3 ms·

I was walking in our electronics department's hallway when I stopped and walked a few steps back. My peripheral vision picked up a pile of yummy: a load of lab

I was walking in our electronics department's hallway when I stopped and walked a few steps back. My peripheral vision picked up a pile of yummy: a load of lab gear in an office. I went in and asked about it. The person said they were to be discarded. I asked if I could take some. They said they were to be sold by the kilogram to a company. I asked if I could buy a few kilograms of oscilloscopes, multimetres, stabilized power sources, etc. They said no. Regulations, auctions, etc. Here I was, a broke electronics student, trying to procure electronics equipment, in an electronics department, with lunch money I was willing to part with, but unable to do so because someone needed to melt that thing down and make a horse shoe or some fork.

aspenmayer 6y ago
Somebody already bought the picking rights. I would have gone over the head of the person you asked, or call in a favor with someone at the same level of hierarchy. Ask them if you can have some of the stuff. If they say yes, tell the first person x said it's fine, and just take what you are allowed to take. Their red tape is only your problem if you can't self-help. It's not your job to enforce their agreements with third parties who aren't you. It's also not your job to inform them of existing agreements with third parties which you are privy to.
- Jugurtha 6y ago
  Oh, the things I would have done in that situation if it took place somewhere where you don't get disappeared for a Facebook post, friend. I'll leave it at that. The underlying context is that I was practically a persona non grata. Teachers would happily leave the class to me during labs but hated the fact I barely attended. I'm talking not even grading your exam sheet, or putting an arbitrary grade, and not displaying it until the recourse deadline has passed because "screw you" and I'm talking putting "0" on all your grades because you missed one exam. Nobody will take the side of a student who'll be there for a limited time against a colleague they've worked with for 20+ years. Even if the behavior is unjust, the rationale for them is that you'll live and learn and forget about it and leave, but they're staying and have to work with the other person. Sure, the obvious step is to go manoeuver or call out these practices, invovle lawyers, and the media, and what not. Which brings me to my first paragraph. What is obvious and possible somewhere isn't somewhere else, or is but the stakes are too high. If I wanted to manoeuver in a cesspool, I would have become a politician. If I wanted to go to war, I would have become a martyr. The former is frowned upon, the latter is admired in other people from a distance.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    This sounds like you encountered corruption, not waste.
    - Jugurtha 6y ago
      Not certain, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case in that specific instance.
eitland 6y ago
This is so annoying. I was luckier one time: I remember buying an oscilloscope for around 400NOK (about $40) back somewhere in 2002-2003. Other times I was more persistent. Once I tried to get some PC parts so I said I could disassemble it and only take the exact parts at which point the bloke told me he'd rather want me to take the whole thing as lo g as I was quick so nobody saw it :-)
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I bought a nice oscilloscope last year from the pawn shop for $40. I don't think most of their clientele (or the staff) even knew what it was.
  - serf 6y ago
    >I don't think most of their clientele (or the staff) even knew what it was. I bought a pair of nice Roland studio-level reference monitor speakers from a pawn shop like that once. They cost me 90 dollars, they retailed for something like 1750. When I paid the person behind the counter told me that many people had tried to get these to work and brought them back because they couldn't figure out the cable to use -- and due to that difficulty they had marked them down from 200 to 90. It was an XLR plug. They worked beautifully.
    - yardie 6y ago
      Pawn shops are filled with audio gear from desperate, broke artists. XLR is a pretty standard in the audio community. I even have a 2.5mm-to-XLR adapter on my desk. This pawn shop must be really far from any place with performance venues. Now on the other hand I had some old Bang and Olufsen speakers that used proprietary everything. Even the audio input was some kind of balanced 24V signaling 5-pin DIN connectors. Basically you could not plug into anything except another B&O.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    P.S.: I did tell the staff what it was, but they just shrugged their shoulders. So I paid $40.
mrtweetyhack 6y ago
You assume that they are going to melt that down
stordoff 6y ago
I had the opposite experience with one of my old electronics teachers. The place was was replacing a bunch (40-50 or so) of 100Mbps rackmount switches with gigabit versions (this was mid-2000s, so 100Mbps was still more than adequate for home use). I can't remember the exact scenario, but they were either selling the old ones as scrap or had to pay for them to be recycled. My teacher said I could skim whatever I wanted off the top, providing I didn't make it too public (I don't think he asked permission, just knew they wouldn't be missed). A 48-port switch (Netgear FS750T or something very similar), as well as a couple of 16-port versions and a hub that had somehow still been in use, was probably overkill for home use, but I wasn't complaining.
madengr 6y ago
I was in the same predicament when a student. They said they’d give me my pick of scope if I went through a checked out the other 20 that were to be sold. 30 years later I still have that 20 MHz Tek scope.
- kjs3 6y ago
  And with proper care and feeding, that Tek 20 MHz scope will be working in another 30 years. They were well built to put it mildly. I have a friend who's scope is a Tek 500 series, I think 30MHz, built around 50 years ago. Works fine once it warms up. He uses it for audio work, so 30Mhz is mostly overkill.
  - madengr 6y ago
    I have a 2465B (400 MHz analog) that I re-capped a few years ago. What a great scope.
solstice 6y ago
When a uni department replaced all their Macs, I got my hands on a power Mac G4 Cube (yes, one of those that sits in the MoMA). I haven't been able to fix it (something's fried) but I plan to keep the shell and most of the innards as well as the awesome take-out mechanism and add an RPi or something else inside. Passively cooled and beautiful enough to display in the living room...

aspenmayer 6y ago

Somebody already bought the picking rights. I would have gone over the head of the person you asked, or call in a favor with someone at the same level of hierarchy. Ask them if you can have some of the stuff. If they say yes, tell the first person x said it's fine, and just take what you are allowed to take. Their red tape is only your problem if you can't self-help. It's not your job to enforce their agreements with third parties who aren't you. It's also not your job to inform them of existing agreements with third parties which you are privy to.

Jugurtha 6y ago
Oh, the things I would have done in that situation if it took place somewhere where you don't get disappeared for a Facebook post, friend. I'll leave it at that. The underlying context is that I was practically a persona non grata. Teachers would happily leave the class to me during labs but hated the fact I barely attended. I'm talking not even grading your exam sheet, or putting an arbitrary grade, and not displaying it until the recourse deadline has passed because "screw you" and I'm talking putting "0" on all your grades because you missed one exam. Nobody will take the side of a student who'll be there for a limited time against a colleague they've worked with for 20+ years. Even if the behavior is unjust, the rationale for them is that you'll live and learn and forget about it and leave, but they're staying and have to work with the other person. Sure, the obvious step is to go manoeuver or call out these practices, invovle lawyers, and the media, and what not. Which brings me to my first paragraph. What is obvious and possible somewhere isn't somewhere else, or is but the stakes are too high. If I wanted to manoeuver in a cesspool, I would have become a politician. If I wanted to go to war, I would have become a martyr. The former is frowned upon, the latter is admired in other people from a distance.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  This sounds like you encountered corruption, not waste.
  - Jugurtha 6y ago
    Not certain, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case in that specific instance.

eitland 6y ago

This is so annoying. I was luckier one time: I remember buying an oscilloscope for around 400NOK (about $40) back somewhere in 2002-2003. Other times I was more persistent. Once I tried to get some PC parts so I said I could disassemble it and only take the exact parts at which point the bloke told me he'd rather want me to take the whole thing as lo g as I was quick so nobody saw it :-)

WalterBright 6y ago
I bought a nice oscilloscope last year from the pawn shop for $40. I don't think most of their clientele (or the staff) even knew what it was.
- serf 6y ago
  >I don't think most of their clientele (or the staff) even knew what it was. I bought a pair of nice Roland studio-level reference monitor speakers from a pawn shop like that once. They cost me 90 dollars, they retailed for something like 1750. When I paid the person behind the counter told me that many people had tried to get these to work and brought them back because they couldn't figure out the cable to use -- and due to that difficulty they had marked them down from 200 to 90. It was an XLR plug. They worked beautifully.
  - yardie 6y ago
    Pawn shops are filled with audio gear from desperate, broke artists. XLR is a pretty standard in the audio community. I even have a 2.5mm-to-XLR adapter on my desk. This pawn shop must be really far from any place with performance venues. Now on the other hand I had some old Bang and Olufsen speakers that used proprietary everything. Even the audio input was some kind of balanced 24V signaling 5-pin DIN connectors. Basically you could not plug into anything except another B&O.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  P.S.: I did tell the staff what it was, but they just shrugged their shoulders. So I paid $40.

mrtweetyhack 6y ago

You assume that they are going to melt that down

stordoff 6y ago

I had the opposite experience with one of my old electronics teachers. The place was was replacing a bunch (40-50 or so) of 100Mbps rackmount switches with gigabit versions (this was mid-2000s, so 100Mbps was still more than adequate for home use). I can't remember the exact scenario, but they were either selling the old ones as scrap or had to pay for them to be recycled. My teacher said I could skim whatever I wanted off the top, providing I didn't make it too public (I don't think he asked permission, just knew they wouldn't be missed). A 48-port switch (Netgear FS750T or something very similar), as well as a couple of 16-port versions and a hub that had somehow still been in use, was probably overkill for home use, but I wasn't complaining.

madengr 6y ago

I was in the same predicament when a student. They said they’d give me my pick of scope if I went through a checked out the other 20 that were to be sold. 30 years later I still have that 20 MHz Tek scope.

kjs3 6y ago
And with proper care and feeding, that Tek 20 MHz scope will be working in another 30 years. They were well built to put it mildly. I have a friend who's scope is a Tek 500 series, I think 30MHz, built around 50 years ago. Works fine once it warms up. He uses it for audio work, so 30Mhz is mostly overkill.
- madengr 6y ago
  I have a 2465B (400 MHz analog) that I re-capped a few years ago. What a great scope.

solstice 6y ago

When a uni department replaced all their Macs, I got my hands on a power Mac G4 Cube (yes, one of those that sits in the MoMA). I haven't been able to fix it (something's fried) but I plan to keep the shell and most of the innards as well as the awesome take-out mechanism and add an RPi or something else inside. Passively cooled and beautiful enough to display in the living room...