OT: garbage disposal

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

ON 11/19, Robert wrote (along with a lot of very useful info about
networking printers, one item of which may be just what we need at the
office; thanks):
"toss your old computer in the garbage where it yearns to be,"
I hope no one took that seriously. It was (I devoutly trust) just another
passage at arms in our good-natured jousting over the relative merits of
name-brand (esp. IBM) versus white-box hardware. PCs do NOT belong in the
garbage. For one thing, they're full of lead, cadmium, gallium arsenide,
et hoc genus omne perniciosum toxicumque. We don't want that stuff
getting into groundwater. For another, unless the machine is really toast
(and of eight desktops in 18 years, I've had only one really die: the
rest had just outlived their usefulness), it may well be usable in, say,
Lower Slobovia or Outer Impland (assuming they have electricity there).
So recycle, recycle, recycle.
Patricia