144 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
144 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
[1] Naz Hamid
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• [2]Journal
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• [3]Links
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• [4]Photos
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• [5]About
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•
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[8]Million-Mile Tech
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Durability is the ultimate feature.
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I [9]wrote in October last year that I wouldn’t upgrade my iPhone 14 Pro.
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That’s also not quite true.
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I did upgrade my phone — with a [10]new battery and leather case. This isn’t
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what people typically think of when they say they upgraded their phone. They
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think of an entirely new phone.
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New model. Newer, bigger, better, faster. This cycle drives sales across cars,
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furniture, cameras, clothes, and almost everything. A new reason to replace
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what already works.
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Objectively looking at my 14 Pro reveals that it’s a modern marvel, still,
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after 3 years. Which in technology can feel like an eon, supposedly.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Last week, [11]Jen and I were driving south on N. State Route 89A. This is a
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picturesque 23-mile route that descends from 7,000 feet in Flagstaff, Arizona
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to 4,300 feet in Sedona through switchbacks and hairpin turns. As we passed
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Slide Rock State Park, we felt a throbbing below our feet in the car.
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We own an 18-year-old vehicle. We bought it used 4 years ago with 175,000 miles
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on the clock. It is a Lexus 4×4, or rather, a Toyota under the hood. The
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venerable [12]2UZ-FE engine is known as a “million-mile engine” if you take
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care of it. I bought it knowing that Toyota built a vehicle to last. I bought
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it knowing that if we took care of this vehicle, it would take care of us.
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This vehicle has fueled many of [13]our adventures and explorations in the
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American West. I know it deeply. When it sounds or feels off, I know something
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is awry.
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The shuddering vibration beneath our feet continued as we descended. We rolled
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down the windows and heard what sounded like rattling aluminum cans. Ugh, no.
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Jen eased onto a gravel pullout and I did a visual and hand-feel inspection. I
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pushed on pieces I’ve bolted on and worked on. Everything seemed tight. But I
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knew someone could fix this. Toyota makes their cars to be serviceable. They
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make their cars to be durable.
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We found a park and I rolled out a makeshift mechanic tarp, got under the rig,
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and started torquing bolts. No shuddering beneath our feet but the rattling
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cans are still there. We found a highly-rated auto shop and we left the vehicle
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with them. The passenger-side wheel bearing had failed (a nicer term than
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exploded). They'll replace the bearing along with the other side — standard
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practice. I approved the work.
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The next day the work was finished and we’re back to it. This car has rolled
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over 200,000 miles, and I hope to take it to 300,000.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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My iPhone 14 Pro is still the best smartphone I could need. I got it with 512GB
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of storage to anticipate this future: where maintenance comes down to battery
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or screen. I can get those replaced. The battery was $99. A small price to pay
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for a $1,299 device that has been paid off for over a year. The original Apple
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leather case had lived a long and worthy life, protecting my phone from drops,
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dented corners, and a spider-webbed display. When the bottom edge finally broke
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off, I replaced it with a [14]Mujjo leather case. It’s lovely. I expect to get
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another 3 years with it.
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A deeper appreciation and intimacy grows as you hold onto something longer and
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longer. There’s a point at which it evolves from the shiny new thing into a
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tool you love. You’ve cultivated a lopsided fondness for a material possession
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that’s now a well-worn friend. May all of the things we care for outlive us.
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Oct 20 2025 ⋅ [15]technology
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Related
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• [16] A Simple Sophistication
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Mar 22 2004 Reductionism.
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• [17] The New Design
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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May 20 2013 What those new to the field should know, and how we can help.
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• [18] I Don't Have Facebook
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Jan 14 2015 Yep.
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[19]Prev
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The Hunt [20]Next
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The Weeks
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I write an occasional newsletter called Weightshifting. It was originally
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comprised of design, culture, and travel notes, morphed into [21]two seasons of
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overland travel, and has now returned to its original ideal of observations in
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the field. You can subscribe below.
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Email address [22][ ] [23][Subscribe]
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[logotype]
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© 2000 - 2025 Naz Hamid.
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Get some RSS feeds: [24]Journal, [25]Links or [26]Photos. You can email me at
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my [27]first name at this domain. I’m primarily on [28]Mastodon, occasionally
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feel forced to pop into [29]LinkedIn because professional reasons (!?), and am
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increasingly not logging movies on [30]Letterboxd. This site is [31]
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climate-friendly, and last built at Nov 12, 2025, 7:06 AM PST.
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[32]Back to top
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References:
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[1] https://nazhamid.com/
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[2] https://nazhamid.com/journal
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[3] https://nazhamid.com/links
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[4] https://nazhamid.com/photos
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[5] https://nazhamid.com/about
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[8] https://nazhamid.com/journal/million-mile-tech/
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[9] https://nazhamid.com/journal/technologically-content/
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[10] https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement
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[11] https://jenschuetz.com/
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[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_UZ_engine#2UZ-FE
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[13] https://nazhamid.com/weightshifting-overland/
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[14] https://www.mujjo.com/
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[15] https://nazhamid.com/topic/technology/
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[16] https://nazhamid.com/journal/a-simple-sophistication/
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[17] https://nazhamid.com/journal/the-new-design/
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[18] https://nazhamid.com/journal/i-dont-have-facebook/
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[19] https://nazhamid.com/journal/the-hunt/
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[20] https://nazhamid.com/journal/the-weeks/
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[21] https://nazhamid.com/weightshifting-overland
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[24] https://nazhamid.com/feed.xml
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[25] https://nazhamid.com/links.xml
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[26] https://nazhamid.com/photos.xml
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[27] https://nazhamid.com/journal/million-mile-tech/#
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[28] https://mastodon.social/@nazhamid
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[29] https://www.linkedin.com/in/nazhamid/
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[30] https://letterboxd.com/weightshift/
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[31] https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/nazhamid-com/
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[32] https://nazhamid.com/journal/million-mile-tech/#top
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