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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 24 2017, @12:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the making-broken-vacuum-cleaners-suck-again dept.

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)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @01:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @01:45PM (#458082)

    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

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 24 2017, @01:51PM (#458086) Journal

    Fix it up with a keylogger and webcam monitoring software.

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    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by driven on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:14PM

      by driven (6295) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:14PM (#458089)

      And Voila, Madam! Windows 10.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:28PM (#458092)

        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

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:32PM (#458093)

          Install? No prob. Run? Houston, we have a problem.

          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:11PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:11PM (#458185)

            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

        by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:42PM (#458115)

        If you wanted to go with an older version, you can get Windows 7: NSA Edition.

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    • (Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:58PM

      by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:58PM (#458124)
      Seems like an awful lot of trouble to put a key logger in my vacuum cleaner but OK