Yeah, but you didn’t have to leave the house, which is worth a lot.
Or talk to anyone!
It’s not about the money - it’s about sending a message
sometimes it’s not about solving the immediate problem, but about making sure it doesn’t happen again.
(literally “fixed” my alarm clock this week after it’s plug broke off in the outlet by giving it a $10 right angle plug that won’t be under any significant strain.)
Sometimes it’s about learning to fix things more than it is about fixing the thing.
I regularly just take shit apart when it fails even if i have no intention of fixing it.
I still have my CRT TV still open due I do not have the time to buy a 16v capacitor. Has been like, 2 weeks now. Wow. I need to fix it
If you haven’t yet, go order that cap. It’ll take like 7 minutes tops.
Finally!!! It’s done.
Hell yeah! Nice work dude!
yea, fix that tv it’s going to be the weekend’s adventure
Everyone here fixing stuff with 3D printers while I am here struggling how to sew up wool silk leggings in a way that keeps them elastic and fighting for my life with darning
I’ve gotten shit for taking apart the filter screen on my toilet’s filler and cleaning out the sediment when I could just spend $20 to replace it. It’s really not even that hard once you figure out the trick for spreading the clips holding it together. They really didn’t want this to be user fixable.
I mean it’s not that crazy if it saves you a trip to whatever store.
Going to a single place to replace something can take an hour so we can subtract that. Getting paid $5 an hour for a fun activity is also an absolute steal.
I personally prefer to break a slightly broken device further
Fighting the good fight! Also, time you enjoy “wasting” isn’t wasted time.
I personally designed and 3D printed a case to hold 4 rechargeable batteries, so I could charge them with 5 Volts from a USB cable, instead of buying a new charger.
Fun Fact: this ruins the batteries. Gave up on designing myself and downloaded a design for a battery-adapter (plastic shell + 1 screw that makes small battery fit in big devices). My stockpile of small batteries then lasted me 2 months before I finally bought a charger and new rechargeables.
We salute you
True. It isn’t always about a cost/labour analysis. Sometimes I want to repair something to learn how to do it. Sometimes I want to repair something because even though ‘my time is valuable’, I hate the idea of throwing out something I know will rot in the landfill for a thousand years. Sometimes I’m just attached to the thing and afraid I won’t find a replacement that is as good (which is often the case).
I hate our throwaway culture, it’s good to know how to fix things even if it isn’t technically ‘cost effective’ to do so.
Also, I think that you shouldn’t put a price on your free time off work? You wouldn’t be working anyway, why put a price tag on it?
Absolutely – I hate how we’ve been raised to think of time in monetary terms; I have to remind myself on days off that “No, I do not need to do anything it’s my day off! I can sleep in… no need to be productive …”
I was living in a shithole apartment with a noisy fridge that the landlord wouldn’t fix and complaining to my therapist about it. He suggested I fix it, which was a completely alien idea to me at the time. It was a lot less complicated than I expected, I learned a lot about how it worked, and my self-confidence and perceived control over my circumstances skyrocketed.
Also it’s fun.
It challenges me, relaxes me, and I get a cool experience out of it
Me with all my Koss headphones (looking at you KPH30i!), and everything with a depleted rechargeable battery.
All of these reasons but I also just enjoy the experience of fixing something. It feeds the soul in some deep way for me
Karl Marx’s theory of alienation describes the separation and estrangement of people from their work, their wider world, their human nature, and their selves. Alienation is a consequence of the division of labour in a capitalist society, wherein a human being’s life is lived as a mechanistic part of a social class
Doing stuff against planned obsolesce and throwaway culture are much more meaningful than recycling.
If you are a hobbyist, you can break them in to components and build something new. Preferably something that doesn’t burn your house down or electrocute someone. Stay under 50V.
Hell yeah brother.
I legit contracted with an OEM over Alibaba to make a custom piece of glass to adhere to the new LCD screen to replace the broken screen in my wife’s Playdate.
Though in that case it was like $150 total.
Damn, sounds impressive! The experience that inspired this meme for me was swapping the buttons in my mouse for newer ones from a dead donor mouse, which admittedly took much less than 2 hours haha
Imagine the reduction in e-waste if everyone in high school took a short course in how to use a soldering iron, solder-sucker/braid and heat-gun to replace common bits in consumer electronics. So many things could be saved that get thrown out only due to a bad microswitch or cracked solder joint to a USB or headphone connector …
When I went to trade school I jumped all over the opportunity to learn how to solder for exactly that reason
When they went to school, my mother learned how to use a sewing machine, my father learned basic carpentry, and they both learned how to shoot and maintain an AK-47. Although the UUSR may not have been the perfect paradise that many people make it out to be, it does feel like modern school systems could learn a thing or two from the communists.
That’s so great. You should be proud.
There’s lots of costs that don’t show up in the 5$ value. Considering limited resources, the value in human lives tied with pollution, the pollution you are not generating during the two hours of hobbying…
I think the math checks out most of the time.
