HDD Assault Cannon

Anonymous Coward writes "Check out what these crazy fools have done. One has to ask, exactly how much time these people have on their hands? Got a couple of old 2GB Hard drives. You too could join in on their madness. Hard Drive Assault Cannons for all!"

Comments

broken already (it's lame)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anonymous Coward", the submitter, says "Check out what these crazy fools have done. One has to ask, exactly how much time these people have on their hands?"

Apparently you have enough time to speak in the third person about yourself. If you're going to astroturf your website at least make sure your machine and bandwidth can handle the load, idiot.

To those that couldn't load it: all you missed was a very slow loading gallery with 50 pictures and Quicktime movies of someone taking apart a hard disk and attaching shit to it.

Next story, please.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[djb6]

Do SATA drives make for faster cannons?

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[Anonymous Coward]

I've received email on how to increase my pipe.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[Shakrai]

No amount of bandwidth can withstand the power of a swarm of geeks...

At least not the outgoing bandwidth on a standard ASDL connection. Are they that crazy or was this just a publicity stunt from day one? How did it get by the editors? How many ACs will reply with "Your new here right?" now that I've made a comment about the editors not catching stuff like this?

Again for laughs and giggles:

(104):tim@pigeon:{11:45}:~# host hddcannon.kicks-ass.net
hddcannon.kicks-ass.net has address 202.0.40.113
(105):tim@pigeon:{11:45}:~# host 202.0.40.113 113.40.0.202.IN-ADDR.ARPA domain name pointer 202-0-40-113.adsl.paradise.net.nz
(106):tim@pigeon:{11:45}:~#

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[Hogwash McFly]

The logical thing to do with an egg is cook it and eat it, but throwing it at someone is much more fun :D

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[sydb]

Woe, not whoa.

I don't mean to be a Nazi but the difference is so fundamental is must be elucidated.

"Woe" means, in this context, distress or affliction, misfortune.

"Whoa" (also spelled "wo", "woa" or even "who") means "slow down horsey".

No links, 'cos my Oxford English Dictionary does not support HTTP.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Yeah! You *should* build a wall out of them! And in the middle of the wall you should put one 3-gig drive instead of a 2. Then put a brightly colored sticker on the drive. Then, when your friend points to that drive and asks if it's special, you can answer...

"No, it's not special."

"So what is it?" he'll say.

"All in all, it's just another gig in the wall."

The same joke will probably work with a pile of NIC cards, but either way you're probably going to get the shit beaten out of you.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[Anonymous Custard]

Then, you could use that wall with the 3 gig as a bull's eye for target practice. When you hit it, you would send it to "the great gig in the sky".

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[gstoddart]

"Whoa" (also spelled "wo", "woa" or even "who") means "slow down horsey"

Or, in Keanu-speak, it is merely a response to any event happening around onesself, expressing shock, dismay, humour, joy, or any of a bunch of things which can happen to a person.

=)

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[bugnuts]

The OED, good book

The plot is pretty thin. I had already guessed the ending by Chapter Q.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[RailGunner]

The Slashdotting of his pathetic little box is probably enough, but if we want to get really nasty we can always fark him. Not that I'm advocating piling on even more pain on this astroturfing goof.. oh wait.. yes I am.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[PaxTech]

>> The OED, good book

> The plot is pretty thin. I had already guessed the ending by Chapter Q.

Yep. The zebra did it.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[Jackal82277]

8MB HDD - $27

1ft long piece of PVC - $17

A can of hair spray - $4.50

2 idiots with a 2004 version of a potato gun - Priceless

2 idiots getting there whole ISP DOS'ed by /. - utterly fucken priceless

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[LedZeplin]

the zymurgist did it in most editions.

mmm brewing beer.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, not all happiness comes from money and not everything can be bought with money. However, money can buy you happiness because it buys you freedom and choice. Say your girlfriend phones you up at work and dumps you. You can go home to a shitty one bedroom apartment with a leaky roof or go home to a nice warm house with nice food to cook for dinner and maybe a few beers. The only difference here is money. Propose that situation to all those 'money can't buy you happiness' people and see if they say that they would be happy either way. After all, it's only money right? If money isn't related to happiness then why do people play the lottery, or why do they get excited over a 5 dollar discount? I'll say again, although money isn't the be all and end all, I'll be damned if it doesn't make life a lot easier. These people can keep telling themselves that working 12 hours a day just to exist on bread and water is 'a living' and eventually they'll start to believe it.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[kevcol]

2GB disks command about $10 on ebay. The time it takes to prepare the auction, run it (communicate with buyers usually), pack then ship the item is probably about 60-120 minutes of work depending on how close you are to a post office. It's less work if sold in a lot, but when sold one by one, I found it was a waste of time unless you have a lot of volume and are set up for it.

Re:broken already (it's lame)

[kyhwana]

Oh man! That guy is so screwed, since dsl in NZ has data caps, and you pay per meg once you go over that cap. And it's EXPENSIVE. It ranges from 10-20cents per MEG.

Sweet!!

[hookedup]

We have boxes of old drives that we need to get rid of here at work, but have to drill holes into them then have them melted down or buried in a landfill. This would be way more fun..

*Emailing boss the link*

Re:Sweet!!

[Forge]

You work for the Department Of Deffence or a related agency right?

The DOD rules for HDD disposal.

1. Triple Overwrite security erase.
2. De-gauze with a powerful electro magnet.
3. Crush drives with a cement roller.
4. Melt fragments into slag.
5. Bury Slag in a secure waist disposal site under a minimum of 6' of cement.

Re:Sweet!!

[RetroGeek]

6. Take backup tape home
7. Profit!!

Re:Sweet!!

[pjwhite]

I'll take the platters. They make great wind chimes.

Re:Sweet!!

[Infinite93]

5. Bury Slag in a secure waist disposal site under a minimum of 6' of cement.

Isn't burying it under a liposuction clinic a little extreme?

Re:Sweet!!

[Metallic Matty]

Or you could do what two of my good buddies did in high school a couple of years ago. They were in a robot competition (much akin to Battlebots, but smaller.) Somehow (I wasn't part of the building process, but I did see the final product,) they mounted a hard drive platter and used it as a type of spinning buzz-saw weapon. While I was not lucky enough to see it in action, I heard it was very successful in the early rounds but broke at some point.

Incidentally, another funny idea we once had was, we were just sitting around playing with a 1.25 floppy drive, popping a disk in and out. Somehow this lead us to replace the ejection springs so that when you popped out a disk it would fly out at a pretty good clip. Disk wars became the game of the day.

Re:Sweet!!

[robslimo]

They're kinda small on newer drives, but are quite strong, neodymium-iron-boron magnets.

OK, you see head assembly? At the opposite end from the heads, past the pivot point, there will be a plastic molded part with a coil of copper wire. You may not see it well 'cause it'll be obscured by the magnet assembly (a flat metal bracket with mounting flanges on each end).

Remove any fasteners on the magnet assembly; they're probably small Torx head screws. You'll also need to remove the head assembly by unscrewing it at the pivot point (or if you don't care about wrecking it more, just pry vigorously at the magnet assembly with a medium screwdriver).

Now, the magnets are epoxied to the metal brackets. To remove them with the least likelihood of breaking them, grip a flange end of the bracket with ViseGrips (locking pliers) or similar. Holding the pliers, strike the other flange end against a hard (concrete preferably) surface, gently at first and increasing in force until the magnet(s) pop off. If your using just enough force, they'll pop off and then snap back to the bracket.

Have fun!

-RatOmeter

Re:Sweet!!

[twoflower]

2.De-gauze with a powerful electro magnet.

That's degauss, actually. To de-gauze something would be to remove an outer covering or wrapping made of thin, absorbent silk or cotton material.

Spelling is important.

Re:Sweet!!

[drinkypoo]

Out of curiosity, what does the 1.25 in your floppy drive indicate? DSHD 5.25" floppies were 1.2MB. DSDD 3.5" were 720kB, 800kB or 880kB depending on format (PC, Mac, and Amiga respectively.) DHHD 3.5" are 1.44 (Mac, PC) or 1.7-something (Amiga). I've never seen a 1.25" floppy disk, though I guess they could exist.

Aw crap I just found a note saying that there was a 1.25MB format used in Japan. Oh well, guess that's what I get for not websearching first. I think I'll go ahead and hit submit anyway to save someone else the trouble of going through this :)

Re:Sweet!!

[RollingThunder]

secure waist disposal site

Is that another name for an exclusive gym?

Re:Sweet!!

[Ctrl-Z]

I'm not sure about you, but for me Gauss and gauze don't sound alike at all (except they both start with G).

Too bad...

[TopShelf]

I guess they could have used a more defensive tool to withstand the inevitable slashdotting...

Obvously the server got hit with one of these..

[SCSi]

Slashdotted already.. Probably had one of those 2 gig drives in it, and filled it full of apache logs.

Re:Obvously the server got hit with one of these..

[crass751]

Funny, I'm in a networking class, and the professor just got finished discussing the slashdot effect.

Re:Obvously the server got hit with one of these..

[iphayd]

You should have posted the website of his lecture notes. :)

WHY BOTHER?

[stratjakt]

OK, you know that some guys private webspace on his dsl connected linux server is going to be slashdotted within seconds.

So why not actually put SOMETHING in the submission that describes, in some way, WHAT THE SITE IS ABOUT?

"Check out what this crazy guy did with his computer!!!11!!!!11ROFLOL!"

It's an absolute waste of everyones time. Why even put shit like that on the front page?

Re:WHY BOTHER?

[merlin_jim]

OK, you know that some guys private webspace on his dsl connected linux server is going to be slashdotted within seconds.

So why not actually put SOMETHING in the submission that describes, in some way, WHAT THE SITE IS ABOUT?

Ironically, "Anonymous Coward" who posted this story left as his e-mail address "hddassaultcannon@hotmail.com"... So even though the submission is in the third person, it was obviously written by the guy that did this.

I mean come on, he had to have some kind of idea what would happen, right?

Re:WHY BOTHER?

[stratjakt]

So what did he do?

Build a catapult or air cannon that fires hard drives?

Modify a hard drive to fire some sort of projectile?

Make a scale replica of a WWII era Howitzer using old hard drives?

Who knows?

It annoys me cuz this is the kind of geeky shit I actually like reading about and discussing. Who cares about the latest round of RIAA threats or MSFT hiring some goober? This could well be a neat lil project dude has going, but I'll never know.

When people submit something like this, why can't they submit a descriptive little write up, and why can't slashdot hold a jpeg or two in the story text?

And why can't editors just flat out refuse non-descript submissions like this, which consist of nothing more than a hyperlink to some guys little home server?

I mean, it's not hard to scope out a webserver and come to the conclusion that it's hosted on junk that isn't up to the task.

Re:WHY BOTHER?

[RLW]

Can't one force a cache on google? Try searching for the exact URL in quotes on google. Then when it comes back with "If it's a valid URL then click here..." then click there. Then search for the term again in Google and the new URL will show up in the list. Then it will be chached over the next cycle. Then post to slash to the cached pages.

Re:WHY BOTHER?

[Tribbin]

Or the poster created an account for receiving mail about this story.

Re:WHY BOTHER?

[gooberguy]

Who cares about the latest round of RIAA threats or MSFT hiring some goober?

I resent that!

Re:WHY BOTHER?

[goatpunch]

...it was obviously written by the guy that did this. I mean come on, he had to have some kind of idea what would happen, right?

I'm sure he knew exactly what could happen- maybe he feels like more of a complete geek now that he's been slashdotted. I'm sure his imaginary friends are impressed at any rate.

Sigh

[dolo666]

So now that our laptops are going to be classified as weapons, us Geeks are even closer to being chained to the desk, sadly enough. This is not funny, because I just chewed through my posie straps last week, and managed to roam the floor above me. Now that my laptop is a deadly weapon, I guess I should go re-tie those knots and just give up.

Yawn --slashdotted

[VC]

I can see all the cookie cutter jokes about being slashdotted already.

Let me see.
"must have used the webservers 2gb hdd"
"must have back fired"
"hard drives now replacing RAM disks"

etc...

Re:Yawn --slashdotted

[Rew190]

Yes, and of course the only thing more predictable about the cookie cutter jokes are the the cookie cutter posts forecasting the pending cookie cutter jokes.

Slashdotted - DYN-DNS

[Anonymous Coward]

kicks-ass.net is a free subdomain from dyndns.org - bet he's having some surfing issues right about now...

Re:Slashdotted already?

[greenskyx]

kicks-ass.net is a domain one of the free dynamic DNS places use. It's probably hosted on someones DSL... :P

slashdotted

[t1nman33]

You may have a hard drive assault cannon, but your web server crumbles before the /. assault cannon!

kicks-ass.net?

[nukem1999]

Isn't that one of those free redirect services that people generally use to point to their cable/DSLed home machines? He's probably so slashdotted that he can't open slashdot to see that he's been slashdotted.

Slashdotted Bad.

[Pirogoeth]

This site was already /.ed while it was still in the "Mysterious Future".

Whose turn was it to warn the linked sites today?

Re:Slashdotted already?

[potus98]

"Mommy, why did the RJ-45 face plate burst out of the wall in a show of sparks?"

Re:Slashdotted already?

[Shakrai]

kicks-ass.net is a domain one of the free dynamic DNS places use. It's probably hosted on someones DSL... :P

(104):tim@pigeon:{11:45}:~# host hddcannon.kicks-ass.net
hddcannon.kicks-ass.net has address 202.0.40.113
(105):tim@pigeon:{11:45}:~# host 202.0.40.113 113.40.0.202.IN-ADDR.ARPA domain name pointer 202-0-40-113.adsl.paradise.net.nz
(106):tim@pigeon:{11:45}:~#

Poor bastard. Wonder if New Zealand ISPs have hidden clauses in the AUP to axe your account if you use too much bandwidth?

It's too bad...

[CSArcticFox]

That I'm at school, because they filtered that website. *lol*

Re:Slashdotted already?

[brunson]

What are all the other New Zealanders doing while he's using the internet connection?

Makes you think....

[nickochee]

Either their site was really horrible, or we are just getting better at /.ing!

Re:Slashdotted already?

[Burianski11]

You mean it USED to be hosted on someone's DSL...

Re:Slashdotted already?

[Shakrai]

What are all the other New Zealanders doing while he's using the internet connection?

Hahahaha, that's wrong. Wrong, yet still funny :) I hear New Zeland's internet access is much improved since they upgraded the backbone to the v.92 standard.

Re:Slashdotted already?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want to know. It involves sheep and petroleum products.

If you want an effective killzone...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you will need a 7200RPM or greater drive.

What the dyndns person should do after about

[Anonymous Coward]

5 minutes is remove the site and put a simple HTTP redirect to TubGirl ;)

Alternate Site?

[Like2Byte]

Hrm, I went to http://hddcannon.ass-kicked.net/ and got the same result.

Re:Slashdotted already?

[Hogwash McFly]

What are all the other New Zealanders doing while he's using the internet connection?

Working on Peter Jackson's The Hobbit

sick

[Tiro]

I think this is kind of sick.

After all I'm still using a laptop with a 1.2 GB disk. Precious disk space!

HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[Anonymous Coward]

Could slashdot just add a link next to articles called "mirror" and pre-cache these smaller sites *before* they get hammered? I'm constantly scrolling through comments to find mirrors to slashdotted sites. Seems like a no-brainer. You could even do a 15-sec stress test on the site to determine it's ability to be directly linked.

Several times, i've seen sites that have had to shut down their site with a "please check back later" message. An inconvenience to us, but surely a REAL inconvenience to their normal viewers.

Thoughts? Thank you.

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[Shakrai]

I think the Slashdot FAQ talks about this and why it's a bad idea (content out of date, copyright issues, etc etc). Most sites would probably have a Google cache.

In this particular case it's the submitters fault for sending in a website hosted on a friggen DSL account -- and the editors fault for letting that submission get by them.

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[Typoboy]

If the editors checked to see that this was (a) dyndns to (b) a dsl account, they could have replied to the "AC" and asked them to host it somewhere else first.. (whatever "it" is)

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[Syberghost]

A better fix would be to mark all astroturf submissions "denied".

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[CaptnMArk]

I have said before. What we need is a P2P distributed browser cache.

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[1u3hr]

Most sites would probably have a Google cache.

Mostly useless in stories like this (picture galleries) as the Google cache only caches the text -- the images are still referenced from the original site. The Wayback Machine is always worth trying, they do cache images (though not all) but they spider much less frequently.

and the editors fault for letting that submission get by them.

You say that as if they actually had a policy not to link to such sites. They don't. They don't bother to run submissions through a spellcheck, let alone see if the links are stable, or even exist at all.

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[azav]

YES. It appears that we need a bittorrent browser plugin client for /.

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[Scottarius]

why is it there is a post like this in every single story that gets slashdotted? I get tired of seeing this same discussion over and over and over again. Maybe slashdot should put a great big link at the top of the homepage that says "WHY WE DON'T MIRROR SITES" that links directly to the FAQ. I'm sure at least a few people would notice it...

Re:HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM

[DustMagnet]

A better fix would be to mark all astroturf submissions "denied".

Why mark them denied? When they could be DELETED!!.

Weep for all the lost magnets

[G4from128k]

I prefer to disassemble old HDs. The voice coils and spindle motors tend to contain insanely strong rare earth magnets. And the platters make pleasant wind chimes (especialy if you have a mix of 3.5", 5", and 8" platters). I suppose one could also get a few bucks from the cast aluminum anclosures.

Re:Gone already...

[pavon]

Farked...erm...I mean Slashdotted...at only 4 comments.

Actually, this site was already slashdotted before it even went live. I am a subscriber and couldn't even get to it. Maybe the guy has some sort of grudge against his ISP, posting a DSL hosted site like that. Or maybe he is a troll - posted just to see the bitching in the thread. Or perhaps he is just an attention starved fool, pretending to be submitting someone elses site when it is really his own.

Slashdotted? How about Cachedotted?

[erroneus]

Given that mention of any given web site often spells doom for anything but the most rugged servers and the biggest of pipes, Slashdot should come up with a web site cache tool that would hold the story/article/pages for us.

Okay, google does that for us, so why not link to the Google page rather than the actual site?

Good idea!

[Mr Z]

2. De-gauze with a powerful electro magnet.

Yes, you always want to remove the gauze from your hard-drive before destroying it. Otherwise, it might catch on fire during the melting step (#4). I'm sure Karl Freidrich appreciates the hint.

--Joe

Re:It's not slashdotted...

[Shakrai]

Yeah they either shut off their webserver or they got kicked off that IP address due to the flood and some other poor bastard was assigned it. If this is the case then I really pity that guy.

(109):tim@pigeon:{11:49}:~# telnet 202.0.40.113 80
Trying 202.0.40.113...
telnet: connect to address 202.0.40.113: Connection refused
(110):tim@pigeon:{11:49}:~#

Again I say this was a publicity stunt (look at the e-mail address from the "Anonymous Coward" that submitted the article). Guess it's a slow news day and we need something to occupy our time with -- (Deity) knows we wouldn't be actually working on company time now would we? ;) (myself as guilty as the rest of you)

Re:FARK IS NOT A WORD

[cowens]

Um, I think the word you are thinking if is frell not fark. www.fark.com is a news/link farm site like Slashdot.

Slashdot Koan

[Paulrothrock]

If a site is Slashdotted before you have a chance to see it, does it even exist?

Only the beginning!

[StefanJ]

In the near future we can look forward to:

• 8MB USB memory stick squad support weapon
• 300 baud modem area denial munition (land mine)
• 12" CGA Monitor implosion bomb
• Utility tool with sharpened 256kb SIMM blades

What's really amusing...

[Pvt_Waldo]

Is that not one post has been mod'ed up about the actual project - just the /. effect ;^)

Re:What's really amusing...

[t_allardyce]

I don't think anyone has actually seen the project to comment about it, i dont even know how the weapon works!?

Re:What's really amusing...

[PrintError]

Probably because it was /.'d before anyone actually saw it!!!

Re:FARK IS NOT A WORD

[Tackhead]

> > Farked.
>
> Okay, this is a serious pet peeve. Fark is not a word, never was, never will be, STOP USING IT unless you want to be placed in the same category as lusers who make the Vulcan "V" sign.
>
>Farscape was a TV show, not "reality", and the only reason the word was "invented" was because Scifi didn't want the rating level increase that would come with characters actually properly swearing. If you're gonna swear, swear properly.

Obvious: It's not news, IT'S FARKDOT!

Amusing: Drew sues Farscape producers. Claims trademark infringement. Hilarity ensues.

Unlikely: Geek submits Slashdot article about own website hosted on DSL and expects web server to remain unfarked long enough for someone to get a mirror.

Photoshop: Theme - an HDD assault cannon, a web server, a guy who doesn't know what Fark means. Difficulty - no Baby Head on Darl McBride's body.

imagine...

[larrylemur]

A beowulf cluster of these! Mwah hah hah hah!

Yep

[Sycraft-fu]

Normally, I have nothing but sympathy for people like that. I run servers on my DSL too and dread getting linked by ./. I defend against this by having nothing interesting on my servers :)

However this guy I have NO sympathy for since the e-mail address strongly suggests that the person that made it was the one that submitted it. That qualifies as a Grade-A bonehead move if you asked me. I mean sure, maybe not everyone realises the full impace of a ./ing but if you read the site enough to submit something, you ought to have an idea that 256k isn't going to cut it for serving up lots of pictures and videos.

Another HDD hack

[jkazor]

I find HDD mechanical hacks to be intriguing. I have often thought it would be cool to make RC cars out of old Hard Drives and have races.

Mechanically, the hack would be pretty straightforward: To to drive the wheels, attach a worm gear to the disk shaft. To operate the steering, utilize the arm that guides the disk head.

I am not sure, however, how to interface with an RC transmitter. Any ideas?

Re:Another HDD hack

[mrelectricocean]

electronic steering servo on top of the disk? maybe... that could control the steering by being attatched to the arm and would also be able to have a receiver plugged into it! i thought about that way too much... i shouldn't have... *hangs head in shame and walks away*

Re:Another HDD hack

[drinkypoo]

It is not trivially done because the motor in a hard drive is a stepper motor, which means it has a couple wires for power and some wires for data, and you can generally read their position (not true of all of them) as well as tell them to move n steps forward or backwards, or just continually feed it pulses to tell it to step. This functionality is used to maintain a constant rotational speed without having to build a (relatively) high power motor control circuit onto the PC board, instead controlling the motor digitally and at low voltage and current levels.

RC radio receivers control servos by varying signal pulse width to a servo, or was it by varying duty cycle? I forget but the point is that this signal is not going to be compatible with the control mechanism of either the stepper or the head control system (which is typically a voice coil, old-technology hard drives used steppers for seeking as well as for spinning the platters) so you're going to have to look up the data sheet on the drive stepper, and reverse engineer the voice coil driving the heads or look up the data sheet on the seek stepper, and design some circuit to sit in between the radio receiver and the hard drive and convert the appropriate inputs to the appropriate outputs.

For those who wonder why no/. cache...

[ferralis]

I did too... so I hit the faq, and discovered that this has been discussed at least for the last 4 years...

It's not out of small-mindedness or forgetfulness after all. Hrm... maybe we should cut the editors a small break once in a while? Nah, 'twould spoil the fun! :)

O'course, why a google cache couldn't be erected is another story...

Priceless!

[RLW]

This person knows now!

Is there any Linux on...

[AchilleTalon]

these HDDs? I'm seeking for a reason to resign as president of my local LUG...

Plan for world conquest

[Teahouse]

Detailed plan for world domination:

1. Build Hard Drive Assault Cannon

2. ?????

3. World Domination!

My God! It's so simple, it's brilliant!

Re:dumbass.

[cloudmaster]

That's the most awesome part - that some guy actually gets irritated when he thinks someone else is copying from a horrible show. Like everyone watches "Farscape", and everyone likes it *sooo* much that they'd start using made-up words from said show.

Tacos. Burning Tacos. I need a .sig that mentions burning Tacos somehow... Yeah.

MIRROR*

[bhtooefr]

Imagine the bitching if it were a simple text-only "how-to" article.

Hard Drive Assault Cannon HOWTO

1 Introduction

This HOWTO aims to show how to manufacture a hard drive assault cannon.

2 Materials

You will need:

* One (1) or more hard drives, preferrably 3.5", and of unusably small capacity
* One (1) 4.50" ID PVC pipe, length must be at least one foot
* One (1) explosive device, any form
* Materials for explosive device to PVC pipe interface

3 Assembly

Somehow attach the PVC pipe to the explosive device in such a manner that most of the force enters the PVC pipe. Insert the hard drive into the PVC pipe.

4 Usage

Detonate the explosive device. The hard drive should exit the pipe, and move through the air. To use again, the cannon must be reassembled (as per step 3).

*Note: This isn't a real mirror, do not assume this is actually the mirror.

Re:MIRROR*

[dot-magnon]

Where's that in DocBook? :)

Another day, another bandwidth article

[DR SoB]

How many articles are going to be posted about the slashdotting effect? What's that? This wasn't about the slashdotting effect? Then WHAT'S WITH ALL THE COMMENTS??!?!!

Re:FARK IS NOT A WORD

[joebok]

It isn't? Feldercarb!!

Re:Slashdotted already?

[DHR]

It's worse than that, they charge you for the extra bandwidth, up to 20 cents per international MB.

http://www2.paradise.net.nz/plans/highspeed.html

Guy probably pulled the plug on his line once he did the math and realized maybe it wasn't such a good idea to post himself on /.

I call grammar-Goodwin!

[Thud457]

Whoa , that grammar-NAZI is sure giving you woe for your poor use of grammar!!!

heed the .sig...

Re:FARK IS NOT A WORD

[blincoln]

Okay, this is a serious pet peeve. Fark is not a word, never was, never will be, STOP USING IT unless you want to be placed in the same category as lusers who make the Vulcan "V" sign.

Farscape was a TV show, not "reality", and the only reason the word was "invented" was because Scifi didn't want the rating level increase that would come with characters actually properly swearing. If you're gonna swear, swear properly.

You know, SuperBanana, there are plenty of decaffeinated brands that are just as tasty as the real thing.

Re:Slashdotted? How about Cachedotted?

[IceAgeComing]

The Slashdot FAQ is an interesting read.

I recommend it to all those reading this post, especially those who moderated this post as Insightful.

Re:FARK IS NOT A WORD

[monkeyfinger]

Okay, this is a serious pet peeve. Fark is not a word, never was, never will be, STOP USING IT unless you want to be placed in the same category as lusers who make the Vulcan "V" sign.

Luser is not a word, never was, never will be, STOP USING IT unless.....etc...etc..

We already have an HDD assault cannon...

[Feanturi]

It's called Slashdot, and it worked again. ;)

Re:Slashdotted? How about Cachedotted?

[Fastolfe]

I've read the FAQ and I don't buy it. I believe it's mainly laziness preventing the implementation of some caching layer here, combined with the cost of bandwidth they'd normally be able to shovel in the direction of the site the article is talking about.

So long as the cache/mirror honors HTTP caching headers, there's no true problem caching the information. Banner ads are usually served without caching headers (or with a must-revalidate header) to trigger a hit to the origin server, so they get credit for the impression. Real content usually (if the admin is clueful) expresses caching headers indicating the page can be held on to for a longer period of time. If the author is paranoid about people seeing his updates, a max-age of 1 minute or even 10 seconds would still spare his site from being slashdotted. If a good slashdotting results in, say, 100 hits per second, that's at least 1000 hits to the cache/proxy for every one hit the cache/proxy makes to his server. Not a bad reduction.

Of course, sites are always free to say "don't cache this page!" in HTTP, preventing any sort of proxy or cache from "legally" caching the page even for a short duration. If they're being dumb like that, though, they deserve the slashdotting they get.

Disposal is much more fun in an emergency

[John Jorsett]

I worked at a DoD site once. If we were in danger of being overrun by the enemy (since it was in Hawaii, I guess that'd be either the North Koreans, China, or the Japanese out for a little payback), we were supposed to haul the crypto gear and all storage media out to the parking lot, smack the hell out of it with sledges, pile thermite on top and melt it into slag. I was sorely disappointed that I never got the opportunity.

Waste of perfectly useful hd's.

[DoraLives]

I cobble computers together from giveaway parts and 2gig hd's are PERFECT for putting into FREE machines to give to folks as their first computer (yep, there's still great shoals of people out there who have yet to take the FIRST step).

Sigh...

Mine is twice as good

[chiph]

My hard drive cannon is twice as good because I use 4gb drives.

None of those wimpy IDE drives, either -- I use Ultra-Wide SCSI drives (the extra circuitry makes them fly further).

Chip H.
(isn't one-upsmanship fun?)

OT: Security!?

[Alioth]

OT, but I note you ran all this as root (or at least the # prompt indicates the logged in user has root privileges).

It is generally best practise to only do things as root that need to be done as root. Things like running 'host' don't - so as good security practise, you should have done this as a non-root user!

even worse

[ChartBoy]

202-0-40-113.adsl.paradise.net.nz

Even worse, we just /.'d New Zealand.