Stupid CD-Rom tricks:
Ever notice the green tint that most inexpensive glass has when you look
through a thick section of it or when you look at it from the side? That's
because of a little bit of iron in the glass, one of the most common and
universal contaminants found in the sand used to make glass.
... use CD-Roms to tint the windows of the van ...
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Since iron is something you have to put some extra effort to get *out* of
glass, nobody thinks of green glass as decorative or collectable. It's only
the impurities you have to work extra to get in there (like cobalt, which
gives glass that dark blue tint) that adds to the value. Sorta like the
difference between "flowers" and "weeds."
The only thing that has to do with CD-ROMs is that the most recent batches
of CDR blanks I've gotten from CompUSA have had so little of the active
ingredient that they've been about the color of pale green glass.
Very pale. When you hold them up and try looking through them, they're
not nearly as dark as standard automobile window tinting, even though they
are quite a bit smaller.
So I can't really use CD-Roms to tint the windows of the van, which would
bother me a lot less if I could use them for making CD-Roms.
Well, sometimes I can--the biggest problem seems to be older (8x-speed and
slower, mostly) CD-Rom drives, which either can't read CDs made from this
batch at all or get lots of unrecoverable errors when they try. Music CDs
made from these things will play on a lot of CD players, at least for a
while, and the added clicks, skips, and pops add a nostalgic feel to the
music, hearkening back to the days of my youth when I had one of those little
"close-and-play" cheap-o plastic 45RPM-only record players that I'd gotten
free from a garage sale because it clicked and skipped and popped.
No, I didn't like it when it happened back then either.
So, they're not great for making CD-Roms, they're too small and awkward for
use as car windows, and I probably can't train them to do dishes, so that
limits how useful they can be.
Last year, I used a year's worth of AOL CDs to decorate a Christmas tree, but
I think I'm set on that front now; no shortage of AOL CDs in this part of the
world. As soon as Sally Struthers discovers a part of the world where children
are suffering because they don't get enough Free AOL CDs, I'll look into sending
my extras out there.
Which, I guess, leaves only one remaining practical application; I just need some
more glitter and maybe some pipe cleaners to do it: CompUSA-brand "Elton John"
1970's-style giant sunglasses. Maybe it'll catch on and be the next big fashion
trend.
Especially if I make the earpieces in transparent jelly-like fruit colors.
Just keep watching those Target and K-Mart flyers for their special sales on
the latest in high-fashion. You'll see.