Against every “just in case” instinct that’s genetically coded in me, I’m donating this old ThinkPad T430 to the local ReUse store. There’s a Past Me who would be screaming, “Are you nucking futs??” but Present Me has enough experience to know all the other gear I have (a 6th gen ThinkPad X1C, a Lenovo m10 tablet, a Google Pixel 4) is more than enough. And if my X1C should become inoperable, then a cheaper, newer computer would probably be a better replacement at this point than an age-old T430.
Also, I have a history of taking pretty good care of my gear. I’ve only had one or two hardware failures in the 25 or so years that I’ve owned computers. And yes — god, was I fucked over! But the fact is, I’ve structured things now such that a hardware failure that once would’ve been “an utter fucking catastrophe” is generally reduced to “a real fucking pain in the ass” that I can probably recover from.
And those times when my hardware did fail and I had no clue where the next piece of hardware would come from, you know what saved me? ReUse stores! A $100, 9 year old computer that I could install Ubuntu on was a godsend that kept me going until I could afford something decent. Hopefully, I can give someone else that same experience.
Now I just have to actually get it ready for donation without being tempted to keep it. For once, I’m going to try giving something up when it’s the right time before it crashes and burns, and leaves me in tears.
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