Ahhh once again…the useful crap people throw away. It is a new year with new finds. I will open up 2024 being thankful for the resources I am privileged to have. The dump has provided material goods that save me from having to buy from and support shitty companies. Here are some of the goods that have come in useful in the past year.
1. Samsung Note 3 running Lineage OS
I love the smell of no google in the morning…it smells…like victory. It’s time to ditch google. It was actually easier than I had imagined. Deleting their shit tracking, adware, malware, money making bullshit was as common sense as following Ikea furniture assembly instructions. Uh…well maybe not common sense but more straightforward than I thought.
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/hltetmo/
Yes, People say there are no options, just a duopoly. It is true, Apple is just as crap. Yes. I considered briefly using the iPhone SE that I (you guessed it) found in e-waste. I do like the small form factor of that phone but I can’t get locked into an ecosystem that promotes an earth adverse business model.
Ridding yourself of a google lifestyle is a choice for your health and a stick in the spokes of a parasitic machine designed to endlessly extract data. There are options and yes, it takes an adjustment. It feels damn good when you make that adjustment. Whether it is done DIY or you get someone else to do it, install Lineage OS or anything other than android. Find a dumbphone, stop supporting shit companies and advocate non-stop for regulation of monopolies, duopolies or shitty businesses with shitty practices (looking at you Amazon). Also for the Amazon curious here, here, and here. Could go on and on all day about the particular shittiness of Bezos and his earthfucking company – here and here. Some of these articles are from sources that should be sympathetic to big business.
Aw man what is with all the ranting lectures? I can’t even listen to myself shouting into the void.
Just enjoy the materialism for once. Note 3 is fun. Using the pen to draw middle school “swears”, poop humour and insults. The IR remote to kill TVs. IR blasting my way around. All these old sensors that aren’t included in modern smart phone sure make phoning fun again.
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
2. Olympus E-M10 Mark III
Waste. I shake my head every time I find something like this. It is a mix of emotions. Why the fuck is this camera – a labour intensive item to build – in a bin that will crush the value out of it? It is an expensive (advertised as budget micro 4/3) camera. The “value” of finding it is quite good. The actual COST of the camera is a different story. The energy that goes into producing quality equipment and getting it to a consumer is massive. This item represents a significant cost. It’s not only worth looking at its value in terms of market value but what it COST.
I have mixed feelings because I value tools and the things I can do with tools. I value having a creative outlet that is mediated. I see that I am brainwashed by advertising that makes me like this cool little camera and feel a need to have it. Retrieving the camera from e-waste for free alleviates the guilty feeling of consumption. I am still manipulated into creating a false need for this shiny object, but I am not wasting resources or damaging the earth to get it. It is funny feeling when you no longer have to trade labour or shitty time spent at a job for shiny trinkets and you get your shiny trinkets for free. Your perception of the value of those items changes. It doesn’t necessarily devalue the item or make you disrespect it, it makes you evaluate what you will do to get the item. It makes you evaluate your “need” for them. If I had access to a free Lamborghini, I would probably use it a couple of times to appreciate the feat of engineering, but that shit would get old fast. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy wheeled transport more than most people but Lamborghini for life seems like a pitful goal. I mean we could try to get someone to lend me a Lambo to test the theory, but whatever. I think I’d rather just do shit with people I enjoy spending time with. Perhaps we could go Lambo driving if we can get some.
Oh shit where was I? Getting back to the shiny Camera I found in the trash…I am also trying more and more to see the true cost to our environment to produce items like these. I want to look at it as a cool piece of equipment that – in dollars – cost me nothing. When looking at it from a wider perspective, the system designed to get this to a consumer, costs us everything.
Well, that was a downer. Um. This camera is cool. It was free. It is well built and I have fun using it. Weeeee.
Here is the story behind it.
This camera was found at an e-waste facility in a plastic bag full of miscellaneous old camera gear, cables and e-waste. The original lens was a broken 40-150mm telezoom. When it powered up (it powered up!) the camera presented a lens error. In the bag, I found another Olympus E-PL1, so I tested the lens on that camera as well – same error. I then found an option on the E-M10 Mark III menu to use the camera without a lens. I had some manual Canon lenses that I tried by holding the lens in front of the body. The images had an interesting dreamy quality.
Later, I bought an FD – M4/3 adapter and an EF-M4/3 adapter to use with my Canon lenses. The manual ones worked well. This year I decided to invest in the cheap, tiny 14-24 Olympus lens. Bought it from a Canadian camera shop because F@ck Amazon.
3. Desktop “WOPR II” – Custom Alienware Area 51 7500 (case) with GA-Z270X-Gaming 5 Motherboard, Razer Mouse, Logitech G-513 Keys, Pioneer SA-7500 mk II
I think I am the beneficiary of angry parents. Not my own parents, but the parents of many a video gaming child. They seem to be throwing out the machinery that enslaves their children (think of the children!) to the video game overlords. The evil video game overlords, like the TV overlords before them, are turning our children into murder happy zombies – just like that heavy metal music.
Like most people who benefit from the fear of the “other” or in this case fear of the new medium, I will fuel this misplaced blame by decrying, “all tech is zombifying our children! Let me dispose of your evil tech!” I will make use…um I mean get rid of the unholy tech.
That, my friends, will be my first lesson on how to unethically make money on the E-waste economy. In the few months before failing out of business school, I learned that fear sells everything. In this case though, the fear just sells the notion of throwing out your kid’s shit (and possibly buying more, SAFER crap, that can monitor THE CHILDREN to keep them safe…perhaps an Apple product).
I picked up that cast away shit that was purged to dumps and ewaste. Now I’m selling it back to zombified teens and adults. The best bits though are the tools I use now:
Alienware Area 51 7500 (case)
Razer Naga Epic Mouse
Pioneer SA-7500 mk II Amplifier
Those are the pieces I sourced from the dump. I added 64GB of RAM, an AMD Radeon RX6700XT GPU, a Thermaltake 850w power supply, and new case fans. These were thought out choices to replace dumpfound items that nearly zapped my build. This computer was built to be a tool for editing video and other work. Besides the practicality, it is so over the top early 2000s Aliens steampunk, that I smile when I look at it.
4. Thinkpad(s) T-460
I benefit from a lazy, wasteful government in many ways. One way is through their procurement cycle. Piles of these awesome laptops are everywhere in government towns. Thinkpads are to laptops what Dell Optiplexes are to desktops. They are no BS computers that governments over buy. They spec the shit out of them to be used by document writers, paper pushers, email writers. My apologies to those in government doing their best with shoestrings – as long as you aren’t advocating for bootstraps.
The lazy, wasteful government in my town has turned its eyes to a new target. Those who would dare to reuse. In my area of the world the local government has decided that they will toss their hard drives containing sensitive data into the regular waste stream. Their solution to making sure that data is not compromised is to use a scorched earth approach. They have banned “scavenging” any of the mountains of e-waste that come from a variety of sources. The e-waste gets devalued at the source. It is put into bins (smashing, crushing, scratching, rusting) and is shipped a vast distance, expending labour, gas, infrastructure wear and devaluing items further. The solution – erase the drives yourself on the way out you lazy fucks. Allow reuse, Quit trying to rebrand reuse as “scavenging” and I will quit trying to rebrand bureaucrat as “lazy useless fuck”
Reuse locally. It is second on the 3 R list. Get governments to do it. And don’t buy that shit to begin with – unless local of course.
I apologize. I know this method of rhetoric is not effective. I come off as an asshole and probably am to a certain extent. I just need to vent so I can be calm and not seem unhinged when trying to convince actual bureaucrats and policy makers. Perhaps this will be a rant posted separately and toned down over time. Perhaps this should be a notice in my about page.
5. Media Centre 1– Optiplex 5050 Media server, USFF Optiplex 7010 Kodi, Pioneer SA-5200
Ahhh Kodi. Serving your own media is so satisfying. Yar.
Fuck streaming services.
Media and Retro-Gaming Centre – All components except for pioneer speakers were found at a dump in e-waste.
Pioneer SA-5200, Marantz SD-221, Audio switch
Samsung 32″ TV
OG Nintendo and Playstation, Playstation 3
Toshiba DVD/VHS
Optiplex 7010 usff
6. Media Centre 2 – ThinkCentre M92p Tiny, 2012 Mac Mini, Sony 40″ TV, NAD Stereo Cassette 602
Media Centre – All components except for Sony Amplifer were found at a dump in e-waste.
ThinkCentre M92p Tiny, 2012 Mac Mini
Sony 40″ TV
NAD Stereo Cassette 602
Will describe stuff better on second edit. Just needed to rant. Sorry.
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