Don't hoard your old stuff

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 17:56:51 +0100, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:47:06 +0000, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , mark
wrote:

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!

There are people who keep previous telephone directories "just in
case", and a friend of mine, doing VMS support at work in the 80s, kept
/two/ previous versions of the VMS manual set at home "just in case".

Me too :-)

I just the opposite. Anything I don't need or use for more than a few
months get's thrown out.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus neural network plus a lot more http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN prediction software http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN just the neural network http://www.justnn.com
Neural Planner Software http://www.npsnn.com

On 20/01/2014 16:59, Capitol wrote:
Bill Wright wrote:
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

The reason I'm apostrophising 'stock' is that the word, bare, suggests
that the items are saleable. I now realise that a large proportion of
the things I've hoarded will never be saleable, unless technology
suddenly and by some freak discontinuity in space and time reverts to
what it was in the 1970s. The absurd thing is that when I turned these
things over in my hands just after they had become obsolete I thought,
"Maybe it will come in..." No, they won't 'come in'. Technology that has
been superseded by a better, cheaper, more effective way of doing things
will never 'come in'.

What made things worse was that when I cleared my dad's house there was
so much that a sensible DIYer could not throw away. That's how it
seemed, anyway. The problem was that there wasn't just one or two
hammers, there were 23. Father had a long and varied career,
encompassing railway work, bridge building, joinery, road building, and
management, and I'm sorry to say it but it now seems that he had
sticky fingers. I guess it's the gypsy blood. I'm the same. I would
never steal, but really, sometimes, well, it would be a waste, a
criminal waste, to just leave things like that lying around, wouldn't it?

When Hil was in the early stages of recovery from her stroke she had a
problem with the shift key. She needed something to hold it down. I
found a very large bolt with a round head and a square nut. The nut
rested on the desk and the round head pressed down on the shift key. It
was a temporary fix that worked. Eventually Hil didn't need it any more,
so the nut and bolt sat on the windowsill waiting until I was due to go
near the box from whence it had come, the box called 'Misc nuts/bolts
(large)'. Father saw it and said, "That came from the wagon shops." He
worked in the wagon shops until he was called up in 1939.

And now the time has come to throw many things away. The dilemmas of
youth (shall I go to university; shall I ditch this girl?) are as of
nothing compared to what I face now. These masthead amplifiers, they are
brand new (although dated 1972). They require 16V DC negative inner on
the coax, and I have no compatible power supply units, nor have I had
any for 35 years. But they are still in their boxes, dammit! I can't
throw them away: I paid good money for them! They stand in the doorway
of the stockroom, in limbo. But into the bin they go, finally. I shed a
tear.

So many things were supplied but not used. Rather flimsy wall brackets
for Sky dishes (I substituted my own brackets). Single output LNBs when
quads were de rigour. Remote controls for receivers that we installed in
tens, leaving just a couple of remotes, because if we'd left any spares
the staff would take them home. Scart leads that were supplied
with every receiver and never used because we always took the AV from
the phono sockets. Instruction books, hundreds of them, for analogue Sky
receivers. Why did I save them? Sun shields for cameras that were
installed indoors, mast clamps for FM aerials that wouldn't fit a 2"
mast and so were not used, rubber boots for LNBs that were a predictable
failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs', small aerial installation
items of uncertain provenance and utility in a box, haplessly marked
'Queer Things'.

Then there are the lead-headed wall nails, the 75/300ohm transformers
(you never know, they might start to import 300 ohm tellys again), 2A,
5A, and 15A mains plugs (they might start to use them again), plastic
element holders for VHF 'X' aerials, aluminium clips to hold 1/2"
elements onto 1" booms, flush plates with built-in aerial switches (that
had very poor isolation between inputs and were thus useless), fifty-two
great heavy diecast aerial switches that worked well once you'd fitted a
213 plug onto the coax, 119 U links for a type of modulator we haven't
used since 1990, 57 crimp plugs for CT167 but alas no crimp rings, 12
'CB filters', a whole box of filters built into aluminium boxes, all
mysterious in their function and labelled 'General Post Office', 500
yards of a rather strange 75ohm coax that was grey, had an OD of 5mm, a
seven-stranded inner, yet was air spaced and worked well enough at UHF
in strong signal areas, a huge coil of ribbon cable 3" wide and with 22
cores, 100 yards of heavily screened 3-core 1.5mm mains flex, 17
assorted indoor aerials, thousands of adhesive cable clips and thousands
of adhesive felt pads, all with the adhesive perished and hardly sticky
at all, an impressive demonstration board showing a Wolsey tap-off line,
a box of those very good Labgear tap-off units that had the 'f'
connectors in line so the thing would fit inside trunking (why were they
discontinued?), manufacturers' samples of four different in-line UHF
'signal finders', a board with the sign writing hardly discernable:
'Wright's Aerials' in that strange font ('Data'?) that was supposed to
mean 'modern' in the 1970s, the one that was meant to look like
'computer writing'.

Over the years, each time we've got home after a few days working away
we've been tired, so we've simply put the returned boxes of left-over
stock -- their contents a dreadful post-job muddle -- onto a shelf, with
the vague intention of sorting them out 'at the weekend'. I have now
unearthed a large number of these boxes. Each one takes about an hour to
sort out, and typically yields a 50/50 mix of scrap and good stuff, the
latter probably being worth £200.

I know I've gone on about this before, but honestly it's a nightmare!
I'm having a one- or two-hour session every day, because beyond that it
is just so stultifying. I think the main stock room is going to take
another 15 sessions. Luckily I have a good arrangement with a licensed
waste carrier. Whatever I put out he takes, whether he wants it or not.

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

I read this carefully, before I decided to ignore the advice. Two
jobs in the last month have used the useless junk I've kept for decades!
Someone else can sort the mess out when I've gone!

I've never had a problem binning stuff *apart from* bits of wood. They
don't go out of date so an Ikea bed left on the pavement (a frequent
occurrence round here) gets squirreled

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:32:11 +0000 (UTC), Jethro_uk
wrote:

...a board with the sign writing hardly discernable:
'Wright's Aerials' in that strange font ('Data'?) that was supposed
to mean 'modern' in the 1970s, the one that was meant to look like
'computer writing'.

Has any computer actually used that font? It was touted as what would
be on cheques, IIRC, but no computer I've ever worked with (since
1965)
has ever used it.

The font that was used was MICR-E13B, which was a number only font,
used on bottom edge of cheques. Data-70 and the visually similar
Computer were full fonts, using the same principles as MICR-E13B.
SFAIK, Data-70 and Computer were only used by graphic artists trying to
give a machine-like look to text.

Wasn't the "machine readability" achieved by using magnetic ink, rather
than OCR ?

facepalm ... just remembered what the "M" stood for ... where's my coat

I think the arty types that design posters and suchlike that look
superficially as if they're supposed to be in this font are unaware of
what the "13" in E13B stood for.

Rod.

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

The reason I'm apostrophising 'stock' is that the word, bare, suggests
that the items are saleable. I now realise that a large proportion of
the things I've hoarded will never be saleable, unless technology
suddenly and by some freak discontinuity in space and time reverts to
what it was in the 1970s. The absurd thing is that when I turned these
things over in my hands just after they had become obsolete I thought,
"Maybe it will come in..." No, they won't 'come in'. Technology that has
been superseded by a better, cheaper, more effective way of doing things
will never 'come in'.

What made things worse was that when I cleared my dad's house there was
so much that a sensible DIYer could not throw away. That's how it
seemed, anyway. The problem was that there wasn't just one or two
hammers, there were 23. Father had a long and varied career,
encompassing railway work, bridge building, joinery, road building, and
management, and I'm sorry to say it but it now seems that he had
sticky fingers. I guess it's the gypsy blood. I'm the same. I would
never steal, but really, sometimes, well, it would be a waste, a
criminal waste, to just leave things like that lying around, wouldn't it?

I expect 90% of people here are the same.
I certainly am.

In message , John
Rumm writes
On 20/01/2014 13:40, Bill Wright wrote:

failure, so I used self-amalg yet carefully saved the rubber boots in a
box marked 'useless rubber boots for LNBs',

I admire the completeness and honesty of your labelling system ;-)

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Its a cautionary tale for those of us that still aspire to ever bigger
sheds...

Saving stuff with some vague purpose is natural. I have now reached the
stage where sorting though such items, with disposal in mind, becomes a
trip down memory lane. Each links to the memory of when, how, why etc.
and ends with a return to the shelf.


--
Tim Lamb

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:44:47 -0000, "Paul D Smith"
wrote:

D'ye have any of those now-unobtainable adapters to plug into a light
socket so you can put two bulbs in?

Those were to let you run something totally unsuitable, like an electric
fire, off the light socket while still having light.
+++++++++++
You see those in old TV shows or movies sometimes, often when an iron being
run off the socket.

Paul DS.

Yes.

I think that back then it was unusual to have more than a few sockets in
a house. Today's approach of having sockets everywhere "just in case" is
relatively new (in terms of decades rather than years).

Heating was by gas or solid-fuel fire in all rooms, including bedrooms.
And going back a few years further, wirelesses (radios) were powered by
accumulators (lead-acid batteries) that would, when necessary, be
exchanged for fully-charged ones at a localshop.

--
Peter Duncanson
(in uk.tech.digital-tv)

Bill Wright wrote:

OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.


Snip

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

I had someone round to buy my old Tannoy speakers that I knew were
valuable. After he paid £1500 for them he asked if I had any other old
audio equipment.

I said that I had an old turntable and arm somewhere in the garage.
After a rumage I found it covered in dirt. He immediatly offered £500
for them

--

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:43:27 -0000, "mark"
wrote:


"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit close to home!


It's a material world, get over it! :-(

This propensity for the male of the species (in general) to
accumulate 'useful' bits and pieces that might come in handy some day,
must surely heark back to neolithic times and beyond.

It's most likely a genetically inherited feature of the male psyche
that contributed to our success as a species and, up until the middle
of the last century, was still a useful characteristic to be blessed
with.

The problem now is that due to our ever accelerating rate of
technological progress over the past half century or so, this
'character trait' has now come to be regarded as a 'character flaw'.

In short, this strategically important characteristic of accumulating
'useful things' is now a victim of its own success. For 'our
generation' (those of us who _can_ remember the sixties), it is we who
are suffering the most psychological trauma of these (admittedly,
largely self inflicted) changes in society brought about by the
technological revolution of the last half century.

I'm afraid to have to say this, but that leaves us with only two
stark choices. either we "Suck it up" and clear everything out or else
simply let the problem sort itself out posthumously by leaving our
surviving relatives "Something To Do"(tm) after they've gotten over
celebrating our demise and the reading of the Will.

Personally, I'm leaning towards the latter 'solution'[1] as it does
quite nicely fit my 'procrastic' nature which makes it, in my mind at
least, a perfectly natural solution (i.e. it doesn't go against (my)
nature). Besides which, if procrastination doesn't intervene, I could
play some posthumous 'Mind Games' with my beneficiaries come the
'Reading of the Will' with regard to how my 'collection of valuable
assets' should be properly disposed.

Sadly, and as tempting as it seems to make my passing a more
memorable occasion to my surviving children, I think procrastination
will win the day and spare them all from this 'Sacred Task'.[2]

[1] Since our Childrens' generation have been accusing us of Polluting
the Environment, Global Warming, and Global Financial Disaster, this
sort of 'personal mess' will be the least problematical legacy we can
leave for them to sort out (at least they _can_ actually do something
about it, unlike the aforementioned legacy of seemingly insurmountable
global issues).

[2] Still, it's quite a thought[3]. The more cereberal of us just
might take a more optimistic view and regard their stockpile of
'valuable junk' as an opportunity to make their surviving relatives
'earn their inheritance' by use of a carefully crafted (and
watertight) Last Will and Testament.

[3] Ok, I admit it, I'm a 'Thinker' rather than a 'Doer' these days.
If my 'thoughts' seem evil, it's only because I find such thoughts to
be the more entertaining and amusing as I approach my dotage.
--
Regards, J B Good

In message , Woody
writes
"mark" wrote in message
...

"Bill Wright" wrote in message
...
OK I admit it. I am a hoarder. I look at the item, turn
it over in my
hands, and think, "Maybe it will come in..." The
consequences of this
behaviour have stared to hit me.

When I moved to my present house 35 years ago I brought
an awful lot of
stuff. That was a warning, but I ignored it. This house
is quite
big and for a while I was able to accommodate the
ever-growing quantity
of 'stock'. Over a period of years I filled several
rooms. We converted
to gas so the room that had housed the old boiler and two
tons of coke
became free. I soon filled it with 'stock'. I then
extended the (already
large) garage, and filled that with 'stock'.

Makes for uncomfortable reading , the theme being a bit
close to home!

mark


+1

+2
--
Ian

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:55:41 +0000, Davey
wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:40:24 +0000
Bill Wright wrote:


====snip====


I know I've gone on about this before, but honestly it's a nightmare!
I'm having a one- or two-hour session every day, because beyond that
it is just so stultifying. I think the main stock room is going to
take another 15 sessions. Luckily I have a good arrangement with a
licensed waste carrier. Whatever I put out he takes, whether he wants
it or not.

I feel better now I've got that off my chest! Thanks for listening.

Bill

That's what local auction houses are for.

A friend of my parents owned an old-style electrical shop in the Essex
Road, East London, back in the 1960s. He and the manager decided to
clear some stuff out, including a glass jar full of radio cats'
whiskers, which was covered in dust and had clearly not been opened for
years.
Soon afterwards, home radio kits came on the market for D-I-Yers, and
people started coming into the shop asking if they had any of the old
cats' whiskers still in stock. If only they had kept the jar...

That's what OA91's were for. Did the shop not hold a stock of
germanium point contact diodes?
--
Regards, J B Good