i'm proud to say i started garbage picking by the time i was in kindergarten (actually lost the house key once in 1st grade and had to find it again in a barrel of metal parts! but i did find it, and of course i never let the parents know, it did scare the heck out of me). i'll reach or jump into a dumpster for all kinds of things. and people through out perfectly usable things all the time. the local kmart had a roll-away trash container last year, i saw a plastic panel sticking up and sure enough there was a complete Rubbermaid gardening shed/box, complete, and intact, mearly requiring assembly without instructions (it slides/snaps together, and the hinges are of course just thinner plastic sections that bend), it was a good puzzle but they sell for about $150. the only other thing in the trash were assorted pallets and small wooden stands, and 2 garden hoses that just needed one end replaced, which was doubtless deliberately smashed. it's simply criminal to deprive people of things they would like and pay to have it buried somewhere, but that's corporate america. i worked at that very kmart several years earlier, management really doesn't do anything other than hire and fire, they simply aren't allowed to think!
i've met people who make a living pulling perfectly good parts and equipment out of dumpsters in high tech areas. sure he lived in a storage unit, and had a larger one full of stuff waiting for a buyer (which he usually found fairly quickly), but he was happy, and had a Ph.D. in physics from CU boulder no less! i'm told he's a very good chess player. of course he does have one or two hitech toys he's kept, and he knew what was worth hauling away and what it was worth. it's an interesting world out there and you can find all kinds of things being thrown out occasionally. then there are government auctions, i used to bid 25 cents on all the test gear when i worked at the forest service, and took allot of it home. being the government, and since they know all the property people are thieves, any thing that doesn't sell gets smashed with a hammer, usually by someone on salary, and then it goes into the dumpster. i got allot of good parts that way and some nice test gear, including one piece i resold 2 months later for $600, after paying $1 for that particular piece. the test gear usually worked perfectly, despite having been in storage for the better part of a decade in some cases. my point being that if you walk or drive by a dumpster, it's worth at least a casual look. > My other compact mac (which I dug out of my shed) is a Mac Plus 1 MB, a > better machine than I had originally thought, I have no keyboard or mouse > fo rit though as I mentioned resqueing it from a dumpster. I like ot > think myself a pretty dedicated mac fan, I wonder how many of us woul > dclimb intot a dumpster to resque a mac? > > -Joe > -- The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." --Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. Here it comes again <http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc042702.html><http://www.counterpunch.org/oden1.html> -- Compact Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Compact Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/compact.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:compact.macs@;mail.maclaunch.com> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:compact.macs-off@;mail.maclaunch.com> For digest mode, email: <mailto:compact.macs-digest@;mail.maclaunch.com> Subscription questions: <mailto:listmom@;lemlists.com> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/compact.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
