Sometimes I will use something and realize I’ve owned it forever. It’s a nice change in our throwaway reality. I think my personal record is a bicycle multi-tool I got for one of my first bikes, ~25 years ago. Still have it, still use it. When it comes to electronic devices I have a Panasonic mini Hi-Fi from ~2005. Never felt like changing it.
What’s your record?
My toilet.
Easy: I have used my Norwegian teapot every day for as long as I can remember - easily 50 years, plus some 15+ years where my dad used it before me, plus another unknown number of years before him, because he picked it up doing his rounds as a garbage man in his student years (1960s). That thing is ancient, and still going strong. Never gonna let it go.
That teapot must be tied with the Danish dinner tableware inherited from my grandparents. That stuff has also been in use literally daily since the 1950s.
Talk about built to last, and buy it for life. Amazing.
I don’t know why, but I really want to see the magical teapot. Can we see?
Here it is: https://i.imgur.com/oSyNbne.png (organic banana for scale)
Disappointing, yes? Well, not sure what you expected an indestructible thing to look like. This thing must be from the 1940s or so.
The pot itself is made of some non-magnetic metal, and it was probably all black when it was new, but years of gas stove-top use before I was even born must have burned away the color near the base – I have always known it to have this gradient. It holds 1,5L of steaming hot black tea (preferably Lady Grey or Darjeeling) and has an absolutely drip-free spout. It has a stein-like hinged lid with a glass insert that used to be removable until my dad epoxied it on, untold ages ago. The handle is made of bakelite so it never gets hot, not even when used on a gas stove-top.
The handle is marked with the logo “HØYANG” which sounds Norwegian. If anyone can tell me any details aout that, I would be extremely interested.
(The mug is another contender for this post, by the way. I’ve had it from the late 80’s.)
No, that’s super interesting. I found a newer one here -
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/461900505513536548/
I can only find red and silver currently but I think you’re right that it was black. The company is indeed Norwegian and a lot of their stuff is marked Ilovan Kjelen Hoyang which might be the name of a person? I can’t find that confirmed though. There seems to be collectors so if you ever want to know more, might be worth contacting someone who seems to have a collection for sale.
Metal, with a glass lid and a bakelite handle.
It’s non-magnetic but too light to be aluminium, I don’t know what material it is made of.
This meat suit I woke up in once, I’ve had it as long as I can remember
Same thing happened to me, man. I can’t remember anything from before that.
I bought my mechanical keyboard in 1997. It has the original large round plug on it and through the years I’ve had to buy adapters to go to a ps/2 port and now to usb, but the keyboard itself still works pretty well. Definitely time for a good cleaning though, I’ve been having a lot of stuck or missed keys lately. Since I write code this keyboard has seen a LOT of daily use over the years.
An Enermax keyboard has been my daily driver as a programmer for my career that started in 2007. It still works just fine and I still have no reason to change to something else. Lots of reasons not to, since I like the classic keyboard layout and the flat laptop keys.
I would be like you but my wrists scream on anything that isn’t split! Thank you for living the dream!
Honestly I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been. I have been writing code for over 40 years now and the only time I had trouble with carpal tunnel was at my first job stuffing circuit boards. If that ever changed I’d be in real trouble because there’s not much else I can do which doesn’t involve working at the computer.
Bought some walking boots in 1991 that I only got rid off last year (they finally broke). Except Antarctica they’ve been on every continent. Felt quite sad saying goodbye.
Trezeta, which is an Italian brand of hiking goods. Not sure of the model, it’s been so long ago.
https://x.com/BjornToftMadsen/status/1213442646594772992?s=20
Alright, it wasn’t quite last year, I realised :) Time moves fast in your 40s.
I got confused with x.com I was like what was this person wearing boots on a porno site?. And then it hit me, this is Twitter and not some shady port site
