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Green Tea Cleans Hard Drive Heads
mprindle writes "Wired.com has an article announcing that a 'study of the use of green tea extracts for polishing the magnetic heads in hard-disk drives has yielded a compound that works three to four times faster than conventional compounds. If the findings can be reproduced in an industrial setting, the compound could reduce the cost and environmental impact of hard-drive manufacturing.' And you just thought that green tea was good to drink."
I always knew green tea was meant for something other than drinking.
It's nasty stuff.
Silly rabbit
antioxidant
This could only prompt me to ask them: One Lump or Two? [WHACK WHACK]
And you just thought that green tea was good to drink.
No, not really.
And here I thought green tea was only to clean your...uh... "internal soft drives"...
Considering that bio-active materials like green tea (yum!) decay and eventually become unusable and must be disposed of properly, doesn't it make more sense to stick with chemicals which, though bad for the environment, do not decay or degrade and can be used in a specific task indefinitely?
Add to this the fact that landfills are full of "biodegradable" waste which because of the lack of oxygen in the area are unable to break down. It makes far more sense to go with a material which can be reused and/or recycled. Bio-degradable sometimes ain't.
I have been pwned because my
Er.. so obviously you've never heard of a Tea Strainer before.. its just like a sieve but smaller :)
:)
Much how like Seinfeld said that drinking coffee results in having a lot of accessories to go with it, tea drinkers have similar accessories
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
If green tea is all that good, just imagine when they try beer!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tea
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?!
Oh... umm... Nevermind.
Aren't these stories supposed to be for *April* 1st? :)
There appears to be an innovation that may make HD production more efficient. So far so good. How is this made more relevant by the fact that it involves a chemical compount also found in green tea?
See here, the story has been out for some time. It would be nice if production companies could be structures for innovations such as this to become immediately useful. As things are, this is not the case.
might as well use coke.
Yeah, hemp, it's good for "heads."
computer repair people drink tea.
Next thing you know, they'll be telling us green tea is good for your HEALTH, too.
mouth-clean
throat- clean
digestive tract - clean
nasal cavity - clean if not swallowed properly.
teeth - green.
- there's a big lobby in the Midwest pushing for legalization and legimate use of an untapped cash crop... maybe another use here? :-)
they have bee cleaning hard drives in china with green tea for a thousand years...
I think this is a joke, some kind of May Fools day.
Temple of Heaven brand china green tea "Special Gunpowder". Best way to make sure RIAA or FBI can't get your data! Good taste too! You drink now!
Thats right... All the tea!
(family guy, for the ones without humor)
So, perhaps if production is cheaper (I bet tea is cheaper than chemical compunds), then maybe HDD prices will drop a bit? Or maybe margins will increase for PC part sales. Bah.
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When I visited the U.S.S.R. in 1988 our assigned 'tour propagandist' in Samarkand, Uzbekistan informed us that the green tea was drunk in part to prevent strontium-90 poisoning. gg Communist science bureau!
I hate Grammar Nazi's
3.3 GHz CPU
2.0 GB HD with SFGTFOP1 polished heads...
And charge a fortune for the privilege!
Of course one will have to be trained in the art of HDD Cleaning Ceremony by being taken on as an apprentice.
Oh HDD-Cleaning-Master san, when can I clean my own HDDs?
First you must learn the art of Master and Slave settings only then can you learn the art of HDD Cleaning.
This process is gentler to the components that make green tea such a wonderful beverage. Earl Grey, Ceylon, Bo Lei, and whatever other brown or black tea have been pan-fried or dry-heated to stop the natural oxidation process.
Steaming preserves the EGCG , which is being studied for it's anti-bacterial and cancer fighting properties, and also L-Theanine , which gives real green tea it's flavour and purportedly induces Alpha waves and tranquility in the brain.
Ounce per ounce, Steamed green tea contains more polyphenols than red wine or grape seed extract.
I have an anxiety problem, and had to swear off coffee a few years ago. No caffeine in any form for me, until I stumbled upon japanese green tea. All tea contains caffeine , but it is about 1/2 the amount in the same serving of coffee. The added benefit of the L-Theanine practically cancels out the effect of caffeine on the body and in the brain.
I start the day with a cup of thin matcha (do two of these and can you say "420"?) , then a cup of Gyokuro and in the evening some nice genmai cha.
Unfortuneatly, green tea is only harvested 4 times per year in Japan. Green tea is very perishiable, and is best when fresh. The bags you can purchase in asian groceries here in the U.S. of A. have been sitting on shelves too long and taste like crap. (Bonus note: all the decaffeinated 'green' teas you can purchase in regular supermarkets will not taste like the real thing, pretty bitter and bland. There is no decaffeinating process that doesn't kill all the good things about green tea. Fresh green tea is naturally sweet and not bitter when prepared correctly.)
Interested? I purchase all my teas from here.
Wait, What?
That could really help with hard drives.
... I'm allergic to tea.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
Does regular or decaffeinated matter?
On a humorous note, will caffeinated green tea make the hard drive faster?
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
But wouldn't the teeine prevent the hd from going into sleep mode?
but I've found that I can actually get better results by soaking my hard drive overnight in coca-cola.
"And you just thought that green tea was good to drink."
;-)
Actually I always thought it tastes like dishwater. Good to see it might at least be of some use.
Some here are jumping to the conclusion that this will pollute less.
Until somebody spends another $1 million of our taxes (read: NSF grant) in doing the net impact calculation, consider this:
1. More land dedicated to grow green tea = less uncultivated land, less *nature*, as they say
2. Fertilizer & pesticide for green tea, and all of the petrochemicals that went into it
3. Fuels and other energies used to sow, harvest, clean, store & transport green tea
4. Chemical processes to refine bioactive compounds out of the tea itself
And I have not even mentioned the fuels used to create the wealth that is going to get taxed in order to pay for the agricultural subsidies that (of course!) are eventually going to be given to growers of green tea.
The next pasture is always greener
sounds like one of those stupid John C. Dvorak articles that are supposed to be funny bet aren't.
[FromTheMorning]
I use green tea extracts for washing my head all the time!
I should have RTFA first.
Now they'll come out with a whole line of holistic tech support.
"Coming Soon -- a new Ginko Biloba extract to double your RAM!"
Hey, thank you for a very useful post. I undoubtedly have no idea how green tea is supposed to taste, and I will definitely try your source for tea.
>> And you just thought that green tea was good to drink."
It is?
And don't let your friends see you hanging around the Celestial Seasonings tea section at the grocer's....
Reminds me this story that my dad told me, who's worked on big systems back in the 50's and 60's working as an aerospace employee, back when they were still using magnetic cores. They had been having major problems with the core overheating. Somehow, and don't ask me how, they figured out that Wildroot Cream Oil was the perfect coolant, and the core worked like a charm from then on.
Guess they figured it out in much the same way they figured out green tea cleans heads really well!
-R
And the tannic acid also has the wonderful ability of leaching the calcium from your bones, and impairing the body's iron absorption. After living in Japan for 3+ years, where they drink green tea like we drink soda pop, I saw thousands of grandmas that had osteoporosis so bad that their upper spine could't go above parallel with the ground.
So for green tea, we know that it:
1) Contains chemicals that are effective in cleaning hard drives,
2) Contains tannic acid, which can cause calcium and iron deficiencies, AND is used in softening animal hides,
3) Contains caffiene, which has many health side-effects, even more numerous than tannic acid.
I don't see why anyone would want to drink this stuff!
Does this mean we can do away with the hard drive SMART technology and read those tea leaves instead, to predict when the hard drive will fail?
And you just thought that green tea was good to drink.
No I didn't. I thought it tasted like an industrial solvent. Looks as though I was right.
Edith Keeler Must Die
those slant-eye gooks will take over the green tea market and control the US technology sector. motherfucker, we need to invade bejing and kill those dogeaters before they take over the Land of Liberty.
In his interview at Salon a couple weeks ago, Neal Stephenson wrote, "Every culture can be kind of defined by what they drink in order to avoid dying of diarrhea. In China it's tea. In Africa it's milk or animal blood. In Europe it was wine and beer."
I didn't realize the same would apply to hard drive cleaning...
This sig intentionally left justified.
Green tea has so much health benefits (we all know about it) so now the scientists decided "hey... we're out of compound, lets try green tea!" and HURRAY! it does wonders on hardware also. is there anything tea can't do?
What's next? A high colonic for your power supply?
... you can use your old motor oil to fertilize your lawn!
So you can use cola to clean your car engine and now green tea for your hard drive. . . no wonder I have an ulcer, next a study will show that doritos can take out hard to clean stains. . . ah well green tea anyone?
"Napalm is nature's toothpaste" - Chef Brian
Forty Green Tea bags from local Dollar Store, $1.
Five or six large capacity hard drives, $1,000.
Recieving a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund the project, priceless...
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
Wired got scooped on this by a couple days by The New Scientist, if you want to read about it there.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
...now my green tea is going to go up in price. Looks like I'll have to drink it even weaker than I do now.
You'd make a great lawyer for a lobby group.
You can make just about anything sound dangerous with enough creative context. The Dihydrogen Monoxide schtick hazardous materials report makes the rounds fairly regularly.
Let's look at a popular North American beverage, Cola (insert your favorite brand):
1) Contains a chemical mixture that is used as an effective vaginal hygeine douche.
2) Contains Phosphoric acid, which has been known to cause decalcification of teeth, which coupled with the carbonation can result in dry socket and/or tooth loss.
"3) Contains caffiene, which has many health side-effects, even more numerous than tannic acid."
4) Contains Dihydrogen Monoxide -- Don't get me started on how dangerous that stuff is.
All points are more or less true, but point #1 alone should be enough reason
There are many things one can do which are tranquil, or feel good, even feel orgasmically good, but which result in reducing one's life to a few short years of suffering. Having a drink beside a stream in a bamboo forest is undoubtedly tranquil and refreshing. But it doesn't mean green tea is as good for you as it is for the smoothness of magnetic heads of hard drives.
I also droped my Palm in a coffee... but it still works. Thanks Ford my coffee was not too hot...
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance." Isaac Asimov
1) Contains a chemical mixture that is used as an effective vaginal hygeine douche. Nope. You hurt my little brain with that one so I just had to look it up. http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/sperm.asp
"I should have RTFA first."
I won't have that kind of talk in here, young mister!
Well it sorta makes sense in a, I just got beat over the head, drunk from a coma not quite kind of way. "pure" tea is a modest cleaner for fabric, theirfor expenisive plastic shit (aka a HDD) is ok to clean with tea. Well at least it smells 1000000000000000 times better than that shit some idjut at WorstBuy had me get.
In Chinese restaurants, waiters pour a bit of the leftover tea onto the table to clean it. They say it works much better than plain water. Ho gon-jeng! (very clean)
Actually, Coke is not the "wonder drink" it's been made out to be. On Mythbusters (Discovery channel), it was disproved that coke can degrease an enginer, tenderize meat, and some other stuff.
However, it is a great drink!
There's never enough when you have too little
You make it sound as if green tea was some specific and specialized plant, different from all other teas.
It's not.
Green tea is simply tea leaves that have been dried without being oxidized or fermented. And considering that tea for human consumption is only taken from the top parts of the leaves of a tea tree, if they start gathering leaves from the less desirable parts, everybody wins.
no no, they want to clean them, not distroy them.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
There was some poor sod after 9/11 (I think thie was in England). He had a package of Gunpowder Tea, and they wouldn't let him take it on the airplane for fear that it might be explosive. They did, however, finally relent, and let him take it on but without the package. It was one of the candidates for stupidest security measures.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Oh, never mind.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
1. More land dedicated to grow green tea = less uncultivated land, less *nature*, as they say
*That* much more green tea would need to be grown, for this special purpose...? Pretty unlikely. More so to be repurposed from, say, somebodys' last-year-unprofitable potato field, or whatever.
2. Fertilizer & pesticide for green tea, and all of the petrochemicals that went into it
Um, you can grow plants with chicken shit, if you want to. Works really well. Pesticides too, if you want, can be non-petrochemical (while I have no idea whether green tea, not for human consumption, is a high-pesticide-requirement crop or not; am pretty sure you have no idea either.)
While no petrochemicals are used in producing other cleansers, of course.
3. Fuels and other energies used to sow, harvest, clean, store & transport green tea
Unlike other cleaners, which require no fuel to produce, store, and transport.
4. Chemical processes to refine bioactive compounds out of the tea itself
Ditto
And I have not even mentioned the fuels used to create the wealth that is going to get taxed in order to pay for the agricultural subsidies that (of course!) are eventually going to be given to growers of green tea.
This is just silly. Insightful? Sheesh. Would think it's a joke, were it funny; must be a troll.
Seriously, did ya actually think about the content of what was said, or did it just sound kinda impressive and pseudo-scholarly...?
Besides, in general if you're against agricultural subsidies then finding industrial uses for plants is a Good Idea. For instance consider the timber and paper industry. Plants-->industrial products, without agricultural subsidies.
I polish my head daily.
It's May 1st. Not April 1st.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Caller: My computer doesn't work, I can't find my files.
BOFH: Humn, yes, the problem is that your hard drive needs cleaning. So here is what you are gonna do: Take some green tea...
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I'm still not entirely clear how moderating works, (and I'm on my 2nd round of being able to moderate) but if you splurged all of your points to be able to give me 5, you rock!
I'm mulling the idea that you might be an editor, if the above assumption of points is true and the fact that I went from bad karma to positive :)
Wait, What?
Shouldn't that be
According to Larry Niven, Freeman Dyson had no trouble believing in the ringworld
or maybe:
Freeman Dyson (Freeman Dyson!) had no trouble believing in the Ringworld --Larry Niven (cite)
Unattributed quotes make you look weak, dude. Some of us read.