Technology

Happy anniversary, T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J.

Posted by:

tgimboej.jpg

T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J. stands for The Great Internet Migratory Box Of Electronic Junk, and it’s celebrating its first anniversary this week. Do think of it as partly a social experiment, but more so a free-range parcel service-based electronics grab bag that circulates among hardware hackers who are eager to discover useful, cool, old, or even rare treasures from the world of circuits old and new. According to their own description:

[It] is a progressive lending library of electronic components. An internet meme in physical form halfway between P2P zip-archive sharing and a flea market. It arrives full of wonderful (and possibly useless) components, but you will surely find some treasures to keep. You will be inspired look through your own piles, such as they are, and find more mysterious components that clearly need to be donated to the box before it is passed on again.

If you’re a tinkerer, a smart hardware geek, a fab-lab fan or aspiring aeronaut who wants to put that dusty old pile of circuit boards, switches, magnets, transistors, transformers, LCDs, CRTs and LEDs to a greater use (and perhaps find some interesting or useful new treasures to fiddle with), T.G.I.M.B.O.E.J. has a useful wiki that will tell you how you can get started.