Hardware

I admit it: I’m attracted to shiny new tech objects.  Fortunately I’ve learned to (sometimes) curb my desires and not (always) buy the latest iThis and eThat.  But I do have a remarkable collection of defunct digital widgets and gizmos from the last 20 years of working and playing in high-tech.  My basement runneth over.

We recently made an effort to clear the cruft, but wanted to avoid simply sending it all to a landfill.  eBay, Amazon and Criagslist were out as we lacked the time to post, package and ship dozens of gadgets.  Instead, we found two excellent, environmentally- and socially-conscious options.

While cleaning my office – a once-a-decade event – I came across a receipt from 2 Dec., 1998. It was for a 10.1 GB hard drive costing $245. Last week I bought a 1TB drive – 100 times the capacity – for just over $90. Though Moore’s law originally predicted processing power, it’s often quoted for any tech-related increases. In this case, storage per dollar increased 27,000% over roughly 11 years – it doubled every 16 months – even faster than Moore predicted!