In the grand museum of human technology, floppy disks and lint traps occupy adjacent display cases in the "Things You Forgot Existed" wing. One stored our data; the other stores our fabric's shed skin. Both are fundamentally traps.
3.5" Floppy Disk (1987)
Lint Trap (Capacity limited only by fire hazard threshold)
| Specification | Floppy Disk | Lint Trap |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Function | Data storage | Lint storage |
| Maintenance Required | Don't bend, keep away from magnets | Clean after every load (nobody does) |
| Failure Mode | Corrupted data, clicking sounds | House fire |
| Satisfying to Use? | Yes (the click) | Yes (peeling the sheet) |
| Still Manufactured? | Barely | Yes, in every dryer |
Both floppy disks and lint traps represent humanity's eternal struggle against entropy. The floppy disk tried to preserve order (data) against the chaos of magnetic degradation. The lint trap tries to preserve order (functioning dryer) against the chaos of fabric disintegration.
Consider: every piece of lint was once part of a garment. Every corrupted bit was once part of a file. In both cases, we're watching the slow heat death of organized systems, just at different scales.
Floppy disks have been replaced by cloud storage. Lint traps have been replaced by... nothing. They're still there, still filling up, still being ignored. In a world of obsolescence, the lint trap endures.
Perhaps there's wisdom in this. The lint trap doesn't try to be revolutionary. It doesn't need an app. It just does its job, cycle after cycle, a humble guardian against the tyranny of accumulated fibers.