The Restart Project Podcast

We've depended on hard drives for decades to store our data and files for our operating systems. They are almost synonymous with data storage. But a quiet revolution has been underway for a couple of years, with the growth of the "solid state drive" or SSD. These drives contain no mechanic or spinning parts, which means they are smaller, more durable and faster. Prices have come down significantly in recent years, and they are now within reach for the average user. Restarter Dave Lukes helps us understand the difference between the two kinds of drives, and how they can help breathe new life into older laptops and gadgets. SSDs can allow us to make a five year old laptop feel like new again, or to "pimp out" that older iPod.

Restarter Faraz spent three hours helping an Xbox 360 owner deal with the infamous "Red Ring of Death" fault on his game console, and he joined us to talk about the experience. We learned that the overheating game consoles are an iconic fault, that Microsoft execs valued at $1 billion. And it turns out that a whole online economy sprung up to deal with the problem - including repair kits and full-service repairs. We talked about how a number of common repairs are available as a service on eBay, and how there might be space for better online marketplaces and platforms to broker repairs. We also talked about how pop-up repair might be a real-world analog to online repairs, and the limits of these new approaches.

Our mission at The Restart Project is encourage people to keep things for longer. But we are realistic. Sometimes the best option to keep a gadget in use for longer is to find it a new owner. Or, instead of buying new, to buy somebody else's gadget. You won't hear much about this anywhere. It's funny because in the media, there is the constant push to upgrade, buy new, get new features, but very little advice on what to do with the perfectly functioning gadget to be replaced. And even your local authority is too busy dealing with what it deems “waste” to give much attention to this. But reuse and resale helps keeps value circulating, prevents gadgets from being shredded prematurely or being sent to landfill. We talked about how to give away, or buy and sell electronics in this episode, going through each of the categories we see at Restart Parties: computer and home office equipment, electronic gadgets, home entertainment equipment and kitchen and bathroom appliances.

Why does moving on from a mobile sometimes feel like a break up, or worse, a funeral? We talk with Restart Party goers and with designer Joe Macleod about the end, or what he calls "closure experiences". So much is invested in getting us started with gadgets - the marketing, sales and delivery. Then the "on-boarding" of apps, and our "engagement" with online content. But nearly nothing is invested in helping us deal with the end. Many of us obey that crossed-out-rubbish-bin sticker, we do not throw gadgets and appliances away. We hide them away in our houses. Then, equally, many of us are quite able to move on. Especially with certain kinds of devices, we throw things away with no regrets. But this carefree discarding also represents a lack of closure.

We started by paying our respects to climate scientist Sir David MacKay, who died last week at the age of 48. He was very articulate on the climate impacts of our consumption. This episode focused on the Japanese "decluttering" guru Marie Kondo. Ugo and Restart volunteer Ten both started to read Kondo's global best-seller, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organising. They explained what they took away from her approach. While Kondo's brand of decluttering could provoke people to value and love the things the own more, it also could simply work in service of a throw-away economy. We unpacked Kondo's take on reuse, recycling and sharing, trying to take the positive points but not saving any critique. To close, we talked about a conversation between Kenyan and British repair professionals that took place at the V&A Museum in an event called "Dreaming Zero Waste". Their workshops again had us questioning the notion of clutter, stuff, and how we live and work.

Ben Skidmore, long-time Restarter and guitar repairman, joined us to talk about how he fell in love with guitars and learned how to repair them. We talked about how musicians often learn to repair, hack and modify their instruments. We speculated that musicians are creative repairers and modifiers of their instruments because their craft involves creativity. Then we talked about a much-discussed tech story, involving the disabling of smart-home devices made by Revolv, a company bought by Google. Revolv devices will become "bricks" on 15th May, when the cloud-based servers they require will be shut down. It is a cautionary tale. Lastly, we talked about bots - and both the infamous Microsoft Twitter-bot, that was turned into a fascist over night, and a "female" bot that Ugo was forced to interact with last week.

We talked about the pressure on libraries, community centres and pub function rooms. Across London, these places are getting the squeeze, either from local authorities or developers, who are treating them as assets, not public goods. In a rare rant, we reveal that the spaces we need to run our radically open community repair events are under assault. Our events are only sustainable as the venues we depend on. The only places that we feel are secure and thriving are membership spaces, like churches and workshops. Is this the kind of city we want to live in? We must value, maintain, use, and invest in community spaces in order to save them. We then talked about a couple of gadgets - some were legitimate April Fools pranks (like iFixit's "Smother Bag") and other ones, while seemingly pranks, were really not... like the $700 internet-connected juicer and the prototype of a fork to shock the tongue into simulating a salty taste. Then to prove that we do not dismiss new technology out of hand, we talked about Ugo's new Pebble watch.

We talked this week about a company that is often on the tip of our tongues, like it or not. For variety's sake (or perhaps with Mr. Robot as inspiration), we've decided to call this company "Peach". Peach sits on a mountain of off-shore cash, makes compelling but expensive products, and hosts these very produced "events" for media, investors and consumers a couple of times a year. In the latest Peach Event, the company made numerous claims about its environmental credentials, including a questionable claim that it is "carbon neutral" in China, and then unveiled an R&D project - a recycling robot. As ever, we have our valid critiques. And to close, we discussed a very pointed critique of Peach elitism, following disparaging remarks it made about its more affordable competition.

In this episode, podcaster Dave Pickering talks to Professor Jonathan Chapman (University of Brighton), a designer who has helped many other designers change the way they conceive of quality and good design. Chapman's idea of "emotionally durable design" goes beyond actual physical durability and asks what keeps us attached to things, or alternatively, feel perfectly justified in throwing them away. Designers looking for clues about how to embed "sustainability" into their products need not only focus on technical aspects related to longevity, but they can explore ways to help objects improve with age, or adapt with age. In this episode, Chapman suggests that things - and more importantly acquiring new things - fills a gaping whole in our primal human psyche. The only danger is, this feeling of satisfaction or relief is only temporary. Dave complements the Chapman interview with chats to Restart Party goers about what makes certain items more appealing, either to use forever, or even to adopt and give a second life.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Faraz Sayed, long time Restarter, maker and now music maker with a group called Opto Noise. Through the London Hackspace Sonic Hackers, Faraz connected with Stan Lewry and a handful of people who wanted to make music with lasers, spinning discs and photovoltaic cells. Spurred on by an invite to perform at Music Tech Fest in Sweden, they built a working instrument in late 2014, and have performed at Tate Modern and Café Oto since. The project uses power supplies scavenged from long-dead PC towers, and new brushless motors like those used in quadcopters. To perform, musicians shine laser pointers through the spinning discs, and the light hits the PV cells and is then translated into sound. We talked about play, creativity and where (re)making meets music. To close out the episode we talked about the much-heralded end of "Moore's Law", which predicted that processor performance in computers would improve at a fast rate. We discussed the implications of a plateauing of performance in computers and gadgets.

Our work has been affected by Europe from day one. We are very concerned about the potential effects of a Brexit. If you disagree with us, great. If you need more information, great. Go get it! As we're not experts, we thought we would look for some help to frame things. And instead of some boring white paper, we thought we would start with great material from our favourite green podcast Sustainababble. We borrow clips from their Europe episode, featuring an interview with Friends of the Earth campaigner Samuel Lowe. What do nature and peat bogs have to do with your toaster? We explain how, in relation to both, working together makes sense. In real terms, we discuss the role of a common market: the universal mobile charger, the prospects of "eco-design" and the importance of the WEEE Directive in regulating e-waste recycling in Europe. Now, most proponents of a Brexit would say we should remain part of the common market, like a Norway. And this would imply that everything we've mentioned about consumer information, regulation and recycling would have to remain in place here. But are there any guarantees? How long will all of this take, and can tricks be played? What if we do not join a common market? And if we do become part of a common market, after a Brexit, we'll have much less influence over the rules and regulations as British activists and consumers.

We interviewed photographer Greg Jones about his charming photography project called "Still Works" to document the abandoned electronics and electricals in his south London neighbourhood. Over the course of a couple of years, Greg showed how his neighbours appeared to have carefully placed VCRs, microwaves, monitors, white goods outside their homes. He wonders whether most people wanted others to take them away for reuse. And he photographed notes left by some neighbours indicating just this. Greg believes that people still believe in the "real value" of e-stuff, in spite of the fact that we are pushed to perceive everything in terms of "relative value". He shot this collection using an analog SLR dating from 1978. Then we discussed a couple of very popular articles in the Guardian about long-lasting appliances and consumption, and Janet's visit to New York where she met with the Fixers Collective.

In this episode, we talk tools - how do we actually get into electrical appliances or miniaturised electronic gadgets, many of which are designed to keep us out? Podcaster Dave Pickering accompanies a couple of repairs at the Abbey Community Centre in Kilburn, including a mobile repair and vacuum repair. To get insight into the bigger picture, Dave interviews repair guru Kyle Wiens, founder of iFixit, a company that is fast becoming a living "repair manual for everything". iFixit supplies specialist repair tools, a task which takes them frequently to China and always into the innards of the latest electronics. We learn that while tools can be very specialist and ever-changing like screwdriver bits, but they can also be quite simple, like an old, cut-up credit card.

We interviewed our friend Fidi, who helped spark a repair revolution in Hackney in her free time, and during the work day is helping change the way we engage with companies and corporations with her job at ShareAction. Fidi is one of the founders of the Hackney Fixers, a collective of activists from Sustainable Hackney and her group Friends of the Earth Hackney and Tower Hamlets. They started running Restart Parties a couple of years ago, and have taken them to the next level, by incorporating other kinds of repair. We interviewed Fidi about what shareholder activism actually is, how to speak the language of investors, and how we are all increasingly investors through our pensions. While few of London's FTSE 100 companies manufacture electronics, many feed into electronics supply chains (mining and retail). After defending workers and promoting renewables in the UK among companies registered here, the real challenge will be promoting global change, benefitting people across the world affected by the massive footprint of large companies.

We invited our friend Andrew, founder of Mini-maker Faire Brighton and co-organiser of Maker Assembly, among other things, to talk about the links between makers and fixers. Restarter Dave Lukes joined. Andrew talked about making and making do, how for centuries before, we've perceived our material and physical environment as malleable and changeable. With a new wave of digital making, things may be changing. New spaces and new forms of diffusing and sharing of making practice are emerging. These new makerspaces allow for people to socialise and learn as amateurs, unlike workshops of the past which may have been more restricted domains. We talked about the potential for reuse and upcycling within the maker community and makerspaces. And to close, we discussed the Guardian article that sent shockwaves this weekend, documenting the failure of numerous iPhone 6 devices with an "Error 53". When a home button breaks or an iPhone 6 is serviced by an independent repairer, then undergoes an iOS update, this error literally disables the whole device.