I agree with Wagner in disagreeing with Ivan about electronic devices. Dude, I have a patent in fiber optics, I *do* have fantastic fine motor control when I care enough and I just don't want to spend my time taking apart various devices and messing with fiddly bits nor do I want to have to keep around a full set of tools, remember to keep solder and flux around, and so on. I too have an el cheapie LG cell phone that I've carried around and abused no end for three years now and while it's a bit flaky it still works. I don't know about where you live, but around here an old laptop is a couple hundred bucks at most and given that NEW netbooks can be bought for, at most $250, they're damn useful if you don't need something able to play the latest video games and/or can use them to make a longer commute worthwhile abd thereby make more money.
Go to liliputing.com and then tell me that laptops are massively expensive. For most people if they take basic measures to keep a laptop protected (don't get it wet, use a neoprene case, don't shove things into the jacks), then it should last for about two years. This makes it a simple cost-benefit equation that will vary per planned use and per expected user. What does it cost to buy/own it? How much money will I save/make by having it? I would never presume to claim that this question will always get the same result.
Frankly, Ivan, this is a thread about advice that is useful for most people. If you're going to give advice that starts from the premise of stripping out and rebuilding compact electronics, you should be asking yourself if you're posting this to help those around you or to show off your "leet" skills.
Haha oh man yes soldering, that lost and mysterious art of poking a thing with a hot $2 piece of metal until it isn't broken anymore. What was I thinking, bringing all that fancy book-learnin' egghead stuff in here.
I think we can pretty much skip over anything to do with cooking, carpentry, wiring, gardening, crafts or car repair if we're aiming for your level of learned helplessness and apathy. Maybe just delete the whole thread and replace it with a post saying "fuck it who cares" hotlinked to Pricegrabber, lord knows nobody wants to learn how to save money by doing anything themselves. Or maybe you should quit whining and crying at someone describing how they've saved hundreds of dollars on silly shit, or pointing out how most phones fall apart after one to three years when your own is "flaking out" right on schedule.
If you need a cellphone for work or that's the only way you can keep in touch with friends and want to get a prepaid for like $20 at K-Mart, I sure as hell ain't gonna stop you. But nobody in this thread or anywhere else gives a shit what luxury goods I blow my spending money on, and in no universe real or imagined is 'buy an iPhone' great financial advice for the impoverished so how 'bout you go white-knight your favorite brands on a product review site or whine about how there's too much boring math in math textbooks why not just buy a calculator or whatever it is you do when you're not wasting my time.
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Woodworking depends a ton on what exactly you're doing, and I'm still not sure what aspect of it'd be fitting here, but there's a few really basic things that are consistent. The big, obvious one is that all the strength of wood is in the grain - whatever you're making, you need to plan it and cut it so that as much of the force as possible runs parallel to the woodgrain, not across it. Most basic stuff you'd be making would be out of 2x4s and dowels that are already cut that way, but it's got a wider application than that. Glue, nails, these are not load-bearing connectors, they're just there to keep the joints from slipping off each other from normal movement. Here are some halfway decent illustrations of some wood joints - they've got some pretty useless ones on there, but pretty much anyone can make a butt joint or miter joint that'll do the job. Finger and box joints are pretty universal when doing furniture but they're a major pain in the ass without a woodshop (don't bother making furniture unless you're a mountain man or trying to learn a trade. Or trying to learn the trade of being a mountain man). Dowels are easy, drill a hole the diameter of the dowel an inch or so into the board (depending on the scale of what you're doing), slop on a bunch of glue (or not), and pound it in. The whole thing can be pretty crude and still work well, the big thing is to make sure everything fits snugly - if it's loose somewhere, that means that all the stress is actually going onto whatever tiny part isn't loose and the whole deal will come apart that much faster.
Wood from the hardware store is expensive. If you're trying to keep your home from falling down and you can't get your landlord to bring in a qualified crew or something, yeah it's pretty much worth it but for anything where you can afford to risk potentially less stable/correct materials you might want to check your local salvage yards first. There's no Goodwill for old materials, people just chuck 'em and just like at thrift stores most of the time they're in pristine condition. Around here, and in lots of rural areas, people like to just throw old building materials along with appliances cars and whatever else in a ditch, usually the appliances are a lost cause but I've found some nice pieces of composite and even fancy hardwoods just soaking in the rain.
Look out for wood that's warped, has knots, or especially external signs of infestation or decay. A plank that's got a couple knots in it isn't a big problem if you aren't going to be carving that spot or putting nails through it, but a warped plank isn't good for much and I can tell you from personal experience bringing one that's got a termite tunnel into your house is a great way to explore the fantastic world of the disaster refugee a few years down the road, when you suddenly realize everything wooden you own has been turned to bugshit and your house is collapsing.
Look out for wood that's been pressure-treated (green, waxy), or isn't real wood. You might not be able to tell what it is, but basically anything that looks or feels 'off' in any way probably is. You can still work with it, but you definitely want to do it outside and possibly with some kind of dust mask. Look out for wood that's got nails or other wierd metal things embedded in it, depending on the lumberyard they may be common and if you're using scrap they're pretty much guaranteed, but if you're not aware of them they're a great way to fuck up your saw or possibly your face when it comes to cutting time. If you're using power tools yes you need to wear goggles, btw.
Tools from the hardware store are expensive. Don't buy 'em. This is America, every single household in the country has a dude who likes to think of himself as a handyman who has maybe replaced a broken chair leg, once, five years ago. Come yard sale season, you can barely take a step in the suburbs without tripping over somebody's spotless full wood shop complete with table saw dust collector drill press jig and half a dozen hand tools for cutting obscure little bevels in things. Pawn shops are usually overflowing with old tools, whether they offer a good price on them or not depends on factors apparently unrelated to supply or demand though. Like I said in an earlier post, most cordless drills/tools in general are a risky buy when they get old unless you're willing to research and shit or buy some new semiconsumables, but I've got completely excellent corded tools from the fucking fifties and hand tools that had to have been made in the nineteenth century, and got hard use most of that time too. You only really need hand tools for anything, but I get bored easily and appreciate being able to rip through big hunks of wood/steel/whatever in a couple seconds that'd take an hour by hand. Plus they go SCREEEEEE, which is just fundamentally appealing in a small sharp twitchy metal thing.
