As it's Friday, it's best to leave things on an optimistic note. The Wall Street Journal brings it to us with a lengthy article about David Wood, who every three months visits 345 schools and 20 churches throughout his home state of North Carolina. Why? He wants old printer cartridges, an item that provides him with a booming business -- and a more honest one than the insistent printer-cartridge spam e-mails that make us want to scrap our own computers:
"These schools, churches and other nonprofit groups comprise Mr. Wood's grass-roots army of collectors, helping him gather a total of about 9,400 empty inkjet and laser cartridges a month. He pays an average of $2.50 for each inkjet cartridge. Then, his Raleigh, N.C., business, called Kartridges for Kidz, resells the empties for an average $5.50 apiece to remanufacturers who will recondition them, refill them and offer them for sale at 30% to 50% less than new brand-name cartridges," the Journal reported. "'I'm basically asking for other people's trash, which is the beautiful thing about this,' says Mr. Wood, whose business brings in monthly revenue of about $60,000."
No, printer companies don't like the idea, the Journal said, but even trash can't please all the people all the time.
E-Waste, U.K.-Style
This headline is a perfect specimen of the double entendre. We'll spell it out:
The BBC reported on the most creative use of dead technology -- a modern-day wicker man: "It is made up of the average quantity of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) an individual disposes of in a lifetime, including five fridges, 12 kettles and 35 mobile phones. The ' WEEE man' will be displayed outside City Hall on London's South Bank for 28 days before touring other parts of the country, including the Eden Project in Cornwall." OK, so it's not really a wicker man if it can't be used for human sacrifice, but it still made me think of the film.
Thanks to the Guardian for its presentation of the other trash e-mail story: "A council today launched an investigation after its email system was hijacked to send out an email urging people not to vote for the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. A message was sent through the Blackburn council email system yesterday evening telling people to vote against Mr. Straw, who is the local MP. The unofficial note to hundreds of council employees and external addresses recommended voters to 'do the decent thing and sack Jack'." Councils are supposed to remain "strictly impartial" when elections are called, something the Guardian said is commonly referred to as the "purdah period." Straw fans, take comfort. He held his seat, the Manchester Evening News assured us.
Bloomberg Confuses Priorities
New York City plans to launch a pilot e-mail notification program telling subway riders about planned weekend service disruptions, the New York Post reported today. As someone who really does "Take the A Train," I thought this sounded like good news. Alas, the service will not report unexpected delays, the Post said. That story takes on a new angle when you read the New York Daily News today, which claims an exclusive with its report that Hizzoner is considerably more tech-savvy when it comes to his political future: "Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg is launching a $100,000, five-week Internet advertising blitz aimed at recruiting tens of thousand of volunteers, the Daily News has learned. 'The Internet is a tool that campaigns are learning to use to their advantage,' Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said as the mayor kicked off his first ad campaign in his bid for reelection. 'And no candidate understands the Internet better than Mike Bloomberg.'" If what the Post reports is true, I beg to differ.
What It Means to Be From Maine
Except for forays into California and Kansas, today's Random Access is a creature of the Northeast. With that in mind, we'll wrap things up in Maine, even though it's black fly season , which is worse than winter. The AP reports that the state is No. 2 in the nation for providing students with access to technology, according to a survey by the Education Research Center: "Jeff Mao, coordinator of educational technology for the state Department of Education, said the high ranking is no surprise given the state's goal of providing laptops to thousands of students as part of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. Every seventh- and eighth-grader has been issued a laptop, and roughly a third of the public high schools have issued laptops to their ninth-graders."
It's the staff who can present a problem, however, as the AP also reported: "A substitute teacher has been banned from schools where he worked after New Hampshire officials said he sent sexually explicit images of himself over the Internet to an investigator pretending to be a 14-year-old boy. Police and school officials would not identify the man but said he has been a substitute teacher this year at South Portland, Gorham and Freeport public schools, and at the private Waynflete School in Portland."
On that cheery note, have a nice weekend.
Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com.
