...Dumpster Diving Lars Eighner is an experienced dumpster diver or as he prefers to call it “scavenging.” He writes “On Dumpster Diving” an essay about the three years he spent on the streets accompanied by his lone companion, dog Lizabeth. Born in Texas in 1948, Eighner began dumpster diving one year before he ended up homeless after being unable to pay for his rent. Diving through dumpsters to obtain life’s main necessities, Eighner becomes a veteran at realizing what foods are safe and what items can be useful if kept. One of the most important aspects of trying to persuade readers is to use the appropriate tone according to the situation. The calm tone that Eighner uses doesn’t strengthen his argument, but with his knowledge of dumpster diving, he ultimately persuade readers that people living in modernized parts of the world have wasteful habits. By reading the essay, I am convinced of his argument about wasteful people being very common. Eighner approaches the topic of dumpster diving with a very calm tone. The tone he uses does not allow the reader to connect with him and feel what he was feeling when he was homeless. If the essay had a more emotional tone it would leave the reader with amore sympathetic view regarding the topic of dumpster diving. For instance, he believes that the term dumpster diving is “a little too cute.”(p.147) Usually, when a person thinks of the term dumpster diving, they feel sympathy towards the individual who is led to scrounge through a dumpster...
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...Calvin Johnson English 111x f16 10 October 2015 On Dumpster Diving Analysis Paper The essay on “On Dumpster Diving” written by Lars Eighner is about a homeless man, accompanied by his dog. In the article, he explains the strategies and guidelines of surviving from dumpsters thereby exemplifying the wasteful nature of Americans while also explaining the etiquette involved in the process. The author began dumpster diving about a year before he became homeless. He used all of his infrequent income for rent, consequently having to derive all of life’s necessities from dumpsters. He goes on to share the valuable information he has learned as a human scavenger. Eighner starts by outlining the guidelines of what is safe to eat. The main principles involved are: 1) using senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of food; 2) knowing the dumpsters in a particular area; and 3) checking them frequently. He also wonders why the food was discarded. He is convinced that a lot of perfectly good food is discarded daily. Canned goods turn up fairly often in dumpsters and are among the safest foods; however, some canned foods can cause fatal diseases like botulism. Dried foods such as crackers, cookies, cereal, chips, and pasta are usually safe to eat once they are free from visible contaminates. Raw fruits and vegetables are usually safe except for the rotten ones. Confectionery like chocolate and other hard candies are also safe since candying is a method of food preservation...
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...February 2015 Lars Eighner Dumpster Diving Experience Dumpster diving has been going on for decades all around the world. In Lars Eighner’s article, “Dumpster Diving,” he talks about his life struggles and what drove him to dumpster dive. The life he lived was not perfect, but he did everything he could survive. Sometimes life can be a struggle but not always. When life hands you lemons-make lemonade. The word dumpster is a proprietary word belonging to the Dampsey Dumpster Company. Dumpster diving is when a person is digging (searching) through a dumpster full of trash or other items. Eighner wasn’t dumpster diving his entire life; however, he started about a year before he became homeless. He called himself a scavenger rather than someone who picked any and everything out the dumpster. Lizbeth (Eighner’s dog) was tagging right along with him even when his savings ran out. Eighner began depending on dumpster for things including food, tissue, medicine, etc. . . . Some foods should be avoided while dumpster diving such as home-canned goods. “Why was this discarded?” was always a question to think about while dumpster diving. As stated in the article, “Perhaps everyone who has a kitchen and regular supply of groceries has, at one time or another, made a sandwich and eaten half not it before discovering mold on the bread or got a mouthful of milk before realizing the milk had turned.” Most foods are discarded for a reason, that’s why dumpster divers don’t complain. Even...
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...Name Professor Course name Date On Dumpster Diving Quite by accident, I found the essay On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner on the pages of Seagull magazine. The first lines of it captured my interest considerably, for as I had never read about dumpster diving or scavenging before. On Dumpster Diving is a piece of large Eighner’s work called Travels with Lizbeth (1993), which was based on his own experience of homelessness. The author engages me by telling the origin and meaning of the term Dumpster Diver, presenting his survival guide with specified rules and regulations. Dumpster is a trademark of garbage loading onto trucks system. Dumpster diving involves persons voluntarily climbing into rubbish bins (dumpsters) to find valuables or simply useful items, including food and used clothing. Eighner writes that the life of a beggar traveling without any money opened his eyes to the fact that all those containers with waste are real “supermarkets” for the poor, and they are not only a source of survival, but also a depositary of high-quality and diverse food. Anyhow, there is a risk in eating such findings. According to Eighner’s experience, taking food out of dumpsters should involve three simple principles: “using the senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the Dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question, “Why was this discarded?” Narrator advises to avoid such foods as...
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...In Eighner’s article, “dumpster diving”,Eigher describes himself as a “Scavenger” as he lives from food and other neccesities that he finds from dumpsters. He is proud of what he does because he finds edible food in perfectly good conditions and is able to get it for free from other peoples dumpsters. Eigher says ”people get too much from what they can earn, but they throw even if things in good condition.” As our economy grows and better technologies being developed, many people can afford cheap foods and in large quantities. With the lower costs of foods people buy more and waste more. For example, when I go to the nationwide wholefoodsseller ‘costco’, most items are sold in bulks as it is usually cheaper to buy items in bulk. Since Costco sells in bulk people this it is cheap and that they can consume all of it at once, before they exceed their shelf life. But in most cases people never finish everything they buy. When I bought an assorted pack of ‘lay’s potato chips’. I enjoyed eating them at first, but i was wrong. i eventually became sick of potato chips and the remaining packs were thrown out as they had exceeded their experation date. Another example of perfectly good items that get thrown out are clothes. Colors may fade, clothing get stained from last night’s curry, and the list continues. When this happens, most people do one of the 3 choices possible; just keep it and wear it, stitch up tears, new buttons and re-wear, or throw it. Most people would just wear...
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...In the first five paragraphs of Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving”, Eighner writes about how he loved dumpsters, and that he became obsessed with the word, “...I was impressed with Dumpsters, enough so that I wrote the Merriam-Webster research service to discover what I could about the word ‘Dumpster’”(Eighner 1), which he uses to show his authority on the subject of dumpsters, an appeal to ethos. As a formerly homeless man, Eighner has a great deal of experience with dumpster diving, as the essay explains. From here, he writes about his experience as a “dumpster diver”, though he prefers the term, “scavenger”. He says that there are many words used to describe what he does, such as “scrounging”, and “foraging”, each of which having their uses:...
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...Thomas Sheng January 25, 2016 Lessons and Philosophies in the Stages of Dumpster Diving ‘On Dumpster Diving’, a fascinating work written by Lars Eighner, showed the real lives of the homeless. While introducing his personal experience, Eighner also mentioned the stages a person goes through in learning to scavenge. By describing the stages, Eighner described an attitude towards life, that abandoning things is necessary, even though they may seem to be rare and precious; he also tried to change others’ opinions about Dumpster diving. First, the evidence of Eighner’s attitude about life comes from a gentle suggestion that Eighner gave to the new Dumpster divers that being a pack-rat who collected everything in his sight was unrealistic, which Eighner described as “hopeless” (36). Also, at the end of the text, Eighner highlighted a deep lesson he had learned from Dumpster diving that, “Take what you can use and let the rest go by.” The statement indicates that even if something may be precious and rare, it is valueless if it cannot be made useful. How Eighner dealt with pieces from Dumpsters is a philosophy that can not only be applied in foraging food, but also in other circumstances, such as when Robinson was deserted on an island, he was willing to spend all his money on a pipe. Learning to forswear the articles found in trash is by far not all Eighner wanted to explain; it promotes an attitude, which can be and should be adopted by the “rat-race millions” of middle-class, that...
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...Immediately Eighner has the sympathy and trust of his audience. The experiences he tells of are from his own life, one which he had no choice in living. In the opening of his essay On Dumpster Diving, Eighner begins by saying “as my savings ran out, I put almost all my sporadic income into rent. The necessities of daily life I began to extract from Dumpsters” (147). In contrast to Ehrenreich’s tale of stepping into the shoes of a service worker, the audience hears from Eighner a story with real potency, and once which is built of truth and from the pressure of the moment. “Yes, we ate from Dumpsters,” Eighner says, opening himself up to his audience with what could be seen as an embarrassing statement. He trusts his audience, both to understand his motives and reasoning, and also not to judge him for the actions he was forced to resort to. In the following pages of the essay Eighner explains the methods he used to ensure that he got only the best from dumpsters, and that he protected himself from the dangers of the task. Explaining that the essential question to answer was “Why was this discarded?” set the scene for the examination of his routines and personal knowledge of the dumpster system (147). It wasn’t from any desire to discover something new that Eighner turned to dumpsters as a source of sustenance, but from necessity. Through telling a personal story of the trials he endured while on the streets Eighner earned credibility with his audience, building trust and...
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...Dumpster diving is a security threat that's every bit as real as that posed by online hackers. Failing to protect your business from those who would exploit the information contained in your trash invites victimization by cyber criminals. Even though it's hard to picture yourself engaging in such a distasteful task, others willingly do it because they stand to gain a great deal at your expense. Criminals dumpster dive in order to gain information, including that found on discarded hard drives. This might include: Full names of employees, business partners, and contractors Account login credentials Marketing information Email addresses of employees Sensitive customer information Employee information Company operation information Corporate...
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...English 289 13 September 2015 The Art of Diving The article “My Daily Dives into the Dumpster” (Eighner 114) was an article that more or less gave the steps to go about retrieving things from a dumpster. First there is the ability to get many great items from the dumpster. Dumpster diving has even “become something of an Urban art” (Eighner 116). “Even the most respectable people can find something that they find desirable sticking out of a dumpster” (Eighner 116). Second the ability to eat from a dumpster is based on three principals, “Common sense, knowledge of area, and the reason why it was thrown away” (Eighner 116). And finally there is a certain amount of respect to dumpster diving. There is a difference between a scrounger and a scavenger. Being careful when going through dumpsters, with the thought of how someone else could possibly use this item so let’s don’t destroy it, is how a scavenger goes about diving. Scroungers on the other hand don’t care what they destroy in the process of looking for the next bit payout. So basically it is safe to say that dumpster diving is an art and takes skills, and it should be done with thought and respect. The second informational source researched was a very strong representation of the ways people dumpster dive and the ways individuals learn the differences between their wants and needs. It also distinguishes that there is a “social class” involved when it comes to diving. ...
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...my ????? class, Professor ???? talked about one particular example of social engineering dating back to ancient times, the Trojan Horse. It is considered one the most well-known examples of social engineering in history; a hollow statue built by the Greeks to allow them access to the city of Troy. This seemingly harmless wood statue was not apparent to be a threat by the Trojans and unfortunately resulted in the fall of the city of Troy to the Greeks. Social engineering works in somewhat the same way. In modern times it is a way for criminals to access your computer, office or confidential information for illegal purposes. In this paper, I will discuss 3 of the most common types of social engineering attacks; phishing, snooping and dumpster diving. Issues Analysis Firs I want to talk about one of the most common types of social engineering, phishing. Phishing is a computer criminal activity that uses a special engineering as a disguise on a website in order to acquire credit card information, social security, and other important information about the user. The first use of phishing started...
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...for no reasons. Society looks at these kids of people and think that they are not going to make it anywhere in life. Well appearance can be deceiving. Lars Eighner survived living on the streets because his characteristic was different from others. He was smart, moral, and a proud person who made his way through tough times. Lars is a very intelligent person. Even though Lars gets all his food, and clothes from the dumpster, which most people would think it is not very smart of him at all. He actually what he is doing when he is on the streets. He has the knowledge to survive as a scavenger. When he is getting food from the dumpster he just doesn’t pick any random food. He picks out the food that he is familiar with. Usually in the dumpster there are some good looking food that is thrown away and most people just take it and eat it without knowing what it is, but Lars on the other hand ignores it and walks away no matter how good it looks. He also uses steps which most people don’t use. He evaluates the food of its conditions; he has memorized all the dumpsters in the area and checks them regularly. Also as a smart person he doesn’t carry any extra useless items with him. He only takes the items that he really needs and will help him survive. Lars is a moral person. He is able to tell the difference between right and wrong. Usually many people can do this but Lars goes deeper into thoughts when he judges between right or wrong. Like when students throw away their food...
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...Minimalist found that the average American home had 300,000 items, and threw away sixty-five pounds of clothing a year (Becker). The amount of material goods is what Lars Eighner described as the “gaudy bauble” by the “rat-race millions” in the conclusion of his essay “On Dumpster Diving” (151). After reading Eighner’s “On Dumpster Diving,” I found myself reflecting on the amount of material goods I hoard in my dorm room and how I throw away items without thinking about it. I grew up in a house full of hoarders, where it was normal to have the basement, garage, and attic filled to the brim with material goods, which causes me to hold onto an excess ammount of material goods. My need to collect...
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...Does one ever think about how much uneaten food is thrown away in a dumpster every day? In “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner, Eighner talks about college students and how they waste food by not knowing is something will spoil while they are on break, not caring because it was not their money or just because they are wasteful. College students may say this is not true. Whether it is fall, spring, summer, or winter, at some point all college students get a break and are able to come home for a week or two. Do they pack up all of their stuff or do they leave it there? What about all of their food? Eighner states, “Students throw food away around the breaks because they do not know whether it has spoiled or will spoil before they return (Eighner...
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...Quite by accident, I found the essay On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner on the pages of Seagull magazine. The first lines of it captured my interest considerably, for as I hadnever read about dumpster diving or scavenging before. On Dumpster Diving is a piece of large Eighner’s work called Travels with Lizbeth (1993), which was based on his ownexperience of homelessness.The author engages me by telling the origin and meaning of the term Dumpster Diver , presenting his survival guide with specified rules and regulations. Dumpster is a trademark of garbage loading onto trucks system. Dumpster diving involves persons voluntarily climbinginto rubbish bins (dumpsters) to find valuables or simply useful items, including food andused clothing. Eighner writes that the life of a beggar traveling without any money opened hiseyes to the fact that all those containers with waste are real “supermarkets” for the poor, andthey are not only a source of survival, but also a depositary of high-quality and diverse food.Anyhow, there is a risk in eating such findings. According to Eighner’s experience, takingfood out of dumpsters should involve three simple principles: “using the senses and commonsense to evaluate the condition of the found materials, knowing the Dumpsters of a given areaand checking them regularly, and seeking always to answer the question, “Why was thisdiscarded?” Narrator advises to avoid such foods as game, poultry, pork, and egg-basedmeals. Soft drinks...
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