It got better since theyâve put bins for old electronics next to the bottle banks, but itâs still a bit of a struggle.
I wouldnât say I hoard them. I can throw them out any time I like. But yeah I have a lot of small broken electronic devices cluttering my room.
With my ADHD things very quickly blend into my surroundings, so I tend not to notice things like, piles of empty cans, or the fact that my desk is covered by an inch thick layer of tools and toys and fiddly bits of wire, and all kinds of junk.
Of course not. Theyâre just, you know, kinda there.
And I swear some of them just appeared without my doing, like theyâve spontaneously tunnelled in from a parallel universe or something.
because in Late Stage Capitalism itâs more convenient and more legal to acquire shit than to get rid of it
Iâm really bad about throwing away old stuff although Iâm trying to get better at it. Hoarding goes back to my childhood where I didnât have a lot so I was loathe to get rid of anything. Itâs been a hard thing to let go of - I just like my stuff, you know?
Electronics are relatively easy for me - usually. Broken stuff that I canât otherwise salvage will get tossed. Small hard drives and obsolete media will get backed up and destroyed. But then thereâs all the stuff that still has potential to be useful - especially old cables or obsolete electronics. It always seems like the minute I throw an old cable or gadget away is when I end up actually needing it. I try to keep one or maybe two old cables to hedge for that but then get rid of everything else.
One thing that does complicate things is I tend to donate my old useless but non-broken electronics but with COVID the local donation stations keep very irregular hours so I have a car trunk full of shit I canât get rid of until that happens.
Donât get me started on my digital hoarding, but as least that doesnât take up anywhere near as much physical space.
In Terry Pratchettâs Discworld book Faust Eric, the universe is suffused with a flow of matter that pops into and out of reality. As small items that are fairly well developed. Like paperclips, ladles, a broken pair of shears. This explains why your kitchen utensil drawers get jammed.
At the end of time, Death was alone in the universe, and got kinda bored. But eventually saw a paperclip pop into existence. And so the new universe quietly remade itself over billions of years.
Praise be unto Anoia!
The picture I could take of the area right behind me is sufficiently on-topic that Iâm too ashamed to take it.
I have had my faithful strategic widget reserve save the day on occasion, which doesnât make it any easier to shake the âbut what if I end up needing one after I throw all these out?â concern; though I recognize that the situation is well beyond justification by any rational preparedness objectives.
The trouble is that getting rid of stuff means admitting things to yourself: that you are never going to get to the cool project that could have been built with that thing; that you never had the focus to learn what you needed to to use those parts properly. That hanging on to the hopelessly antiquated and increasingly glitchy laptop you used in college sure as hell isnât helping you hang on to, much less recover, any of the person you were when you were using it.
Does anyone else have a hoard of boxes for electronic shit? Like 8 boxes for Iphones you no longer own? VHS recorder box? etc.? Usually with the original manual and styrofoam?
IDK maybe I might have to return that thing some day if it turns out it doesnât work.
If that is your stuff, the laptops have value at least. I got $150 for a driveless 2010 MacBook just a couple weeks ago. Even Windows 98 laptops have value. Itâs shocking what they sell for on eBay.
Especially in the land of FreeDumb, where (in my neck of the woods) Iâd have to lug all this shit to one of the few collection points that are open once a week.
That reminds me of Douglas Adamsâ little bit:
We have collection events twice a year. Itâs really hard to not let the dead electronics pile up as a result. Last event, scheduled for October was cancelled thanks to COVID. I donât expect another event until October 2021 because Iâm pretty sure the May event will be cancelled due to COVID. 
Combine one set of Ikea grid shelves with one set of their color changing accent light kits, and you too can call a bunch of old crap âvintageâ.
Not exactly resplendent at the moment, but who among us, right?
Iâm generally okay wiht throwing away broken electronics, but Iâve been saved too many times by having a backup (even if itâs janky and doesnât totally work) phone or laptop on hand.
Cables never get thrown away, youâre guaranteed to need that cable in the future in my experience.
Rattle your drawers and light a cigarette.
Kinda nervous about the massive VGA-based install you seem to see in my future.
Last year I picked up a 2002 laptop for turn of the millenium windows gaming. VGA cables paid off 
Cosmic pinball was a banger of a game
