News Garbage truck driver finds a working 32-core Threadripper, RTX 2080 Ti gaming PC in the trash — the PC powered on after a good cleaning and a few d...

[drea.drechsler]

Isn't trash the property of the municipal government once it is thrown out and collected...? So this guy may have, technically, committed theft.
...

Not likely, not around here at least. In fact, I think it's considered to be "in the public domain". Police, for instance, can sort your trash looking for evidence of a crime without cause or warrants or permission from anybody. I'm pretty sure they'd need permission before they could do that if it were the property of the municipality. I can imagine it has to be in a container that's off private property for this to be the case: but what most people don't realize is the area from the sidewalk to the street is often public property so trash put in that location to await pick-up is not on private property.

And also E-waste (electronics, which includes most modern appliances, qualify as that) is forbidden in your trash anyways. It must be sent to a licensed E-waste re-processor. The collectors will not pick it up nor the waste container it's found in if they notice it. My township does have one day a month they will pick it up for you if separated from your trash. Many other townships don't so they have to take it to one of the E-waste re-processors. So they'd definitely want this computer gone anyway.

And last is that "scrappers" - or people who go through the trash you put out for salvageable metals - are almost encouraged. You can put out some copper pipe after a plumbing renovation and it will be gone well before the trash and recycling trucks have come around the next day.

The same with many appliances even when not an E-waste collection day. They want the steel, aluminum and copper wire mainly which must be separated to sell at the highest price at the yards. The cost to the township is too great to separate the metals to make it economically viable so it's just a cost to them for picking it up and hauling it around. But for the scrappers it's a job that pays them pretty well. One thing they will get pulled in for, though, is if they take trash out of the bins and don't replace it so that the collectors can pick it up.

 

[USAFRet]

So, you'd rather throw it away instead of donating it or giving it away?

Some years ago, I had zero luck in giving away, for free, a Dell 3100cn printer.
Worked just fine.

On craigslist, all the responses I got were asking if ti was also a scanner. It wasn't, so they didn't want it.
The cl ad specifically stated. "This is just a printer. no scan/copy function"

The typical donation places didn't want it either. "We have a storeroom full of printers like that We don't need another one."

So I tossed it.

 

[phxrider]

Looks like someone went through a messy divorce!

 

[phxrider]

Oh I didn't think about this when I posted: It's not Windows 11 compatible, only the Threadripper Pro CPUs are, so it'd make complete sense for an enterprise or institution to replace it per policy, so it was probably just irresponsibility disposed of.

I doubt that, but if it exists, *I* want to work for the company that puts x080ti level gaming GPUs in their PCs!

 

[USAFRet]

I doubt that, but if it exists, *I* want to work for the company that puts x080ti level gaming GPUs in their PCs!

And if you're "the graphics guy" in your office, that level of GPU is not unusual.

 

[phxrider]

And if you're "the graphics guy" in your office, that level of GPU is not unusual.

Pretty sure they'd be using a workstation card, not a gaming card.

 

[USAFRet]

Pretty sure they'd be using a workstation card, not a gaming card.

Not necessarily.
I've seen both ends of that spectrum.

In any case, if this was a "company PC", you'll not be doing any gaming on it.

 

[stonecarver]

Do you know how annoying it is dealing with low ballers? damn waste of time for something that I'm already selling for a good price.

Although I try to go the extra mile when I have something that would make some ones day. I was having a garage sale one day and this guy was complaining I was selling a center cap for a Ford dually F 350 truck for $5.00. He griped, he moaned as he wanted it for free.

After I had enough of him I said hold on I have a deal. Walked into the garage and got my sledge hammed smashed the heck out of the cap and looked at him and said , It's yours.

He was so pissed and the priceless part his wife told him he should have just gave the nice guy the five bucks.

But as far as the thread goes man there is gold out there people just toss.

 

[jtenorj]

Americans especially are a throwaway society - people will throw away perfectly good food at a fancy expensive gourmet restaurant instead of taking the leftovers home with them, perfectly good electronics/furniture/clothing will be left at the curb on garbage day instead of at least being given to charity, etc, etc.

This reminds me of one of my favorite childhood electronics that my mom threw away. I am in my 50s, and my parents bought me an Atari 2600 video game console for 1977 Christmas a few months after it was introduced that year. Over the next 5-6 years, I amassed about 120-140 game cartridges, priced around $30 to $40 each (which would be about $70 for each game cartridge today adjusted for inflation) using lots of money that I earned working as a supermarket stocker during high school. When I went off to college - the campus was a 2.5-hour drive from my parents' home - I had the 2600 console and cartridges boxed up in my bedroom's closet. I took my IBM PC/AT model 5170 to college and, 2 years later, also moved my fairly high-end (for a teenager) $7500 stereo to my college apartment (would be about an $18K-$20K stereo today). As I entered grad school, I had a phone chat with my mom who said they had just sold their house and moved to a new house. I asked my mom, "What did you do with my Atari game system that I had in my closet?" and my mom casually said, "Oh I threw that all away. I thought you did not want it anymore." I immediately said, "Why didn't you ask me first? I wanted to keep all that!!!" My mom felt my pain and said, "I will buy you another one then." But this was in the mid-90s and the Atari 2600 and its games were no longer sold. So I only hope that a garbage truck worker rescued my perfectly-working Atari 2600 instead of that console and 130 game cartridges buried in a landfill to this day. smdh

There is an Atari 50 Anniversary collection available on Steam. The base version has over 90 playable games for $40. The digital enhanced version his both DLCs with an additional 19 games each. That's a grand total of over128 games for $50 which breaks down to less than 40 cents per game before tax( if you live in the US. Tax or no tax depends on your state of residence).

Prior to this, they had the Atari Vault. 100 games which I got on sale at Fanatical for like a dollar. Also got the 50 game DLC for that from Fanatical, I think as part of a bundle(receipt says 59 cents which is kinda odd for a stand alone price, other purchases on receipt also 59 cents, probably part of one of their build you own bundles). Atari Vault and DLC are delisted now, but Atari 50 base has been on sale for as low as ten bucks on GoG(not quite that cheap for an on sale key from Humble or Steam) and you can buy the DLCs as a pack for $14 to save $2 from buying them individually.

If I were you, I might wishlist these on Steam, Humble and GoG. They could be on sale again soon during the upcoming winter sales.

 

[phxrider]

In any case, if this was a "company PC", you'll not be doing any gaming on it.

Says who? Back in the day my entire department would play Duke Nukem 3D deathmatch on our company PCs after-hours.... Then Quake, etc.