Finally, someone is stepping up to help consumers properly dispose of old electronics. Of course, when I say consumers, I mean me. I am tired of tripping over my old computer monitor that is decades old and weighs a ton. Best Buy has a trial program to allow consumers to recycle up to two electronic products a day.

Recycling electronics is all the rage. As I was writing this post, a radio commercial announced that Goodwill was having a recycling event at a local mall this weekend.

Hey, Steve Jobs, what can you and fellow Apple board member, Al Gore, do for recycling of Apple’s old products? A recycle program could really put those pretty Apple stores to good use.

Portfolio.com published an interesting article on the percentages of married women who work. It turns out that married woman will show up in an office more often in the rest of the US (67%) than in NYC (49%). The busiest worker bees are in Minneapolis with a rate of almost 80%.

Some New Yorkers might make a cruel remark that if you are stuck in the rest of the US, that you might as well work since what else do you have to do. In NYC there are certainly plenty of things to keep a married woman busy in the city that never sleeps. But I have to disagree with Zubin Jelveh, the author of the post. He hypothesizes that the main reason for the drop in working women was the long NYC commutes since all the other usual suspects such as children and labor market conditions were ruled out. I have heard of many reasons that a woman might not work or continue to work, and the commute was not a big part of it. If a woman wanted a job, she would not let a commute stand in her way.

What is my theory? Sorry for the obvious Sex and the City reference, but I would guess that there are quite a few Charlottes-wannbes. NYC is one of the most expensive and most competitive places in the world and attracts the best and brightest. To compete in this market, you have got to really want it, and you can’t get distracted. If you are not completely certain that you want to be part of the rat race and you have a source of income that can provide for you, then not working is probably your best option. Honestly, do you know anyone who is so unhappy with his job that he would quit if he won the lottery? Same thing. It is just that many people who are frustrated with their work do not have the option of quitting.

Seems like all the news sources are talking about a world-wide food shortage. Part of the problem is some food markets are still hampered by really bad distribution that results in food rotting. In places like Japan which has little land to start with, many of their farmers are retiring and not being replaced. Already Japan imports 1/3 of their food. The other problem is that many farmers are now growing crops to be used to produce fuel. But when you look at the amount of stored energy in oil compared to what is required to replace that with biofuels, it is likely that biofuels will only be a tiny part of the overall alternative energy solution in the future. Since this information has been available for 5 years, it does make you wonder why the current push for biofuels is considered a good idea.

Don’t get me wrong. Alternative energy sources need to be found and even subsidized if necessary during their early and expensive research periods. But we need to realize that such work is not being done in a vacuum. Food may be readily abundant in the US, but it is not in other areas for a variety of reasons.

Let’s hope that we figure that out before anyone starves to death.

Technorati tags: biofuel, energy, oil

I was scanning through the general posts on Twitter when I saw a message that struck me as strange. Essentially it said

I have not had time to Twitter, but I am sorry to hear about your grandmother’s death.

I realize that the world is moving faster and faster. Today you can hear people say “I did not have time to email…” and ”I did not have time to call…”. But when did things get so fast that you didn’t have time to Twitter?

I don’t want this to sound like a Twitter commercial, but c’mon. A Twitter message is just 140 characters and you can do it from any web-based computer or from your mobile phone. It can’t be that you are having trouble condensing your thoughts. Twitter is ultra dense. You only have space for one or two thoughts at max. It is really not a medium for Shakespeare. Although it would really rock with iambic pentameter.

Technorati tags: Twitter, bizarre excuses, Shakespeare

I have heard of the saying “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.”, but I would never have believed this if I had not seen it myself. A person in Oregon is making and selling moss rings that you can wear. I guess that it is more environmentally friendly than the traditional metal jewelry. And it can also filter CO2 from the air. But I usually make a point of keeping the moss, mold and mildew down around my place.

Technorati tags: moss ring, organic, environmentally friendly