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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Well, are you? If you are, then go ahead and buy that brand new whiz-bang whoser-what-sit. We have gotten very good at making things, and making things that work reliably for a very long time. However, occasionally one of your whiz-bang whoser-what-sits will break, and when you try to fix it you will find that the repair bill will be more than a new one will cost.

This was brought home to me the last couple of days by a conversation with my neighbors, who have the first refrigerator they bought (some 20 years) ago in their garage and it is still running. However, the high fashion one in their kitchen is the third one they have bought because they don't last more than five years.

And by a conversation with my friend Jack, who replaced his mom's dishwasher because the five cent plastic motor shaft extension broke and you can't just buy that part, you have to buy the whole $300+ motor, which was more than a new dishwasher cost.

So, are you feeling lucky? If you are lucky, that new whiz-bang whoser-what-sit may work fine for the next zillion years. If not, you may be buying a new one every six weeks.



Prompted by a post from Dustbury.

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