Mastodon post transcription:
kasran, fourier transfemme @[email protected]
minimalism is a scam invented by big small to sell more less
October 29, 2023 at 10:23 PM · 13 replies · 290 reblogs · 425 favorites
kasran, fourier transfemme @[email protected]
minimalism is a scam invented by big small to sell more less
October 29, 2023 at 10:23 PM · 13 replies · 290 reblogs · 425 favorites
I don’t get the downvotes, you’re not wrong. I have 3 broken microwaves in the shed. Because they’re the same model as the one I have and I might need parts from them. Not very minimalist. Bunch of random computer parts, cause never known when I might need them. Etc.
Would I like to have no microwaves in my shed and just send my Microwave to get fixed when it breaks? Of course. That’s expensive though.
You can have both.
Breakimg down the microwaves to harvest out specifically the parts that you would expect to have to replace, then organizing them into a couple small well labeled bins, which go into a shelf of other such small bins that hold all your other repair parts, and thus keeping clutter contained and organized, would be minimalist.
Having 3 half assembled microwaves stacked on top of each other on the floor to be tripped over, or on top of a workspace raking up precious space, would not be.
You can have your cake and eat it too, it just takes work is the downside.
If I knew what was gonna break then it would probably already be broken. Like, If there was a common part that always fails then it would have failed on all of them. Gotta keep all the parts. I could save space on the housing but I’ve also had the housing rust out or kids break the door etc. Also there have been some slight changes over the years in their design, I’ve had to pull all the guts out of one and put them into another because the one piece that was bad wouldn’t fit properly in the newer housing.
And I simply don’t have the time to strip down everything I have in the shed, package, label and identify every part in it. Time is money and people that don’t have a ton of one often don’t have a ton of the other.
Also the price of nice little bins is crazy, realistically everything is going to end up in cardboard boxes which will get damaged, parts will go missing etc.
And then just having all the tools needed is also another problem, people say rent or borrow but A: there’s no where near me that rents tools and B: renting hand tools usually costs about the same as buying them. If you need the same tool again you’re once again spending money.
Like it’s nice if you can afford it but minimalism is in no way cheap.
Seems pointless to keep 3 entire microwaves around then, also what are you even doing to your microwaves that makes them fail this much? I have never seen a microwave fail, and I use them all the damn time.
Only parts prone to breaking are the knobs, handles, etc, and those are easier to just 3d print a replacement. If your electrical parts of the microwave have failed, I would assume the rest of the unit is already well past its prime at that point.
Bruh what the fuck your microwaves are rusting out? What are you doing to these things.
So these arent even exact same models, which makes it even weirder to keep them for spare parts.
Which is why you want to gain the skill to identify the key parts worth keeping and get rid of the rest. If you have the time to repair the microwave, you also logically should have the time to prep the parts ahead of time so you arent scrambling to ad-hoc fix the thing when it breaks.
You can 3d print them for like a dollar a pop. And in terms of tools, a 3d printer solves a lot of these types of issues, as instead of having to keep a bunch of spares around, or order new parts, or throw the entire thing out and buy a new one, you can 3d print a lot of replacement parts that are prone to breaking.
And most often its the plastic bits that are the most brittle and most prone to snapping/cracking/breaking over time.
Just an example: I had this giant plastic screw for my 30 year old dishwasher, it snapped clean in half and would have been impossible to replace. 30 minutes with calipers and a script I found to generate screw models by measurements online and my machine was printing away. Another hour later and the screw was done printing, I popped it in and… it worked first try and has been in my dishwasher working fine for the past 2 years. Cost me a whopping 30 cents worth of plastic and 30 minutes of my time.
Not really, buying tools you need is acceptable in a minimalist lifestyle. What isnt minimalist is buying a buncha shit you dont need.
There are specific tools that can handle like 99.9% of your use cases, and as long as you get those you should be fine for any ad-hoc work, and the last 0.01% you can rent.
A dremel, hand saw, and power drill can get you really far for a lot of tasks.
Factually false, especially those 0.01% of tools you only need once for a job. Most tools you have to rent for a couple entire weeks before it costs the same as buying, and some you have to rent for a month or two.
Renting is quite cheap actually.
You usually need it several times in these cases before it was better to just buy it.
I at least once every few years have to rebuild a microwave. A: these microwaves are pushing 10-12 years old at this point. B: I live in the developing world and power quality isn’t great. Never had a knob or handle fail on this model actually, just electrical parts. Usually I can rebuild the board by replacing components but sometimes it’s just dead. They might be “past their prime” but once again replacing something repairable just cause it’s old is neither eco friendly nor frugal. I have friends and family with the same microwave also and have been able to help them out with parts in the past.
1: Remember they’re like 8-12 years old. 2: tropical climate, super high humidity.
Same model different years. I mean I’ve always been able to fix them with what I had available so it doesn’t seem that weird?
So if I have the time to pull one part out I have the time to pull every part out, label them and 3d print bins to put them in? Also, most parts I have replaced have been either metal or electronic. Even if they were, learning CAD software, buying and maintaining a 3d printer and designing a custom piece certainly seems more difficult and expensive than just popping out out of the spare. I know I could in theory use the 3d printer for other things but I really don’t have the time or desire to learn how to use one at this point in my life.
As for renting/buying maybe that’s just a country different but I can go the the Chinese tool shop and get tools for not much more than the cost of renting, assuming it’s even available for rent here. Yes the quality is crap but for a tool that only gets used every few months it’s more than acceptable. I’m willing to concede that this might not be the case everywhere.
Intereesting, yeah local location can absolutely be an influencing factor.
I would still definitely say its worth it to break down the microwaves a bit and at least reduce your clutter to some degree, it’s certainly what I would do. Especially since you said:
Instantly that means you can eliminate like a solid 80% of the volume of the microwave, which would reduce clutter tremendously. You are looking at 3? distinct sections of parts/boards you’d be left with typically (fan unit, main board, and the transformer/magnetron assembly)
Thats enough to divide up into 3 bins and now 3 microwaves are 3 bins of parts, which could be put up and out of the way on a shelf.
Here in Canada, typically you’d have to rent something for multiple weeks before its about the same price as buying. If you rent for just 1-2 days at a time you’d have to rent it many many times before it comes close to the price to buy the same tool.
So for tools you use all the time, yeah, absolutely buy it.
But if I say, need a jackhammer literally once to just break up the concrete pad in my yard to replace it, I dont need to buy a whole jackhammer and can just rent it for 1-2 days. Same for cement mixer and whatnot. I probably at most see myself needing to pour concrete maybe 2 or 3 times tops for the entire life of my home I own, so I dont ever see myself buying an entire cement mixer or jackhammer.
But a Saw? Drill? Etc, other power tools I use all the time? Yeah 100% I will buy those.
But even with all my power tools, I have a very organized wall system they go on. A big part of Minimalism is the principle of Mise en Place. Everything has a place it belong, and everything is in its place it belongs.
As long as what you own truly is something you need, and it has a place it goes, and it is in its place it goes, thats minimalist.
People often skip over the boring part but, a big part of minimalism is containers, organization, storage, etc.
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