Whoa there, easy on the labels! 
The man known for the quote "Carry less by knowing more", Mors Kochanski is about the biggest collector of stuff that is "interesting" or "might be useful" that I have ever met. At my last count the man had over 10 barns and sheds bulging at the seams with books, tools, outdoor gear and the most random junk imaginable. A lot of it acquired for next to nothing from Edmonton thrift stores! Yet Mors is not a gadget freak in the normal sense since nothing is acquired much less used just because it is cool looking, or "shiny", but he has still acquired a lot of stuff!
Playing devils advocate a bit, I sometimes wonder about the impracticality of the drive to take things apart and try to fix them, especially where ignorance, optimism and persistence win the argument with efficiency and economics. Time, effort and money spent working on something vs time and money spent replacing it vs how well the solution works long term. I am as guilty as any of putting huge amounts of time and effort into things that could have been solved by a much smaller expenditure of cash.
As an example, a busy father of two that I know, with a whole house to clear and parts to rebuild, was keen to have a go at resuscitating a couple of Record planes that had been found in a bucket of water under a leaking shed roof, and appeared to have been there for at least 5 years. The planes had no sentimental value, he just wanted a couple of planes in case at some point in the future he needed to flatten some wood. Second hand Record planes that were not solid masses of rust could be had off ebay for a few tens of pounds and he could have put his time into fettling them to a high standard, or getting on with the pressing job of clearing the house. He reckoned he was "practical" for wanting to salvage these tools and said he had saved stuff that looked worse. I contended that he was being impractical since there were far better uses for his time and effort and always would be, given the minimal monetary value of those tools. I don't know whether he ever did work on them and get them cleaned up enough to use.
The "practical" people that have been described in this thread are also the sort of people who bite off bigger jobs than they can chew, to save a few quid, and wind up with angry spouses who insist that THIS time they are going to get a professional (plasterer, tile layer or plumber are the popular ones) in to repair the mess and get her bathroom/kitchen looking how she wanted in the first place! The man who did shoddy DIY throughout the house I bought was such a person, only they never had the pros in!
The man known for the quote "Carry less by knowing more", Mors Kochanski is about the biggest collector of stuff that is "interesting" or "might be useful" that I have ever met. At my last count the man had over 10 barns and sheds bulging at the seams with books, tools, outdoor gear and the most random junk imaginable. A lot of it acquired for next to nothing from Edmonton thrift stores! Yet Mors is not a gadget freak in the normal sense since nothing is acquired much less used just because it is cool looking, or "shiny", but he has still acquired a lot of stuff!
Playing devils advocate a bit, I sometimes wonder about the impracticality of the drive to take things apart and try to fix them, especially where ignorance, optimism and persistence win the argument with efficiency and economics. Time, effort and money spent working on something vs time and money spent replacing it vs how well the solution works long term. I am as guilty as any of putting huge amounts of time and effort into things that could have been solved by a much smaller expenditure of cash.
As an example, a busy father of two that I know, with a whole house to clear and parts to rebuild, was keen to have a go at resuscitating a couple of Record planes that had been found in a bucket of water under a leaking shed roof, and appeared to have been there for at least 5 years. The planes had no sentimental value, he just wanted a couple of planes in case at some point in the future he needed to flatten some wood. Second hand Record planes that were not solid masses of rust could be had off ebay for a few tens of pounds and he could have put his time into fettling them to a high standard, or getting on with the pressing job of clearing the house. He reckoned he was "practical" for wanting to salvage these tools and said he had saved stuff that looked worse. I contended that he was being impractical since there were far better uses for his time and effort and always would be, given the minimal monetary value of those tools. I don't know whether he ever did work on them and get them cleaned up enough to use.
The "practical" people that have been described in this thread are also the sort of people who bite off bigger jobs than they can chew, to save a few quid, and wind up with angry spouses who insist that THIS time they are going to get a professional (plasterer, tile layer or plumber are the popular ones) in to repair the mess and get her bathroom/kitchen looking how she wanted in the first place! The man who did shoddy DIY throughout the house I bought was such a person, only they never had the pros in!
