There’s really no other way to say this: I like to save trash. Receipts from favorite stores or meals, pamphlets and maps from trips, ticket stubs, and clothing tags — if some scrap is from a cherished memory or even simply well-designed, I tuck it away in random corners of my home and mostly forget about it until I go looking for something else.
The impulse to hoard documentation is likely annoying to anyone who lives with me. Unfortunately for them, it’s also very good for my job. At least one Wayback Machine tab stays open at all times, and I have a terrifying number of screenshots, recordings, transcripts, and notes bogging down every device I own. But unlike the physical ephemera packed away in drawers and boxes, files on my…