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What's in Your Gadget Bag, Cory?

Posted by michael on from the looks-like-someone-just-had-a-fax dept.

Cory Doctorow has taken a two-second break from his road warrior ways to pen this description of the crud he lugs around. Read it and weep, wanna-bes.

5 of 400 comments (clear)

  1. why should i weep? by didjit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    i don't understand what's to be upset about. he has normal geek stuff that most /.'ers own. I probably make way less than him, but I have a laptop, bag, digital camera, wireless router, and cell phone. and while i've yet to buy the ipod, i have had multitools and pda's in the past. i clicked the link expected crazy stuff. there's no gps. no plasma tv's. no rackmount servers. its cool to see what's in his bag and cmdr taco's but ... its not like i should 'read and weep.'

  2. Re:i'm a karma whore - for when it's ./ed by Docrates · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are, of course, a Troll.

    1- The poster posted the article as an AC

    2- the slide IS slashdotted so I got to read it thanks to him. So will everybody else on slashdot for the last few hours.

    --

    There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
  3. A reality check by sakusha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's times like this when I recall the old TV show "Connections" by James Burke. He said he liked to challenge people to empty their pockets or purse and try to find one object that wasn't mass-produced. Keys, coins, paper, pens, money, etc, it's all mass produced. I've tried this on dozens of people, and only one person had a single non-manufactured object, my sister had a fossilized shark's tooth she carried as a lucky charm. Everybody carries around nothing but manufactured crap. It's all instantly replaceable garbage, nothing of any intrinsic value. If you were stripped naked, you could replace all of it without difficulty, if you had some cash to buy new crap. Is that how you want to live, with a disposable lifestyle? Even worse, do you want to live a craphound lifestyle, reveling in consumerist crap like Cory does?

  4. A reality check for you too by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > Is that how you want to live, with a disposable lifestyle?

    Wait, so the only "real" "non-consumerist" you found was a credulous superstitious person who carries a lucky charm? Yeah, believing in fantasy, what a wondeful saving grace. Maybe next time you'll find someone with an "real piece of the original cross."

    > Is that how you want to live, with a disposable lifestyle?

    Nothing like an english speaking westerner with a computer and an internet connection telling us to go back to the woods. Its called hypocrisy. You happen to be using a large "disposable consumerist gadget" yourself.

    >If you were stripped naked, you could replace all of it without difficulty, if you had some cash to buy new crap.

    So if there was a fire in my apartment its good to know I can get back to my business, my lifestyle, etc with minimal effort. Heck, these evil "consumerist goods" are compatible with my off-site backups! Comrade you have truly awakened me!

    >Even worse, do you want to live a craphound lifestyle, reveling in consumerist crap like Cory does?

    Craphounds look for junk with no resale value like a clock found in the garbage that has a 1950's pinup girl painted on it. (its called ironic appreciation) Going to the local thriftsore or garbage-bin to collect 'crap' is the polar opposite of consumerism.

  5. digital things are unique by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > speaking as a multilingual buddhist

    Yeah, its fairly obvious you're some religious view.

    >Filling your pockets with crap will not reduce the emptiness in your life.

    What emptiness? Don't try to be play "everyone's shrink." Thanks.

    Now, if I pull out a USB drive from my pocket and it has all my writings on it and my art then guess what - it is exquisitely unique. But from the ignorate macro level, to you, its just another gadget.

    If I pull out a mass-produced camera full of data which when rendered are photos of all my loved ones then its unqiue and important to me. But to you, its just an consumerist addiction and I'm a gadget buying fool.

    I seriously suggest you stop and think about what you're complaining about and realize that good things come in "Evil consumerist packages."

    Finally, little grasshopper, what if my USB keychain had a photo of a cool shark's tooth I saw on the beach, but didn't want to take for my own moral reasons. I would think that someone who did that would be much more respectful of nature than your (as you define it) "craphound" sister.