The Restart Project Podcast

We love the internet, and the emancipatory potential of communications technology, but what we see around us is a physical alienation from the devices that connect us. Our tactile interaction with them is severely constrained to tapping and swiping – we struggle to even change a battery or upgrade storage or memory. In this respect, our Restart Parties are a feast for the senses – we love “screentime”, that is, our time behind the screen. Restarter Ben Skidmore goes on a sensory journey with us in this episode, as we talk about how the senses of hearing, smell, touch, sight, and even taste are used in troubleshooting and repairing electronics and electricals. Links we mentioned Richer Sounds Datacent’s Hard Drive Sounds Extra reading: Jestine Yong’s “How to Scan for Bad Components” The post Restart Radio: Repair as a sensory experience appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. Links we mentioned PC World SSD Prices Plummet Restart wiki SSD Migration and Troubleshooting Turbo-charge your iPod Classic Western Digital and Sandisk merger SSD market share [Feature image “SSD/HDD Hybrid + HDD” by Flickr user Yutaka Tsutano is licensed under CC BY 2.0] The post Restart Radio: New drives extend lives of computers and gadgets appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. Links “It was ‘sickening’ says ex-Xbox boss says about Xbox’s 360 Red Ring of Death” iFixit Red Ring of Death repair kit (and video) eBay Kindle repair service eBay category: GPU reballing BBC: Repair businesses provide an antidote to throw-away culture [Feature image “Read Ring of Death” by Flickr user Ray M is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0] The post Restart Radio: The “Red Ring of Death” and new repair businesses appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. Links Our post “Unrepaired” – with links to Freecycle, Freegle, Streetlife, etc Open Workshop Network‘s map of London CeX (UK) Buy & Sell electronics Ebay consumer electronics buying guides Our advice in wiping your data Check the history of a used device or mobile phone with CheckMEND Donate to Computer Aid, British Heart Foundation and Emmaus Sonos on the cheap: How Chromecast Audio breathes new life into old speakers [Feature image “Marantz 2220” by Flickr user Markus Reichmann is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0] The post Restart Radio: selling and buying secondhand electronics appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. Links Joe Macleod’s site closureexperiences.com Braungart and McDonough Cradle to Cradle Becker The Denial of Death KIA’s seven year warranty [Featured image “Answer Your Telephone” Flickr user srietzke is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0] The post Restart Podcast Ep 10: Getting “closure”, saying goodbye to gadgets appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. Links we mentioned Telegraph piece quoting Sir David MacKay ‘Stop buying new appliances and cars and repair them instead’ Video: Airbnb Open: Tidying Consultant, Marie Kondo Marie Kondo tells us to ditch joyless items but where are we sending them? Our post Tiny houses, decluttering and late consumerist disorders Wikipedia entry on Japanese feeling of “mottainai” “Dreaming Zero Waste” [Feature image “Web Summit 2015 – Dublin, Ireland” by Flickr user Websummit is licensed under CC BY 2.0] The post Restart Radio: Unpacking Marie Kondo, reflecting on decluttering appeared first on The Restart Project.

Ben Skidmore, long-time Restarter and professional guitar repairer, 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 chatbot, that was turned into a fascist over night, and a “female” PA bot that Ugo was forced to interact with last week. Links we mentioned Profile of Restarter Ben Skidmore Ben’s About.me page with links to his guitar shop Forbes “Nest Revolv Shutdown Debacle Underscores Business Model Challenges for the Internet of Things“ Arlo Gilbert’s original rant about Revolv Ars Technica: “Microsoft Terminates Tay AI chabot after she turns into a Nazi“ Amy the Robot [Feature image “ES-333 on Bench (2)” by Flickr user RoadsideGuitars is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0] The post Restart Radio: guitars, cloud kill switches and bots appeared first on The Restart Project.

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 income-generating assets above all else. In a rare rant, we lament that the spaces we need to run our radically open community repair events are under assault. Our pop-up Restart Parties are only as 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. Links we mentioned Friends of Carnegie Library “Carnegie Occupation“ Sir Richard Steel pub owners fight protection status for upper floors iFixit’s “Smother Bag” and video Report on the electric fork prototype CSM “Would you pay $700 for a juice machine“ The post Restart Radio: Community spaces, gadgets for (April) fools appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. (Apologies for our botched attempt to playback these remarks, you can find video of them below, at 45:51.) Links we mentioned The Apple Event March 2016 The footprint of those iPhones and The global footprint of mobiles Reuters: Apple’s robot rips apart iPhones for recycling Neowin: How Apple is clueless to income disparity and the environmental impact of ditching older PCs Grayd00r, alternative firmware for older the iPad 1G [Feature image “Stage is set…” by Flickr user Mike Deerkoski is licensed under CC BY 2.0] The post Restart Radio: carbon emissions, robotic recycling and older PCs appeared first on The Restart Project.

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. [feature image by Bethan Laura Wood used on a Creative Commons license] The post Restart Podcast Ep 9: “Emotionally durable design” appeared first on The Restart Project.