Cell Phone a La Mode.

An article about planned obsolescence is about as original a posting as one on legalizing drugs. So I'll talk about a related topic, fashion. Think about it, it use to be that electronic goods become obsolete for utility reasons, but instead for fashion reasons. Most of the functionality is the same, it's just packaged differently and called new and transformed into the must have item. If anything, it's probably the best indicator that an industry is mature is when Pink becomes an innovative feature.

Modern technology has created the equivalent of fashion seasons for technologies and with it the need to discard something not because it doesn't work well enough, but because it reflects the past. I've always been amazed by women's fashions and how one season make the past one passe. Which is just another word for obsolete.

So where do obsolete clothes and so last years cell phone go? Well, depending of the tech gadget, maybe out of your wallet and later to a landfill. There has to be a better way, and Ars Technica has a post on a new service called Second Rotation that will buy up your old tech goods. Second Rotation then refurbishes them for sale to the less fashion conscious (ehmm people like me).

Not a bad idea to bolster the Reuse part of the green mantra. Now only if we could figure out a way to get rid of my skinny tie from the 80s?