electricland

(which I keep wanting to call a garage sale, despite the fact that we manifestly do not own a garage)

Net synchronicity's funny that way.

Mark Morford:

In fact, it is no stretch at all to say that "free" is a human cultural obsession, something that defines us and holds us in eternal thrall. And I'm sure there's been some sort of deep scientific study on just exactly how many segments of our brain light up when we hear that omnipotent word, even (and this is where it gets really fascinating) when we know the free item in question is actually bad for us, pointless and unhealthy and even a little sad.

Paul Graham (via Making Light):

It wasn't always this way. Stuff used to be rare and valuable. You can still see evidence of that if you look for it. For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. In those days people's stuff fit in a chest of drawers. Even as recently as a few decades ago there was a lot less stuff. When I look back at photos from the 1970s, I'm surprised how empty houses look. As a kid I had what I thought was a huge fleet of toy cars, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of toys my nephews have. All together my Matchboxes and Corgis took up about a third of the surface of my bed. In my nephews' rooms the bed is the only clear space.