Of course! And the vendor’s on-site shops are, drumrolls please, well-paid for! 
(Likely as part of the contract, but they certainly aren’t free.)
I suspect you’re paraphrasing here.
I suspect you’re paraphrasing the Koch brothers.
1 Like
Meh… same difference, right? /s
1 Like
I suspect you could see if I am or not in a minute or two of your own effort.
As far as I know most American farms are like wise (technically) family owned and operated. The sort of massive “corporate” farms people bitch about are typically growing under contract to larger agribusiness. So for example Tyson, who control a lot of chicken production in the US, don’t actually own many (or any) farms. They own the chickens, and they pay via contract for independent farmers to raise them. The farms are technically still independent, if not necessarily family owned, but they’re tied very specifically to one, or a handful, of large business that dictate what’s grown, what the price is etc. But there are plenty of (and an increasing number of) smaller guys out there who are operating more or less they way you do. They grow what they grow, switch crops seasonally, and sell in the regular market to a variety of buyers and through Coops. The big crops out here are potatoes, cauliflower. and cabbage. And you can often find various brands of spud from the coops or regional packagers in supermarkets if you look. A lot of the farms also have farm stands so they can do direct retail, or supply restaurants with local produce at higher prices they can get at market.
In terms of the equipment I’m sure some of those new features are useful. But what I gather is most people around here don’t find the added costs worth it given the size of the farms their working. Most farms out here are at most a few 100 acres. With individual fields often being ~10 acres. The potato fields down the block from me is probably around 5 acres (and currently beings sold for development our land values are stupid out here). I how ever am not a farmer. So I’m probably not the best person to ask.
4 Likes
Yeah, right. Try getting documentation on a horse. Everything known about horses has been a result of reverse engineering. They are so complicated that hacks amount to just adding iron wear surfaces to the bottoms of the feet, adding tie points for equipment, and limiting vision. On the plus side they have a great automatic guidance system and are for the most part self repairing.
9 Likes
Labor and IP can both be problems without implying that only one is an acceptable target for correction.
Unfortunately this is generally true for most devices/vehicles/appliances containing “modern” electronics. Even if the electronic modules contained within are easily serviceable with a multimeter for diagnostics and a basic soldering iron for replacing components (IOW no proprietary ICs or SMD components on the board), most field techs don’t have the skills to use these basic tools and I’m guessing manufacturers are reluctant to release any detailed sub-module level troubleshooting info. I’ve fixed DELL PC mainboards that I was told needed to be thrown away by just replacing some faulty capacitors, and in contrast I recently had to spend $500 on a control module for my HVAC system due to a bad $5 relay on the board. I understand basic economics and practicality are as to blame as corporate greed for this situation, but knowing that a lot of these devices can be fixed but are thrown away instead (excuse me - recycled) really irks the maker in me.
4 Likes
To me, this is yet another tale of class divergence. There is an ever smaller group of people able and willing to pay for convenience, whatever the cost, and then there is everyone else --forced to hack their way through this mess.
4 Likes
Yeah, we ended up getting a 30 year old john deere, we couldn’t afford the kubotas we saw, although many neighbours swear by them. I love our old tractor, I can look at the engine and feel like I basically understand it, and I’ve been able to fix some simple things myself.
They are so complicated that hacks amount to just adding iron wear surfaces to the bottoms of the feet, adding tie points for equipment, and limiting vision.
Too complicated to hack further, or too perfect to need further hacking?
1 Like
In the software industry we would have millions of different proprietary versions of a javascript module that does the same thing as jQuery if it were handled the way hardware is.
It baffles me, I’m not even advocating for pure open hardware(1), it just makes no sense to have mostly proprietary hardware. It should be the other way around:
“We are built using the tried and true components plus our proprietary unique selling point”.
(1) I do fucking love my Raspberry Pi tho.
2 Likes
Depends upon where you live. In the mid-west that’s probably true, but in the east there are still a lot of family farms. Were I am (in the mid-Atlantic) all farms are small, family-run affairs.
1 Like
That’s because he replaces the stock cpus with units scavenged from surveillance drones. If you want to escape from DRM, you’ll need a way of capturing and repurposing military hardware.
2 Likes
Don’t know about tractors, but I have a 15 buck dongle that reads the electronics on my new car. Search for OBD. It plugs in under the steering column and talks to an iPhone or Android app. It can be used to learn what an idiot light actually means, whether it can be ignored, and can even turn the annoying light off.
Most of the guys here use the older Internationals and John Deers, though a lot of people seem to get very small Kubotas as general utility machines. They look like oversize lawn tractors. That or Bobcats. Seem to use them for clearing brush and snow, digging ditches and what have. The actual farming work like plowing and harvesting gets done with those old mid sized tractors. I have seen one or two guys using full sized Kubotas in place of their vintage stuff (which they still keep, like collectibles out here there are races and shows and “historic tractor pulls”). My cousin runs one of their dealerships in Maine. Apparently its the thing to get if your working smaller properties.
I think he meant theyre inteconnected, not exclusive or even seperate.
The farms for whom these machines are marketed are the same that employ those workers under those conditions, and need to rely on this kind of equipment because of a lack of investment in competent personnel who might be able to and might also care enough, to fix the things.
Every so often, I read of some American company that manages to export their tech to China, only to have their software reverse engineered within six months.
For instance, Sinovel and AMSC.
Perhaps certain tractor manufacturers are afraid of similar “espionage”.
Plus, unlike computers, ‘percussive maintenance’ can actually make them start working again, at least as long as you don’t overdo it, or get caught.
