Dumpster Diving: an experience not to be missed

By Cory Doctorow at 9:08 am Thursday, Jan 30

This morning's Kuro5hin has a great article on the ins and outs of dumpster diving. I've always been fascinated by diving (and I've done a little myself -- see this Wired article I wrote). I recently got sent a copy of Dumpster Diving: The Advanced Course, How to Turn Other People's Trash into Money, Publicity, and Power, a Paladin Press book written as a follow-on to the classic "The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving." The hardcore divers I know are all a little on the intense side, filled with folk wisdom and radical philosophy about trash and politics, and the author of DD:TAC is no exception. The book is a kind of extended rant, alternating between fish-tales about the big, big dumpster scores, stories of inadvertent discovery of secret information that blows the lid off of political conspiracies, and love found and lost in the trash. The Paladin Press titles vary pretty widely in writing-quality, but this is definitely on the high-end of the scale, and the information is invaluable. As the landfills overflow and the moments of our lives grow ever more ephemeral, there is no experience more life-changing that dumpster-diving. I think everyone should spend a couple nights in the trash, at least once in their lives. Link Discuss