gain. But that's kind of going off onto another point. I just mean that people are wasteful because their own society makes them that way. And how to change it? Alter education.
> 
> Interesting points with the technological issues of the phoneblok. I concede it might not even be possible, but still I think it's odd that you can't see the positive side to this idea! Mainly in that it applies to many things, not just mobile phones. Phonebloks or not, there is still the growing issue of goods being needlessly sent to the scrap heap.


Well actually you cant just stick a new engine in. Parts are designed to work together, changing one will result into changing all the rest so in the end its actually better to buy a whole new device.
Technology should be treated a bit differently than other things so. Like if you lose a button on a shirt you shouldnt just buy a whole new shirt. Just sew a new button on. Some people really do just toss the shirt away. Things like that yes you can change, but technology is different.

I like the idea that someone would want create something buy having the companies invest into an invention rather than the other way around where they present the invention to the company. That notion is a good idea. But they should have done something that was actually possible rather than using phonebloks


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## SA1988 (May 25, 2012)

DlusionAl said:


> Well actually you cant just stick a new engine in. Parts are designed to work together, changing one will result into changing all the rest so in the end its actually better to buy a whole new device.
> Technology should be treated a bit differently than other things so. Like if you lose a button on a shirt you shouldnt just buy a whole new shirt. Just sew a new button on. Some people really do just toss the shirt away. Things like that yes you can change, but technology is different.
> 
> I like the idea that someone would want create something buy having the companies invest into an invention rather than the other way around where they present the invention to the company. That notion is a good idea. But they should have done something that was actually possible rather than using phonebloks


Woohoo! We're finding some middle ground where we agree!

But I do think that such continuous new car production is a HUGE waste of resources. Even if an engine swap required the replacement of other peripheral parts, you don't ever really need to replace the chassis, wheels, tyres, windows, dashboard, etc as well. Such a waste of metal, glass and plastic!

We're made to feel guilty for driving cars with huge engines with eye-watering exhaust emissions. But the carbon emissions from building hundreds of thousands (or even millions?) of new vehicles every year is a far sight greater than what the footprint would have been if we'd all kept on to (and dutifully repaired) our beautiful old vintage models when they were first made.

Heh, I'm not even talking about phonebloks any more. I'm just ranting about the wasteful culture we're brought up into these days.

Ah well. Debate over. :happy:


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## DlusionAl (Apr 9, 2011)

Pessimisterious said:


> Woohoo! We're finding some middle ground where we agree!
> 
> But I do think that such continuous new car production is a HUGE waste of resources. Even if an engine swap required the replacement of other peripheral parts, you don't ever really need to replace the chassis, wheels, tyres, windows, dashboard, etc as well. Such a waste of metal, glass and plastic!
> 
> ...


Once you start switching out parts you would need to replace the chassis to have it run effectively, tires always should be replaced because of the ware. The rest of that stuff, depending on what you need is cheap enough to where it doesnt really matter. 
If we kept to the old models, regardless of repairs we would have gotten nowhere. 

Yeah thats true phonebloks stuff debate is over. But if you wanna continue the rant on wastefulness you can always message me.


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## TranceMan (Aug 26, 2012)

It's a neat concept, but a nightmare for engineers. Just from looking at the concept, there will be issues with data transfer from one component to the next, only because of the modular design. Bus speeds will be affected, a lot.


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

Pessimisterious said:


> 100 years ago most major new items were sold with a manual with detailed information on how to fix every last fault. And if you needed a tiny new part, you could get hold of it. Whereas these days we're given a shiny object wrapped in plastic that we're expected to replace as soon as it gets the slightest scratch.


100 years ago things were a lot simpler. Most things were only made of a few components so you could easily fix them. The cost of production was also higher to make the things since there weren't things like plastics or automation so it economically made sense to fix something.

Just because things were simpler doesn't mean they were better. Would you say a car from 1913 is superior to a car from 2013? A car from 1913 was very unreliable and stuff constantly broke. Yes it was easier to fix overall but in a lot of cases you can drive a car 100,000+ miles before it even needs a tuneup. The only things you need to do is change oil, tires, and the occasional light bulb. Most cars will last 300,000+ miles if taken care of properly.



Pessimisterious said:


> Profiteers present everything in complete units because its easier to sell. Simple as that. They don't care about how much of a massive waste of resources it is.


Or the cost to do this has decreased with the use of new materials and automation that it makes more sense to follow this model.



Pessimisterious said:


> Consumer culture is currently geared towards things being disposable. Nobody would be willing to try modular design for anything - electronic, automotive, etc - because they're told that it's better to buy a whole new unit. For example, people are told to buy the latest 'eco model' of a car, and then they buy the _whole_ car?! Really all they need to do is stick a new engine in! That way the cost of metal, plastic, glass etc is pushed down to a minimum, because you keep your old model and just swap the desired part. It's also a form of modular design.


You do realize there are retrofit applications for things like CNG? It's just the cost in labor to do these sort of things and also when you factor in the wear and tear already on a vehicle, it makes more sense to just replace it. Why would you want to put a new motor in a car whose body has 250,000 miles and a lot of the other components are shot? You spend a ton on labor to do this to spend even more to keep replacing parts on a worn out car (like suspension and such).



Pessimisterious said:


> But I do think that such continuous new car production is a HUGE waste of resources. Even if an engine swap required the replacement of other peripheral parts, you don't ever really need to replace the chassis, wheels, tyres, windows, dashboard, etc as well. Such a waste of metal, glass and plastic!


I agree that there can be a lot of waste generated. That doesn't mean we can't recycle it and it can be formed into new components.

In regards to this Phoneblok idea, I think it's stupid. Technology is evolving so rapidly that the components will become obsoleted so fast (including the backplane). There would only be a small window where it would be pragmatic to do upgrades. People can upgrade their computer components but you don't see people trying to upgrade their old 486's anymore.


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