Do you suffer from the heartache of AOL CDROMs in your mailbox? If so, then may we humbly propose several extremely useful things that can be done with these CDROMs (besides sticking them in a CDROM reader)...
An AOL CDROM in the nuker
While I have never heard any reports of viruses, microbes, fungi, or other nasties being on AOL CDROMs, one can never be too careful. With this in mind, I recommend thoroughly cooking your AOL CDROMs before partaking of the software contained on them. 7 - 10 seconds in the microwave oven is generally sufficient to render them harmless.
To perform this experiment, place a styrofoam or plastic cup in the center of your microwave and then balance the CDROM on top of the cup. Turn the microwave on HIGH, and in 5 to 10 seconds, the CDROM will suddenly self-destruct with a loud crackle and a pretty light show. Oooooh neato!
WARNING! CDROMs are made of acryllic, a plastic that emits really nasty (pronounced "poisonous") fumes when it is heated. For this reason, turn off the microwave oven (opening the door works) as soon as the CDROM does the crackle thing. If you leave the CDROM in there any longer, it will start to smoke, and this smoke is NOT something you want in your microwave (where people often put food), or in your kitchen, for that matter.
It has been noted by some that you do not absolutely need the CDROMs to be from AOL in order to perform this experiment. Careful scientific experimentation has proved this to be correct. CDROMs from Compuserve and Prodigy also work just as well.
An AOL CDROM being zapped
In this procedure, a bank of four 1600 microfarad 450 volt capacitors is charged up to 450 volts (that's 648 joules of energy for those who are keeping track).
This capacitor bank is then discharged through the ultra-thin aluminum layer that makes CDs silver-colored. Unfortunately, this layer is much too thin to be able to handle the current provided by the capacitors - so the aluminum vaporizes with a loud report. Since these are high-impedance capacitors (what do you expect for 25 cents each?) , the aluminum is vaporized / blown all over the place long before the capacitors are fully discharged. This means that most of the energy is left in the caps after the blast (meaning that they have to be carefully discharged through a power resistor).
Note that this is basically using the aluminum coating in the CDs as a bridge wire in an exploding bridge wire device.
In the image above, about 100 joules of energy is being expended. The report (explosion) is loud, but nowhere near as loud as the report that is generated by conventional bridge wire devices.
Here's an "after" picture of two CDs.
Here's a photograph of the setup.