Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Ok, I really don't care if I come off sounding like a hippy, but I have to say this. The high tech industry needs to clean up its act. Recently on NPR there was a story reguarding the recylcability of the modern desktop PC, and how we are not doing it. I have had no less that 5 people ask me in the last month, "Hey, I've got this old computer at home. What should I do with it?" Well, that's a tough one. The gut response is, "Hey give it to a school or charity," but even those most in need of processing power and connectivity don't want a 386 SX. Sure you might take all these and make a Beowulf cluster or some other such thing, but your average high school sys admin doesn't have the time or the inclination to set that up. He's too busy installing or uninstalling filtering software in the library, depending on whether the congress just passed a law or the courts just shot it down. There is a lot of reusable material in the average PC. Lots of metal in a case. Precious metals in the circuitboards. A lot of stuff that should get recycled, especially given the ammount of toxic wast that is produced in the fabrication of these aging machines. On another note, has anybody noticed how bad the overpackaging at the software store has become? Sure, we all look forward to the buy now-download now future that the net will bring us, but this petty rivalry for shelf space has got to go. C'mon, when was the last time you went to buy a game and didn't know what you were getting when you walked into CompHELL or EB. The music industry did away with the "long box" YEARS ago, why must Lucas continue to sell "Episode 1: Racer" in a huge box, wrapped in celophane, with a cardboard insert that has nothing but a jewel box and registration card for contents. What good does it do for all these tech companies to have an aluminium bin, a white paper bin, a color paper bin, a glass bin, and a plastic bin in the break room, if they are producing non-reusable goods that result in more fabrication polution that all those products put together. By 2003, the tech sector is expected to represent 51% of the US economy. I hope our environmental conditions don't fall back to the industrial age or worse.