If you've ever despaired of getting your vacuum cleaner fixed or thought that your broken lamp was a lost cause, there's hope. A worldwide movement is trying to reform our throwaway approach to possessions.
The movement's foundation is the Repair Cafe, a local meeting place that brings together people with broken items and repair coaches, or volunteers, with the expertise to fix them.
[...] "One of the things that makes it challenging and interesting is that we don't know what people are going to bring," Ray Pfau, an organizer of a Repair Cafe in Bolton, Mass., said in an email.
Lamps top the list of items brought in to be repaired, followed by vacuum cleaners, Mr. Wackman said. The types of repairs offered vary by location and reflect the particular talent in a community, he said.
New Paltz [in upstate New York] has a repair person with a national reputation as a doll expert. It also has a "Listening Corner" with a psychiatric nurse "because being listened to is a 'reparative act,' " he said.
The cafes invite people to bring their "beloved but broken" possessions to the gatherings, which are hosted in church basements, libraries, town halls and senior centers. The cafes make no guarantees that items will be fixed.
"All we can guarantee is that you will have an interesting time," Mr. Wackman said.
The gatherings tend to draw professionals, retirees and hobbyists who volunteer as repair coaches.
None in my area but I would be tempted to show up and help. I like to fix things and have a decent success rate, just coaxed some more life out of our ~30 year old garage door opener.
Similar article at: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/repair-cafe/ and the main website is at: https://repaircafe.org/en/about/ (also available for NL, FR, DE & ES)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @01:45PM
This was LUG movement in the 90's and early 2000's. Now, we have moved on to other household items. Anyone care to repair old laptops?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 24 2017, @01:51PM
Fix it up with a keylogger and webcam monitoring software.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by driven on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:14PM
And Voila, Madam! Windows 10.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:28PM
Windows 10 on old laptops? I'd be surprised if you can even install it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:32PM
Install? No prob. Run? Houston, we have a problem.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:11PM
Even the install requires decent resources and a LOT of hard drive space.
Many old laptops don't have a big drive.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:42PM
If you wanted to go with an older version, you can get Windows 7: NSA Edition.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:58PM