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0 pointsVerdex3y ago0 comments

Personally I like the idea of modular phones such that you can swap out only components that are obsolete or damaged.

Although, ultimately, this feels like a market/advertising issue over a technical issue. While I'm not convinced a 100% recycle phone will ever be a likelihood; surely we can get to 90%. Or slow down the trash generation with the aforementioned modular phone.

However it's going to require people to want to spend money on such a thing and also industry to want to produce and advertise such a thing. None of which seems like it's happening anytime soon.

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germinalphrase3y ago

How much does a modular design really extend the life of a computer? Very few people (my father aside) are actively trying to keep computers from the 90’s orearly 2000’s alive. That my 10-year-old MacBook is still kicking is kind of a miracle (and only because I have harvested the guts from two others).

denton-scratch3y ago

I once set up a computer workshop using PCs discarded by university labs. I assembled about a dozen PCs from about 20 discards. One of them served as a DSL router.

In retrospect, I regret it; I saved those PCs from going to the dump, but:

- They were not power-efficient

- Because the hardware was a decade old, they had poor connectivity options

I used to seek out computers that were maximally upgradeable. But in practice, the only thing I ever upgraded was disk and memory. I still have a box of obsolete memory cards. Stuff gets obsolete very quickly these days.

jjav3y ago

> Stuff gets obsolete very quickly these days.

What do you mean these days? Computers used to obsolete within months in the 90s as ever-faster CPUs kept coming out.

No longer true, with the death of Moore's Law. Computers from 2010 are still quite usable (I have several, servers & laptop) since speed increases over the last decade are incremental at best.

I've been buying computers since the 80s and now is the golden age of longevity for equipment.

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robonerd3y ago

The only reason a 10 year old macbook seems like a miracle is because expectations are low for the Apple brand particularly. For other brands of laptop, 10 years old isn't terribly unusual. And for diy PC builds, I dare say 10 years old is actually typical (albeit usually in a 'Ship of Theseus' sense, but that's the point isn't it?)

germinalphrase3y ago

Is that really the case for anyone but dedicated hobbyists? I would be honestly shocked to learn that the average life of any laptop brand runs higher than 5-6 years on average before being discarded.

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0 pointsVerdex3y ago0 comments

Personally I like the idea of modular phones such that you can swap out only components that are obsolete or damaged.

However it's going to require people to want to spend money on such a thing and also industry to want to produce and advertise such a thing. None of which seems like it's happening anytime soon.

0 comments

germinalphrase3y ago

denton-scratch3y ago

I once set up a computer workshop using PCs discarded by university labs. I assembled about a dozen PCs from about 20 discards. One of them served as a DSL router.

In retrospect, I regret it; I saved those PCs from going to the dump, but:

- They were not power-efficient

- Because the hardware was a decade old, they had poor connectivity options

jjav3y ago

> Stuff gets obsolete very quickly these days.

What do you mean these days? Computers used to obsolete within months in the 90s as ever-faster CPUs kept coming out.

No longer true, with the death of Moore's Law. Computers from 2010 are still quite usable (I have several, servers & laptop) since speed increases over the last decade are incremental at best.

I've been buying computers since the 80s and now is the golden age of longevity for equipment.

1 more reply

robonerd3y ago

germinalphrase3y ago

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse