Why old machines are often better
New machines constantly replace old ones. Car makers have been introducing a new model each year for more than a hundred years. The big box stores’ gleaming displays of new products for the season tease us into buying one instead of keeping our old friend running for another year. The shiny paint and fancy new features are a siren song calling us forward, but with every generation of new technology, we are losing qualities much more valuable than the cold economics of mass production. Old machines are more interesting in their variety, their greater use of natural materials, and the higher degree of handwork that went into their manufacture. They carry unspoken stories of the people who made them, and those who used them over decades a