Just swell

Samsung put on a big show for the launch of its new phones early this week. But just a few days before all that showoffery, there was a story on Radio New Zealand about the environmental problems of a throwaway culture, the mining of rare earth minerals—and the mining of old phones—and the unwillingness of manufacturers to give plans to those who want to try and repair their broken products. So, rather than leaving a number of old phones festering in the bottom drawer, we decided to collect a few and hand them over to Starship. And we found this bursting out of an old, unloved Galaxy Note 2. Potentially dangerous, but also kinda cool.