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

151–160 of 461 posts

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#151

Post by kevinpet »

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...

Specialty tools that fit vehicles you don't have. Specialty tools for operations that no one would perform by hand anymore. E.g. a cylinder honing tool.

Whitworth wrenches, sockets, taps, and dies. My dad had a British motorcycle shop around 1980 and I'm pretty sure there is still some of this in his tool boxes in the garage.

Homemade jigs whose purpose you can't even figure out.

I think the dominant category would just be extra or broken or cheap tools that aren't worth hanging on to. For some reason I have like four stubby Phillips #1 screwdrivers. Cheap hatchets with broken handles. Mushroomed lead mallets. A whole drawer of dull drill bits.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#153

Post by nasmorn »

In my twenties I was cleaning out my apartment if some old stuff and my in laws who had a cat said they would take the boxes to the dump. Turns out they kept the stuff and I had to get rid of it again when my FIL died.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#154

Post by Freak_NL »

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...

Look at what gets put out at jumble/rummage sales and charity shops. In addition to what others posted, I see a lot of rusty screwdrivers (Phillips and slot) which everyone already has (and most of the time you're using Pozidriv or Torx anyway) and rusty spade drills.

Every once in a while you spot a good one before someone else does (pincers, a good vintage cast-iron hacksaw frame for €5, a pristine sheet metal clamp for €1), but most of it is crap.

Which does make me wonder where all the good tools go.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#155

Post by Symbiote »

danielodievich wrote: post #69

A friend of mine has a dad who is known in certain circles (name withheld) and I quote "Mr XYX, the owner of the largest collection of non-running Triumph coupes in the USA". He got a lot of sh*t for what is essentially a junk yard from his city. His house is filled to the brim with model train cars, in the bozes still, and all the EBay printouts of the auctions he won and lost. I do not know what my friend's plans a…

The eBay printouts are very useful. You can see which of the models was worth €10, and which were worth €200.

The value will change over time. Probably down, unless there are some very rare models. But it will give your friend some idea (and some terms to search for) when he contacts a local model railway dealer and asks for a quote. (Or lists everything on eBay himself.)

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#156

Post by brabel »

tmountain wrote: post #13

It doesn't have to be this way. Synopsis of "The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning" by Margareta Magnusson. In Sweden there is a kind of decluttering called döstädning, dö meaning “death” and städning meaning “cleaning.” This surprising and invigorating process of clearing out unnecessary belongings can be undertaken at any age or life stage but should be done sooner than later, before others have to do it for you…

Swedish garages are never used for cars. Their only purpose is to hold a whole lot of trash that "you may need some day". I've visited lots of houses when I was on the market, nearly all of them had a garage or basement completely full of what to me looks like trash (as the article says, to the owners, it's old stuff that has some sentimental value, of course).

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#157

Post by Ekaros »

tjojrtoiertj32 wrote: post #103
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.

I think nearly everyone holds junk. Rather few go to actual minimalism. For rest they end up collecting some things marginally useful.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#158

Post by mackrevinack »

ars wrote: post #32
pessimizer wrote: post #19

I get this if one of your parents was a bad painter and filled the house with huge framed canvases. Otherwise, I'm just looking for stuff I want, and anything that I know was meant for posterity and few people would care about (my father updates a family tree, for example.) After that, call a professional and sell the lot to them i.e. the thing that these people mention not doing. You may "lose" your parents if you d…

You have no items in your parents home that reminds you of something you did as a child? Nothing?

i usually just take photos of that type of thing. they take up much less physical space

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#159

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

astrange wrote: post #89
chaostheory wrote: post #36

I feel with Millennials not being able to buy normal sized homes and the rise of minimalism with trends like Marie Kondo, this traditional junk transfer may end with Gen X.

I wonder how far back these traditions go? People didn’t have the ability to generate junk until recently. Even the concept of generations is post-WW2.

This only exists because of industrialization and the creation of a middle class who had disposable income to buy surplus stuff. Before that, inherited items were truly precious.

Re: The great junk transfer is coming

#160

Post by smolder »

wonderbore wrote: post #116
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.

> wonder what my kids will do with it all. The good part about digital content is that you don't have to do absolutely anything with it. Keep documents and photos accessible, forget the rest. As we approach multi-generational widespread digital content "cloud" services, we'll see more and more companies allowing content to be easily passed over to the next generation — but just for reference. I don't need my father’s…

The cloud services of big tech cos can be counted on to store things cheaply or for free long term, for now. I do not trust them to hold onto anything or preserve access to it for 50 or 100 years. IMHO, people should be their own digital archivists for the really important stuff on those timescales, to avoid the risk of important data being discarded or held hostage by profit motivated companies at some point down the line we can't see coming yet. "The cloud" is young in terms of human life, and the rules we live by are volatile on that scale, shifting with transfers of power and depletion (or discovery) of important resources.
Post reply on HN