Today They're Recycling Old Computers at Qualcomm Stadium

[Tycho]

I'm slowly loading up my old tower, old-style TV size monitor, printer, etc. to unload it down the street.

The tower doesn't work any more at all. In 2000, I got it and Dell packaged it with Windows ME (crap!). In 2004 I got the Dell laptop I use now (with a large natural keyboard for a desktop plugged into a USB port because I hate typing on something small like a laptop). But my intention had been to only use the laptop for business because it was portable.

Well, after my aneurysm and all my stuff was put in storage, I didn't have my original restoration software for these machines readily accessable. So when the ME drove me nuts, my friend who is a software engineer but XP on my tower. However, it sought out auto-updates from Microsoft before I even knew it would do that, and the "genuine software test" they do started it on a countdown to a shutdown. I barely got all the work I did for my novel off that machine in time.

So I've had it sitting in my living room on the dining table for way too long. I'm going to start carrying the pieces down to my truck so I can haul it in the morning.

I don't expect anyone will care, but I can't sleep right now and there's nothing to talk about. I don't even have my sense of humor going to drive me to posting something outlandish and retarded (in other words, "totally Tycho"), so I'm just posting this.

I also have to do the dishes in the kitchen sink.

Maybe I'll go to the 24hr Wal-Mart instead. I wish I could be asleep like the vast majority of the rest of you are, I'd imagine.

But I've layed in bed for 2 hours staring at the ceiling, sometimes reading a Last of the Jedi book, and not quite wanting to be productive, but not having anything better to do besides type this.

[jjreason]

Do they have places where folks can drop off their electronics for recycling commonly, Tycho, or is this some special event at the ballpark?

Up here we have a few places around that will take Cell Phones and Computers, I try to find one that's going to salvage & redistribute what they can then properly deal with the waste.

Good for you, wanting to deal with your old computer parts in the right way! :thumbsup:

[Kidhuman]

I usually giev my old computer stuff to my friend at work. He likes to rebuild them, so he takes the towers and uses what he wants from them.

[CaptainSolo1138]

Make sure you wipe it first. I don't have anything near criminal on my machine, but there's enough personal stuff to screw the pooch. Make sure all of your stuff is erased before you get rid of it.

I'm not sure what the cost of them are, but I'm a fan of degaussers. A quick two second buzz and everything is gone.

[jjreason]

Very good point. If the hard drive is going to be reused as opposed to recycled, you have to take every precaution to make sure your bank/credit card/address, Social Security or SIN (in Canada) info is ALL GONE.

And regardless of what we do to erase hard drives, I'm led to believe that it can ALWAYS be recovered somehow, unless it's physically destroyed. My preference would be to have it recycled into whatever they can do with the base plastics & metals.

[Tycho]

Actually, as I understand this, it's a "big deal" because you usually get charged a disposal fee for the environment's protection or something if you dispose of large electronics "the right way." Today there's no fee.

As to my hard drive? Before I cart my tower downstairs, I plan to open her up and remove the hard drive. It will not be recycled with the rest, but I'll destroy it myself. It being smaller than the computer, monitor, printer, etc. as a whole, I can wreck it and dispose of it clandestinely anyway, but this way my old information will be safe and those that rebuild or melt down old computers, can do whatever with the rest.

However, I finally was able to sleep at 5am and woke at 9:30am and I feel like I'm going to throw up without having lost sleep, so you can imagine it's worse now. They're doing the recycle thing until 4pm, so I think I can get some more zzzz's in. Darn cats want food and their litterbox changed though. I hope they let me sleep a little longer. They ate in the middle of the night anyway, as I was up at strange hours as it was.

But ugggh. I hate this lousy feeling.

[Slicker]

This is a darn good thing and, for the recyclers, it can net them some money. I was actually watching a show on computer and electronic recycling a few years back and they said that mass recyclers get a decent amount of money because of all of the trace amounts of precious metals used in them. It's not enough for me or you to profit off of but if you get 1,000 computers or so you can get enough gold to sell and turn a profit of sorts. :thumbsup:

[Tycho]

I finished taking my tower apart a little while ago. I pulled every circuit board, so I don't know how much precious metals they'll get from it now, but they'll never get my old porn collection! (or my ID stuff that might be recorded in there somehow). I'm soaking the mother board and chip in the sink in bleach water. That should do it.

Then I'll hack them up into smaller pieces and send them out with the trash.

I imagine I'm a Resistance Fighter doing this and that I've defeated SkyNet once and for all!

You're TERMINATED M-FR!

[Slicker]

...but they'll never get my old porn collection! Old porn? Like from the 70's when they didn't know what a razor was?

[Tycho]

No. Don't get all excited. I know you like that hairy beast stuff, Slick.

Old porn as in from 2000-2005 versus 2005-2008.

Pretty much the difference between the latest stages of sanity for Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan - though you can find much better looking girls than those two for sure!

[Slicker]

What can I say? I love perpetual winter bush. :thumbsup:

[2-1B]

Why not just turn it into a new Death Star like they did with IG-88 ? That's recycling. :thumbsup:

[Tycho]

On the Sarah Connor Chronicles, SkyNet has sent other infiltrators back in time to storehouse supplies like the rows and rows of computers I saw today with cars driving in between them. They parts will eventually be used to build the Hunter-Killers.

Since this was at Qualcomm Stadium, while I waited in the cue today to have the workers unload my truck, I imagined the skulls under the torn Charger uniforms, all being run over by H-K Tanks or stepped on by Terminators!

I need to take a break from watching those movies and be thankful this TV season is over now. I am starting to see Terminators everywhere!