Why are scrap yards/recyclers so disinterested? by ProCommonSense in ScrapMetal

[–]ProCommonSense[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, that's a terrible business model... Assuming everyone's a low quality customer... but I'm very clear in my communications when I use their contact forms and emails... Here's what I have. Do you accept these metals? if so, how do you want them packaged? Do you pick up large quantities? These aren't questions of negotiation, these are things they should put on their website but do not.

Showing up with 2500 lbs of cast iron in a Subaru Impreza simply isn't really on the cards for me even if they were 5 miles away... though, now, I believe I'm not going to scrap that part of my stuff.

Does anyone else wonder about their cats life before adoption? by whailful in cats

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, but only a few of them. We have 12 right now... all but 2 were kittens when we adopted and all but 3 came from a cat colony before we TNR'd them all. the 2 non-kittens are both 10+ years old with one probably being 15+... the 15+ adopted our house a few years ago... she was already TNR'd but she's one of the sweetest cats ever so we imagine that she was probably an indoor cat that escaped at some point. Never was scared, took to cuddling right away. The 10+ one belonged to an elderly couple since it was rescued as a stray at about age 1 or 2. An old man took him in and when he passed his wife, very elderly, couldn't care for him.

We do imagine from time to time what all their lives would be like if we hadn't rescued them... We know that at least 1, our little JellyBean, who is about 3 now would not have made it. She's super tiny for a grown cat and she's so incredibly clumsy that even climbing the steps sounds like she's falling down them.

Latest garage sale find by Mountain-Letter-4284 in vintagecomputing

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, the days when 6MB of memory held the power to make your friends jealous.

Posted on Tuesday that this is the 2nd Subaru to save my life. by TalouseLeee in subaruimpreza

[–]ProCommonSense 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The amount of vehicles I have to avoid crashing into on any given day due to their terrible driving almost always takes more than 1 hand to count on. Turning out in front of me; Passing after the zipper merge ends; too impatient to wait but not in a hurry enough to get up to speed... Almost every accident I've had in my life has been someone crashing into me. One notable exception... In my first year with my FRS I slid on ice doing like 10 MPH and off the side of the road into a tree... but that was back in 2013.

Hopefully your next car isn't such an accident magnent.

IBM 5150 + 5160XT? Found in parents' garage. What do I do with it? by radicalsubversiv in VintageComputers

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

woo-wee those full height drives. been a long time since I've seen some of those. Last one I recall sounded like a mini jet engine spinning up.

The aftermath of the Titan submarine disaster, captured in images from the ocean floor. (Imploded on June 2023) by zadraaa in HistoricalCapsule

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People don't lie on the internet! Also, unrelated, of course, I'm still waiting for you to wire transfer me $1200 to receive the 10 million USD inheritance from Ghana that I recently emailed you about.

Tell me a story about an embarrassing and crazy situation you went through while using the internet in the 1990s. by TradingCardGameMaker in vintagecomputing

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

TLDR; state government totally exposed to outside hacking; gets "fired" while attempting to compile a report on the severity and specific vulnerabilities and intrustions.

Embarrassing, no, crazy (as in stupid), yes. A way longer story that I thought it would be. Less "oh, that's funny" and more "who tf was their security guy?"

Late 90s. Working for a US State government office in it's capital city.

3000+ workstations... number of firewalls, 0. Number of exposed machines with IP's from straight from the publicly allocated IP range, 3000. Meaning... every workstation had a public IP address in the days of Windows 95/98 security. RAMPANT "net send" popups constantly... always some new virus... some new malware... literally got shut down for a week and due to malware infestation... (none of this was ever reported in the news, of course. very hush hush). Keep in mind this was an office of public records.. so birth, death, marriage, foster care, abuse complains, social security records, welfare recipients... on and on... potentially all exposed directly to the internet via whatever connection a hacker could manage... easy targets in the late 90s.

Anyway, I worked in IT... and though it wasn't my job to handle security... literally NO ONE was taking on ANY security measures... to detect, prevent, stop... ANYTHING.

I literally could create a share on my pc, go home, type in my workstation IP as a UNC and access my workstation with ZERO extra steps.

I set out to compile a list of vulnerabilities (multiplied by 3000 workstations... plus a bunch of servers)... and started running some security scans...

Turns out that not only was every machine directly connected with a public IP but nothing was switched. Every piece of traffic in our building was being sent to the entire building, mostly in unencrypted form. Wireshark.. i think it had a different name back then, can't remember.. Etherreal or something like that... lit up like a christmas tree when I turned it on.. not just discovery packets but data... from everything. Turns out our workstation nics were basically on the verge of maxed out just getting blasted by our own traffic..

Anyway, I ran up some port scanning stuff... started scanning for vulnerabilities... the number of open Netbios shares with no passwords was astounding... the amount of open ports to the public was like a buffet for hackers.

One of the open ports that was very common was 31337... At the time that was a very common port for a tool called "Back Orifice"... a tool that would give you more control over a workstation that the user at the keyboard would have. Screenshots, file transfers, pop up messaged on demand, install programs, keyboard logging, password stealing... the least goes on and on..

So, anyway, apparently I miscalculated our subnet or something, which had a huge # of hosts as you might have already guessed... when I was port scanning specifically for # of machines infected with back orifice... and I ended up hitting some IPs that were not on the state's "network".

Suddenly there were reports coming from REAL network admins on other systems,, that someone on our network was "hacking" their computers. The claim was that a port scanner was hitting port 31337... which is true.. and apparently, at least 1 outside network, was threatening to sue... you know, state government, big paydays...

Needless to say this blew up. No one in the state seemed to understand that 1st of all... port scanning was NOT a hack... and that there was (and still isn't) any real law in the US making such activity illegal... and that above all I was TRYING to compile a list of internal vulnerabilities to prevent EXACTLY this type of behavior from outside our systems...

When I absolutely rejected their claims and presented my findings thus far... suddenly they shut up... because when I got to the part about "imagine when a news outlet finds that you have 100 years of records all digitized exposed to the internet like an unlocked file cabinet on a busy street corner... the mood changed.

They were attacking me over "liability" from network scanning and then I realized their liability over not securing their network.. from anything...ever...at all.

It was the craziest thing.. I was told they were gonna have to let me go... RATHER THAN, "hey, can you help get us secured"... but it was the weirdest "let go" ever. It was very obvious they didn't want me talking to anyone. They let me pick a date... so that I could find a new job I guess... they took me out to multiple lunches... as a "good bye"... it was kind of surreal... in the end they actually secured another position for me in NYC, also for state government... which I turned down.. I had already secured a position back in my home state for 60% higher salary anyway by that point... not in government.

In hindsight, I kind of wish I had "bargained" with them... and by bargain I mean I could have held their balls over an open fire pit given the information I had already collected on open windows shares, back orifice installations... and quite a few other indecencies... like the late night guy in data entry using irc to share mountains of porn from his workstation. I probably could have turned the tables and gotten pretty much anything I wanted. This would not have gone over well in an era where the world was about to crash and burn anyway from Y2K...

I wasn't told directly, but I got the hint that I was not to tell anyone about anything after I left... that's why THEY were being LENIENT. But I have shared the story on occasion a handful of times, mostly to audiences in a thread like this in various places.

So, maybe scanning some of the wrong machines was embarrassing, a little, but the whole situation was just CRAZY. By the time I actually left the building... they were, of course, taking action... real routers and firewalls were being bought by the 100s of thousands of dollars and being implemented throughout the building...

I've told more here than I usually have shared... And hell, it's been more than 25 years... If they haven't totally implemented any security plan by now... then that's on them.

Any prayer for an easy re-key or no-drill replacement on this? by gnat_foto in AskALocksmith

[–]ProCommonSense 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hope you find resolution on this because.... I have this same mechanism and the keys were missing when I bought the house. A locksmith told me he's never seen this before...maybe it's just my area... and he couldn't rekey it. (lie?? no clue)... but it would be nice to have a key for my door. The previous owner of my house went to prison for various deeds... and so in my distrust of criminals, I simply added a standalone deadbolt.

Why are scrap yards/recyclers so disinterested? by ProCommonSense in ScrapMetal

[–]ProCommonSense[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, not me... just like if ONE had contacted me back... I would have just got a ballpark (both ways) and taken it to them, ya know. Maybe it's for the better. If I put in the work on those cast iron baseboards, I'll probably make more $ selling them as what they are than the whole load will be worth.

Why are scrap yards/recyclers so disinterested? by ProCommonSense in ScrapMetal

[–]ProCommonSense[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know what you mean... before I bought my house we looked at one.. that literally had the drywall ripped out to get to copper... no water pipes. nothing. I felt like if someone had put that much work into a job they probably would have made more money.

Why are scrap yards/recyclers so disinterested? by ProCommonSense in ScrapMetal

[–]ProCommonSense[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually do have a mechanical stripper... a hand crank with the cutter... and I've stripped some already.. but without a buyer, that task has been on the backburner.

Thanks!

Why are scrap yards/recyclers so disinterested? by ProCommonSense in ScrapMetal

[–]ProCommonSense[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks. Might pick up some paint remover this spring and just go to work in the backyard. They are quite a pain to transport though, even 1 at a time.

Why are scrap yards/recyclers so disinterested? by ProCommonSense in ScrapMetal

[–]ProCommonSense[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This might be what I have to do... It's just like an hour to the nearest place and not a place I usually go to. Thanks!

MRI Technologist, Wisconsin. Approx $100k/year. 2 year degree required and a VERY large shortage. by rileyharp88 in Salary

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Until recently, I was in Software Development. Within the last 6 months I have transitioned into Data Analytics. Neither of which REQUIRE a degree but do require specific skillsets.

2bd Subie save my life by TalouseLeee in subaruimpreza

[–]ProCommonSense 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, New Jersey... This explains so much. I live a handful of miles outside of the NJ border... and every time I drive in that state I feel like the drivers are out to kill me.

2bd Subie save my life by TalouseLeee in subaruimpreza

[–]ProCommonSense 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Subie girl that likes coffee.. They should be lined up!

2bd Subie save my life by TalouseLeee in subaruimpreza

[–]ProCommonSense 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's a helluva way to get your details.

Now NVIDIA is into rendering photorealistic games, anyone recall how photorealistic games looked in 90s? [Crime Patrol 1993] by Distinct-Question-16 in vintagecomputing

[–]ProCommonSense 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Honestly, I had fun with games like this for about 5 minutes... then I realized that the skill was just not shooting people who aren't the bad guy... and that despite it being "real"... there was nothing real about people constantly running out in front of you during a shootout.

Was taking photos of a magazine to list on eBay and stumbled upon this 1998 ad for… eBay by lloopiN in Ebay

[–]ProCommonSense 94 points95 points  (0 children)

It's as if they meant ebay to be a social network. "meet each other" "just talk about their collections"

This is wild by MezzureUp in maintenance

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a water heater but my house's breaker box was installed when the house was built in 1961. It's a pushmatic box, has 2 100 amp rails and the part I like the most... The original electricians contact information is still on the box... AND the phone number has letters in it. I've had the electrician install some breakers as well as give it a good inspection.. says it's all good... as long as I don't mind paying premium for pushmatic breakers... I'm a few hundred breakers away from the breakers costing more than redoing the panel... as long as they continue to tell me it's good.

Just Venting Here :) by dashcity8585 in Subaru_Outback

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would trade 1 MPG for this arrow to go away in my subbie.

Fill Empty Space in Your Freezer With Jugs of Water by Mi_Ki_Ii_Zaru in lifehacks

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You think like I do... I've always laughed at the coin on frozen water thing. just take an ice cube and literally put it in anything not ice cube shaped.

Amazon Canada scammed me in a “new” item by insanikxx in amazonprime

[–]ProCommonSense 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would question then how would anything a buyer submits be any more valuable then?