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Sanyo Develops Corn-Based Biodegradeable CD
Recoil_42 writes "PC World has an intriguing article about one way to help ease a growing problem: computer waste. Sanyo, with the help of Dow, has created a biodegradeable disc made of corn. The discs take 50-100 years to degrade, well within acceptable limits, and should come to market by the end of this year. The speedbump, of course, is the projected price: 3 times that of a normal plastic disc, but that cost is expected to be reduced to 1.2 times as (if?) the discs become more popular."
Great!!! now I can eat all the old Linux distors...
Now every time I go to the local electronics shop and ask for the corn discs, they're going to assume Korn discs, and everyone who goes in looking for Korn discs will have the same problem.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The average consumer is never going to buy a bio-degradable disc if its three times the price of a regular one. The only way to make them popular in the market is have the software and music companies use them and eventually it will trickle down to everybody.
Now we know what we will be doing with all those AOL discs in the future - five minutes under the grill with a knob of butter. Yum!
...my homework biodegraded...
Warning: Excessive usage of stupidity may be harmful to your health
Not only do they biodegrade on you, they cost three times as much. I can't wait to run out and buy some!
Taken from Microfilm.com: "Under less-than-optimal storage conditions, digital tapes and disks, including CD-ROMs and optical drives, might deteriorate about as fast as newsprint - in 5 to 10 years. Tests by the National Media Lab, a St. Paul (Minn.)-based government and industry consortium, show that tapes might preserve data for a decade, depending on storage conditions. Disks -whether CD-ROMs used for games or the type used by some companies to store pension plans - may become unreadable in five years."
How many times have you seen CD's left to reflect the sun onto the ceiling? Long after the data is lost due to lack of care, the plastic will still be hanging about. I think CDs that have a physical life span are a great idea for the environment. Companies which do look after their CDs can still get their longer lasting ones.
So now you can just microwave the AOL discs and have a light low-calorie snack.
So Sony has added an improvement to their degradable media... they don't only become unreadable after a year (The Sony CD-Rs I burned last year are full of read errors), now they even disintegrate after 50 years.
Why can't they come up with a disc that retains its data for at least 50-100 years instead of one that disintegrates?!?!?!
but it seems like it would make more sense to just make recyclable disks instead. I wonder what the environment required is for the disks to start breaking down is... it couldn't possibly be heat. Maybe sunlight and/or water? I'd hate to leave a disk out in my car and forget about it for a few days, then come back and find it degraded just enough that I can't access the data on it anymore.
I do thing this is a really cool idea. Those bloody AOL disks were the first good use that came to mind. Since they're corn, maybe they can go the extra step and find a way to make them edible like that one company that makes edible plates and food boxes. =)
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
This will probably be used by the record companies to let us pay more for Audio CD's. Good excuse to raise the prices more and more...
Biodegradability is nice but will somebody please check to see what percentage of our landfills are CDs (and CD cases). I've heard that in that category, yard and lawn waste is one of the leading contenders. Which I might note is biodegradable but won't because nothing biodegrades in an anaerobic landfill environment.
I guess when it comes to reliable data-storage nothing beats good old pergament yet.
What exactly does a CD made of corn smell like after 3 hours in my drive playing MP3s? Fried mush...? Microwave popcorn? Maybe sticking a little butter in the floppy drive....
Only problem is that once something "biodegradeable" is buried in a landfill it never goes away. There was a show on a Nova like program about it. In 1000 years you will be able to show the history of makind with garbage.
Sort of like looking at the layers of rock now and seeing fosils from prehistoric times. Instead of animals it will be cartons of milk and boxes of Hungry Man dinners.
Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?
With ideas being thrown around for single-use, self-degrading DVD rentals this thing could make that horrible idea at least a bit more acceptable.
.: Max Romantschuk
A few years ago-- maybe ten by now, I'm not sure-- my aunt brought back some kind of candy from Japan that had an edible wrapper-- maybe made out of rice-paper or something. Well, being 13, I spat it out because it was orange-flavored (recall that physical age is not proportional to emotional maturity in the teenage male-- and besides, I really don't like oranges). But now I think that maybe if I found some non-orange-flavored type of that candy, I might have a greater appreciation or, nay, enjoyment of it. (Having become a massive anime fan during the past decade doesn't hurt my chances either.) Anyone know what this candy is? And, uh, Aunt Ruth? If you're reading this, I'm sorry and would you mind telling me?
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Reminds me of an initiative around, oh, 15 years ago to replace plastic foam packing chips with specially treated popped corn for similar (biodegradeable) reasons. Seem to recall it worked well, but it also attracted rodents into shipping warehouses!
AT&ROFLMAO
Maybe we should make the case out of this stuff as well. And why not the monitor casing, etcccc.....? Sounds like at least one step is being made on making computers green. Except i would argue that computers are already green because they make us more effiecnt and we dont have to trave to the library to get info anymore and we can work from home.
The key information missing from this article is how long the data recorded will stay in pristine shape though - the fact the disc will decompose in 50 years when discarded is good, but if the data is gone in two years, well, that's no better than current plastics! Could be useful to make us re-buy our DVDs every few years though....
If they make one that degrades after a certain number of playbacks instead. Or maybe one that degrades within a year or some other ridiculous timeframe.
I'd be totally against it, of course, as I am with all their other DRM/IP related moves. But it's not *that* far off to imagine them seeing this as an option to prolong their current parasitic business model, instead of embracing the online world.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
They should _force_ AOL to use them.
Most waste CDs, and higher costs = less of them. Done and done.
-bZj
.sig
Am I the only one that saw
"Sanyo Develops Porn-Based Biodegradeable CD"
and thought "Wow, where can we donate!"
Does it stay crispy in milk? And which side do you prefer -- the frosted or unfrosted side?
would you eat a cotton or a silk T-shirt ? A shoe (like Chaplin... ok, his was made of licorice) ?
I just think this is a closer analogy...
it is not because it comes from a vegetal seed that it is supposed to be engineered a comestible way...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Imagine this scenario - the RIAA, under the guise of "environmental responsibility" decides to start using these, when in fact the real reason is to justify higher CD prices.
Hey, they call a bunch of CD's now a spindle, but the article says you can get like 10 CD's out of a single cob of corn.
So now can I buy a cob of CD's?
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
Wouldn't count on that age - CD-Rs are supposed to last only 50-70 years, pressed CDs will last longer but I'm fairly certain it's well below 1000 years...
Besides, every time the CD burner gives me a coaster (not that it'd happen every day, of course), it's just as useless now as it is in 1000 years.
Maybe sunlight and/or water? I'd hate to leave a disk out in my car and forget about it for a few days, then come back and find it degraded just enough that I can't access the data on it anymore.
So beter don't leave them, because this is about what happens. I've already seen disks left by a window or heater that looked like from Salvadore Dali's images, enough sunlight may damage data permanently, some more will melt the plastic.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Say what you want, but in 3000 years those CD's will be in much better shape then a book.
The BBC project to preserve the doomsday book (onto laser disk) was rendered unreadable by advances in computer technology in less than 10 years, whilst the original has been around for ~1000 years and is still totally legible.
The British Government still archives data onto vellum (goat skin) because it has a life span of >>1000 years, but CDs become unreadable in under 10 (maybe 20 for the very best well handled media).
Now, if the data is only going to last for 10, whats the problem with making sure that the media breaks down in 50 instead of leaving it to uselessly fill up a landfil - plus these new ones wont leech industrial chemicals into the water supply, unlike the slower degredation of conventional CDs.
Beep beep.
You wrote:
Seriously, if you are complaining about the space that this takes up in a landfill then you got your priorities wrong. There are far more important things to worry about.
But the article says:
The International Recording Media Association estimates world demand for CDs at around 9 billion annually[.]
Pick up 9,000,000,000 CDs and look at them. If you're not worried about the space these take up, what are you smoking and would you mind sharing? That's not even considering how long the CD has been in existence. What, 20 years? (Google says 1981.)
Admittedly, a hell of a lot of those CDs are still in active use and may never see a landfill in your lifetime. But even if the industry switched right now, today, that's 22 years worth of old, "immortal" CDs. Let's count... We'll say the first five years, they only needed one billion per year. Then for the next five years, they needed three billion. Then five billion, seven billion, and for these past three years (2003 is almost over) nine billion.
(1*5)+(3*5)+(5*5)+(7*5)+(9*3)=5+15+25+35+27=107 billion CDs. (Yes, the math is ludicrously inaccurate.)
We have over a hundred billion CDs out there, and they're more than likely not going anywhere. So yes, this is an important problem, because 100 billion of almost anything produced by humans still takes up a shitload of space.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Do you usually eat silk or cotton? ;-)
Well, I do eat corn flakes every morning, but I wouldn't put silk inside my milk...
Hence, I'll eat those hard drives but not my T-shirt!
I wonder the disclaimer on the HD: "Do not eat the hard drive. Biting the HD could damage stored bits and bytes"
- "Having a clean conscience is sign of bad memory"
There are things that we throw away every day that take up a lot more space
Ah, good point. So let's just forget about the whole issue until we can find a solution for the #1 space consumer in landfills. Then we can move onto #2. It would be far too logical for each organization and technology to do what they can, quickly picking away at what is persisting forever when instead we can just brush it all aside. This is the same sort of nonsensical reasoning that is used by the useless to deride those who help the homeless, stray animals, etc : "Yeah, but what about starving people in Africa! Sure I'm doing absolutely nothing, but I'm better because I'm indignantly bringing up those Africans!"
Say what you want, but in 3000 years those CD's will be in much better shape then a book
Perhaps you missed the not-so-subtle innuendo in the submission, but normal polycarbonate CDs don't have a data lifespan any longer than the whole lifespan of these corn CDs - the data layer has oxidized and yields no information in just a couple of decades. The problem is that the polycarbonate husk hangs around pretty much forever. And to go back to your first point, this is a tremendous amount of perpetual garbage - sign up for an MSDN subscription and see what you're throwing away.
in 3000 years, you expect a CD-R to be readable? With what, exactly? "If it's more expensive, it damn well be better" - and you wonder why the world's in such a mess? Jeez.
So we can throw as many thin things away as we like, and damn the environment? No matter how full of nasty chemicals those thin things are? Just *think* before posting, that's all I ask.
Actually, feeding the starving millions is pretty easy, as far as getting enough food is concerned. There really isn't a food shortage.
Now, getting the food to them, thats where the feeding gets difficult. If we could figure out how to make sure people got the food they needed, we could end world hunger damn quick.
The problem is, transportation is really expensive. Much more expensive than food.
Also, something which helps keep corn farmers afloat will help deal with such problems in the long run.
This is great - make a new DRM tool and shroud it in Enviro Friendly rhetoric.
You're not against the ENVIRONMENT, are you???????
Exactly how much effort is your sister willing to put into reading the Papyrus documents (or whatever she is reading)?
What does it take for her to throw it in the trash and be done with it?
Of course you need to think about technology. Who will be looking at this stuff? Is it us 3 or 4 thousand years in the future? If so I would imagine that you and I have no ability to predict what is or is not possible to those people.
Same goes for any civilization that can cross the vast expanse of space or time to visit us.
I made a big deal out of the whole archeological thing and maybe I shouldn't have.
The thought that went through my mind was, 'What if all CD's in the future were made like this? Modern day CD's provide the potential (however unlikely it is still there) to tell our story in the far future. Is it possible for us to destroy this opportunity?'
Of course you pointed out that papyrus leaves have lasted for 3 or 4 thousand years. While it does blow a nice little hole in my theory, I think I can still hold a little ground. Traditional CD material has a higher likelyhood of surviving.
But screw all that, the bottom line is still the same. I throw away crap every day that is much larger by volume then a CD. Hell, for the most part I don't consider CD's disposable. I pay good money for them, why would I want to pitch them?
This is a classic case of a solution looking for a problem.
archive your sensitive data, then destroy it in seconds when the police are at the door with a battering ram... while you enjoy a meal (i know i miss breakfast quite often)!
Say what you want, but in 3000 years those CD's will be in much better shape then a book.
I have books I bought well over a decade ago, that are still in perfect working order. I have CD-Rs that were burnt around that time (a year or two more recent) that are all-but unusable now. These CD-Rs have been stored, in jewel cases, in a rack of other CDs, in a room in a country with a temperate climate (the UK).
In 3000 years time, normal CDs that have been dug-up from archaelogical sites will almost certainly be damaged beyond reading. Even if any are still readable, the hardware to read them will no longer exist and the format will have been long-since forgotten.
I'll ignore the sheer scale of the problem of thrown-out CDs, as others have pointed out that flaw in your argument.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Additionally, no current CD is going to last 3000 years. Period. Current CDs only last 50-100 years as it is before the substrate is corroded to the point that the disc is unreadable under even optimum conditions. So I'd much rather have the important ideas written down on paper than on a CD.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
It's not like you can use corn for anything else, is it ? - like feeding the starving millions in the third world.
The hunger in the world is mostly man-made. Lift the tax barriers, and the third world will feed itself in a few years.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
The US should have processed the corn so that there was no risk of it contaminating the Zimbabwe crops. But instead both countries chose to play politics over the issue, and people starved as a result. *sigh*
"This disk will self-destruct in five decades."
You wouldn't want to do that, because, while food aids can make you feel all helpful and generous, they actually help to destroy local agriculture, by reducing demand and thus reducing revenue for farmers and the motivation to build up a farm in the first place.
/puts on tinfoil hat
It would be more reasonable to give technological aid by helping with e.g., irrigation infrastructure. By doing this you could employ and educate local (third world) technicians and help build up a solid agricultural industry, which is the basis for any further advances like industrialization.
On the downside the third world countries could lose their dependance on the first world, hence we give food aid.
the most sexp i get is my paren-mode.
It's quite possible to recycle polycarbonate CDs back into like-new monomer. All it takes is an anaerobic environment and microwave energy. All sorts of plastics can be almost completely recycled in this way. The catch is obviously the cost. But on a large scale, there's no way it would add the kinds of costs they're talking about with these corn discs.
So, all this plan does is attempt to shift costs to the consumer. It's not like you can't recycle polycarbonate, it's just nobody wants to pick up that bill. If you create a big centralized facility and ask who's going to cover the costs the manufacturer is going to get stuck with it. So if you market an even more expensive alternative with something that the consumer can easily identify with like corn, you can try to sucker them into bailing your industry out of its own responsibilities.
But I doubt consumers are as foolish as the industry hopes.
If everyone knew that a 42-oz oatmeal silo was a
perfect receptacle for discarded CDs,
would it be feasible to collect lots more and
actually recover and reuse the ingredients?
What if the great annual computer festivals and flea
markets offered bins or shipping containers?
Would the response of the responsible justify the cost?
Has anyone run a successful recycling program?
Assuming of course they are stored in optimal conditions..
I honestly can believe that anyone will have a device capable of reading a cd in 100 years so yay for corn.
37 - what does it stand for really...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Archeologists work there entire careers for the opportunity to get a scrap of 1/3 a sheet of paper.
Say what you want, but in 3000 years those CD's will be in much better shape then a book.
Funny thet, but over here most archeologist would give their right hand for finding something like this, but then my ansestors wasn't very keen on books...
However, it was the second part of you statement I balked at. Even the the guys making CDs are only claiming a lifetime of 75 to 200 years, and that is probaly not achivable in real life. Others suggest a lifespan of 100 years, while people report that certain kinds of CD-Rs ain't readable after just 1 year. That aside, some of the riches sources of information archeologist has about life in the past is their rubbishtips - do you really want the archologists of the future to find several billion AOL-CDs?
As for taking up space in a landfill... you're right. Other things do take up more room, but a lot of what you give as examples are biodegrable anyway (espesially papar - it's just dead tree anyway), and every bit count, right? We don't have to leave the entire planet filled with waste for our children.
Still, unless these new, bidegradable CDs can be produced for the same or less cost than ordindary CDs, I can't see they catch on.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
- Tax mineral extraction where there are recycled or biological alternatives available.
- Force waste handlers to pay a rebate on all recyclable goods whether or not they are actually recycled.
- Introduce these measures gradually but firmly. Announce a schedule and stick to it. Borrow against taxes on polluting practices to subsidise green alternatives.
Now, there will be predictable opposition to the use of taxation to achieve any ends, but IMHO it is justified in this case. The main point is that The mineral resources in our Mother Earth belong to future generations, not just us. These people haven't been born yet, much less reached voting age, so we have to make some assumptions on their behalf, one of which is that they would rather we didn't force them to live in a shithole.The first idea makes virgin materials more expensive and therefore forces manufacturers to seek alternatives. Ideally, the rate of taxation should be such that it is substantially cheaper to use recycled materials, even all the way to the point where companies are prepared to buy back end-of-life goods from consumers.
The second idea doesn't directly stop anyone from putting recyclable waste in landfill, it just makes the proposal less economically attractive. It means that as a waste handler, you can't charge someone money for collecting recyclable goods {which, after all, are worth money, so it's only fair}. The only way you can cover the cost of landfilling recyclable goods for which you have paid is to charge more to landfill non-recyclable goods. Any other waste handler who is actually recycling recyclables will be getting paid for them, so will have lower overheads and can pass this saving on to customers. Similarly with incineration: if you do something sensible with the heat you liberate, you have something saleable {probably electricity, though home heating or compressed air would be alternatives; alternatively the heat could be used directly in some industrial process}. If your energy recovery rate is poor or you aren't even trying, just warming the atmosphere directly, you might as well be burning pound notes.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
They should probably just concentrate on the DVD-R market for now, so that their price does not make them be ignored. Then as they (and DVD-R) gets more popular, they can also make CD-Rs. But probably by that time, everyone will be using DVD-Rs instead anyways.
with Thermal Depolemerization, this kind of disk is pointless.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
This is bad because the CDs I buy will have turned into mould in a few years time. This is good because if there's no copies of "their" content in existence afte $N years, they won't need their bought politicians to make copyrights last longer again! Next, self-destructing books.
i have cd's i bought before 1989 and they still sound fine. and they've survived long island, buffalo (including 2 years in dorms), boston, dublin (ireland) and galway along with about a dozen moves - one across the atlantic. i never used them for frisbee, but they've had all the climate extremes.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
you know what is funny? you are totaly wrong.
the data on the disc will be long destroyed while a book (with today's paper making proccess) books will last many thousands of years longer than books of old did.....look at acient egypt. they have found Papirus with some writings on it.
now, think about how well perserved todays books will be.(BTW, it has been prooven in special chambers that speed up the aging of materials.)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I've always heard that the CD plastic is extremely high grade, and is very desireable as recycling material.
But it can't be used for CDs again for that reason. There is a steady decline, just like for paper.
(Voice of Beavis) I am Cornholio! I need CD for my bumhole!
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
to consume if you lock the geeks in the NOC without any food for a day.
--
Assuming third world governments also stop spending their money on private jets, pointless capital projects and armies.
... that biodegrades in a few weeks, for the RIAA..
Seriously though, how better for the recording fatcats to make nice nice than to go 'organic' and tout these discs, then get to boost the price a few $$ even though the media price differential is less than $1..
The natives call it maize :)
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
I'm not a multinational with a corn mountain rotting away, trying to find an alternative use for it. So I can talk.
So you don't want to feed the "precious third world". Are you really saying that you are happy for others to literally starve to death ? As it stands, that's what I'm taking away from your contribution to this thread.
As for your assertion that I should give *all* of my disposable income to charity or STFU, well that hardly holds any water at all. LoL !! I get better reasoned arguments from my two sons, and the eldest is only six. In fact, I'm laughing so hard, I just fell off my chair. (Gets back on chair..). Can I counter-argue that unless you are actively killing people in third world countries in *every* spare moment that you have, then YOU should STFU ? No. So stop trying to take the moral "low" ground here.
And by the way, "fuck off" is not exactly a convincing argument. Can't you come up with anything better ? We'll see..
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Broadly speaking, I would agree with you. But if there is no local agriculture ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Don't forget that many times, sending the food doesn't mean it ends up with the hungry people.
Many times it just lines some "warlord"'s pocket instead of feeding anyone.
Anything is possible given time and money.
IBM did this in a hard disk with the GXP75 ;-)
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Interesting.... I'm not calling you out or anything, but do you have a reference for that?
Mankind is creative. I am certain that in two hundred years or so, there will be a vast number of creative ways to use old CD disks.
I kind of think that in a few centuries that we'll be strip-mining the landfills, which will be considered to be repositories of stored resources.
Our decendents may be saying 'I wish they'd stored more of that petroleum away in the form of plastic, and burned less of it making those useless 'corn' CDs.'
A Good Intro to NetBS
I can't see why anyone would have problems differentiating between the two. After all, one is a bland, disposable disc which is likely to be thrown in the bin and forgotten about, and the other is a disc made out of corn...
So if you microwave these CDs, do they pop?
are these things going to start breaking down by say if you keep them in a jewel case long enough? im not really sure i would like that too much.. they would probably break down as long as oxygen is present... but it would be nice if they didnt do so if you were actually trying to store them for a few years since it seems like it says they'll be degraded by 50 to 100 years which means they start breaking down before that..
Yea, These will be just as popular as the corn based bags and foam replacements.. I've received *one* package that used corn foam and scared the hell out of my boss when I started eating it. I've only seen the corn bags when a teacher brought some in to school, and that was 13 years ago.
Maybe when the costs of producing bio-degradable plastic replacments go down we'll see more of this, but until then companies will continue to say 'long live plastic'.
OTOH, the RIAA might like this, as they can go back to saying it costs alot of money to produce cd's and drive the price up even higher.
-miah
Or sometimes a country has enough money to buy food for its people, but spend it on offensive weapons.
Or worse,in some cases, you can send money for food and the government ends up spending it on offensive weapons.
Or, like the parent pointed out, you get the shipment of food and distribute it to your tribe... but the other tribes won't be seeing a bite, even if there's enough for all...
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I am no more happy for others to starve to death than anyone else would be. What I dislike is people pointlessly throwing the misfortunes of others into our faces at every opportunity (however marginal); while they in their turn, do not do anything to distinguish themselves from the complacent majority. I can only assume this happens in an effort to make themselves feel moral ly superior.
The reference to all your disposable income comes from the fact that someone pipes up with this starving third world business every single time that the subject of some quantity of some food being used by some company or group of people for any purpose but feeding the third world comes up. It's just not a reasonable, or for that matter practical, expectation that the non-starving world will ship all of it's disposable food to the starving world (however nice that might sound from an idealistic standpoint). (btw, you seem to be very easily amused to the point of losing your composure).
And by the way, "fuck off" is not exactly a convincing argument.
It was certainly not meant as an arument; more a hopeful expectation, however fleeting.
sic transit gloria mundi
So it was all the U.S.'s fault because we donated thousands of metric tons of corn but didn't mill it first?
What's it like, way over there on the left?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
It doesn't matter if people are starving, wouldn't want to hurt the local agriculture!
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Well, if you can think of a better one, I'm all ears.
Got mod points, but I gotsta reply.
In the Great State of Nebraska, we have taken 1.1 million acres of land out of production in the last 20 years or so. About 20% of our current corn production is being fermented into alcohol for use in E10 (Ethanol, 90% gas, 10% grain alcohol). Corn is still selling for less per bushel (currently around US$2/bu.) than it did 25 years ago (US$2.5/bu. give or take 2 bits) when I did field work for a seed corn dealer (a guy that raises the seed corn that other farmers buy to plant next year that becomes field corn that is made into corn flakes, alcohol, feed and hundreds of other things).
Why? We grow more corn than there is any possible need for as food. Per acre production is up about 50% in those 25 years. Last season a farmer in Iowa got test plots over 340 bu./acre. Dryland. That's FUCKING INCREDIBLE!!! Roundup-ready and corn root worm resistant varieties, plus the ever increasing yields via hybridization will continue to increase these yields.
Oh yeah, most of Nebraska is in a 4 year old drought, extreme conditions in the West and Southwest parts of the state. We will still have our second or third largest harvest of corn this year on record. Most of the corn is raised in less drought stressed areas, but it's been dry everywhere in this state for the last 2 years.
As for fixing the starvation problem, that has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of food available world-wide. Those people are starving because of three primary reasons: no or not enough local production; no source of hard currency or trade material to acquire food on the open market (what, you want farmers to give it away? Or maybe us taxpayers should foot the bill?); and the most common reason, evil Marxist dictators running (can it even be called 'running'? ruining is more apropos) these "poor" countries. These dictators often are the cause of reason 2, since they steal all the countries assets to build themselves lavish Presidential Palaces, buy expensive European cars and jewelry, etc...
And remove the subsidies we pay to our own farmers to *not* grow food...
I think I've hit a raw nerve here, and I'm not talking goatse.cx ;o) God forbid that someone should spoil your day by making you think about something *real*, something outside of your hermetically sealed, supersize comfort zone. I merely pointed out that there is a far better use of corn than making CDs, and you told me to "fuck off". Problem ? I think so.
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Tax barriers? What tax barriers? What country has these tax barriers?
Yes, I know, the US has a very onerous tax structure. One of the reasons I didn't go into farming. But that doesn't stop one starving Rwandan from getting some corn meal or wheat flour. (or a nice pound of ground round that ate corn for the last 1000 lbs of its life)
How about the evil Marxist dictators that are the real cause of most countries' food shortages? Spread some democracy and capitalism around and you will fix more hunger than anything else. It will last much longer than JAH (Just Another Handout).
How about a 30-day decomposing disc? What if iTMS only lets you burn to these disks? What if the disks taste really great toasted with apple butter?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/2570731.stm
It's just acts of Parliament though, not all the data from the entire goverment.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
Actually, we've got way too much corn. There was a great article in the NY Times magazine called "The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions Of Obesity" (Oct. 12 or 13, I think, but too old to link for free) which explains how:
1) the price of corn directly affects the prices of many other food items;
2) we produce way too much corn due to a screwy corn subsidy program which encourages farmers to produce as much as they can, rather than as much as we need, and this drives the price down to the point where we all get hurt;
3) overproduction leads directly to increased consumption, and this is the reason that Americans are experiencing an epidemic of obesity.
It's an astounding article -- head to the library and look it up, or just pay the Times a buck or two... it's very persuasive.
It might also help if the "first" world would stop overthowing democratic trends by installing and funding tirents in these countries in order to open up thier resources to private companies that ultimatly funnel money out of said country to spend on private jets, pointless capital projects and armies.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
I'm sure the record companies would LOVE to use these, particularly if they can get the self-destruction time down to 1 or 2 years.
"Hey guys, look! We can make consumers buy the same music over and over again without having to keep changing the format!"
Great! Now the cup holder will be popcorn machine too!
Let's see, you can get CD-Rs free most anywhere after rebate, so, let's do the math:
$0 x 3 = $0
$0 x 1.2 = $0
Obviously we don't need to wait for the price to drop, if they are already 3 times the cost of free CDs.
It apalls me when I think of how many thousands of tonnes of AOL CDs alone there are littering our landfill sites (and other junk yards, such as the average computer geek's desk drawer!)
Making unsolicited CDs more expensive would also help us to be more sensible about how we send these things out... After all, how many AOL CDs do I actually need to get a year, considering that I will never, ever sign up with them!
RTFA and you'll see that all the worls CDs done this way equates to less than 0.1% of total production.
I saw a TV program about "Freegans", (I think) people who are so appalled by the waste of food we throw away that is perfectly edible and OK in appearance, they go round dumpsters and eat some of it themselves. We're talking whole boxes of nice looking carrots thrown because one went mouldy, fine stuff thrown away because the supermarket over ordered and can't expect to sell it.
...in the form of this.
----- sXe
I've been saying right along how i'll buy from indie music groups and movie groups, just to support them. And that i'll pay more for higher fuel efficiency, and that i'm willing to try to only bring home glass and cardboard food containers, so that the glass and exterior cardboard can be recycled. And that i'll buy recyclable/renewable products. *sighing and getting out the wallet* But i'll admit that you who told me that it made more sense to demand approximate equivalency in products have a VERY valid point!
But now it's a chance for me tocheer for the idea, again, and i will. Nobody's going to change ANYthing about waste management until it's a crisis, or because the market insists upon it. This is not the answer, no- this is just a start. But there are lots of things that can be done with trash other than bury it, and it has to start in my home where i decide what kinds of trash i'm going to buy in the first place. (especially since i'm one of the ones who whines about it.)
i realise that other consumers may not feel the same way, and that there's really no reason why you should have to- having the larger part of the populace hold out for a more cost-effective products is important- that steers the market, too.
Now, all i can say is- they better not package this stuff in a regular plastic case with a regular plastic spindle, or i'm going to be so bloody ticked off!!
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
I'm seeing more and more studies which indicate that CDROMs often start to decompose after 5-10 years. There's serious doubt about the longevity of the medium once proclaimed as "perfect audio forever."
So now they have these biodegradable disks which last twice as long. Bizarre.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
There was a great article in the NY Times magazine called "The (Agri)Cultural Contradictions Of Obesity" (Oct. 12 or 13, I think, but too old to link for free)
http://www.newscoast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID =/20031011/ZNYT04/310110724/1025/FEATURES07 in case somebody wants to read the article.
Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
Which is why we should look into using it as fuel instead of essentially wasting it.
Screw that 'hydrogen economy' crap. The US is already capable of growing most, if not all, of the energy it needs. And I bet a little more chemical engineering will show that vegetable oils can make a very suitable replacement for petroleum oils in almost every application.
Probably put a lot of people to work state-side, too.
If you ever need fodder for a conspiracy theory, this is a good choice...
=Smidge=
I'm not so sure about that... I have many cd's that are at least 5 years old, a few of which are over 10 years old, that work just fine. I am certainly not the most anal about storage conditions -- they've encountered high sunlight, dust, water, being used as a frisbee, and whatever dangers exist in the homes/offices of my friends.
The plastic quite probably does outlive the data on the cds, but I doubt it does so by as large a margin as you are suggesting.
According to data from Michigan State University and Matweb, tensile strength (it shouldn't fly apart) and Young's modulus (it shouldn't stretch too much) are comparable to materials currently used.
> In 1000 years you will be able to show the history of makind with garbage.
Like the Bart Simpson dolls in landfill!
I don't know about the rest of you, but the last thing I think about when backing up my data onto disk is if
It will biodegrade in the next 100+ years. I'm more concerned on how well it will store my data, and the reliability of the product I'm using.
Another concern is what can make the disk degrade faster? Cold, Heat, moisture, butter? Will something cause my media to degrade in, say 20 years instead of 100?
I think creating a storage type that is specifically made to fail and destroy its self (unless that is something you are looking for) does not sound very reliable.
TruePunk | Games
What a terrible thing, planned obsolescence of our information. Maybe that is what happened to Atlantis.
History records that the burning of the library at Alexandria was a horrible crime against the future of mankind.
Oh the horror of it.
We have been reduced to digging in ancient toilettes to scavange for information.
Now if you can convert your old backups to good backwoods hooch.. well then you've got a good system with controlled obsolescence.
maybe with proper genenetic engineering we can just store the codes in the kernels directly. Just look at Indian Corn. You have a higher base than binary right off the bat.
You could re-use old typewritters as readers like all our old favorite Cartoons showed was possible (prior art here SCO and Microsoft, sorry)
Maybe you should watch the Antiques Road show more often. Just think of the fortunes your throwing away. You only have to wait 50 - 100 years and convice someone that they want to collect it. But hey, what else are people going to spend their money on? Food? really how gauche.
Enderle is only a couple of active insults away from being Scott McCollum, perhaps the king of FUD. A few years ago Scott wrote a screed about how the open source movement is ideologically equivalent to Al-Qaeda. A bit like the Scientologists asserting that their critics are ideologically equivalent to child molesters.
These guys exist, I think, to whip up the fears of conservative IT managers with their ties on too tight, and thus generate page views. Linux is a new and largely unknown phenomenon to business people, and once the hype has passed, a sinister conspiracy of Linux zealots bent on bombing the Pentagon, the Statue of Liberty, and Microsoft HQ makes for much more exciting news than the hum-drum stuff like "another Microsoft security flaw".
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
"you get the shipment of food and distribute it to your tribe". ..or to your village ..or to your town ..or to your city. ..or to your neighborhood.
Hunger, as a social problem, is everywhere, not just in tribes.
" On the downside the third world countries could lose their dependance on the first world."
Downside for who?
For many 3rdW countries, it would be a great "upside".
To say less than a year, I'm sure the RIAA would pressure goverment to make sure that all other CDs are illegal to buy and sell. On a serious note, if it could become with volume only 1.2x the cost, the goverment should write legislation to require the use of this type of disk. Biodegradeable is much better.
I'm waiting for the day they announce CD's made of Soylent Green :]
I'm trying to collect enough surplus cd's to shingle my house in shiny disks...
plse send any extra cd's to
CD shingle project
223 Bertrand St
Winnipeg MB R2H 0N5
Canada
thanx
-s
I was shocked when I went to Europe and found out the way people there throw perfectly good food away, for instance, because they made too much of it for a family dinner.
;-)
I guess they get shocked when they come to my country (Venezuela), and find out that we try not to waste any food. I don't know if all the families here do what mine does, but we sometimes have 2 or 3 recipients with leftovers (and we are a midclass family). It's convenient when don't have time/don't want to cook, and don't want to spend on a restaurant... most kinds of food tastes better the next day!!
Heh... the cultural differences.
Except of course when we flood third-world countries with artificially cheapened goods, and destroy any chance of local producers actually making a living. Ah, gotta love capitalism, baby!
The Welkin: Online Music Reviews
Oh, great. Now we not only have to put up with the RIAA, we'll have Archer Daniels Midland in our face as well :-) ADM is the politically-connected giant agribusiness conglomerate.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Any other starving college students remember the biodegradable corn-based packing material? Just add salt!
Hey, the U.S. decided to start overthrowing "tirents" and forcing "democracy" on them in order to open up their resources to private companies that ultimatly funnel money out of said country to spend on private jets, pointless capital projects and armies.
Get with the times, man!
I hope you can eat them. Every time I have a misburned or obsolete CD-R lying around, I can just munch on it as I work. Or you could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on CD-R's. Mmmmmm...
ok maybe i've been unclear about this. The "/tinfoil hat" appendix was supposed to suggest my comment includes conspiracy theory, which in this case was that the "first world" is conspiring to hinder the "third world" development by sending aid with trojan properties. Hence the conspiring first world would see free and developing third worlders as a disadvantage (because they might eventually grow stronger than the current first world and thus become a threat etc.)
I included the conspiratory comment because i oversimplified a bit. While there is food aid being given and while it will always be necessary in times of crisis, there is also technolgical aid done, so (at least not all of) the first world is conspiring. So yes, the third world and the good (as in samaritian) first world people would welcome independent, self-supporting nations. But I think it is not all too bold to say that there are people who would see it as a downside for possible reasons such as racism, grudge (gramm.?), fear of competition...
the most sexp i get is my paren-mode.
When you tire of the music on the CD, can you throw it in the microwave and pop it?
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
It depends if you're worried about some scary spooky aspect of GM (believing it makes you or your kids grow fur, a second head, whatever) or if you're worried that someone will find the GM stuff growing in your field and take legal action because you don't have a license for it. How do you prove you didn't steal a few seeds?
thanks, that was a good article
I see the problem that they will not be able to sell the corn to European countries, but I think I'd still take the corn rather than starve to death.
As far as legal action is concerned, I don't know what jurisdiction some company in the U.S. has over some dirt poor farmer in Zimbabwe. I think, on matters of national concern, the government can and will ignore laws of other countries. It might not make them popular, but they need to do what's best for them.
Recently, in Brazil, the government waved patent protections from other countries on AIDS medications so that Brazillian companies could manufacture generics that people in Brazil could afford.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I was referring to the parent posting that pointed out that some "Warlord" would keep the food for himself. A good example is Somalia. It's much less likely for a particular city to "hoard" than a tribe or a gang (although it may not be unlikely).
In places where there aren't tribal (or religious or other affiliations that get in the way), the dispersment of food is generally pretty equitable, like it currently is in Iraq.
In Somalia, warlords would take over the food supply by force and hoard it. They'd let food go bad before giving it to rival tribes or factions.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
And so based on one experience, you're going to criticize an entire continent?
You know, in "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," they find out about our culture through archaeology. This, of course, is after the nuclear World War III.
If we keep making things biodegradable, who'll know who we were? I'm starting a new campaign: "Biodegradable harms future history."
"We would like to place this in a time capsule, but it'll be gone in 100 years."
Now from the makers of Agent Orange, leaking breast implants and poisonous PVC comes biodegradable CDs. "It's ok if we kill your family and friends if you think it's biodegradable"
In order for something to degrade in a landfill, it requires air. Take a core sample in your average landfill and you'll see that stuff just a foot or so down has degraded minutely or not at all. In the show I mentioned, there were still newspapers from decades ago that were as readable as the day they were thrown out.
Biodegradable is nice and all, but there has to be something else done. At the rate stuff is thrown out, air-insulating layers are added so fast that quite a lot of biodegradable stuff never has a chance to work it's magic.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
enough sunlight may damage data permanently
Is there a way to damage the data temporarily??
Well, you have to get rid of the goverments too.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yes. Frost. On floppy.
Expose a floppy to some -10C for half a hour. Put it in a drive immediately after that - all data gets destroyed, the floppy damaged, you may discard it as it's unformattable anymore. Leave it for a hour in a mildly warm place and with enough luck (i.e. that the floppy wasn't bent before "defreezing" - that are microfractures that render it useless) all data will be perfectly readable and the floppy will work just fine.
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The discs take 50-100 years to degrade into water and Carbon Dioxide, but how long can I use my discs for? 10 years?
It's not like DVD's in my collction are cheap, but I would rather they last a long time (make all those AOL discs corn based, I don't care, but keep my linux and video collections secure). I am rather suspicious about a corn-based DVD not being prone to being eaten by a bug or prone to growing somthing on it in say, a high humid evironment (an exessivlly rainy day, or somebody spilling something on it), say.
Would be neat if my corn-CD can be absorbed my means of consumption after I decided I have no longer any use for it... Maybe I can put it on a stove and create pop-corn of it, or would that be called... pop-cd-rom ?
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Of course in my apt. you would just leave them in the floor and let the rats finish them off overnight. Hmmm.. corn...
I once had one. Then I started reading Slashdot.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Ok, so I'll just say some friends in Oslo, Norway, a few families in Copenhaguen, Denmark, two friends in Madrid, Spain and one family in Tenerife, Canary Islands waste perfectly good food.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to be offensive; I had the time of my life in Europe. My impressions will remain, though, because it's an example of cultural differences. I guess people from other cultures would be shocked wif they learned how we waste perfectly good food by not eating our dogs. And I have some scandinavian friends who came here and laughed at us because we didn't like their "licorish" candy. I didn't see their reaction as offensive.
Sounds like a great idea, until the beetles (not the fossil rock group) get into your CD collection. We once used corn-based packing material at our Museum (smelled great, made me hungry every time I had to send a package) until we discovered it was the source of a beetle infestation. The little buggers loved the stuff, and tried to spread their love around into our collections! Not good. So how about an army of beetles getting into your music and data backup collection?
While they might then have an abundance of imported grain, the destruction of the domestic industry means fewer jobs and paychecks to buy that food. Thus, the ridiculousness of American overproduction and Third World scarcity.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Since Zimbabwe's primary trading partner is the EC, and the EC prohibits GM food on imports, this is a valid concern. If the corn crop became tainted, they would be unable to trade any corn or corn-derived products to the EC.
There appears to be a real push from the Bush administration to get GM foods firmly established both in the States and worldwide, despite popular opposition. This "donation" was a political move, meant to demonize those opposed to GM crops.
Personally, I think it's possible some GM crops are okay. But I'm going to be leery of any food that is technically classified by the FDA as a pesticide or herbicide (Roundup Ready corn and soy are, if I remember correctly, classified as such).
Since there isn't really a problem with underproduction in the US right now, it seems like the only goal with GM foods is to be able to bring the sectors of trademark and patent ownership to the farming arena. Normal seeds are owned by the farmer; GM seeds are owned by the corporations who created the seed in the first place.
Don't give me that golden rice bullshit, either. Studies have shown you'd have to eat buckets of the stuff to get a minimum daily requirement of Vitamin A. If the kids need beta carotene, then feed them veggies, not mutant rice. You can also always enrich rice with vitamins and minerals, just like they do here in the states.
Ultimately, spread of GM technology in food means increased corporate ownership, not only of farms and the entire foodchain, but also over the ability to grow food at all. I am always weirded out by people who champion GM out of one side of their mouth and rail against digital rights management on the other.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Why do we care? We can just through the polycarbonate ones we have into one of these thermal depolymerization reactors and presto chango, free oil!
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
WTO won't recommend removing tax barriers where price dumping is going on (contrary to popular belief). So what's to stop a third world nation from stopping the dumping of US subsidized food?
I'd rather see researchers working on a way to make cheap, long-lasting media.
Newspaper degrades in a matter of weeks, if allowed to blow around town. When buried in a landfill, it easily lasts 50 years, and could last for hundreds.
Same thing with those plastic bags that degrade in the sun: bury them and they last centuries.
If the maker is quoting 50-100 years for degrade time, you can count on the discs surviving 1000's of years once buried.
I thought they already were...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
From the people who can't get plastic breast implants right (See class action against Dow for failure of breast implants), comes a new and safe method of storing data that is guaranteed not to come apart in your CD ROM drive.
Sure....
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
finally, i can put all those AOL cd's to good use and fertilize my tomato plants.
Exactly - we're good at production. We SUCK at logistics.
"Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid stupid! I touched the hot wire right there - I'm an idiot!"
Will this be a problem for people with corn allergies?
Or how about other food allergies. "This compact disc was manufactured in a facility that processes nuts."
Funny, you should tell that to Mexico...
Thanks to NAFTA, the "tax barriers" have been lifted... A process which destroyed Mexican agriculture, primarily (coincidentally) corn. Big, technological, industrialized nations, like the US, are able to make it so much cheaper, that even with the added expense of shipping it, it's still cheaper than it can be produced with the practically-free labor available in Mexico.
Lifting the tarrifs is actually starving the third-world.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
See, that's just the attitude I am talking about. What makes you think that you know more about what's outside of our hermetically sealed, supersized comfort zone, than I do?
And it's not a given that this is a better use for it; it just may be that biodegradeable CDs (and other such massively produced junk) can contribute to better conditions in the future third worlds (or whatever number of worlds we are up to by then). I stand by my request.
sic transit gloria mundi
What makes you think that you know more about what's outside of our hermetically sealed, supersized comfort zone, than I do?
I don't claim to know more about it.
I am entitled to my opinion, just as you are entitled to yours. I may not agree with what you are saying, but I'll defend your right to say it.
Therefore your request is denied.
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Yes. Frost. On floppy.
... in the car ... in the sun.
Floppy?!?! We were talking about CDs
Is there a way to temporarily damage the data on a CD via heat (or otherwise?)
On a CD - I don't know of any. But the question was "Is there a way to damage the data temporarily??" so I answer, yes, and give an example I know. The fact that I don't know any way to damage CD data temporarily (or in a recoverable way) doesn't mean there isn't any. (it's not the point though. I just meant the data gets FUBAR and there's no way you could get it back, unlike when, i.e. you get coffee on your cd, and it won't work until you wash it)
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