About a week a ago (or so) this email:

I’ve got 2 x 4th generation ipods at home, both with knackered hard drives. My inner environmentalist says that I can’t throw them away. But getting them fixed will cost £150 quid each. Which just isn’t worth it considering they’re old and scratched up. Is there anything you can do with them? Or like mobile phones is there a charity that can do something with them?

turned a mailing list into a temporarily war zone about capitalism, corporal responsibilities, old mechanics vs new. A lot of good thinks got said;

…in a way it’s our own fault for supporting it and propagating the apple-is-best mythology simply because ipods are so much nicer-looking, more nicely designed and more ergonomic than e.g. creative or any of the other dog-ugly pc-like clones. i guess we’re victims of our own taste, or something? personally i don’t think it’s too much to ask that we should have nicely-designed and ergonomic technology that doesn’t cost the earth and lasts longer than a mayfly, but it seems the man doesn’t agree with me, because that would interfere with unfettered economic growth.

i’ll get my coat.

good point were made:

so that they can make more money from extended guarantees, a relatively recent bit of sharp practice. from what I understand of older times, this was not previously the case.

and a lot of good links got send around:

  • Slavoj Zizek: Nobody has to be vile
    An article including both good and bad things. So maybe not all good - but definitely an interesting read.
  • Apple battery replacement
    Apple’s batteries scheme, that was, according to some sources, set up as a response to all the complains coming in.
  • Apple and the environment
    “Apple has long been an advocate of product stewardship, and we believe that this concept extends to the proper disposal of electronic equipment at the end of its life.”

So all that (and a lot more) came out of a email about two knackered iPods in combination with some brilliant people and their thoughts (and will to share them). I actually didn’t contribute to the discussion at all, I just agreed towards the end. So well done everyone and thanks for once again proving that TV is a bad choice of entertainment (and that the world is fucked up and we all gonna die and burn in Hell).

So thanks Iain Tait for fucking up two iPods. Thank you Andrew Knott for winding up Igor Clark to produce some absolute top quality rants.