The Junk Age

[Outlaw Yogi]

First we had the stone age. Tools were crude but durable untill the advent of wooden or bone handles.

Then we had what I dub the Earthenware Age, where products were mass produced because they were brittle and broke easily.

Next came the Bronze Age (Tin and Copper alloy). Tools and weapons were durable because bronze doesn't corrode.

Then came the Iron Age. An iron sword could chop a bronze sword in half, but iron's pitfall is it rusts. Adding carbon to iron created steel, which is stronger again (except with magnets) but it still rusts.
Most still regard us as still being in the Iron Age as steel is still our prime material, despite the prevalence of aluminium since we discovered how to extract aluminium from its ores in 1922 via electrolysis.

Some consider us as being in the Oil Age due to our mass use of plastics. This is what I regard as the beginning of the Junk Age. Where products are designed to fail and be constantly replaced.
When I was growing up most major consumer items were still repairable once their components had atrophied/worn out.
Now the Junk Age has evolved to a stage where car parts are like disposable razors. Sealed units to be thrown away.

We may be at the beginning of the Micro-fibre Age where products are refined down to the molecular level, but our current reliance on electronic components causes me to consider us as remaining in the Junk Age.

In 2011 I bought a S/H Acer laptop from Trash Converters for $99 because I couldn't lug my tower and moniter to and from town, and I have no mains power out in the bush.
The Acer is so old it still has a floppy disk draw.
The laptop's internal battery was kaput so relied on a constant external power source. And I killed 3 transformers running the Acer of PV cell charged batteries unregulated, but it did the job required.

The Acer picked up a North Korean virus (Winnn) and eventually died. A mate who's a programer working as a techie put my Acer hard drive into an old Compaq (which I'm using now). But it has problems. Sometimes it just shuts down for no obvious reason, quite annoying. I kept taking it back but the problem persisted. Sick of waiting I bought a later model S/H Compaq for $170 from another pawn shop.

The later model Compaq has Windows 7, where as I'd stuck with XP on the last 2 laptops.
I'm not impressed with Windows 7 at all. It constantly needs to update itself, and tends to drain the battery once an external power source is unplugged and still updating.
Recently I let it do the update, which failed, so the Compaq said it would revert back to its prior settings, and when it did the browsers were gone. So it'll be going to my programer/techie mate for a bit.

A couple of weeks ago my bitch mauled a much smaller bitch. The Gin Gin vet gave us the muck around so I got powdered Tumeric from Gin Gin IGA to use as an anti-septic. At some stage in GIn Gin IGA carpark some sticky fingered arsewipe lifted my phone. A cheaparse Telstra T100 I ran pre-paid. It was limited but simple and functional.
Last week I replaced with another cheaparse Telstra T196 - must have patch lead socket so I can use external airial. I made 1 call with it, to let my father know I'd got a new phone with the same number, and have been waiting for people to ring so I can redo my contacts.
Last night a woman texted me. I text back and it failed twice. There was no bad weather so presumed the system was overloaded. This moring I tried again but the phone won't let me edit/delete mistakes (wrong letters punched in), so I did the only sane thing one can do on a stinking hot full moon day, smash it on the floor, and watch pieces go in various directions. Put it back together but the screen is shatered white, so unreadable. I replaced it today, so am now on my 3rd phone in 2 weeks.

Reading the Weekend Australian I came across an article about how our current technologies become obsolete so quick and are so fragile. Apparently digital data storage is so unreliable the Russian military has just bought a heap of old fashioned type writers and is filing documents in cabinets like we did a decade or so ago. Floppy disks are gone, CDs, DVDs wear out and USBs fail for no apparent reason. The author claimed to have some movie they'd like to watch on an old medium but the devices required to play it don't exist anymore, we threw them out years ago. My truck has an audio cassette player in it, but I haven't seen music on tapes for I don't know how long now.
This phenomena is something I've noticed for a long time now. When tapes were phased out for CDs I just stopped playing the catch up game, figuring they'll be obsolete soon too.
So I've never had a CD or DVD player other than a computer and have never downloaded an APP onto a phone, and don't miss them because I've never had to rely on them.
When anologue TV was switched off I never bothered getting a digital box or TV, and when I see Digital TV in town am glad, because it's crap. Both content and function, it's just cooking shows which drop out as soon as a cloud blows over.
I've actually kept my old 12V/240V [AC/DC] VHF/UHF TV, and one day I'll hook it up just to see who's using those more reliable frequencies.

Sometimes I've speculated that when our civilisation is ancient history, all that future archeologists and/or paleontologists will find from us is stainless steel and broken glass.

[Black Orchid]

Sometimes I've speculated that when our civilisation is ancient history, all that future archeologists and/or paleontologists will find from us is stainless steel and broken glass.

Plastics will be our downfall.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

[boxy]

Sometimes I've speculated that when our civilisation is ancient history, all that future archeologists and/or paleontologists will find from us is stainless steel and broken glass.

As with every other civilisation that has passed already. What is left behind is down to the materials used, and where it gets found. I doubt stainless steel will hold up all that well, actually. Glass lasts for ages (no oxidisation). Buried plastics? Probably better than steel?

It's unlikely to provide interesting or useful evidence for future archaeologists though. The interesting stories will be drowned out with tonnes and tonnes of... as you say... junk. Junk, everywhere.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Plastics will be our downfall.

Possibly, but it depends on what sort and what problem/s they cause.
The original plastic - nylon - was almost indestructible, and didn't perish.
Most plastics these days (except PVC - poly vynil chloride) bio-degrade .. eventually.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Saw an online article about that years go. Apparently there's several (garbage patches),
with the largest being off one of the American coasts (Atlantic East coast?).

Those patches would have no currents, so it (rubbish) stays there. But those same areas would also be low in nutrients without currents replenishing the area, so would also be low
in resident animal populations, thus somewhat limiting the amount of creatures affected, except potentially for long range migratory animals like Whale Sharks for example.

[Outlaw Yogi]

As with every other civilisation that has passed already. What is left behind is down to the materials used, and where it gets found. I doubt stainless steel will hold up all that well, actually. Glass lasts for ages (no oxidisation). Buried plastics? Probably better than steel?

Depends on what grade of Stainless steel. Legally the alloy only needs 12% chromium to be called/classed as Stainless steel. Sheets of it would arrive at one of my father's factories on pallets. Peel the protective plastic off and it's shiney like a mirror. But exposed to moist air it soon rusts. Where as surgical grade S/S or ever better again Marine S/S lasts virtually forever. If you understand electro-chemistry you'll be aware it's how tightly the component elements bond. The tighter the bond, the harder it is for oxygen to eat it.

It's unlikely to provide interesting or useful evidence for future archaeologists though. The interesting stories will be drowned out with tonnes and tonnes of... as you say... junk. Junk, everywhere.

Most archeology sites tend to be littered mostly with whatever their throw away items were.
So some things never change. We've (humanity) supposedly developed highly technological devices and advanced science to degrees where we can see how nature makes things.
Yet with our creative abilities to make amazing devices from the most durable substances, we instead use inferior substances so we can mass produce on the cheap.

Only decades ago, when a company put its name on a product it new the value of their name depended on the quality of their products. These days no one gives a rat's arse, its all about pumping out the most volume for the least cost. Someone should chop up that bottom line and chuck it in the recycling bin.

Side note exclaimer - speaking with a computer programer/technition I learnt electronic componentry is highly regulated, because an item as simple as a computer chip can be created to do virtually anything ... and virtually anything is a pandora's box.
So some electronic parts are highly restricted and much of what's available to us is deliberately fragile.

[boxy]

Intact memory chips will probably be the holy grail for future archaeologists

[IQS.RLOW]

Intact memory chips will probably be the holy grail for future archaeologists

Feel free to go hunt down the tip for a few Microbees or Commodore 64s.

You should be able to pull a few 16-64k intact memory chips that will show you sweet fuck all.

[AiA in Atlanta]

People have been saying they live in a "junk age" since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Yesterday's junk seems quite well-made to us.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Intact memory chips will probably be the holy grail for future archaeologists

Was going to quote a portion of a Weekend Australian article - 'Remember this; we're all losing our memory' which mentioned
most of the devices used to read old/obsolete storage mediums
went into landfill years ago. But the Australian and the Times are giving me the muck around, so can't repost it.

About 20 years ago I thought buying crate of diamond record needles and sitting on them for 15 years or so might be a good investment.
Figuring people would hang onto their records and players, but not
think to save replacement needles.

[Outlaw Yogi]

People have been saying they live in a "junk age" since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Yesterday's junk seems quite well-made to us.

Yesterday's junk was without doubt better made than today.
I used to work at a museum restoring old farming equipment, and while these old machines seem crude by today's standards they certainly stand the test of time far better.

At an old Molybdenum mine ruin not far from my place is an old 1930s or 40s car rusting away. but the chrome on the bumper is still in good nick. I'd like to see a vehicle from say the 1970s (when we still had chrome bumbpers) sitting out in the weather for decades be able to do that.

I've also noticed while working on various contraptions that while we have superiour metalurgy today, the quality of the steel used in the past is better than that in vehicles on the road today