Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The great junk transfer is coming

theglobeandmail.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 461 posts

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#101

Post by whatusername »

debbiedowner wrote: post #82
robocat wrote: post #70

Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child. Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to u…

What are some examples of the obsolete tools? I can imagine a manual hand drill...

I think perhaps the middle space? 90's power tools? Any old battery tools?

I consider my petrol mower to be obsolete - but I can't justify replacing it with an electric/battery one when it functions fine.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#102

Post by voidfunc »

jahewson wrote: post #81
flybrand wrote: post #8

When FiL passed away there were multiple buildings on their 50 acres full of stuff. Both he and MiL were only children. Everything over 200 yrs had flowed to them. “Priceless heirlooms” weren’t of interest to anyone. Auctions led to junk dealers. There is a hopelessness in realizing that lifetimes of activity were of little value, that nobody even knew what many objects were. I felt like the girl in the movie Labyrin…

Oh yes, we had a few of these accumulators on my wife's side of the family. It's like the depression created an entire generation that couldn't bear to throw anything away. Five giant boxes of rags. Every tax return back to 1942. Every disposable coffee cup sleeve. Presents, never opened. Dresses, last worn in the 1980s. Every little white table-shaped thing that comes in a takeaway pizza box. 20 of the same wrench,…

This kind of hoarding runs on my mother's side of the family. My mother's mother lived through the depression and saved _everything_. When she was put into a nursing home we had to get the house ready for sale and there was quite a flurry of junk to throw out.

My mother is a little bit better, but she definitely saves more stuff than necessary. Not to quite the scale of her mother, but it seems like a learned behavior.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#103

Post by tjojrtoiertj32 »

robocat wrote: post #70

Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child. Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to u…

Yes, but seriously, the previous gens. hold onto a lot of junk.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#104

Post by jmspring »

My father has been doing a decent job decluttering from things my mother accumulated. She is still alive, but not all there.

He has a safe that has multiple locks that I need to make sure I have the code(s) for.

I don’t accumulate stuff and already told my sister when it comes to that time, she can grab what she wants. The rest goes to donation/dump.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#105

Post by thakoppno »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #98
ars wrote: post #28

I've started doing this in my life: I take pictures of items that have emotional meaning to me, and then throw away the item. I care about the meaning to me, what memories it gives me, not the physical item. It's really really hard though. But my kids will just have a Google Photos album to keep rather than a house full of stuff.

I like to draw them or write about them in my journal. I find that the intense focus required helps remember them very well.

how do you archive your journals?

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#107

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

vulcan1964 wrote: post #92

What will happen to the heaps of digital junk stored on flash drives, hard drives, forgotten online accounts? I get overwhelmed thinking about organizing my own electronics files… wonder what my kids will do with it all.

I've gone through things like digital photo collections with mine and sent whatever they wanted (mostly pictures from their childhoods etc). They seem to prefer storing it all in their phones (w. cloud backup), but I have it all available through a NAS if they ever want it. I suspect that when the missus and I are gone, the physical digital stuff like drives and computers will simply be sent to recycling.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#108

Post by Scoundreller »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #59
Scoundreller wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, stamps, for the past 10 years I’ve bought “discount” stamps off eBay. Basically buying 45cent or whatever stamps for 25 cents or less and plastering my packages like the… never mind. Obviously this is the lossy side of stamp collecting, but man, to take a haircut like that after preserving something for 20 or 30 years.

My father does this... incessantly. He has stacks of stamps he uses to send out for work and he gets them all at major discount on ebay. It turns out the post office, mostly doesn't actually care to count up the 1 and 2 cent stamps. There's a group of hobbyists committing felonies out there making their own stamps and sending them out. The post office doesn't notice. One sillier trick was, forget a stamp, it'll get r…

At least I hear USPS really cares about weight. In Canada... not so much.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#109

Post by dukeofdoom »

debbiedowner wrote: post #82
robocat wrote: post #70

Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child. Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to u…

What are some examples of the obsolete tools? I can imagine a manual hand drill...

I've seen the guy from "my self reliance" (Youtube) use manual hand drill in the building of his remote cabin. No power for electric drill. A battery operated drill would probably fail rather quickly boring through a log with a large drill head. If I remember correctly, proper wood working chisel sets are still very highly priced. And the antique ones can be of higher quality.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#110

Post by gfaregan »

debbiedowner wrote: post #82
robocat wrote: post #70

Cleaning up after your parents is a gift you give to them: look at it like them paying it forward for all the times the cleaned up after you as a child. Psychologically, mentally, and physically, parents can have difficulty tidying up their stuff. My friend’s parents came from very poor backgrounds and had a lot of trash. The father had a shed full of stuff that was useful to him - he knew what was in it and how to u…

What are some examples of the obsolete tools? I can imagine a manual hand drill...

I keep an old hand brace in my toolbox and it's amazing. It doesn't need a cord or a battery and you can get a lot of torque out of it.
Post reply on HN