|
bnuuy https://i.imgur.com/RoXuRtQ.mp4
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 03:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:38 |
|
|
rotor posted:gently caress em up gramps
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 03:37
|
|
|
In pics and stories OTHER than about lasers: Let's talk about the State of Alaska Surplus Property "barn"  [Not an uncommon sight in this state] It's where all the surplus property from the largest population center in the state goes to be sold off or scrapped. It's like half thrift-store, half e-waste recycling, and half the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I used to be a know-all-the-employees-by-name regular there about 15-18 years ago, they would only open on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 8:30-4:00. I and my close friend/coworker would show up after we got off of graveyard shift at around 8:15, and often there would already be 20-30 people already lined up to go and scope and snatch the wildest poo poo. We found all sorts of things there, from a full server rack full of video/PPV distribution gear for a hotel, to random reel-to-reel dinosaur data storage, to esoteric early predecessors of touchscreen computing like those 14" Toshiba-Wacom collaboration slates, backpacks, briefcases, camping and industrial gear, all sort of wild poo poo. A lot of generic but useful stuff too, like filing cabinets, desks, conference tables, telephony gear and office supplies. Oh and pretty much every TSA-confiscated knife and tool from one of the busiest cargo aircraft hubs in the world ends up in this barn:  [If you ever wondered where they all go] I made quite a bit of beer money just knowing what I could refurb and flip on the brand new thing known as Craigslist back then, or sometimes I'd even take a wishlist of things from friends to watch out for there. One of my simultaneously most profitable and aggravating buys was a pallet full of APC uninterruptible power supplies. I'm talking about 40 of the things, from several big rackmount ones, down to the integrated-into-a-power-strip ones. Most of them were those bug chunky 1000-1500VA ones though, like 8"x8"x18", no displays, 3 LED's. and pretty dumb. The problem with UPS's in Alaska is basically NOBODY ships batteries up here except in bulk, and almost exclusively by ground transport. So when some office in the state has all of them reach end of battery life, they swap them all out, because a bulk order from APC actually turns out cheaper than 5 pallets of battries and all the man-hours to swap them. Also sadly this makes buying UPS's for filthy home-user-casuals like I was back then super expensive; think $400+ for a 1200VA new from someplace like Officemax or Best Buy.  [The bane of my existence and source of beer money] So when this pallet of APC's showed up, I bought it for $45, had them forklift the pallet out to the parking lot, broke it up and loaded into the bed of my buddy's truck. 45 minutes later we were in the garage of the house I was renting and piling them onto shelves. The odd ones like the power-strip ones and the server ones were tested and deemed too esoteric to refurb, but once those had been earmarked for the monthly dump-run, we got to work on the others. First we got a single working set of batteries from Batteries Plus and only slightly paid out of the nose for them. Then we started going though units one by one and weeding out the ones with bad electronics or damaged bodies that could be swapped from one unit to another, rather than just dead batteries. We were down to 30+ out of the original 40 or so that could be saved. I found compatible generic part numbers for the batteries and called up batteries plus and managed to talk them into making me a deal if I bulk ordered the batteries from them, and roughly $1000 and 3 weeks later I started throwing them onto craigslist, and calling friends I knew that worked in small businesses that would be amenable to buying them off of me. It took me almost to the day I moved out of there 18 months later to sell them all, but sell them I did, usually making $25-60 profit per unit. My roommates would get bitchy about them still taking up space on the shelf in the garage, but every time we suddenly had "free" beer money, they'd shut up again. This brings us to today: About two weeks ago I decided to start hitting up the State of Alaska Surplus Property barn again, like an addict hitting up their old trap house. It's considerably lower key there these days; they're open 5 days a week, there's only a manager and a floor guy, no people waiting in line for the doors to open, and it doesn't really have that frantic vibe to it anymore. Two things majorly changed it: govdeals.com where they can actually auction their rare or expensive things, and COVID knocked their employees to where they are today. I wandered around there, and while there were some things that stood out, like four Alienware i7 towers from like 6-7 years ago, some benchmade knives, and a couple old industrial electric typewriters, most things that would have been snapped up instantaneously back in the day were tagged for online auction. I took a look around and among the heaps of old xeon towers, rackmount gear of all shapes and sizes, and hundereds of unopened toner cartridges, I found a group of late-6th gen i7 SFF PC's (WITH m.2 SSD SLOTS and capability for 64GB RAM!  ) hiding at the back of a pallet that I snagged, and a group of APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 UPS's that looked drat near brand new. I bought 3 of the Dell i7's after opening them up and making sure they hadn't been cannibalized of their innards (thank god for modern toolless cases), and 2 of the APC's after the guy on the floor let me plug them in and make sure it was only the batteries that were dead. The PC's cost me $34 apiece, and the UPS's $40 apiece after I confirmed I could swap the batteries and they weren't some proprietary nonsense. I went home, bought some m.2 drives and 32GB of RAM ($105), and bought some batteries for the UPS's ($85 per unit). One of the Dells has become a dedicated security camera server/DVR sitting in my office, another has become a low-cost ghetto-NAS sitting unobtrusively headless near the cable modem, wifi-router, and 2.5gb switch in my living room. The third is yet to be assigned, but may go to my mother, little nephews, or possibly someone else, who knows. While I was taking them all apart I realized they were probably casualties of the big AK State Court-System hack/data-breach/ransomeware attacks in 2021/2022, by the identifying stickers on top of them. One of the APC's powers all of the aforementioned stuff in the living room, and the other sits happily chugging along in the office, providing peace of mind for all of my desk setup, and both of my lasers so if I'm in the middle of a project I don't screw up and mess up something expensive like a wedding ring or a macbook air if power flickers. [The lo-cost NAS and 6tb of sticker-bombed USB3 spinning rust and its backup power supply]  [This computer may have put someone in prison!] I went back to the barn today, snapped up the other 2 of the nice UPS's for $25 apiece this time, brought them home and verified they work with a known-good set of batteries. I stumbled onto an absolute SUCKER of a seller on Amazon that will not only ship me the batteries for $55/set, they'll also ship the batteries to Alaska with Prime shipping which is basically unheard of. These sellers always eventually wise up and start charging outrageous shipping to Alaska, if not outright refusing to ship up here. I've already got 2 friends on the line that want to buy them off of me, because even if I'm asking $125 apiece for them, it's still an awesome deal compared to the almost $350 retail these are going for up here.  [Eagerly awaiting their new batteries and new homes (and a photobombing 14yo void-cat)] If you made it this far, thanks, sometimes I feel like I just have to write: to keep myself sharp, it helps curb my ADHD, I thought someone might get a kick out of it. spookykid fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Apr 30, 2024 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 03:55
|
|
|
Chris Knight posted:
emuesudosu
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 07:01
|
|
|
spookykid posted:Let's talk about the State of Alaska Surplus Property "barn" awesome post, thanks! 
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 07:07
|
|
|
spookykid posted:In pics and stories OTHER than about lasers: hell yeah this kicks rear end finding sellers who don’t know how much things cost to ship is one of life’s greatest pleasures. i just bought a huge book (about 12x16x2 inches and 8lb) from a seller in germany who only charged 6.49€ shipping to canada
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 07:07
|
|
|
shipping isn't equal, i send my wife stuff all the time from poland and no matter how hueg the package i only pay like 40$ at most
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 08:37
|
|
|
Yea shipping prices vary immensely, e.g. the Danish postal service has been politically prevented from offering competitive prices on domestic and international parcels which has led to a massive reduction in their staff and physical locations and a massive spike in their prices across all services. It now costs about $4 to send a next day standard letter anywhere in the country. And you need to mail it before noon or it most likely will not be delivered on the actual next day.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 09:15
|
|
|
goblin week posted:shipping isn't equal, i send my wife stuff all the time from poland and no matter how hueg the package i only pay like 40$ at most In the US it's a big thing, because many sellers of tiny-large things rely on the USPS intrastate "flat-rate" shipping and other subsidized shipping programs. As a shipper like that, you may do 5000 orders of 1-16oz/27-430g <$1 per order, 500 orders of 16oz-22lb/430g-10kg at $7 per order, and 50 orders at 22lb/10kg and up at $25 per order and you just factor that into the price the user pays on products for "free shipping". This all works inside the US if you don't factor in the two weirdest geographic US States: Alaska and Hawaii. Hawaii is air or sea only shipping, so figure even with flat rate: it's 5-10x $$$ more, and you can ground ship to Alaska, but it's long, painful, and requires driving though another country including customs and border checks, so the majority is shipped into one of the top 5 busiest air-cargo ports in the world: Ted Stevens International Airport. So Alaska even with flat rate: consider 3.5-8x $$$ more. Anything that has even a semi-ban or declaration for air cargo will not be shipped air or ground to Alaska as the fees are ridiculous. This has actually nearly, if not truly, bankrupted certain "Free Prime shipping" sellers in the early days of Prime. I abused the gently caress out of it. I ordered at least 4 sets of tires for $50-120/per tire shipped from the continental US to Alaska, when at that point you couldn't order them from the reputable tire chains up here for anything less than $200-300 per tire due to the cost of shipping them up here or across the water to Hawaii. It has become a game to see which vendors are still stupid enough to do it, how fast we can find them, and how long they'll last once we find them. spookykid fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Apr 30, 2024 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 09:38
|
|
|
my yosmas santa shipped a mini pc case from Australia like a maniac and I think it cost like $100+ to do it (I think I know who you are and thanks again you lunatic)
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 09:46
|
|
|
Powerful Two-Hander posted:my yosmas santa shipped a mini pc case from Australia like a maniac and I think it cost like $100+ to do it I have a very close to my heart GTA:O AUSgoon friend and a similar UKgoon friend who I will absolutely send a set of coasters and challenge coins to here soon, even though the shipping for the small US flatrate boxes to either of them is $41. Aus/NZ shipping/customs has always been hosed, but Brexit really went and hosed the UK up to just as bad.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 09:52
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 09:53
|
|
|
that would make a great, if illegible, gang tag
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 09:59
|
|
|
https://i.imgur.com/YklyAH5.mp4
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 10:08
|
|
|
I've never used an UPS at home tbh., and I don't really feel the need.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 10:24
|
|
|
dad had an UPS for his work computer because we lived in the country
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 10:28
|
|
|
Antigravitas posted:I've never used an UPS at home tbh., and I don't really feel the need. In places where you get real dirty power (it destroyed 2 video cards, 3 power supplies and at least 3 other PCIe cards in the mid 2000's through early 2010's up here for me personally, and dozens of other people I knew) they can be a real godsend. In one house I lived in for a bit the voltage would rapidly fluctuate between 110-135VAC depending on the time of day, how many people were using what wattage on what breaker, and if the refrigerator or garage door opener had just kicked on and triggered an inrush current. I know that was the realm of the landlord and fixing his broken poo poo, but we were never gonna get him to own up to it, so I just went "UPS it is then, I'm sick of paying for new parts." spookykid fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Apr 30, 2024 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 10:39
|
|
|
axolotl farmer posted:awesome post, thanks! this thanks spookykid
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 11:02
|
|
|
AlbertFlasher posted:this
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 11:28
|
|
|
from mastodon: https://social.jsr.com/@jsr/112226391333464348
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 12:02
|
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXK1ZOvc6SY
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 12:36
|
|
|
Antigravitas posted:I've never used an UPS at home tbh., and I don't really feel the need. but how will you keep posting in a power cut? You need an Uninterruptible Posting Solution! John madden!
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 12:42
|
|
|
Ok but only if the buttons are physical
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 12:54
|
|
|
Powerful Two-Hander posted:but how will you keep posting in a power cut? You need an Uninterruptible Posting Solution! The last power outage that wasn't me testing the RCD was in 2008-ish when I still lived in a small village. A large fire destroyed a local hotel and took out electricity to the street for two hours or so.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 13:06
|
|
|
the breakers in my place trip regularly enough that a UPS at my desk and one for the HTPC is a must. still not as bad as the near-daily blips when the guy who used to live downstairs would power on his server rack and try to make tea at the same time 
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:22
|
|
|
spookykid posted:a group of APC Back-UPS Pro 1500 UPS's that looked drat near brand new 
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:23
|
|
|
neat! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEtxTQUzxY
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:32
|
|
|
Chris Knight posted:pro choice, i have 2 of those chugging away APC/Schneider Electric cornered the market on pro/SMB UPS gear back in '09 and all their poo poo is really loving good. the 1.5kVA and 15kVA models especially are work-horses along with their PDUs and ATS gear. only thing they did that was poo poo was network management cards and whatnot. heavily insecure by default, often breaks if you try secure config and it's just easier to leave that ethernet port unplugged.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:38
|
|
|
bunnys prefer fractals https://i.imgur.com/B4FmYi6.mp4
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:40
|
|
|
that bunny's way too young to be having watery vegetables 
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:49
|
|
|
if i didn't have a ups my qnap nas would be hosed. it's nice having my wireless router on the battery backup as well
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 14:51
|
|
|
i had an idea like this about a decade and a half ago. if only i had the will and capital to follow through. or get a job
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:00
|
|
|
virtual insanity i tells ya!
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:08
|
|
|
i haven't been to a disney park in 6 years, it's nuts that they have droids scootin' around now. gonna be a while until i can afford 4.5 figgies to take my family to disney world for 5 days
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:18
|
|
|
What the gently caress is your state doing that you don't have reliable electricity 
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:29
|
|
|
Antigravitas posted:What the gently caress is your state doing that you don't have reliable electricity some people are texans
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:47
|
|
|
when i was like 3 i had this version of wheel of fortune on my kaypro and i loved it
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:48
|
|
|
Antigravitas posted:What the gently caress is your state doing that you don't have reliable electricity the power lines are above ground and trees (or snow) exist
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:50
|
|
|
goblin week posted:some people are texans hosed up if true
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 4, 2024 13:38 |
|
|
goblin week posted:shipping isn't equal, i send my wife stuff all the time from poland and no matter how hueg the package i only pay like 40$ at most my wife recently mailed me her ipad from korea to get replaced under applecare+ (they don't honor the same warranty worldwide, lol lmao). it cost her about $40 to send here in 3 days and threw in a bunch of korean snacks i like when i tried to mail it back to her using the cheapest local service (UPS) it was $310 for the slowest option. i found a place online that let me make a label for UPS that only cost me $52 but it took over two weeks to get there and they hosed up the import paperwork
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2024 15:50
|
|