Their pricing is already high for streaming, but that's apparently not enough for them. If you actually try to sign up you find that they pump the price > 33% more with "fees" for various things they advertise as benefits of their streaming, and so push the price to over $100/month.

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that they want even more money under the table after that.

At one point, diquat was used for weed control in lakes because it won't disperse or break down to become ineffective even if just poured in the water.

Imagine what that says about washing it off of fruits and vegetables or it's ability to diffuse into aquifers.

Check prices for Taiwan as well if you like. Meanwhile, where do you think American companies have boards made for them? The big differential in price is mark-up.

But really, there isn't a lot of human labor involved in board fab these days. And certainly not the sort that pays the lowest wages.

Components are just as crazily marked up in the U.S. I wouldn't be at all surprised that the Chinese manufacturers can get even better pricing then an individual could from a Chinese supplier due to volume.

The 1890's called, but it turns out they DON'T want their 16 hour work days back.

It's on you to present actual evidence.

That depends on the work. For maintenance, you don't care if he labors like a madman for hours a day, or if he reads a magazine all day, then takes out his wand and says "REPAIRO" with a flourish. So long as shit works.

But it DID. Better performance is a real and measurable result.

And get a lot less vacation days.

Tell that to the back to office zealots that expect 8 hr/day 5 day/week attendance.

The process of board FAB is now mostly automated. I honestly think much of the difference is that thChinese companies don't have to tithe to the toddlers of Wall Street (The yachts for tots program) so they can do it MUCH cheaper.

I would also help friends with such a thing. None of them are on /.

Others might decide to make it into a business or at least a side hustle. They could easily make some spare bux while saving their customers some money.

The OEMs wouldn't like that, but the laws are supposed to be what's good for the society as a whole and it's economy, not just what makes manufacturers the most money.

Agreed, having the CAD files is best, but since that pre-supposes having the same CAD program available, STEP should be included as well. STL can work in a pinch, but if you have STEP, you can convert to STL easily, but not the other way around.

Often, even re-producing the part will prefer a STEP file at least. Odds are, the original was designed for injection molding and will do better as a 3D print with some modifications that don't affect function but help printability.

I use FreeCAD as the base here both because I use it regularly and like it and because anybody can obviously afford FreeCAD. Solidworks, not so much.

Because the Apple Genuses are mostly trained to tell you you need a new one and help transfer the data over after you buy it. Rossman's videos are full of repairs done for vastly less tn Apple wanted and corresponding customers that chose that option. As a bonus, no lost data. The phone repair places obviously do enough business to keep the employees paid and the lights on, so while YOU may not want that option, obviously plenty of people do.

The formal labor fraud would be that there aren't enough hours in the day to be a full time employee of 4 employers at the same time. If he was doing contract work or part time, there wouldn't be much case for fraud though.

Of course, as a matter of practicality, the only real recourse U.S. companies have is firing him.

Yet somehow, FreeCAD does a decent job with the STEP files on McMaster-Carr. I've seen it import STEP files from F360 and Solidworks. Perhaps the problem is Solidworks.