Your gadget will start to malfunction after the warranty expires

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Patricia

I'm not entirely convinced by this hypothesis because of the example of my freezer.

In the late 1980s I bought a cheap second-hand freezer, whose label proudly proclaimed that it was "Made in the GDR." This triumph of socialist technology is still working today, and has long outlived the republic that gave it birth.

Visitors look at it with fascination. Visiting Germans tell me Honecker stories. I'm actually quite fond of the appliance, though every now and then I wonder whether it would be more ecological to replace it with a more energy-efficient freezer, or whether I should wait until it breaks down, so as to defer creating landfill.

Of course there are always exceptions to every rule.

In general though, when talking about generally unimportant things,(not talking about our ideals/principles/religious beliefs here or our wedding day or life and death situations etc etc) we have a much stronger emotional reaction to things that upset us than we do to things that please us. It is this emotional reaction that makes our memory of the event stand out. This seems to be, from what I've read, pretty much an accepted fact confirmed by the latest research into how the brain and memory works.

Cheers,
PKFFW