Here’s a common question:
“What can I do with CD-R discs that failed during writing?”
If the disc wasn’t closed or finalized, you may be able to write more data in a new session. If the disc was closed, or was nearly full when the write failed but is still missing important data, then its use as digital media is over.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s useless. Here are a few ideas:
- Fill in the center hole to avoid leaks, and use them as drink coasters.
- Create a hanging ornament or wind chime. The latter isn’t all that interesting; they just sort of “clack” a little unless you use the discs to catch the wind and something else to make the chimes.
- Use them as mini-frisbees in an office with cubes. Since they’re rather solid and may hurt when they hit, you should await a formal declaration of intra-office war before opening up with these.
- Have CD bowling tournaments where you see how far you can roll one down a narrow hallway. You’d be surprised at how hard it can be unless you get the wrist motion just right.
- Put them under a table or chair whose legs don’t quite sit right.
- Run them through one of those industrial-strength paper shredders (the kind with the rapidly spinning wheels) to get shiny green or gold confetti.
- Make really, really big earrings.
- Miniature frisbee golf.
- Hook them into your bicycle spokes as reflectors.
- Build a suit of “CD-R chain mail” for laser-tag games.
- Use them as art-deco floor or ceiling tiles.
- Hang them from the rear view mirror in your car.
- Hang them in your car windows. Some people believe that CDs will defeat speed guns and automated speed traps that use flash photography.
- Use them as dart boards or BB gun targets. If you “miss” the hole in the middle, the error is immediately obvious.
Yes, your inSync staff is in dire need of a vacation…