Garbage Gold

We were walking the dog a couple of weeks ago, and past a large truckbed sized dumpster outside of someones house. Fall cleaning? It was not filled with construction debris, but the sort of detritus that builds up in a garage, basement, or shed over the years. I climbed up on the the rungs of the thing, and peered in. Within arms reach were some very vintage looking candle lanterns. Cheap chinese junk vintage, as chrome and brass coats were being overwhelmed by rust, but antiqued is antiqued, no mater how it got there. One had a crushed globe, but the other 3 were fine. I hauled one out and presented it to the Girly. She approved, so we walked home with one old friend and 3 new ones. With a little decorative chain and random screws and brackets from our basement, the patio grew a little character.

Lately, I have been finding that a lot of things are old but still work well enough not to justify new. I realized that several of my favorite technical books were penned before I was born: my analog electronics book was written in 1972, and on of the vacuum books was written in 1958. I keep using the mac on a nearly daily basis, though it is nearly 11 years old. The eggbeaters appear to be of a 1960's vintage. A thank you card works wonders. Nothing helps keep you organized like a little notebook.

There are some facts, concepts, and methods that do not change quickly over time, if at all.

I think that we are so dazzled by the digitization and automation of things, and the following huge revolution in the way we deal with information and communication, that we have set up a generic prototype that assumes that new things implicitly work better old ones, though that situation is not the case. There things that do not necessarily become less useful compared to their replacements, just older. Sometimes, a hammer really is a hammer.

Digitization can be confusing. Automation means that some aspect of a process is no longer thought out. Re-writing the book does not always make it better. The mechanics of the tools can obscure the original goals of the task. The impact of the outcome is always the final measure quality.