by "Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
Published 02/28/2017 at 18:49
by "Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
Published 02/28/2017 at 18:49
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STARS: 2
It was a good, but expensive ($31) day over at the Goodwill Outlet...
1) 4 in, 2 out HDMI matrix switch - I don’t have a lot of HDMI devices, even downconverting the output from the Roku 3 to composite to work with my signal distribution system, so I’ll probably use this box as half of a KVM switch in order to get away from VGA. DVI to HDMI should be cheap thanks to Monoprice.com. Sure, HD is nice, but considering that TV is more background noise than anything I’m OK with this setup, and if I want HD on the HD TV it’s just a cable swap away.
2) Alpine double-DIN car stereo - I don’t know if it works, but for a couple of bucks I’m willing to give it a try. It’s a few years old, but looks pretty decent. A little scuffed, but that’s not a surprise.
3) Another DVR with another 500GB drive.
4) Western Digital WDTV Live - I’ve got an old one, so hopefully I can reuse the remote from that one on this box
5) A complete set of LPs with audio recordings from the space program from the ‘60s with lots of moon landing stuff
6) Headphones - 1 Base and 1 Shure. Both models still available for about $100/ea.
I really have to stop going over there as I’m running out of room to keep all this crap. Perhaps I’ll spend my upcoming vacation week having a massive eBay sale so I can get funds for my second week of vacation...
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
02/28/2017 at 18:56, STARS: 0
Those WD live are slow and buggy from time to time but do the job really nicely. I’d buy another for $15 bucks or so. The main perk is non-digital out, so you can load up a flash drive and take it with you to hotel that may not have digital in.
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
02/28/2017 at 19:12, STARS: 0
The few times I’ve stopped in the Goodwill store, there hasn’t been anything remotely as interesting as what you find.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
02/28/2017 at 19:30, STARS: 1
This is a special one - the outlet store. Most major cities have at least one; we’ve got two in STL. You have to dig through bins of crap that are semi-sorted, and without gloves you’re risking cuts and other things, but obviously, for me at least, it’s worth the risks. Sure, you’re taking a change that some stuff may not work or may not be complete, but at $0.89/lb it’s worth taking a chance.
"jminer" (jminer)
02/28/2017 at 19:36, STARS: 0
I haven’t stopped by one of the outlet stores here (we have two in the area). Are they worth the hassle? The goodwill stores proper don’t usually have a great selection compared to what I used to see.
Particularly on LP, used to find a lot of interesting stuff, not so much anymore. Most just have 1 box of them to thumb through that are all moldy christian records. I did one time find the soundtrack to Patton including his speeches though!
"random001" (random001)
02/28/2017 at 19:38, STARS: 0
Oh man, what I would give for those LPs!
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
02/28/2017 at 19:43, STARS: 0
Perhaps after I digitize them (I found a new USB turntable at a Goodwill retail store...) I’ll pass them along to someone else. Too thick to frame, and no cool graphics on the box, so no need to keep them around afterwards.
"random001" (random001)
02/28/2017 at 19:44, STARS: 0
That would be amazing...
"RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht" (ramblininexile)
02/28/2017 at 19:49, STARS: 0
I just raided Tractor Supply for a whole bunch of 70% off Vise-Grip style clamps of various kinds. Haven’t been in Goodwill that lately, though last time I *did* get a $5 scanner/printer.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
02/28/2017 at 19:59, STARS: 0
If you keep in mind that the outlets sell what either didn’t sell, or wasn’t in good enough condition to sell, at the regular retail stores, you can find some great stuff as long as you’re not looking for perfection. It’s hit-and-miss, and sometimes the selection is just not there. The items I pick up are usually not in perfect shape. The Shure headphones, for example, could use new earpads, and there is some flaking of the covering on the pad that rests on the top of your head. I don’t care about minor issues like that, but others might. That is, after all, why they ended up at the outlet.
The people in there can be a little crazy. When new bins roll out there’s lots of crowding and pushing, sometimes with threats of violence. It’s kind of funny that people would take junk hunting so seriously.
If you like fixing things, like I do, or have spare parts laying around, this can be the spot for you. The HDMI switch didn’t have a power supply, but I figured that in my bins full of line-lumps and wall-warts i’d have the correct one, and I did; and if I didn’t I could make the correct one out of spare parts. Some headphones I’ve acquired were damaged, but a little soldering and heat shrink got them back into usable shape. Nice Skullcandy headphones for a few pennies, and a little bit of my time to make them operational again? It feels like I’m stealing, but it also feels good to keep something usable out of a landfill, especially when I pass these things along to someone that can use them.
Two of my favorite kitchen gadgets are FoodSaver vacuum sealers and powered knife sharpeners, and I’ve picked up several and given them away, making lots of people happy. Sometimes I just sell a few things here and there, and the extra cash makes me happy.
Your first experience may be a little intimidating. People running amok, endless bins filled with what seems like crap, but if you give it a chance you might enjoy it. I know that the first time I was there I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on and didn’t go back for several months, but now I’m a regular, and frequently chat with other regulars. We trade amongst ourselves, loan tools and help each other find things. It’s a lot of fun, especially for a cheapskate like me. I just wish my office wasn’t so close to this place; if it wasn’t so close I might not stop there on the way home, especially when I get off work at noon, but it’s turned into an addiction, and someday my friends and family may need to hold an intervention...
"jminer" (jminer)
02/28/2017 at 20:53, STARS: 0
Thanks for the info. That’s what I was thinking they were. If I’m looking for stuff at goodwill it’s usually the strange and unusual, it doesn’t seem like I’d enjoy one of those outlets too much.
I have also gotten to the point in my live that I finally donated most of my spare and unused pc parts. I’ve been in IT system administration for over 10 years so it was several trips to donate...
You’re not in St Louis are you? It seems like you’d give a good home to my next batch of electronics that need to leave my place...
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
02/28/2017 at 21:02, STARS: 0
I am in St Louis. Chances are your old stuff is better than my best current stuff, so yeah, I’d probably be willing to take it off your hands. My gaming PC is about 6 years old and runs a Phenom II 965, my day-to-day desktop is a 1st gen i5, and I only use it because I’ve found that my late-2009 Mac mini just feels too slow these days. I did recently acquire a bunch of older network and server equipment from a fellow STL Opponaut, so perhaps we can do a little horse trading.
I used to be in corporate IT back in California, and helped start a dot com, but got burned out when everything that worked (Novell, Unix) was being replaced with the latest Windows flavor of the week with all of the headaches that that implies. Maybe things have gotten better, but these days I prefer to do computer work as a hobby, and have found a great job working for Metro after years in the airline industry.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/07/2017 at 21:23, STARS: 0
Rather tangential to the original post, but did I read somewhere in your posts that you work on scooters and mopeds and the like? I’m looking for some help getting a PoS Taotao to start and run reliably.
"jminer" (jminer)
03/08/2017 at 11:36, STARS: 0
I do, but I don’t touch the Chinese knockoff scooters anymore. They make a Vespa from the 70s look reliable and we’ll put together by comparison. I would recommend replacing it with an 80s Japanese scoot, you can find them running well for $5-800 pretty easily around here and they’ll run forever with minimal maintenance.
Sorry, but I’ve spent enough time and money trying to fix those guys I won’t even touch them any more. If it was a big chinese brand like Tank or Qlink it’d be worth saving, they’re decent machines.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/08/2017 at 13:10, STARS: 0
Even if I bribe you with 10 year old corporate network equipment. Yeah, I didn’t think that would go over too well. The friend who owns this Taotao dumped it for an old Honda Elite CH-80 and he’s never been happier. He was willing to sell me this PoS for next to nothing, which would have been great for my 2 mile commute, but I wouldn’t buy it until it’s running reliably. Other than a complete engine swap, is there anything that can be done to salvage this thing?
"jminer" (jminer)
03/08/2017 at 13:24, STARS: 0
There is a parts market for them, probably buying a new carb from eBay is a good start, but if it’s electrical it’ll cost you a lot more parts. There are no repair manuals for them and they’re so cheap they are disposable. You can buy a brand new one for $600. It’ll last a season before it starts falling apart if you’re lucky.
It’ll definitely cost you less to buy an old honda in the long run. Anything above 49cc does need a motorcycle license and insurance on missouri FYI.
"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
03/09/2017 at 10:40, STARS: 0
Tried the new carb route, first via a performance kit he bought from some place in Indiana and then a highly-rated one from Amazon. The plug was replaced with the good NGK CR7HIX.
A local shop said it was the cylinder head, which seems kind of crappy for a vehicle that only has a few hundred miles on it. They did a valve adjustment and it ran much better, but getting it started is still a challenge, and if it doesn’t start easily it’s not worth the hassle. It’s just a GY6, so I’m wondering if a full engine transplant, if it can be done affordably, might be worth the hassle, but at that rate the cost of parts and labor will exceed the cost of a used Honda.
I’ve been teaching this friend that there’s more to buying things than just the initial purchase price. He got a bit mad when, after he bought some dreadful Battery Tender knockoff over at Harbor Freight, I asked him what he was going to buy next year to replace it and where he was going to get the replacement battery. We found a genuine Battery Tender over at Costco for not much more than the HF PoS, and it’s been going great for ages.