this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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Gone are they days were people get things repaired, especially the "simple things" like getting a good leather shoes sole replaced, or getting a couch redone. Though planned obsolescence plays a role in this as well.
It also means these services are more expensive as a result.
I think it's both chicken and egg. It's more expensive to repair relative to replace now, so often it's more economical to replace. This leads to less repair knowledge and services, so increases cost, making replacement easier etc. Many times are more complex and so what used to be repaired with simple tools and know how, now requires specialized tools and proprietary replacement parts. Supply chains being just-in-time for production means many parts are not stocked for repair, which also slows everything down too.
Design problem, you can modularize these things so they're easy to repair, consider your average desktop PC. Indeed that's what your 'proprietary replacement parts' are, backed up by DMCA (and world wide equivalents forced by US trade agreements) making reverse engineering them a felony. Problem is there's no financial incentive compared to getting you to buy another one soon, nor is there competition on this front. Hmm, perhaps a (legal) regulation problem.
Modular is better for repair, but not cheapest to produce or space saving. So, people naturally choose the cheaper, more compact design.
The whole idea of copyright was to prevent people profiting from your design innovations. If the only purpose your design causes is preventing competition, then it should lose protection in my view.
So, for instance making printer ink incompatible with copy protection serves no benefit to the owner. So it should lose protection. There needs to be a balance to protect creatives, but in the rapidly changing age, the time and scope should be dramatically reduced. No technical innovations from 10 years ago need to be protected.
there's a million better alternatives to the current shitass IP/patent/trademark system but until the US empire finally finishes falling none will come about
While I'm not optimistic, there does seem to be a movement away from protecting US IP since the trump tariffs broke the compact. Lots of media on here about people and companies and government seeking digital sovereignty/independence.
So it could chip away gradually.
I was lucky enough to find a shoe shop that does really good resoles in my city. Not impossible to repair stuff, just hard
You also have to be able to afford shoes worthy of the considerable repair expense.
And even then it seems like the boots theory is dead for most stuff. Even when you buy the "premium" products they fall apart and are made of crap materials or are designed to be irreparable
For me it was more about how much longer they would last. The soles they gave me were better than the originals. The rest is just small stiches and patchwork I can do at home
when I lived in the UK there were shoe repairmen everywhere, they were great, and if the repair was easy they wouldn't even charge me.
in the States I haven't seen a single one
Fast fashion ain't just for fabrics baybeeeee
Sad, ain't it? I repair all kinds of stuff. Have a 50" TV that only needs a new board when I can afford it. The 55" on my wall needed 2 new capacitors, $8 on eBay.
Shout out to Bosch... I have a 10-year old dishwasher from them and the drain pump stopped working. It was so easy to replace and readily available. I was actually happy to have it break, all told.
A lot of enshitification has happened in the last decade so no idea if their products are still like that, but when the time comes to get a new one I'll certainly be giving them my first look.
There's a shoe repair shop in my town. People absolutely do get simple things repaired what you can't get repaired are things like TVs anymore.
But things don't break like they used to, it used to be that a component would fail and you could just replace that broken component but everything's integrated these days so if one thing goes down the whole thing is dead.