Sometimes I will use something and realize I’ve owned it forever. It’s a nice change in our throwaway reality. I think my personal record is a bicycle multi-tool I got for one of my first bikes, ~25 years ago. Still have it, still use it. When it comes to electronic devices I have a Panasonic mini Hi-Fi from ~2005. Never felt like changing it.
What’s your record?
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Sennheiser headphones that I bought for about $20 about 10 years ago. The cable is indestructible. I once had to resolder it to the speakers because it my cat pulled it out, but the cable itself has endured all kinds of abuse without breaking. And the sound is fantastic.
I think technically it’s just my key ring. It’s loop is just from a charm thing my grandmother gave to me like 20 years ago. The charm was lost a long time ago. Kind of boring though.
My favorite pair of jeans and my favorite jacket are both about 15 years old at this point, heavily worn and patched together many times. Not daily use though obviously. My most comfortable pair of boots are about 10 years old which are closer to daily use.
One of the hard drives in my computer is more than 10 years old but I rarely read/write anything to it anymore. For a long time a lot of bits from it were very old, but I think everything older has been ship of theseus’d now. My mother still uses my handy down 15+ year old MX518 mouse daily though.
I recently retired a shaving brush I had been using for twenty-five-ish years. It really did need to be replaced, though.
I am currently wearing a pair of shorts that I bought sometime in the late '80s. The top blanket currently on my bed was made by my grandmother in the '70s. The clock right in front of me was made during WW2, but I’ve only had it for a couple of decades. I guess I just don’t throw shit away
Edit: now that I think of it, my bed is probably from the '30s or '40s.
I have a lot of things over thirty years old, but I can’t say they’ve been in daily use.
For electronics, and daily use, I have a 13-year-old Toshiba 55" TV. It’s basically a big, dumb monitor. Still works perfectly.
I have several nightlights I bought about ten years ago, maybe 12 years ago. They all still work and have been in the same sockets around the house since I bought them. They’re the flat, greenish glowing disc kind.
I’ve had my coffee mug for at least 25 years, it gets daily use.
This may be cheating on the daily use, but I have two brown glass horse bookends. They’ve been in constant use since I was a kid. I don’t know where they came from, they were probably my dad’s, as he had a large book collection. So, at least 60 years.
I didn’t even think of the TV. I bought a (then) top of the line Hitachi Plasma TV in 2006. It has seen daily use all this time. I can easily believe I’ll get 20 years out of it.
Fun fact: the kids have actually probably watched it more than I have, and I had a 5+ year head start.
I’ve got a rice cooker that old enough to rent a car. My MIL bought me a newer one a few years back and it’s still in the box. I just like my old reliable one better.
In 1990 I was running a very tiny Unix clone at home (Coherent on a 286 PC w/ 1 meg ram) and… I don’t remember if I couldn’t get a standard reader to compile on that or what the problem was, but anyways - I wrote an email/usenet reader for my own use.
33 years later, I’m still using it to read my email every day.
Also, I think I’ve had my pasta strainer since the 90s.
How are you dealing with everything being in HTML and full of attachments now?
An email of all html is an unwanted email 99% of the time. Occasionally, I save it, and open in lynx. (When a web site emails a security code.)
Attachments are more of a hassle, because I frequently need those. Save to a temp file, “munpack file”, examine extracted files.
impressive! got a source code link for those of curious?
I was using a Bose Wave radio as my desktop speakers since 1997 until this summer. It sounded fantastic. One of the speakers started getting a little buzzy at higher volumes a few years ago, which was still fine for normal daily use, until I got back into playing music. Now it serves as our record player speakers but we don’t use that often.
Bought some walking boots in 1991 that I only got rid off last year (they finally broke). Except Antarctica they’ve been on every continent. Felt quite sad saying goodbye.
I bought my mechanical keyboard in 1997. It has the original large round plug on it and through the years I’ve had to buy adapters to go to a ps/2 port and now to usb, but the keyboard itself still works pretty well. Definitely time for a good cleaning though, I’ve been having a lot of stuck or missed keys lately. Since I write code this keyboard has seen a LOT of daily use over the years.
An Enermax keyboard has been my daily driver as a programmer for my career that started in 2007. It still works just fine and I still have no reason to change to something else. Lots of reasons not to, since I like the classic keyboard layout and the flat laptop keys.
Trying to type anything on the chiclet style keyboards reminds me of the days of learning to code on a ZX81. You just can’t type quickly on those without the proper feedback. If my current keyboard ever dies, I don’t know what I’ll do.
Wired Headphones 🔌🎧
Basically can’t live without them 🎵❤️
Some shirts and pants from my parents that are a few years older than me.
My Victorinox Swiss army knife. Got it close to 30 years ago, and I still carry it every day, using it for dozens of different things.
I’ve replaced the scales once, and the blade was ruined by a dodgy knife sharpener, but it still holds an edge.
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The Cyber Tool M. The screwdriver bits are eternally useful in my everyday life.
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I’m quoting from memory right now, as I’ve had to leave it home today while flying.
- 3 different sizes of Philips head
- 1 x straight driver (smaller/thinner than the built-in on the SAK itself)
- 3 different Torx bits
- 1 x Allen bit
I can’t remember the exact sizes of the last two, but they’ve always been the right sizes for me, working in technology.
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Two blades are a must - it’s surprising how many times a smaller blade is useful (eg. prying the back off something with a very narrow gap).
The screwdrivers are my most commonly used/useful tools in everyday life - tighten a hinge or a handle, stuff like that.
Most of the others are occasionally useful - I’ve used the awl for emergency repairs on tent stitching - but the above are the ones I’d rate the most.
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