The holidays can feel overwhelming, but we believe they can also be a contemplative time, time to unwind, catch-up and rethink things. So we present over five hours of our favourite radio shows and podcasts, including geek, tinkerer, designer and academic guests that help put everything into new perspective. Take a moment out to listen – and we’d love to hear your feedback, leave a comments below.
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10. Buying and selling secondhand electronics
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. Yet you won’t hear much about this in our upgrade culture.
9. DIY solar chargers
Max Wakefield, from Demand Energy Equality talks about their inspiring solar workshops, where beginners learn to make a functional personal solar charger out of PV off-cuts. They bring renewable energy closer to people and promote energy literacy.
8. A repair revival in Argentina
Marina Pla, co-founder of Buenos Aires’ Club de Reparadores told us all about the state of waste, reuse, and repair in Argentina. Her “repair club” is inspiring hundreds and thousands of people to prevent waste.
7. Towards a “natural history” of gadgets
What do we really know about what is inside our gadgets, how they are made, and their afterlives? Goldsmiths researcher Jennifer Gabrys challenges us to understand our gadgets as not separate from nature but instead as “future fossils”.
6. Mapping repair businesses in east London
Some kinds of repair businesses are getting harder to find! We talked to Hackney Fixer James Diamond about mapping he is doing with us, for the East London Waste Authority, on repair businesses in east London.
5. Repair as sensory experience
We go on a sensory journey with Restarter Ben Skidmore, explaining how senses of hearing, smell, touch, sight, and even taste are used in troubleshooting and repairing electronics and electricals.
4. Emotionally durable design
Professor Jonathan Chapman (University of Brighton) is a designer who has helped many other designers change the way they conceive of quality and good design. His notion “emotionally durable design” goes beyond actual physical durability.
3. A Chef’s advice on maintaining a quality kitchen
Our special guest, chef Ian Riley, shared his tips this week on how to select, buy and maintain appliances for the kitchen. He urged us to carefully consider what we need, and if we love to cook, invest and show reverence for the appliances we own.
2. The promise of 3D printing
Our friend Paul Sohi shared exciting projects he works on with Autodesk, including a prosthetic for a paralympian and preservation for museums. For us, 3D printing also opens up new possibilities in the manufacture and distribution of spare parts.
1. Local repair hero the “Spindoctor”
We talk to Spindoctor Steve Neil in his repair van and clients’ homes about his work ethic, the trials of being self-employed, and why some machines seem to break so often.
The voice of rantotaliiy! Good to hear from you.
We read: the voice of “rantonality” – or perhaps rationality? Either way, we like it 😉