Hosted by Broam on 2011-01-28 is flagged as Explicit and is released under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.
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Dumpster Diving
Cheapskate Computing
Broam talks about how to obtain, clean, and rehabilitate computing equipment that others have thrown away, and shares a few stories.
I found a PC one time; I gave it the hostname "catpee" and it was obvious why they threw it out. :-P I let it sit in the garage for about 6mos and the smell faded enough so I could stand to get near and clean it.
My favorite diving gear, in order of importance:
1. a willingness to leave the dumpster area as clean or cleaner than I found it.
2. One of those "handy grabber" things. I use a 48" Nifty Nabber (froogle search --http://goo.gl/Jlg4i ). I also have a 36" that I prefer for walking picks. The 48" is a little long but perfect for those picks wa-a-a-a-y in the dumpster.
3. A rubbermaid bin in my car stocked with: leather gloves for sharps, latex gloves for stickies. Messy stuff sits in the tub until I can get home and clean it out.
4. air compressor with blower attachment, as you point out. Blow all that dust and crud out.
I'll only dive in computer recycle bins. It's much cleaner that way. I still consider it unsanitary, and treat it that for safety's sake, but its definitely cleaner.
I record all my HPRs on a mic that I salvaged, plugged into a sound card that I salvaged, in a computer that I salvaged, full of salvaged parts. So I can really relate to this episode. Good one, and thanks.