Fixfest is a global gathering of repairers, tinkerers, and activists

175 points by robtherobber a day ago on hackernews | 20 comments

[flagged]

: dang | a day ago
We've banned this account. Please stop now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated

We did a "restart party" at our hackerspace a few years ago. Definitely could have used a good stock of capacitors. Probably power cords. Not sure what to do with all the very specific USB-C etc. ports that break.

: throwa920189 | 21 hours ago
I once knew someone who bought a set of various different types of usbc connector, I think from a chinese site. It had enough variety that one worked for his repair (a handheld gaming device).

dang | a day ago

[stub for offtopicness]

xeromal | a day ago

I read this as fedex. The brain is weird.

r_lee | a day ago

I read it as Firefox

: FarmerPotato | a day ago
funny, I read it as BarCamp

daedrdev | a day ago

Are they nimby?

jjice | a day ago

Everything about fixing something broken is so appealing. Better for the environment, often better for your wallet, and better for the soul.

I think this applies to software too! Writing good software allows it to be maintained well and it being open source helps promote that. Publishing good documentation is another huge win for maintainability.

lukan | 23 hours ago

"and better for the soul"

Well, if it works again ..

https://xkcd.com/1994/

If you have a habit like me of only partly fixing things, because a unforseen problem came up and deciding to get back later on it, you will just pile up electronic garbage and run out of space. (It was really good for my soul getting rid of most of it recently)

: wolvoleo | 18 hours ago
It's a learning experience. The more you do it, the more successful outcomes you get.
: bluGill | 17 hours ago
That is why I work on broken things - if I can't fix it, it was broken anyway. Working things that could use a tweak scare me as I might make it worse.

wolvoleo | 18 hours ago

And you learn a lot from it. Even if it fails.

adolph | 23 hours ago

Something that repair enables is wealth in the sense that David Deutsch uses in "Beginning of Infinity:" the repertoire of physical transformations that they would be capable of causing

alexbike | 22 hours ago

The fact that fixing what you own now requires 'activism' is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

arikrahman | 22 hours ago

Will be marking my calendar!

larodi | 22 hours ago

Given expected further economic struggle ahead of most everyone living in the UK, such gatherings perhaps come being more appropriate than ever. If not late already. The only contradiction is with the otherwise super consumerism-oriented societal tune across most Europe, UK including.

j1elo | 21 hours ago

I would enjoy this so much. Always keeping electronic parts around home, "just in case". It feels so profoundly satisfying when you finally get to put some switch or random piece to use for a repair, after having kept it stored for 13 years in a drawer (and through moving houses 3 times!)

MisterTea | 2 hours ago

I fix everything I can. This past summer my Pelonis table fan fell and broke its base. I took a piece of water damaged wood shelf (veneered plywood) that I saved and used a jigsaw to cut a new base which I screwed to the bottom of the broken fan base. It works and the wood adds a little weight so its less prone to wobble. Two objects saved from the trash.