This afternoon, Nora interviewed two of our favourite past guests, Anil Dash and Gina Trapani. Anil and Gina are pals, and they’ve both been doing a lot of thinking about why some of us lust after the newest, shiniest gadgets on the market, when the ones we already own are doing just fine.
As Anil says on his blog:
Here’s the idea: We can fix the false impression that the newest gadgets are the only interesting ones by simply promoting the fact that we’re getting a lot out of our existing products.
To do this, Anil has started a new site, Last Year’s Model, which you should check out if you’re using a phone from 2005 or have a 10-year-old television. (me!)
An edited version of the Gina and Anil conversation will air on the May 13 & 16 episode of Spark. (BTW, Should be a great show featuring documentary filmmaker Gray Hustwit, Anil and Gina, and a very comprehensive look at the origins of QWERTY)
You can listen to the full unedited interview with Anil and Gina below, or download the MP3.
Play audio:
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Since iPods were mentioned, I use a vintage iPod Mini because it has FireWire and I'm able to run Rockbox (third party firmware that can play Ogg/Vorbis and MP3 files without the need for iTunes).
I like that the new MacBooks are metal, but I'm put off because they lack a FireWire port, so I can't use my miniDV camcorder with them. Newer isn't always better.
Every archgeek I know prides themselves on how loooooooong they can make good use of old tech – typically getting rid of it for power consumption reasons, not anything to do with function.
Personally, I refuse to learn anything new more than once per decade per type of service (voice, TV, browser, home control). In this I'm like the average consumer.
In January 1998 I had a number of identical PCs built using parts, as it turns out, with the exact same chips Apple chose for the G3, plus the ATI All in Wonder Pro card. These served flawlessly for ten years, with only one video card out of six machines failing, and one power supply I believe. All the boot drives were on racks (USB was there but too immature for drives) and if something went wrong you pulled out the 2GB drive and swapped in another one that had an intact boot on it – basically a wipe-and-reinstall. Today that's what you do with a USB stick. I probably spent no more than 100 hours on "fixing things" on these machines over that decade. Frankly, anyone who did it any other way doesn't have the right to call themselves an archgeek or ubergeek. I advise ICT managers to strongly encouraged arrogance among those who could extend MTBF and heap scorn on those who bought technology that they don't make full use of. It's just waste and vanity.
Linux and FreeBSD are especially effective at extending the useful live of older computers, but these days it's power draw that determines when you give up and send them to the e-waste depot. Old laptops, if well cared for, are a good buy, as they draw almost no power and can probably keep up with your net connection.
Almost everything we do is bandwidth-limited anyway – you don't need machines that outrun your Internet connection. $7000 gamer PCs are in the same category as souped-up Mustangs, just for showing off. I don't respect people who waste a lot of money on that when they could have insulated their house or replaced their V8 truck with a V6 diesel that gets twice the mileage. These days all true geeks are green.