Womble Box (Was: [london-hack-space] Re: begging request: buttons, switches and fader things)

[Mark Steward]

I understand that this is a general box full of hard drives and stuff "saved" from the 3-week bin.  It's larger than a member's box, has been around for at least 6 months, and doesn't have a deadline for removing stuff.  Under the rules, it shouldn't exist, but it seems to have established itself without notification to the list.

I don't think a separate box for extending the lifetime of items in three-week bins is sensible.  The three week bins are our process for removing items from the space. I think the other items in this box (I'll find out what they are tomorrow) should be thrown out or removed to members boxes within a couple of weeks.

I understand that some of the hard drive parts are useful for casting, and feel that they should be put in a dedicated materials box/drawer of limited size.

Does this make sense?  Should we have a communal "useful, but broken" box in addition to members' boxes and the "useful and working" box?  Is there something we should do to improve the 3-week bin process?

Cheers,

Mark

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Billy <bi...@billycomputersmith.com> wrote:

I've got another old-school-analogue mixer that i rescued from the
three-week-bin a couple of months ago.

I'll leave it in the womble-box in the workshop.

[Russ Garrett]

I think it would certainly be useful to have bigger 3-week boxes, and
this is certainly something we should consider after we move spaces.

The fact of the matter, in my opinion, is that if it's not useful
within 3 weeks, it doesn't belong in the space.

Russ

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Russ Garrett
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[Alex Pounds]

On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 11:49:48AM +0000, Mark Steward wrote:
> Does this make sense? Should we have a communal "useful, but broken" box
> in addition to members' boxes and the "useful and working" box? Is there
> something we should do to improve the 3-week bin process?

I think the problem with the 3 week bin is cultural. Lots of people
understand "Somebody could make good use of that," but few understand
"... but nobody wants to." The Hackspace should be ruthless in cleaning
out things, regardless of that going against the make-do-and-mend mindset
of the members.

In other words: if *you're* not going to use it for a project, and
*you're* not willing to strip it for materials, and *you're* not willing
to store it in your box: then LEAVE IT IN THE BIN. Hard drives may be
useful for casting but if they're not being casted: BIN THEM. That laptop
might be totally useful apart from its bust drive but if nobody wants to
take it and work on it: BIN IT.


No, I don't have any good ideas about how to make this actually happen
either.

--
Alex Pounds
Web Developer & Photographer

http://alexpounds.com/ | http://ethicsgirls.com/

[Martin Dittus]

On 5 Feb 2013, at 12:11, Alex Pounds wrote:

> Lots of people understand "Somebody could make good use of that," but few understand
> "... but nobody wants to."

Well put! That's my sentence of the week.

> The Hackspace should be ruthless in cleaning
> out things, regardless of that going against the make-do-and-mend mindset
> of the members.

Over the years I've had many discussions with others about this (I'm a "throw it out" type, others aren't.) My current answer to this dilemma: I now do appreciate the ongoing discourse about specific cases, rather than hard-and-fast rules.

But I do think that we should then also observe what happens to things that are kept; this is where we may currently fall short, maybe because there's no obvious owner/responsible party.

E.g. I'm convinced that the cartons of assorted old electronics components we decided to keep under the electronics workbench (also after a long discussion) have failed to prove of great use, considering their size. Although I'd be delighted to be told otherwise.

Maybe whoever makes a case to keep these things should (after a decision is reached) be made the responsible party, with a DNH in their name(s), a deadline of a few months, and the option to renew on expiry? We would then only renew if the parts have been proven useful.

m.

[Alex Pounds]

On Tue, Feb 05, 2013 at 12:43:41PM +0000, Martin Dittus wrote:
> The cartons of assorted old electronics components we decided to keep
> under the electronics workbench have failed to prove of great use.
> Maybe whoever makes a case to keep these things should be made the

> responsible party, with a DNH in their name(s), a deadline of a few
> months, and the option to renew on expiry?

I think boxing this stuff is a better system. The aim is to keep these
"raw materials" at a manageable level, after all. For instance: one box of
power supplies, no more. If you find a power supply in the 3 week box and
the power supply box is full: either your find gets thrown out, or you
throw out an inferior supply to make room.

[SamLR]

Just out of interest are we sure that the 'womble box' isn't just billy's box? 

it not being a standard size is a problem either way but that's a different problem and a very common one for lots of members.

S

[Paddy Duncan]

No it isn't, just checked.

[tgreer]

There's a womble box of Billy's stuff in front of my box... Been there for god knows how long...

[Adrian Godwin]

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Martin Dittus <dek...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> E.g. I'm convinced that the cartons of assorted old electronics components we decided to keep under the electronics workbench (also after a long discussion) have failed to prove of great use, considering their size. Although I'd be delighted to be told otherwise.
>

Some of the reasons for that are that

a) many people, when looking for a component, don't know they're there.

b) even if they do, climbing under the bench and searching all the
boxes doesn't happen until you're desperate. Or at least very hopeful.

An obvious answer to this is a catalogue, but the work invoved in
creating and maintaining it outweighs the value of the components.

This is why many companies have stopped holding large stocks of parts
and just order them from Farnell or RS for next day. If you're paying
staff, it's cheaper. Even considering the delay due to delivery time.

Most of us do prefer to have parts on hand, because we're doing things
experimentally, or want them NOW, or like the low cost of donated
stuff. But unless it's accessible it's actually worthless. I'm one of
the keener hoarders and have only once tried to find things under
there (I failed). I'd still be upset if expensive parts were thrown
away but realistically can't see me using them.

I'd like to see less attempts to benefit 'the space' when stuff is
donated. Selling things, asking for reasonable donations etc. are fine
in principle but leave us with things that move very slowly. I'd
prefer that we dealt with them in a way that meant as many donations
as possible were quickly distributed. That still benefits the space,
because the space is its members. Cherry-pick immediately useful
parts, put the rest out for grabbing, invite unspecified and anonymous
cash donations in return and chuck the remains out after a few days.
Look at the recent hard drive dumping for an example : kept back in
the hope of better profits, used space up for months, then finally
thrown out because the remaining value was so low.

[Billy]

My apologies for causing this situation.

I'm ill.

If my body was working more effectively, then i'd have sorted this out
by myself. Months ago.

____________________________________________________________________


The womble-box wasn't supposed to be in the space for this length of
time.

I started to move stuff around 6 months ago. I'd have finished by now,
but for the last 3 months, i haven't been able to cycle, so i
couldn't use the trailer to move all of the contents.

Phil has recently loaned me his hand trolley, which is what i've been
using to clear the stuff. It can't take as much of a load, so it has
been taking longer to do.

I removed half of the contents 3 months ago, and it's gradually been
restocked. Apart from the hard disk drives, what you see there is the
electronic recyclables that have been worth salvaging.

It is only 3 months worth.

And that's only the stuff that is worth recycling with the facilities
we've got access to.

_______________________________________________________________

The three green boxes by the metal bins contain all of the scrap
aluminium that other members have donated to the stock of stuff for
casting.

Ian the blacksmith has been waiting for me to deliver it, so he can
turn it into usable ingots.

Selling them for the scrap value would have been one source of cash,
that i was going to put as my contribution towards the new space. It
meant that i'd get a lot of practise casting using larger scale
equipment. :D

I already delivered the stock of rebar to him for tool making. He said
thanks to EMF for giving those to the space, and then the hackspace
giving them to him.

It's what he's using to make another set of tools and tongs. I'm
learning a lot.

_____________________________________________________________

The white bag contains the 3-core cables, for installing the 3-phase
power in the workshop. A separate power ring would solve a lot of our
problems with the larger machines.

I'm not sure where they came from. It might have been leftovers from
EMF.

_______________________________________________________________

The home-brew arc-welder, i have to dismantle, and recycle the
components for version 2.0... >:D

Again, i'm sorry that this has taken so long. The next one will
actually have some safety features... :))

________________________________________________________________

I've started physiotherapy, and i'm awaiting surgery. My mobility is
improving.

If anyone has access to a vehicle that can transport some of this
stuff from the space to where it's needed, I could do with some help.


On 5 Feb, 14:15, Adrian Godwin <artgod...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Ian Henderson]

Billy

More than happy to help out with a vehicle

Haven't been in much recently due to day job overload, but things are a bit better now

Would probably prefer daytime or weekends

Let me know?

Ian Henderson

irh @ advancedforensics.com

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

I think this could very easily tie in with the 3-teir idea of stuff
management. DNH's, "warning" and "Fair Game".

The issue we're having here is organisation. All fair-game items are not
in one place, just as all components are not all in one place. People
don't use things if they don't know they exist (to be used).
There is also a latent issue over the nature of the 3wk boxes. While
treated by most as fair-game junk boxes, they're also still considered
by some as the space's Lost & Found.

I think we should have a separate Lost & Found box for items that appear
to have been forgotten but not for hacking, such as media players,
phones, etc. Users judgement, but maybe just a weeks retention before
entering the 3wk system.
Likewise "fair game" stickers for items too large for the 3wk boxes,
with a drastically reduced retention (say 48hrs) and mandatory
requirement to notify the list of their availability.

I think we need junk. It's necessary lubricant to problem solving.

�To Invent, You Need a Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk.� � Thomas A.
Edison

[Billy]

Good idea's for altering the 3-week bins/lost-and-found/junk/useful-
raw-materials set-up.

The 3-week bin was an instant hack that fixed one problem at the time.
The DNH stickers was another. We'll try another one, till the next
time the way we do things doesn't scale. And then we'll try something
else... :))

> I think we need junk. It's necessary lubricant to problem solving.
>

> To Invent, You Need a Good Imagination and a Pile of Junk. Thomas A.
> Edison
>

Yes, getting inspiration from others work is useful, and the idea's
that you get from thinking "What can i make out of this?", those are
great. But there is a limit to how much space we have got, and there
is NO limit to the amount of spare stuff that we can find in this
city.

You need to be very disciplined as to how much material you can keep,
other wise you can end up drowning in it. :)).

And yes, this is me saying that... :))

[Adrian Godwin]

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Peter "Sci" Turpin <s...@sci-fi-fox.com> wrote:
>
> I think we should have a separate Lost & Found box for items that appear to
> have been forgotten but not for hacking, such as media players, phones, etc.

Fair point, but then it's adding a box and we've got too many
categories already.

The post box is often used for found items (it's a place to put
labelled things that are to be collected soon).

Can we use that instead of having yet anotther box, for a category
that is only occasionally useful ?

-adrian

[Peter "Sci" Turpin]

Sounds reasonable, both post and lost items are items awaiting
collection not disposal, so a dual-purpose box seems like it'd work.
They're also generally low enough volume not to cause a space conflict.

[cepm...@yahoo.co.uk]

The philosophy of "when the box is full we need no more" and "throw out
inferior stuff to make room" is already here and is fairly easy to police
by those who are interested in doing so. I regularly do this to the more
formal storage boxes/bins/drawers but the informal piles of stuff are more
likely to get out of hand because they have no easily defined boundaries.
The stuff by the 3 in 1 is a good example of this problem the

As for the stuff under and around the solder bench, most of it is useful
(and a lot is very expensive stuff to buy) there are many components that
are of far better quality than are generally available from the likes of
Maplin etc. All the utterly useless stuff is long gone and what remains is
regularly plundered by all and sundry in the course of many diverse
hackings. The method of storage leaves a lot to be desired however and the
stuff is (very) gradually being assimilated into the more accessible and
organised areas. More drawer units or small Lin Bins would help this
effort without making the space more cluttered.

For those with a fixed idea of what their project is going to be and how
to achieve it and who just buy a kit of parts from an internet retailer
there is probably no interest in any of this stuff. For those who are less
structured in their approach to electronic experimentation it is a
resource just as essential as the machinery and facilities elsewhere in
the space. Yes, it could do with better management as outlined above, but
that is dependent upon the availability of suitable storage containers and
the expenditure of a bit of time to sort it out.

Phil

--
" et cognoscetis veritatem et veritas liberabit vos.


"On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:01:02 -0000, Alex Pounds <al...@alexpounds.com>
wrote:s and

[tom k&e]

>But unless it's accessible it's actually worthless

This is critical. I work somewhere that has quite a lot of space and very little money, and consequently we horde all sorts of spares. A reasonable approach, up until the point where the storage areas get so full or disorganised that no one knows what's there, or doesn't have the time to dig through to a certain part if they do. We cleared out a lot of stuff a year back and found an astonishing amount of total junk

http://i.imgur.com/pn7yu.jpg

At the hackspace we DON'T have cheap storage at all, in fact we're paying about £1.50 per square foot per month, so stashing large low value items, in uncatalogued boxes, makes even less sense.