{"id":376,"date":"2019-01-21T21:33:12","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T02:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morsepower.net\/?p=376"},"modified":"2019-01-21T21:33:21","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T02:33:21","slug":"376","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/?p=376","title":{"rendered":"The Enemy of Efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Make Magazine article<\/a> is now two and a half years old, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just getting around to really digging into it. \u00c2\u00a0I put a pin in it because I was amazed at the ingenuity and innovation on display. Here we have brilliant engineers advancing a common goal with simple materials. \u00c2\u00a0And I became a bit crestfallen when I realized this level of reuse would not find traction in the US.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m starting to wonder if the true enemy of efficiency is plenty. \u00c2\u00a0Moore\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Law and automation keep pushing prices downward, while we continue to externalize the negative impacts of nonrenewable resource consumption, waste disposal, and pollution.<\/p>\n

My local Makerspace had been hosting a Repair Cafe style event on a monthly basis. \u00c2\u00a0I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve noticed we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a challenge getting traction on the concept. Could this be a symptom? \u00c2\u00a0Why bother taking the valuable time to repair a plastic toy, broken tool, or damaged electronic device when a small sum of money can make the problem just disappear?<\/p>\n

A disposable culture only works if you have the resources to support replenishing discarded goods. \u00c2\u00a0Those living in poverty don’t have that luxury. But, neither does this planet. Interest in electric vehicles wane when gas is $2.00\/gal, but every gallon burned still incurs an unseen cost.<\/p>\n

My lament here is due to the fact that efficiency gains should never <\/b>be so easily dismissed when we live in a world with limited resources, even if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve temporarily obfuscated that scarcity via low prices. \u00c2\u00a0No matter how cheap goods may become, our time is finite.<\/p>\n

If I want to replace the battery on my current smartphone, I have to remove the damned screen. \u00c2\u00a0And to be honest, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see this as some sort of underhanded conspiracy by tech moguls to push us to buy more disposable goods. \u00c2\u00a0The market wants devices that are small, thin, light, and well-integrated. The market didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want devices that are modular and easy to replace. \u00c2\u00a0In the end, we got what we asked for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Make Magazine article is now two and a half years old, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just getting around to really digging into it. \u00c2\u00a0I put a pin in it because I was amazed at the ingenuity and innovation on display. Here we have brilliant engineers advancing a common goal with simple materials. \u00c2\u00a0And I became a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}