This is a depressing trend in the engineering world: the sealed machine with no discernable parts. I sometimes feel that, at the age of 35, I am a member of the last generation that grew up in a world of fixable objects.

via Popular Mechanics comes this tale of an iPhone failing because of a build-up of dust. It's very true though that despite the increased awareness of the imperative to build a sustainable society we continue the trend towards throw-away and unfixable items. Apple is one of the worst offenders here. There's even a macroeconomic effect since a disposable items cannot create a secondary market of repairs and spares. Companies like Apple are ring-fencing all the value in their products for themselves.