this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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I once had the opportunity to take a really nice microscope from a school district I was working for when I was 18.
I was working on sorting all the old curriculum for 1st-12 grades core subjects for disposal/recycling and then receiving new stuff.
They were updating the entirety of all science departments and the highschool was getting rid of their old microscopes. The ones that were in working order were to be placed aside for donation, and the non-working ones simply tossed in the dumpsters.
I was allowed to take whatever I wanted that was to be thrown away, but I figured I didn't want to spend time and money tracking down the right bulb to fix the best non-working one, and decided not to take one.
Current me is cursing younger me because I could have easily swapped out the light with a LED, and even if I couldn't, there were LITERALLY microscopes with broken optics and working lights, and I could have just taken one extra one for parts...
Young me was dumb.
I did snag a mostly-complete rock sample set for demonstration of various geology testing techniques. Also a fist-sized chunk of silicon.
So I wasn't completely dumb.