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Space Technology

Great Surplus Stores? 518

An old friend of mine, Todd San Martin, passed on a link to me of a great surplus place in Orlando that has lots of old nasa gear and more, and it made me think that it's probably time to talk about great surplus shops again. Not just the aforementioned skycraft or the well known Weird Stuff , although feel free to dicuss those too, but I thought it would make a cool post as a jumping off point for people to talk about their favorite shops especially those near aerospace facilities, both online and off.
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Great Surplus Stores?

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:17AM (#5500790)
    I am dictator^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H beloved leader of a Middle Eastern country, and am sick and tired of the damn Shi'ites rebelling. I'm looking for a place where I can find reasonably priced SCUD missiles a small amount of Nerve Gas (Sarin would do nicely), and possilbly a small nuclear reactor with which I could power my underground bunker - just in case the US decides I'm next. Any suggestions?

    1) Check "Post Anonymously"
    2) Click "Submit"
  • I wonder... (Score:2, Funny)

    by lommer ( 566164 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:19AM (#5500810)
    whether weirdstuff [weirdstuff.com] carries any surplus servers. They could use an extra few right about now...
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:25AM (#5500844)
    I wonder if any Texans have offered to sell them parts from a slightly used space shuttle. http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/sell.htm
  • by Soko ( 17987 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:32AM (#5500885) Homepage
    * RealDolls

    You'll only get one from a geek who gets married. Sometimes not even then. Not Surplus

    * Commodore 64s

    Make nice web servers [www.hut.fi]. Not surplus.

    * Brain Transplants

    There could never be enough to provide governments with brains - sorry. Not surplus.

    * Bending Unit

    Hey, my unit "bends", and the wife likes it that way. Most definately not surplus.

    * Condoms

    Well, maybe some of the geeks around here have those.

    * Beer

    ???? Surplus beer? Never. I'm Canadian.

    * Slashdot Coders

    OK. Slashdot "Speel Chekers", duplicate catchers and editors who catch dupes are needed, not more
    coders - I'll give you that one. But I doubt they're very interesting, so maybe not.

    * Windows NT 3.5.1 Licenses

    There was, as far as I'm concerned, a surplus once production of those things went above zero units. Interesting? Nope.

    Hmmmm - 1 for 8. You need to improve big time, bud.

    Soko
  • by breon.halling ( 235909 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:44AM (#5500949)

    This place has everything an electronics nut could want. And more.

    That includes a giant ape [activesurplus.com]! And no, I'm not making this up. =)

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13, 2003 @01:57AM (#5500998)
    They have everything from a wall of ancient Macs to a room of esoteric motherboards to ca. 1970 video surveilance systems.

    And if you buy bulk CAT-5 from them, the colorblind guy will try to crimp the ends for you and will deny vehemently that it's taking him 10 minutes per end because he can't see the difference in the colors.

    It's a fun place.
  • by qwkbrnfox ( 559919 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:09AM (#5501055)
    Funny, until a couple of years ago, I TA'ed that course. I saw some wacky projects being built. A few good fires, too. That course probably doubled Active's revenue. The downside is that, instead of paying a few bucks more and getting the right [motor|gear|component] for the job, the students would bring back the closest thing they could find from Active and try to press it into service. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Usually it broke during evaluations. I hated seeing that, especially if I'd seen it work before.
  • by Twirlip of the Mists ( 615030 ) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:10AM (#5501056)
    I need to get to the smaller store near Fermilab (although I have heard it is not as big)

    You don't say?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:22AM (#5501100)
    Attention K-Mart Shoppers(tm): Tin-foil hats are on Blue-Light Special, Aisle 4! Tin-foil hats, Aisle 4!
  • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:37AM (#5501157)
    It beats buying fans online where shipping is outrageous, and you can buy resistors individually.

    There's nothing I hate worse than getting stuck in the checkout line behind an old lady who's buying a few hundred assorted subminiature surface mount resistors. The clerk usually wastes a bunch of time trying to pick each one up with tweezers to attempt a barcode scan. This never works, so each one has to go under the microscope while he manually keys in the UPC. One time, the guy sneezed and scattered most of the merchandise across 3 checkout lanes.

    To add insult to injury, the old lady usually waits until the whole tedious process is complete before starting to dig her checkbook out of her purse, then fills in her ledger before handing over the check, then puts her purse away before the clerk asks for her driver's license.

  • by Brett Johnson ( 649584 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @03:02AM (#5501242)
    Building 19 (and all its fractional branches scattered throughout the Boston area) would sell the most bizaar stuff - mostly insurance salvage. When the windows started popping out of the John Hancock tower in Boston and crashing to the street below, they would be replaced with 4x8 sheets of plywood. After a while, the Hancock tower looked like it had some kind of plywood pox. Eventually it was found that the windows were not up to spec and all needed to be replaced. Shortly thereafter, Bldg 19 advertised 4x8 glass table tops. They weren't allowed to say where they got the plate glass, but they did say it would look much better as your dining room table than a sheet of plywood. That was 12 or 15 years ago, but I still laugh my ass off when I think about it.
  • by carlos_benj ( 140796 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @10:15AM (#5502457) Journal
    Anybody know if anything exists..

    This is no time for a philosophical discussion! We're talking surplus stores here....
  • by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @12:50PM (#5503861) Homepage Journal
    Dear Sir,

    While I'm sure that our competitor offers a fine product, you will find our American Foreign Aid product to be superior. It is no accident that nine out of ten countries choose American Foreign Aid.

    America is looking for a motivated career-oriented partner to oppose the rising Shiite power in Iran and to prevent their kidnapping of our embassy personell again. Send in your application and I'm sure we can work something out.

  • Cool!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by evenprime ( 324363 ) on Thursday March 13, 2003 @02:42PM (#5504996) Homepage Journal
    Check out http://www.drms.dla.mil/newsales/ for information on US Dept of Defense surplus sales.

    I'm really glad that they have FSC 8810 [dla.mil] - I always wanted to buy an army surplus cow!!! ;-)

    Seriously, though, it is a really good site. I just wish I could save enough pennies to buy something in the FSC 1810 catagory.

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags. -- Sidney Paternoster, "The Folly of the Wise"

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