#1/ Thinking myself very canny I decided to repair my g4 and wait a little longer to get a sweet-ass mac laptop, seeing as it's always better to get the second generation of new chips.

#1/ Except, and I didn't want to admit this online but I totally paid for unneccesary repairs because I was too lazy/ preoccupied to try and fix the problem myself. Thanks to Oana I now have two functional hard-drives, but thanks to Synergy computers all my preferences have disappeared, and did I mention I wasted like $175 bucks.

#3/ Than my laptop started acting a little off, and it turns out the motherboard on that little f**er is going too. Which is awesome because when the motherboard starts to go the laptop is irrepairable. It's like a 4.7 pound metal and plastic sticker book.

#4/ Not only am I burned financially I am pissed off that an otherwise completely functional peice of machinery just turned into landfill because the way technology is priced, and supported means that once the machine is +1 year old if repairs are not covered by a warranty and not less than $200 - the repairs cost morethen the machines re-sale value. you may as well trash it and buy something new unless you have a line on a black market on defunct parts. (Yes, like Ebay, exactly) and some sort of scavenger mentality that allows you to waste four days looking for the right motherboard.

#4b/I've already had discussions like this about why I pay a lot of money to replace parts on my 15 year old Joe Breeze which has a current $200 dollar price tag but about $1000 worth of cumulative repairs on it over 5 years. The good news about a bike is that performance issues don't really come into play - it goes just as well as newer bikes and some stuff (skinny steel/chromoly frame on a mountain bike) are actually more valuable because now rare. So if I don't sell it - it remains valuable to me. With a computer performance issues do come into play - which I guess is supposed to justify the crazy pricing system.

#5/ To me, this is not an ecologically sound strategy. It is capitalist and technologist and really really infuriating. I think all tools that place a heavy load on the earths resources (cars bike computers et al) should cost sooo much it is pointless to buy more than one in 15 year time-span. Repairs should be offered at a reasonable rate and parts replacement and renewal should be the norm. Back in the day of DIY stero building that was exactly the way people did it, by choice. They had collectors items stereos where they tweaked their stereo right down to the volume knobs. The idea of throwing out their "system" every two years to get the newest best model would have been anathema. Owning technology and caring for it is both a craft and a responsability, which everyone seems to have forgotten because it is easier and preferrable to just ditch your old machine and get a new one.

#6/ Of course the saving grace of all this is that like any good capitalist I have just gotten my new business credit card. ( ya! ) and using it I can probably set -up a lease on a new macbook pro that will carry me through my masters (and then I'll sell it back).

#7/ What's the problem with leasing you ask. Well it's a lot like the cheap and easy answer to the above-outlined problem, Instead of owning the machine I *own* the period of time during which the machine has actual value. Once that time is up (Approximately 2 years) I am returning the machine at market value (25% to 45% of it's purchase value when I started the lease) so it kind of costs me money - but not really since all the leasing costs are business expenses and I write them off and the buy back goes towards the leasing on my next amazing computer. It's the financial solution to a culture of disposable technology. I never have to really care for anything I lease. In the leasing system no-one takes responsability for the real cost of their technology. It gets shugged off as negative %'s of market value until eventually the computer gets returned to the depot to be broken down into basic elements (copper silver etc), garbage, and toxic goo.

#8/ Leasing = fairweather consumerism gone mad.

Here's a song by the Flaming Lips - covering Echo and the Bunny men according to Jen. Consider this a hymn to poor dead lappy the laptop.

The Golden Path. Don't be afraid to dance.