College students may have no concept of how much stuff costs when their parents buy it. But to be fair, I'm in my 40s, and throw out a lot of expensive stuff too. When you're moving house, you're often tired and anxious, and thinking more about the burden of hauling crap around than you are with the price of replacing it. For me, I actually appreciate the forcing function imposed by the size of a moving van or a storage space, it works better than Marie Kondo to help get rid of stuff I've accumulated. I may believe the underlying reasons justify my behavior, but I can't judge anyone else for doing the same thing on the biased assumption that their reasons are less defensible.
I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
41–50 of 341 posts
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#42In LA you just leave anything you don't want that still has value on the curb and it's gone within a few hours. It's a very efficient system.
Same in San Antonio.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#43Apple's Airpods Max headphones appear to be the official uniform of University of California students. We've been visiting and I swear they outnumber normal headphones.
You will learn to think different like everyone else.
I went through several pairs of crappy wireless headphones until I gave in and got airpods, which just work.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#44It's not just students. Where I live (admittedly wealthy) people throw away everything they can't be bothered to do the slightest bit of maintenance on. I have found, and made functional: - a snow blower - various weed eaters - vacuum cleaners - a generator (higher capacity than the one I already had) - a log splitter - pressure washers (nozzles usually clogged with dirt) - a chainsaw - multiple typewriters (the Sele…
Because it is cheaper to buy a new one than pay someone to fix most of those. A fairly significant minority of wealthy people got that way because they have no free time to do those things themselves.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Save a VCR. Nobody makes them anymore, and the technology is not easily reproduced.
Those 2000s VCR's made near the end were pretty crappy though. We used VHS well beyond when everyone else threw theirs out - it was a cheap way to record TV. We would find one, it would last 8-10 months, and then break. I must have taken apart dozens of them, it was a fun thing to do as a kid. Meanwhile, my dad's VHS machine from the 80's works to this day, plus there is a service manual for it.
I have several VCRs I picked up at thrift stores for a few bucks. The interesting thing is the fundamental mechanism in them is all the same. The electronics boards change, the box changes, but the machine is the same. I'd swap parts from one brand to another to keep them working.
Another interesting thing is the size of the circuit board kept shrinking!
The usual failure mode of a VCR is the recording head gets dirty. It takes remarkably little dirt to render it non-functional. A bit of alcohol applied brings it back to working order.
I've noticed that the prices of VCRs in the thrift store hit a low of $5, but have been relentlessly creeping up. They're $25 now, and are rarely in stock. Get 'em while you can. Transfer your old family tapes to mp4 while you can.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#46Here's a lucky bastard who managed to snag a Herman Miller Aeron chair for $10 off a student moving out: https://www.reddit.com/r/OfficeChairs/comments/1kvcr18/it_fi...
I'm only a little jelly.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#47The holy grail would be a discarded thumb drive with somebody's bitcoin wallet.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#48I live in a uni town and when graduation comes around(pretty soon), there are all kinds of goodies on the sidewalk and trashbins. LCD TVs, clothing, furniture, food, bikes, etc. Everybody talks about evironmentalism execept they don't actually practice it.
> Everybody talks about evironmentalism execept they don't actually practice it.
My impression is that only about half the population, at most, even pretends to care about environmentalism.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#49It is rather depressing to be reminded of the scale of cultural shift that needs to take place in order for us to live even somewhat sustainably. I get what the degrowth people are on about, now. It certainly seems that we should do more with less.
Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students
#50It's not just students. Where I live (admittedly wealthy) people throw away everything they can't be bothered to do the slightest bit of maintenance on. I have found, and made functional: - a snow blower - various weed eaters - vacuum cleaners - a generator (higher capacity than the one I already had) - a log splitter - pressure washers (nozzles usually clogged with dirt) - a chainsaw - multiple typewriters (the Sele…
Because it is cheaper to buy a new one than pay someone to fix most of those. A fairly significant minority of wealthy people got that way because they have no free time to do those things themselves.
It's also often cheaper to treat many durable items as disposable.
i.e. buy a power washer each-ish time you need it compared to hiring somebody.