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Terry Pratchett's Hard Drive Destroyed By Steamroller (nytimes.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the commemorative-crush dept.

WheezyJoe writes: In accordance with his wishes, a hard drive formerly belonging to author Terry Pratchett has been crushed by steamroller. According to friend and fellow author Neil Gaiman, Pratchett (who died at 66 in 2015) wanted "whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all."

According to the article, on August 25, two years after the author's passing, Mr. Pratchett's estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on an official Twitter account they shared. The pictures posted suggest the steamroller was one powered by actual steam.
Minutes later they tweeted a photo of the crushed hard drive -- which will soon be displayed at the Salisbury Museum in England as part of their new exhibit on the life and work of Terry Pratchett.

10 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. That's ok because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The NSA will have a backup copy.

    1. Re: That's ok because by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fantasy author standard practice is to send a couple of Hobbits off to dump it in an active volcano.

  2. Wow! by kaizendojo · · Score: 4, Funny

    What kinda porn was *he* trying to hide???

    1. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      fan fiction involving Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax

    2. Re:Wow! by alexo · · Score: 4, Funny

      A proof that P != NP

    3. Re:Wow! by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Funny

      What kinda porn was *he* trying to hide???

      Turtle porn, all the way down.

  3. Re:That's the British for you... by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 4, Funny

    If he was American, he would have put a bullet through the hard drive.

    Pen testing physical security, eh?

    Guess he just wanted to see how the drive would perform under heavy load. That, or try a heavy duty tool to remove his Windows 10 spyw^H^H^H install (or was it systemd? Who knows).

  4. Re:That's one way to do it. by Dunbal · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hillary Clinton is furiously taking notes. For when hammers just won't do.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  5. Encrypt, pass out. by stooo · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't need no stinkin' steamroller.
    Use full disk encryption.
    May the passphrase be gone when you pass out.
    And yes, you can call it the "pass out phrase"

    --
    aaaaaaa
  6. Re:That's one way to do it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Whereas Donald Trump is trying to figure out which end of the pointy thing they gave him produces ink. And that's the just the start of his problems.