Why Did I Hoard This Shit?

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It got better since they’ve put bins for old electronics next to the bottle banks, but it’s still a bit of a struggle.

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I wouldn’t 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.

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Of course not. They’re just, you know, kinda there.
And I swear some of them just appeared without my doing, like they’ve spontaneously tunnelled in from a parallel universe or something.

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because in Late Stage Capitalism it’s more convenient and more legal to acquire shit than to get rid of it

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In Terry Pratchett’s 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.

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Praise be unto Anoia!

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The picture I could take of the area right behind me is sufficiently on-topic that I’m too ashamed to take it.

I have had my faithful strategic widget reserve save the day on occasion, which doesn’t make it any easier to shake the “but what if I end up needing one after I throw all these out?” 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 isn’t helping you hang on to, much less recover, any of the person you were when you were using it.

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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 doesn’t work.

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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. It’s shocking what they sell for on eBay.

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Especially in the land of FreeDumb, where (in my neck of the woods) I’d have to lug all this shit to one of the few collection points that are open once a week.

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That reminds me of Douglas Adams’ little bit:

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We have collection events twice a year. It’s really hard to not let the dead electronics pile up as a result. Last event, scheduled for October was cancelled thanks to COVID. I don’t expect another event until October 2021 because I’m pretty sure the May event will be cancelled due to COVID. :disappointed:

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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 ‘vintage’.


Not exactly resplendent at the moment, but who among us, right?

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I’m generally okay wiht throwing away broken electronics, but I’ve been saved too many times by having a backup (even if it’s janky and doesn’t totally work) phone or laptop on hand.

Cables never get thrown away, you’re guaranteed to need that cable in the future in my experience.

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Rattle your drawers and light a cigarette.

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Kinda nervous about the massive VGA-based install you seem to see in my future.

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Last year I picked up a 2002 laptop for turn of the millenium windows gaming. VGA cables paid off :grin:

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Cosmic pinball was a banger of a game

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I try to keep at least one of every cable. For the rest of the obsolete cables I know I’ll be unlikely to need I’ll dump them into the electronics recycling bins at work.

What’s really annoying are HDMI cables since they are still ubiquitous but they all look the same but they don’t work the same. If I find any that look old or I can’t tell if they are high speed I just get rid of them rather than risk compatibility issues.

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