# We all need a bit of FUN now and then....



## MMFJ (May 24, 2012)

We did this as an advertisement for EwasteGEEKS.com, but it was so much fun, we had to share it here....
http://youtu.be/o8DdzOwDUv0
Comments are encouraged - enjoying it is MANDATORY! :lol: Attempting to duplicate anything like this without first reading this thread - INSANE! :shock:


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## martyn111 (May 24, 2012)

Over here in the good old UK you would have the Health and safety (gestapo) Executive on your case for that video.
Your list of violations would include,
1 Using a forklift truck to lift personnel without the correct lifting cage :roll: 
2 Not wearing a harness and restraint when working at height (you must also have a 'ticket' or qualification to work at height) :roll: 
3 Not wearing a hard hat 
4 Not wearing a hi vis vest
5 Not wearing steel toe caps
6 Allowing debris to free fall to the ground (skip shoots would have to be used here)

Then when the H&SE had finished with you the Enviroment Agency would be on your case for littering.

And to think that most people worry about the chemicals we use when dealing with ewaste :lol: :lol:


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## MMFJ (May 24, 2012)

martyn111 said:


> Over here in the good old UK you would have the Health and safety (gestapo) Executive on your case for that video.
> Your list of violations would include,
> 1 Using a forklift truck to lift personnel without the correct lifting cage :roll:
> 2 Not wearing a harness and restraint when working at height (you must also have a 'ticket' or qualification to work at height) :roll:
> ...


What about not having the proper safety roped-off area around the worksite? we did (almost) have that as this was done during a time that 3/4 of the road was closed off in front of the place, so any incoming cars would have a 'holding' area until we got all the screws, etc. cleared. 

It was all done in one take (of course - just how many exploding PCs do you think there are in the world? :shock: and only took about 2 minutes from start to end - not enough time for the gestapo-oriented to see it!


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## martyn111 (May 24, 2012)

Yeah, I should have said that the list wasn't a comprehensive list, even when you think that you have everything covered they can and will find something you haven't thought of to 'Fine' you for. :shock: :lol:


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## Geo (May 24, 2012)

we have the same agency equivalent here, its OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration.


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## joem (May 24, 2012)

Sure it's fun, but I've dropped enough computers to realise non of the items inside are screwed together.
Although I would love to try one from a ten story building hehehe


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## MMFJ (May 24, 2012)

joem said:


> Sure it's fun, but I've dropped enough computers to realise non of the items inside are screwed together.
> Although I would love to try one from a ten story building hehehe


Yeah, it took me about three hours total to 'prep' that thing - not a rivet or screw left anywhere (and, just try putting all that loose stuff back together in a way it will hold up to the toss!) - certainly not an easy retake possible!

My favorite part of it is in the slo-mo replay when that case hits the pavement and bends - it makes an interesting sound! I used my wife's computer - never tried editing before and found the 'Replay' button and slo-mo 'easy' buttons - worked out super with the "sound effects" being the actual sounds.

Been told it would have been a good idea for David Letterman - he was always dropping stuff from tall buildings....


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## DONNZ (May 26, 2012)

"How to dissemble electronics" 

A good place to send people that have the need to know.


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 26, 2012)

I saw a picker fall off a standup lift, he was wearing proper protection and the safety harness around the waist only. When h fell, the harness stopped him but jerked him so hard around the waist that it caused serious internal bleeding. He died before he got to the hospital for internal injuries sustained from the harness. He had made the harness longer, it was the length that killed him.

Not to be a jerk or anything, but you could have easily killed yourself just for a bit of fun. You need to have a disclaimer that states this should not be attempted by anyone other than stunt men, or something along those lines. I wouldn't be encouraging people to do this. Not only were you not wearing a safety harness, but the pallet you are standing on doesn't have bottom boards, you could have flipped the pallet just by stepping in the wrong place, then the pallet would flip right off the forks and you with it.

Anyway it's still a cool video, I don't want to rain on your parade.


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## silversaddle1 (May 26, 2012)

What a nation of xxxxxxx have become. Safety this, safety that. Sure, safety is important. But no one fell, no one died, and we all had a good laugh. Ya know, back in the old days if you did something stupid and you died, well sorry, but that one was on you. Nobody else's fault. I want to see a laser printer next!

Clean up your language, and consider yourself fortunate you haven't been banned.

Harold


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## jimdoc (May 26, 2012)

How do you like this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7PlGhKuE1Rc


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## MMFJ (May 26, 2012)

SBrown said:


> I saw a picker fall off a standup lift, he was wearing proper protection and the safety harness around the waist only. When h fell, the harness stopped him but jerked him so hard around the waist that it caused serious internal bleeding. He died before he got to the hospital for internal injuries sustained from the harness. He had made the harness longer, it was the length that killed him.
> 
> Not to be a jerk or anything, but you could have easily killed yourself just for a bit of fun. You need to have a disclaimer that states this should not be attempted by anyone other than stunt men, or something along those lines. I wouldn't be encouraging people to do this. Not only were you not wearing a safety harness, but the pallet you are standing on doesn't have bottom boards, you could have flipped the pallet just by stepping in the wrong place, then the pallet would flip right off the forks and you with it.
> 
> Anyway it's still a cool video, I don't want to rain on your parade.


Funny, when you mentioned "picker", I thought of the two on the TV show - then you mentioned the safety harness (which of course, they don't wear... - more on that in a sec....). 

One of the first 'real' jobs I had was with a man putting up what was, then, the largest satellite dish ever assembled by hand in the US - an 11 meter dish (yeah, it was BIG). This was for CCOS '78 (Community Cable Operator's Seminar). I was still in high school and the man doing the job was my band teacher's brother. He'd asked for an electronics-minded kid - I got the job (or, maybe he asked for someone no smarter than a stump because of the potential dangers of the job :?: - either way, I was the one...)

When I got there, there was just a trailer with a bunch of parts in bags, etc., which I later found out was thousands of bolts, washers and nuts, plus a small building (that had to be assembled) for the electronics, sections of the 'pie' and the trailer itself (actually the legs), which had to be aligned just right in order to get the antenna pointed at the satellite for the uplink (this was to be the main transmission source - it HAD to be right).

After several weeks of assembly (with no safety harnesses, hard hats or even steel toed boots - in fact the 'suit of the day' was always shorts and 'boat shoes' for the boss), it was nearing time for the seminar. Hundreds of people were assembling, dozens of satellite antennas were popping up in the parking lot, etc., yet we had still not found the satellite signal, nor did the 'experts' (that had arrived a couple days before) finish installing all the electronics.

Night before the seminar was to officially open, we still didn't have the test signal. That morning, one of the guys that had migrated over to 'help' (seemed we were getting a lot of opinions, but that last bit of help in tightening bolts was a welcome thing!) had the bright idea that the reason they weren't getting the test signal they were looking for was because we needed to turn the receiving part of the antenna 90 degrees (back in those days there weren't any electronic ones and certainly no doubles - you had to get it all right at once). We lowered the dish to as far as it would go (about 3 feet from the ground) and got him the tallest step ladder possible - 15 feet, which just put him at the center of the dish when standing on the top couple rungs (oh, yes, things can be done that don't meet such safety specifications and people still do live...). Everyone was concerned about getting this done, of course, but I didn't realize until he came down just why they were so seriously concerned. He'd only been up there about 20 minutes though when he came down, he looked like he'd been in the sun for several hours! And, we had dropped the dish pointing away from the sun to begin with! I recall there was a need for someone else to go back up there (the first guy didn't need any more rays) and the sun was just cropping over the edge - he didn't stay up there for more than a couple minutes, thank goodness, but still he was 'cooked'. No amount of safety gear was available then (or now, other than a fire suited guy in a cherry picker, perhaps?) that would have gotten the job done, but there were a couple brave souls that did what it took, knowing the potential dangers.

One other memory was late that night, when they still didn't have everything going. It was something like 9 or 10 PM and we'd been working since daylight ("from can to can't, or later" was my bosses constant work-ethic phrase - it was nothing for us to put in 10 - 14 hours every day, with no time off for anything until it was done...). The experts agreed that all the uplink/downlink electronics were now working properly and the only reason the signal wasn't coming in was because the dish was out of alignment. So, they sent this 17-year old kid (that would be me...) up the 40' 'leg' of this thing with a tire tool (no harness, no net, no nothing...), into the center of this monster dish. I then started turning these massive 4' turnbuckles, just a bit at a time. Turning one until it was maxed, then the other one, just a touch, then back again with the first one - making a 'box' to find that signal. Just as they were talking about sending a guy up to relieve me (after an hour or so), we snapped into the signal! 

It was a great feeling to be part of all that. By the way, another thing I recall from it was a time I was walking around in the hotel, near the front desk and overheard a very angry man demanding his room from a young girl at the desk who told him several times, "Sir, I'm sorry, but with the seminar we have a lot of people and you are not scheduled to be here for another three hours - your room is not yet ready" - and he would have no part of it, just kept demanding and getting louder. I'm not sure what the outcome of it was but I did see that man again at the 'main event', as a featured speaker. Everyone was talking about how CRAZY his speech was - how he would finally get what was coming to him (you see, he'd been successful in many things - all 'luck', I guess....). After all, who in their right mind would be announcing to the world that he was going to build a 24 hour news station - that it would be 'the thing' coming up in cable television???? Yes, at the time, everyone thought Ted Turner was crazy......

Well, that was a bit off the main story, but it came to mind because of the safety belt statement. And, the reason my boss didn't want me wearing one (nor did I feel it was a great idea) was because of a story he'd told me similar to the one you told. This one involved a tower assembly crew, putting up another segment on one of those very tall towers. The man on top was strapped in ("safe") and they were to bring in another section for him to attach when one of the guide wires snapped, sending the tower flexing back, away from the break. The man was safe there in his harness and rode out the swing. However, when the tower then popped back the other way and the opposing wire caught tight, he couldn't hold on.... 

They had to go up and get the harness..... They found his legs about 1/4 mile from where they found his torso....

Anyway, back to the picker's TV show and their 'safety measures', I'd never thought about it until reading these comments on our video, but it now seems odd to me just why those guys from 'American Pickers' don't have OSHA on their backs, nor do they have any sort of disclaimer about the whole thing either.

I've decided not to use the video as originally intended - not because of this thread, but because it was made as a double-use, one for our use and the primary one for the storage manager to show that his boss had bought them some new computers "do something funny with the old one - maybe make a video...". As it turned out, we couldn't get their sign out of the video with our editing software, so it will just be for them (and folks on the forum) to enjoy. 

As for safety, it was the manager (the 'star' of the video, not me) who actually wanted to go up like that - I asked him about a harness and a bottom-strapped pallet at least, but he preferred the 'solid floor' one and was cautious to stand in the center, etc. - we had good discussions about the safety part (I tried to get him to just toss it from the balcony, which, as you can see, is just a few feet away), but, as I believe every situation should be handled, if properly discussed and you know what you are getting into, then you should have the choice to approach it that way. Just like those guys that helped on the antenna...

Just like we did. We were cautious. We were informed. And (very importantly, I think), we had some FUN doing it!


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## MMFJ (May 26, 2012)

jimdoc said:


> How do you like this video?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7PlGhKuE1Rc



Great recyclers! 8)


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 26, 2012)

Sorry...

When I say "picker" I don't mean two guys rolling around in a van looking through rusty metal. I am talking about people who make their living driving a standup forklift around a warehouse all day, raising and lowering the lift sometimes 18+ feet high to "pick" or collect whatever is on their invoice to collect. Just about any wholesale distribution center has something like this in place, either mechanical or human operated.

If the kid in the story wore the right safety harness he would be alive today, he altered a piece of safety equipment, and ended up dying because of it.

I don't think they even use waist harnesses anymore, I believe the ones used today go over the shoulders and through the legs and around the waist. It's been a long time since I have driven a standup lift, so I don't know.

Scott


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 26, 2012)

jimdoc said:


> How do you like this video?
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7PlGhKuE1Rc



I have a good friend that has been collecting stand up video games/quarter machines for the past 20+ years. I am trying to convince him to let me have his bad memory boards. The boards are huge and nothing but solid IC's and Eproms on both sides. Just as many chips as can be crammed onto them. If anyone finds a company like this one, throwing out those machines, they should try to get the boards I'm talking about.

Scott


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## jimdoc (May 26, 2012)

SBrown said:


> jimdoc said:
> 
> 
> > How do you like this video?
> ...



I am about 5 minutes away from TNT. I sold them a few games from my collection when I moved.
They give away empty cabinets all the time, but they are usually gutted, unless it has a bad monitor.

I used to collect games and boards, but lost interest and sold most of them. I do still have some stuff, like a collection of manuals and marquees, and some boards and guns. 

Jim


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 27, 2012)

All of that stuff, if original, sells for a good price on eBay. There are a lot of retro electronics collectors out there. You might be sitting on a lot of money. :mrgreen: 

Scott


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 27, 2012)

silversaddle1 said:


> What a nation of EDITED we have become. Safety this, safety that. Sure, safety is important. But no one fell, no one died, and we all had a good laugh. Ya know, back in the old days if you did something stupid and you died, well sorry, but that one was on you. Nobody else's fault. I want to see a laser printer next!



I used to do risky and risky things, needlessly, for a laugh or a thrill. Then my daughter was born and something changed. I guess what it really comes down to is how you valuate your life. If you take risks that could cause serious injury or death, maybe you just don't have anything important enough in your life to concern yourself about your death. If I am going to be totally honest, I don't even really care what other people do on their own property, to themselves, so long as innocent people are not hurt. But if you are going to post a video about something fun, like this, I believe someone should mention that normally it would be smart to wear a safety harness, or don't try this at home, whatever. I think the point is valid. You could call this a stunt, and say the gentleman on the fork lift was a pro, or has done this before, but not to try it yourselves. There is a reason that disclaimer is so universal, because there have been many incidents where people have tried to recreate a stunt, and have been seriously injured, or have died.

I am not picking on the original poster, on the contrary, they didn't have an accident even though a safety harness or correct pallet was not used. That probably means they were aware of these issues, and were being extra careful. Stunt men do dangerous life threatening things for a living.

There have been more than a few times I have posted something about a process or procedure, and failed to mention the safety issues. I was corrected, and now I try to keep that in mind when I am posting anything myself. If we start posting dangerous things without explanation eventually that same mentality will migrate into posts about acids and equipment. I think we can all agree none of us wants that.

Scott


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## Geo (May 27, 2012)

i worked in a warehouse that had 40+ swing-reach machines. these could travel down an isle and pull a pallet from the left and rotate it and put it in a slot on the right. a full pallet was 2800 LBs and the machines are huge. they can lift up to 70' while pulling or "picking". a young man fell between the machine and the rack. his safety equipment worked perfectly. it was a harness with an expandable lanyard. as the lanyard became taught, his momentum snapped his body sideways hitting his head on the rack and popping it like a melon. if its your time to go, no amount of safety gear will make the slightest difference.


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## MMFJ (May 27, 2012)

SBrown said:


> There have been more than a few times I have posted something about a process or procedure, and failed to mention the safety issues. I was corrected, and now I try to keep that in mind when I am posting anything myself. If we start posting dangerous things without explanation eventually that same mentality will migrate into posts about acids and equipment. I think we can all agree none of us wants that.


With all the comments, I also considered this and so I edited the original post a bit (though still, the intent of the video was for nothing but the FUN of watching the computer smash to bits, and I still say we all need a bit of that stuff now and then!)


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