Recycling Gone Wrong: The AOL Throne

igrp writes "Ever get annoyed with the seemingly endless stream of AOL CDs that make their way to your mailbox? Instead of just tossing them, you could collect about four thousand of them and build yourself an illuminated throne."

Ahhhhh

[fobsen]

And I've been trying to figure out for years what they are for...

Now That I Have Been Re-Selected: +1, Personal

[Anonymous Coward]

As King George II [whitehouse.org], I, too, am looking for an elegant throne.

Very presidentially yours,
"President" George W. Bush

FAKE POST

[A nonymous Coward]

The parent to this post WAS NOT submitted by King George II. It had no spelling or grammar errors.

Re:Ahhhhh

[Walt Dismal]

My manager: "Say, is this patented yet?"

Re:Ahhhhh

[Carnildo]

An acquantance of mine has good luck with Tesla coils.

Re:Ahhhhh

[F34nor]

An accquantance of mine wants to use them to provide the needed mass to push Jupiter over the edge into being a star.

Mirror of the article:

[wheany]

Service Unavailable

Re:Mirror of the article:

[MyLongNickName]

Karma whore!

Re:Troll?!?

[TopShelf]

Dude, pull that hook out of your cheek...

Re:Troll?!?

[nebbian]

'Tis you, poor deadlinegrunt, who doesn't get the joke :-)

Re:Mirror of the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap! The Aol and Internet is down. I think I will call gateway and complain. I knew I should have installed that time syncronizing device from Gator.

Re:Mirror of the article:

[MyLongNickName]

I thought AOL was the internet! You need to start watching more TV advertising to getcherself a good edjucation.

Re:Mirror of the article:

[perbert]

> I thought AOL was the internet! You need to start
> watching more TV advertising to getcherself a good
> edjucation.

No no no. It's just *one* of the internets.

Re:Mirror of the article:

[CmdrGravy]

Yes, I have just watched one of their short informational films and they are the internet which won't cut you off after 10mins so you can always finish downloading those pictures of your wacky mates at parties.

I can only assume that all the other UK based internet providers all have policies where they only allow you 2megabyte download limits per week.

Re:Mirror of the article:

[selderrr]

Internet is down

Don't worry. I have a copy here on CD. I'll start a torrent if you want me to

Re:Mirror of the article:

[Jason1729]

No, just fax me a copy of the CD please.

This is an example of my favorite Dogbert quote.

[AltGrendel]

"Just like sandblasting a soup cracker."

Coral mirror:

[swiftstream]

http://stupidco.com.nyud.net:8090/aol_throne_intro .html [nyud.net]

Re:Coral mirror:

[dustinbarbour]

It's interesting that you were the first to post a Coral link. Anywho.. the damn thing doesn't even look too terrible!

Re:Coral mirror: vs Mirrordot.com

[BobPaul]

It's interesting. For a while now coral has been rather poor about being able to recover slashdotted content. I've even coralized links in the mysterious future and coral wasn't able to load them, even though I could fine directly.

On the same token, Mirrordot.com sure doesn't do a very good job of "solving the slashdot effect" most of the time.

If you look right now " Presently sustaining 14 parallel Slashdottings. Far out!
Click on the ? link to do a Google search of the linked text." but most of those sla

Re:Mirror of the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

Coral Cacheification [nyud.net].

This is like the ACPG!

[GabeK]

Pointless, but cool! http://www.aolcdroms.com/

Slashdotted before first post...

[`Sean]

Niiice...

You could.

[sulli]

But you shouldn't.

OR...

[domenic v1.0]

you can so kindly donate those unwanted AOL cd's to this cause...No More AOL CD's [nomoreaolcds.com]

Re:OR...

[madprogrammer]

I don't care how good a cause it is, if they use the "blink" command for more than two words, I won't support it.

Re:OR...

[cjpez]

Dear god, and they're using Java applets for links. What the hell is that all about?

Re:OR...

[flonker]

Yes, Frontpage does this frequently. It becomes a problem when someone upgrades to XP, and all of a sudden, all of the links on their website don't work, (because Java isn't distributed with XP.)

Re:OR...

[rayde]

uh... I'm using Firefox 1.0 and it's blinking...

Re:OR...

[balster neb]

You can disable that (I just did).

Go to URL about:config. Toggle browser.blink_allowed to false. Simple.

Re:OR...

[balster neb]

Argh! That site!

*blink* *blink*

My eyes!

I hate these guys! I hate them so much that I think I'll dump all my AOL cds on them or something.

Oh wait...

Re:OR...

[superpulpsicle]

Hey man don't complain. At least AOL is sending you the CDs to your mailbox. Imagine M$ send copies of office and windows to your mailbox except you have to find a license somewhere.

Re:OR...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

They used to- then I couldn't afford the $2299/year charge anymore.

Re:OR...

[xSauronx]

my urk is that Ive gotten an aol cd in a plastic DVD case and it was free...but a number of new games come out and use paper sleeves after I shell out $40 or $50 for a copy. I remember buying UT2k3 new and with all the cds the damn game came with, with the money i paid for it...they couldnt put them all in a jewel case or 2? I bought another game a few months ago and it was in a printed cardboard sleeve...thanks alot. A huge box, a pitiful manual...and I get a cardboard sleeve to protect the $45 i spent.

Re:OR...

[Carewolf]

That'll teach you for using a crappy Mozilla browser. Go back IE, or use a real browser like Konqueror that does not render Mozilla-specific evil.

Re:OR...

[BobPaul]

you can so kindly donate those unwanted AOL cd's to this cause...

Maybe t's just cause I moved to a less populated area, but it seems AOL has REALLY cut back on their CD mailing. I only see them at Walmart in the "Free Take one. What the hell, take 6, nobody wants them" bin. This project has been on going for 3 years now and they're only a 1/3 of the way there. By the time they get 1million CDs, AOL won't be sending them anymore and it'll have been all for naught.

Re:Use AOL CD's to Protest Chinese Militarism

[CmdrGravy]

I think you'll find that a large proportion of the worlds electical trash ends up in China anyway where it is recycled or burnt by people suffering from various pollution related illnesses. I don't think mailing them any amount of CD's is going to make a blind bit of difference.

Slashdotted already

[dgallina]

Apparently the web server is made from recycled AOL discs as well....

Re:Slashdotted already

[88NoSoup4U88]

Same reason AC's like yourself get modded up after making the billionth-and-one time making such a non-observant reply ? (billionth-and-one since the first one was made as an FP by an AC, commenting on nothing...)

Just keep in mind that the best comedy lies within repetition (of a joke/gesture/comment)

Remember the DVD Cases

[nev4]

I used to go to Circuit city and raid the AOL CD stand because back then (~2 years ago) the CDs came in standard DVD style cases. Now whenever I need to give someone a CD, I just toss it in one of the DVD cases...

Re:Remember the DVD Cases

[M1FCJ]

well, you need to have a reason. Since it can't be GWB...

perhaps

[avandesande]

he should of built a better web server out of them

Re:perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

he should of built a better web server out of them

Shouldn't that be "he should of built a better web server out have them"?

Re:perhaps

[ArsonSmith]

nono it's "he shouldn't of built a better web server out have them"

To bad.

[jellomizer]

To bad it doesn't look comfortable. Mabey if they put those foam cd seporatores between them then you could get some cousion action going on.

cousin action?

[poptones]

You don't need foam cushions to enjoy a little cousin action..

How'd they do that?

[Phybersyk0]

The AOL CD throne is shaped just like an http 503 error. Such skill. Such craftsmanship.

Here's another one:

[comwiz56]

Another website with creative AOL cd usage [nomoreaolcds.com]

Slow news day

[lukewarmfusion]

These kinds of things are posted on Collegehumor.com [collegehumor.com] all the time. As a recent college graduate myself, I have seen a good number of AOL CD sculptures.

Since we're so interested in slow news, it started snowing today. And I went to the dentist for the first time in four years.

Re:Slow news day

[lukewarmfusion]

No cavities. I had scheduled for a filling, but it turned out to be worn enamel - apparently I grind my teeth. Saved me a few hundred dollars, too. Since I haven't gone in so long, I figured that I should at least do my best to brush regularly, use mouthwash, etc. The dentist commented on how well my teeth were doing after all that time away.

The dental hygienist was really cute and kept flirting with me. She stopped flirting so much once she saw my wedding ring.

Maybe I should submit my tale to Slashdot fo

Re:Slow news day

[ConceptJunkie]

Only if you want to see three times in the next week.

Tomorrow: lukewarmfusion visits the dentist [slashdot.org]

Friday: Teeth grinding can wear down your enamel [slashdot.org]

Tuesday: Cute dental hygenists might notice your wedding ring [slashdot.org]

(and a bonus: Next Friday: Ask Slashdot: What's the best method for dental hygiene? [slashdot.org])

It's already slashdotted!

[jd]

And it's only just been posted here. Yeesh!

Have CmdrTaco and the other Slashdot admins considered selling gratuitous story links to companies wanting to stress-test their servers?

Oh, to be young and stoned.

[The I Shing]

It's amazing what coffee, weed, a lot of free time, and the irrepressible drive of youth and insanity can accomplish.

Just wait... these guys will probably have their own show on Comedy Central in a year or so.

Truth be told

[Ninjy]

"Service Unavailable"

Wait, you still want me to reply to "How Much Harm Can One Website Do"?

Coralized Link

[La Camiseta]

This should work for the text at least...

http://stupidco.com.nyud.net:8090/aol_throne_intro .html [nyud.net]

Sigh

[JediTrainer]

And those of us behind restrictive firewalls are still left in the dark.

Anybody got a mirror that's on port 80?

Re:Coralized Link

[gnuman99]

This should work for the text at least... http://stupidco.com.nyud.net:8090/aol_throne_intro .html

Not anymore. You slashdotted the coral!

Ouch!

[FunWithHeadlines]

"off-with-their-members"

Painful double-entendre there, Mr. Editor!

Recycled?

[dead sun]

Isn't turning a slew of AOL CDs into a throne more in the category of reuse instead of recycling? Recycling implies that the plastic from the CDs is somehow melted down and used in a new product.

There's a reason the slogan was Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. They're listed in order of decreasing positve impact.

Re:Recycled?

[gerardrj]

Yes. But the term "recycle" has been so misused by television hosts that the word is coming to mean "any use for an item other than originally intended." I want to scream when I hear a home improvement host say "and we recycled this old bookcase by painting it and putting doors on it to make an armoire". That is NOT recycling, it's re-using.

Recycle does mean to send the item back to a plant where it is broken down to raw material again, then formed in to a new item.

Re-use means simply finding a new use for an existing item.

Recycling is for the most part a waste of resources and causes more pollution than simply creating an item from virgin raw materials (with the exception of metal recycling such as aluminum and steel).

Re:Recycled?

[dead sun]

There are benefits to recycling though. First, it delays the exhaustion of virgin materials in the case of non-renewable resources. Second, it reduces the amount of waste that's produced.

The downside is the energy that it takes to do this. If we're burning more oil to recycle plastic than we could get new plastic out of same said oil, it'd better be worth the space of not tossing or stockpiling that plastic. If not, then there's waste.

Re:You almost got it.

[Dr. Evil]

Back when the recycling craze began, it was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". In that order.

Around the same time that Coke stopped taking back old deposit bottles, and instead started shipping plastic bottles, the slogan got re-advertised as "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse"

Something anticapitalist about the government discouraging consumption.

... although I have no idea what's worse for the environment... recycling plastic coke bottles, or cleaning and reusing the glass ones.

Re:Recycled?

[mzwaterski]

No, the cd's were recycled into a different use. The intended use was as an AOL cd. Possibly if the cds were somehow rewritten to contain different data you could say that they were reused. However, just because the cd's were melted down doesn't mean that they are used in a new product now (i.e., the throne that I can't see).

Re:Recycled?

[dead sun]

You said it right in your first sentence the cd's were put to a different use. That's reuse. They did not go through a new life cycle as raw materials turned into a product. That's recycling.

Recycling means taking a product, converting it to raw stock, and using the converted material towards a new product, i.e. a new product lifecycle for the same material.

I can reuse a milk carton to hold my used motor oil. The carton was meant to hold milk, now it's holding filthy oil. That's no different than reusing cd

Yes, recycled.

[mr.newt]

Common sense might indicate to you that this was the case, and common sense would be completely wrong. While the connotations of the word recycle are generally what you suggest, the denotation may clearly be a synonym for reuse.

consult:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle [wikipedia.org]
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary& va=recycle&x=0&y=0 [m-w.com]
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=recycle [reference.com]
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=* &Query=recycle [dict.org]

-michael

Re:Recycled?

[Myopic]

this is a response to your question and the responses to your post which agree that re-using is not recycling. i disagree, and i present a canonical definition as evidence: recycle [meriam-webster.com].

in my mind, you re-cycle something when you take it out of its original use and put it to another use, even if the second use is the same as the first (such as, as someone said, painting a bookshelf and putting it in a new room).

AOL floppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone has AOL cds, but i have an AOL version 2.0 Floppy

Miss those floppies..

[Mean_Nishka]

I miss the days of the AOL floppy disk, which I'd promptly use as blanks. It was great because you were never without a floppy when you most needed one :).

It would be great for AOL to continue the tradition and mail out their installations on CD-RWs or open session CD-R's. It would certainly cut down on the waste as we'd be able to do something useful with the cd's when they arrived.

Re:Miss those floppies..

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The CD's they send out sometimes come in metal protective tins. Throw out the AOL CD, and you can put 8 of your own CD's in them. Protects them in your computer bag.

Re:Miss those floppies..

[Old Man Kensey]

Actually, I found the AOL floppies tended to uniformly be crap. They were essentially only intended for a single write and (maybe) a few reads. Plus, I don't know what glue they used on the labels, but I could never get an AOL floppy label to come off clean.

Re:Miss those floppies..

[_Sprocket_]

I remember websites by AOL users where you could sign up for another floppy. The AOL user would get his bounty (in the form of free hours) for turning over a "friend" and you got a free floppy to toss in to your scratch floppies box.

HEY - AOL marketdroids!

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Never thought of that. It would be in everyones benefit for AOL to put their stuff on half of a CD and leave the other half as an empty session. People would actually use them and from AOL's point of view - everyone would have a copy of AOL intentionally not thrown out because they would have good data on it. How can this idea be pitched at AOL?

Finally!

[9-bits.tk]

A use for all those bloody CDs that come through the door.

I'd like to shoot the twit who thought of sending those damn things through.

Mebbe a bit off-topic, but I found a great use for an AOL cd the other day. Throw the CD away, and use the DVD case for my caseless discs.

Ah! I see!

[sl0wp0is0n]

I guess the guy was running the web server off an AOL CD! :p

Use the Coral, Luke!

[antdude]

http://stupidco.com.nyud.net:8090/aol_throne_intro .html

I have to admit that looks cool.

Other Uses

[AgentAce]

You could also use those CDs to create a neutron modulator...
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/1 8/1447258&tid=126&tid=14 [slashdot.org]

Isn't this gag dead yet?

[Wizzy Wig]

Does ridicule of AOL CDs really still deserve a headline story submission? Personally, I don't know of anyone who has received an AOL disk in the mail for a couple of years now. Come on now... don't the "free coaster" and "free floppy" jokes belong in the "All your base," "In Soviet Union..." and "I for one Welcome..." category after all these years?

Re:Isn't this gag dead yet?

[shrikel]

But just imagine what a beowulf cluster of AOL CDs could do!

Re:Isn't this gag dead yet?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Personally, I don't know of anyone who has received an AOL disk in the mail for a couple of years now.
I have, a few recently, probably because I moved and they saw a new address.

Re:Isn't this gag dead yet?

[Fortran IV]

We haven't received an AOL disk in the mail in a while, but just last week we got one embedded in the plastic bag holding our morning newspaper. "9.0 Optimized! 1099 Hours FREE!"

Mirror

[nstrom]

I threw up a quick mirror here: http://braincylinder.net.nyud.net:8090/stupidco/ao l_throne_intro.html [nyud.net]

Site

[AviLazar]

While his ideas are cool - I think he needs to spend more time learning how to design a web page. His page has more broken links then a n0ubs geocities account.

CDs are poisonous

[doc modulo]

So your butt will rot off, maybe. Depends on whether the dye layer is exposed.

Service Unavailable

[scribblej]

I've got a printout of the Internet here I ran off last month in case of just this kind of emergency. If anyone wants to see this page, just send me a SASE and I'll enclose a photocopy from my "Internet Master Copy."

Might take me a little while to leaf through it all and find the right page, of course.

Re:Service Unavailable

[dreamquick]

Ah don't worry ... if you send me a stamped and self-addressed envelope I'll send you a Xerox of my Google master copy to help you find the right page!

Little Targets

[Gertlex]

The best thing that I've found to do with them is to use them as targets for archery practice, (or i suppose, firearms practice). They break into so many shining pieces if you hit them just right.

Re:Little Targets

[digitalhermit]

Most gun ranges won't let you put them out as targets, unfortunately. But I've noticed most don't shatter all that much and when hit; the metal film between the clear plastic pulls away, but mostly you get a clean hole with some cracks. This is with a .223 at 150yds, .270 at 150yds, and .22s and various distances.

Porcelain Throne?

[DarkBlackFox]

Really gives new meaning to the term "Porcelain Throne."

Re:Porcelain Throne?

[Blakey Rat]

No. It doesn't.

Mirror

[comwiz56]

BTW, Here [nyud.net]'s a working mirror.

It just goes to show

[eclectro]

that one can never have too many AOL discs.

You can get them to stop

[Oloryn]

You can actually get AOL to stop sending you CDs. When I was at Interop a few years ago. I stopped by the AOL booth, gave them my address, and asked that it be taken off of their mailing list. I haven't seen an AOL CD mailed to me since.

AOL gardening

[Fortran IV]

My grandmother used to hang aluminum pie pans on string over her vegetable garden to scare the birds. Now we use AOL CDs for the same thing. They're not as big, but a lot shinier.

Mirror

[B747SP]

In case of karma whoring, mirror the site here [100free.com]!

Ah memories

[Schemat1c]

My fondest memories of AOL were all the 'me too' posts when AOL first got access to the usenet.
I actually used to like it when they sent floppies. Back when they were still useful, I had a whole box of 'em. Just reformat and label with a sharpie.

Kawaii!

[bar-agent]

Wow, that is way cooler than it has any right to be. I think the "throne" part is what puts it over the top.

It's like, AOL is a kingdom, and the King N00b sits on high and dispenses wisdom, the Internet, and CDs to all the people of the land.

Plus, CDs look really awesome. He should have put some shiny-side out, though.

Anyway, it's still cool.

Re:Fastest Slashdotting ever

[jd]

I think Slashdot should get a mention in the Guinness book of world records. I'm just not entirely sure what for (most web admins narked, most web servers burned to the ground, news service most likely to cause sites to collapse, ...)

Re:/.ed?

[orcrist]

Sure lot's of people read the articles. Just not the ones who post ;-)

-chris

Re:/.ed?

[nizo]

Maybe some people read the article before posting?

Like most other geeks here, I only read Slashdot for the pictures.

Uses for AOL disks

[Drachemorder]

One year I used up nearly my entire inventory of AOL floppies (yes, it was that long ago) and CDs in making a halloween costume. I simply taped them all to a normal set of clothes, used a floppy disk as an eyepatch, and presto --- I was a software pirate.