[HN Gopher] On Dumpster Diving (1991) [pdf]
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On Dumpster Diving (1991) [pdf]
Author : mitchbob
Score : 43 points
Date : 2022-02-12 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.laprogram.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.laprogram.org)
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I'd thought this would be about dumpster diving for
| computers/electronics, rather than for food.
|
| If you're interested in doing some dumpster diving for
| computers/electronics - just take some old electronic junk to
| your local e-waste facility and drop it off, then look in the
| bins of e-waste and pick out what you'd like and take it home -
| it's only going to be destroyed anyway. You can find some amazing
| and weird electronic stuff that people just chuck away as well as
| lots of things like analog TVs, laptops and desktops and all
| sorts of gear. Every now and then you can find a vintage
| computer.
| ce4 wrote:
| In 2020 i got a 27" mid-2011 iMac with maxed out specs (i7,
| 16gb, 256gb ssd, 2tb hdd) this way (I was dumping my
| electronics there when I noticed some guy unloading the iMac).
|
| Of course at home I found out why it was dumped... the left
| half of the screen's backlight was defunct, turned out to be a
| torn off connector that I could resolder and it had the
| infamous radeon gpu issue: flickering, distortions and crashes
| depending on the chip temperature. Fixed that by rom hacking
| [1] a dell nvidia quadro MXM-card off ebay for 30EUR and
| replacing the radeon module.
|
| I sold both the broken radeon mxm-module and the working iMac
| for 35EUR and 380EUR. Succeeding with the repair was very
| rewarding, it will run for another couple years, I learned a
| few things along the way and made some buck.
|
| [1]: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-
| card...
| daniel_reetz wrote:
| As a broken-stuff enthusiast in California, I have never seen
| an e-waste place would let you just go through their bins and
| take stuff home. Where do you go?
| andrewstuart wrote:
| You have to take some electronic stuff to drop off - that's
| the key - where I live you can find e-waste outside the front
| of people houses waiting for the council to come get it. Pick
| it up and put it in your car boot to take to the e-waste
| facility.
|
| I go to the e-waste facility and just open the boot of the
| car and drop off the ewaste I bought and if there's something
| interesting I put it in the boot. Give and take.
|
| There's no-one watching - I guess that depends on the e-waste
| facility, but I've never seen anyone watching. No doubt if
| the workers there saw you doing it they would object because
| that's not the purpose of the e-waste facility.
|
| I don't feel like it's stealing or doing anything wrong
| because the stuff in there is destined to be crushed.
|
| Maybe try a range of different e-waste dropoff points till
| you find one that works.
|
| The one I go to (in Australia) - last time I went it had four
| giant bins stacked full of stuff. Frustratingly the e-waste
| was closed because it was so full so I couldn't pick through
| it. I could see it was full of computers and stuff.
| beej71 wrote:
| Reminds me of this:
|
| HalTed in Silicon Valley used to have bins of broken
| motherboards. The sign above read:
|
| "Guaranteed non-working. If yours works, bring it back and
| we'll exchange it for one that doesn't."
| soheil wrote:
| > an unboxed pizza does not exist
|
| This article reads as if Dostoyevsky wrote it.
| tdeck wrote:
| > No matter how careful I am I still get dysentery at least once
| a month
|
| I'm interested in ways to minimize food waste but I wouldn't be
| willing to get "dysentery" on a regular basis. I wonder if
| avoiding meat / animal products entirely would help make this
| practice safer. There are people who dumpster dive by choice
| rather than by necessity although I've never done it for food.
| setgree wrote:
| For context, the author of this piece passed away recently:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/books/lars-eighner-dead.a...
| richardfontana wrote:
| The author, Lars Eighner, was a frequent and eloquent
| contributor to a Usenet newsgroup I participated in ~20 years
| ago. Sorry to learn of his passing.
| aaron695 wrote:
| Every time I've gone dumpster diving I've been amazed.
|
| Food, stuff and hacking.
|
| We went to a site hoping for manuals and got a literal password
| list instead.
|
| If you have time and not money a lot of electronics gets thrown
| out with simple fixes.
|
| Bakers throw out a lot of food. I'm big on food safety, and I
| think this is a good way to teach yourself. Learn the basics, and
| about 'use by' and 'best before' dates.
|
| Give it a go.
|
| (I get this article is about homelessness and I'm not pretending
| it'll help understand that at all, but it's important to explore
| the world, I think that helps with a lot of things. Throwing out
| good food is important as a society for supply chain resilience
| and food safety, it's not going to help with homelessness)
| Panino wrote:
| Great read that brings back some strong memories. Used to
| dumpster dive extensively thanks to the 2008 collapse. Found all
| manner of things - passports, computers, cameras, furniture,
| clothing. Still have a now-unused digital camera from 18 years
| ago (the original memory card had a picture of some guys mooning
| the photographer) and a pair of jeans that are still going strong
| a decade later.
|
| While I agree that can scroungers often make an absolute mess of
| things, I think it's unfair to say they "are drug addicts and
| winos." Although I do appreciate the highbrow grimace of a fellow
| dumpster diver!
|
| I've paid rent from redeemed dumpstered cans and bottles. I've
| paid rent from furniture thrown away and fixed, then sold on
| Craigslist. From thrown away computers and other such things, and
| much more. One sale was from my nextdoor neighbor (who liked to
| be loud late at night). After cleaning out the ungodly amount of
| dust and removing an enormous amount of malware using Malware
| Bytes and other tools, I sold it for $45. My favorite sale was a
| ratty old computer chair that I found in my apartment complex
| dumpster then sold _the same day_ for $10 to someone else living
| in the same apartment complex.
|
| I was fortunate to have direct access to a god-tier dumpster kept
| fully stocked by college kids.
|
| If you're thinking of trying dumpster diving, my advice is: wear
| good shoes - the insides of a dumpster are sharp, dark, and
| uneven. You'll find out the rest along the way. Happy hunting.
| mrexroad wrote:
| I've always been tempted, but I almost worry I'd start
| obsessing over "the next find" as well as hoarding. While I'm
| (maybe?) 75% kidding, I do already have a garage half full of
| my stuff over the years that I can't bring myself to throw away
| and am planning to fix and sell/gift/donate.
|
| It'd be great if there were a more formal delineation, at the
| point of disposal, between "pure trash" (no value, even as
| scrap) and "things others may extract value from" (unwanted,
| fixable, etc).
| rootsudo wrote:
| This, same experience it's fun but there is a tipping point
| when it is not effective. It's def an experience everyone
| should try sometime though. Really teaches you about value and
| opportunity.
| neilv wrote:
| I spent years "curb shopping" trash set out for pickup in a
| dense university town, 4 nights a week, a few hours at a time.
| I found around 100 PCs, and numerous more interesting items.
|
| Dumpsters and food seemed too risky. I figured that one cut,
| animal bite, poisoning, or misunderstanding could wipe out all
| the profits of an entire dumpster diving career.
|
| Even sticking to the curb, in the city, you have to be wary of
| wildlife (rats, skunks, possums, raccoons), muggers, and aggro
| drunks, as well as of contaminating your home (bed bugs,
| roaches, spiders). And, at the end of the repair&flipping
| pipeline, if you're selling a lot of used items, you'll
| probably realize there's some percentage of sketchy buyers.
|
| I'm oddly proud of accomplishments in the trash sector during
| some lean times, but I can't recommend it to anyone who doesn't
| need the money. I would've rather had a well-paying career at
| the time, and spent the same amount of evening time building
| things
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