Geek Chic

Alright, so it’s a little silly that I’m reblogging my own content, so let’s just get that out of the way up front.  Ridiculous.

Anyway…

I’m right in the middle of reading The Amnesiac by Sam Taylor right now, and it’s amazing.  One of those books that makes you miss your subway stop.  It has an introspective, existential tone reminiscent of Camus or Kafka, but without the sinister edge.  And it’s one of those great pieces of literature that keeps shifting underneath you as you read it — so just when you think you have it figured out, it changes.

It’s excellent.  You should definitely check it out.

Here’s the original post from VSL, if you want to know more.

I just read in The Huffington Post that Switzerland is voting today on a proposition to permanently implement an experimental prescription Heroin program.

You can read the full story (including a really insightful video clip) on BBC.

I am of so many minds about this as a concept. Part of me feels like this is a totally ridiculous idea.  But then the more open-minded part of me speaks up: “Maybe that’s just Nancy Regan’s voice in the back of your head telling you to ‘Just Say No to Drugs’.”  So ok. Let’s look at this rationally.  Does it work?  Sounds like the results thus far are inconclusive.  Except for the fact that the Swiss are seeing less addicts on their streets.  Which seems like a good thing right?  These people are being treated and cared for by the state.  That’s what we should be doing, right?  Proactively caring for those who are ailing in our society?

I concede, however, it’s really none of our business what Switzerland does to control its drug use problems.  Unless, of course, it’s working and we’re considering adopting it ourselves.  I don’t like that our media (and Britain’s too) feel like we can step in and judge what other countries do to solve their social problems.  I’m sure, from our repressed, narrow-minded, western perspective, this seems like an unholy idea: “Heroin prescribed by the state!  Dear god!  What next?”

But if it’s working, by their own standards, what’s wrong with it?

I know you’re going to already (right?).

And yes, the lines are long.  Isn’t that amazing?  I’ve never been so happy to stand in a long line in my life.

This is awesome.  It’s great to see that he has a healthy sense of humor — especially this close to the election.

Enjoy:

Thanks Ben!

Check out this Rolling Stone piece, along with the video in which contributing editor Tim Dickinson lays out the top 5 myths about McCain.

It’s pretty scathing, and great to hear that at least someone is finally raking this guy over the coals.

The guy crashed three planes as a ‘maverick’ pilot!  3 PLANES.

Ugh.

I just saw the movie Once over the weekend and I really loved it.  I’ve been avoiding it for the last couple of years because I was worried it was going to be incredibly sentimental (two people who are down on their luck writing songs together in Dublin?  Yuck.)  But it was beautiful and rough and the music was excellent (kudos to Glen Hansard of The Frames and Marketa Irglova on that).

(more…)

Over the weekend I was doing a bit of video work for my theater company — compiling some work sample DVDs.  A couple of times (as sometimes happens), Toast threw an error that turned an otherwise perfectly usable DVD into a coaster.  This, over time and over a large number of users, must generate a lot of waste.

Since the idea of generating less waste has been on my mind a lot lately — especially in terms of trying to reduce my consumption of plastic — I started investigating whether CDs and DVDs were recyclable.

Turns out, yes!  There are a couple of services that will accept old CDs and DVDs (and their cases), recycle them, and send them back out into the world:

• CD Recycling Center is a free resource that accepts CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs, Blue-Ray discs and CD cases for free (!!!) all you have to pay for is postage.
• EcoDisc does the same

There are probably more out there — these were just the easiest ones to find on Google.  It’s also possible your city’s recycling program accepts these items along with your plastic recycling.

This is all good news, no?  Yes, it takes a little bit of effort, but not too much.  And it seems worthwhile to not unnecessarily contribute any more plastic to our landfills or the accumulation of plastic in our ocean’s gyres (why the latter doesn’t show up in the news more often is completely baffling to me).

If there were any justice in the world, AOL would foot any bills generated by recycling CDs and DVDs.  I would love to see a figure on what percentage of CDs in our landfills came from them…