Yeah, was working on the same thing with thermite. Arguably does a better job at ensuring total destruction of the platters than a high explosive. Just needed a ceramic casing to contain it long enough to melt the whole drive into slag.
A friend and I did some experiments that looked pretty promising. I'll have to post some video someday. Of course, we didn't have any actual use for such drives personally.. it was more just an excuse to melt scrap hardware into slag.
Have you tried accepting credit cards directly? You'll still get a $10 fee for chargebacks. *IF* you're not dealing with a high-risk industry, PayPal's not all that bad. I've received hundreds of PayPal shopping cart purchases from customers in 24 countries, and have had only one minor problem.
Yes, they charge more - over 3% on most of my transactions - but there's no monthly fee. I'm just now getting enough sales volume to make it worth switching to a regular merchant account with a 2.02% discount rate (plus $0.27/transaction). PayPal's an easy, low-overhead way to get started.
That said, their customer service sucks big time. Got ripped off by a vendor and discovered that even if you receive an empty package that's good enough for them. They won't do anything to the vendor. And it's damn near impossible to get a human on the phone.
If you're looking to get a merchant account, I'd suggest checking out MerchantPlus.com. I'm only using them for payment gateway service, but they've been very responsive. I had my account set up less than an hour after sending a message, and got an immediate response to support questions. I can't say the same for most of the other outfits I checked with.
A lot of it comes down to the customers you're dealing with. Some people are never satisfied, and in certain industries you can expect people to try to rip you off. Caveat vendor.
Yeah, but if sea critters are dumb enough to choke on six-pack holders, introducing them to hundreds of feet of tough mylar tape is probably a bad idea.
Re:You cannot go tape-dropping without casettes...
on
Cassette Tapes On The Wane
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Speaking of dropping tapes, we once had a DLT 4 tape go bad, so out of boredom I pried the cover off and wedged the corner of the cartridge in one of the ceiling panels so that the tape could freely despool.
Now, I have no idea how long one of those tapes actually is, but it's LONG. The thing was fluttering away for quite a while, building up a huge pile of loose tape on the floor.
All of this got me thinking - what would happen if you tossed one of these out of a plane at 10,000 feet? Would the air resistance be enough that it'd break before unwinding? Would it unwind all the way before hitting the ground? Does mylar tape show up on radar?
I might be tempted to try it someday if it weren't for the potential to drape over power lines and start a fire or choke wildlife...
Ok, we've got thousands of desperate and dateless geeks here. We're always complaining about the way corporate America manipulates public opinion through advertising and devious PR. And as a group we've proved the ability to raise millions of dollars for geek causes.
Anyone see where I'm going with this?
And can anyone suggeest a national PR firm that accepts PayPal?
"1- No messages from the SIPRNET are transmitted over the internet"
I didn't say Internet, I said unclassified networks. NIPRNET is not the Internet. TACLANEs ARE used over the NIPRNET.
"#2- The secure facilities that you mention are...nothing like what you mention"
See my other reply about SCIFs, with the link to the physical security requirements. As for the conduit requirements and such, that's common in less secure facilities like where you might find SIPRNET. Don't have the relevant standards documents handy, but I can dig 'em up if you'd like.
"I'm afraid the ruling bodies in the DoD simply do not watch THAT many movies"
Pressurizing conduits tells you if there's a break. The telephone company does it all the time. Fiber is used because you can get around some of the spacing requirements - there's no crosstalk. Depending on how secure the facility is there can also be requirements for how often you have to physically inspect all conduit, and what color the conduit has to be.
Even stuff classified at the 'Secret' level is kept on separate networks. If you find any SIPRNET traffic on unclassified networks, it's using NSA-approved encryption devices to tunnel traffic.
Of course, something as Earth-shattering as UFO proof wouldn't get anywhere near a computer only approved for 'Secret'. Think secure facilities with guards, shielded rooms and computers, and vaults. Where classified networks do exist, you'll see mandatory physical separation distances between cables to avoid crosstalk, heavy use of fiber optics, pressurized conduits, and so forth.
Fortunately I don't often have to deal with that stuff. As exciting and mysterious as classified data processing might sound, it's mostly boring and a freaking pain in the ass to deal with.
It's still easy to conceive of a situation where they wound up there by accident. Program gets cancelled, someone rounds up random abandoned stuff and throws it in storage, couple years later that area gets renovated and everything gets shuffled to another unused area, whoever's got the key retires and their successor never has any reason to access a bunch of junk and forgets all about it.
Hell, I've heard they've still got the Ark of the Covenant somewhere in one of those warehouses.;]
"Sounds to me like someone at NASA was building up their own private collection, and used a room they thought they had the only key to, not realizing there was a master key system in use."
I don't know about that. I work at a certain military facility, and in the building where I used to work there was a room way in the back of the basement, through two sets of locked doors, that used to contain a computer system I was responsible for and still had parts and manuals and such. I found out about it from someone who used to work there, and when I went to get access it was determined that not only did no one have access, but no one was even declared as being responsible for the area.
And this wasn't just a matter of not knowing who had the key. All the doors were tied into the central entry control system and there simply weren't any prox keys issued with access, aside from some master keys used by maintenance.
Keep in mind that this is a military base, and very few active duty types stick around for more than a few years in one assignment. The room in question was run by contractors, and hadn't been used over the span of a couple of contract transitions.
I did finally get access and found a whole rack of modems (1200 or 2400 baud, I forget) still powered up and ready. A power line monitor had run itself out of recording tape years before but kept going. To this day there are still racks of VAX spares and tape reels down there.
Oh, and it turned out at least one portion of that area WAS being accessed. Turns out the maintenance guys had figured out no one ever came down there and had turned an adjacent office area into their private lounge.
Anyway, never underestimate the ability of the government to lose things. Portions of buildings included.
"A lot of energy" is a relative term. They've got an energy density of what, about 160 watt/hours per kilogram? Compare that to more than 13,000 for gasoline.
Batteries just suck. When is someone going to invent Heinlein's Shipstone?
What's more, you don't even need to know how to run the copy to be 'saved'. As long as you've got everything stored, it's just a matter of waiting until someone figures it out. From your perspective, it'd be an instantaneous jump from the moment of being scanned to the moment that someone started executing the copy.
And anyone with this attitude really needs to read Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll". Guess what? Your garbage man can take exactly the same attitude. You're not really as powerful or indispensable as you probably think.
I sell a ham radio APRS tracking kit that's been used in quite a few of these balloons (though not by this particular group, to my knowledge) for GPS tracking and telemetry. My device has built-in temperature and voltage sensors, and can switch configurations (and trigger external devices like a cut-down) based on altitude, temperature, voltage, speed, and so forth.
My standard deal is 20% off for balloons and other educational uses. I also donate freebies from time to time for good causes.
Oh, and of course, it's all Open Source. BSD license. And the firmware's recently been rehosted on SourceForge.
Slashdot Mirror
*sigh*
It was a joke. We were equating the annoyance of poor spelling and grammar to that of stuck pixels in an LCD.
My SyncMaster 213T works just great, no stuck pixels at all.
"I think of it like a stuck pixel on an LCD around the edge of the screen."
Stuck pixel? STUCK PIXEL? My GOD, man! This is Slashdot! It's more like someone took a freaking 12 gauge shotgun to my poor 21" SyncMaster!
Yeah, was working on the same thing with thermite. Arguably does a better job at ensuring total destruction of the platters than a high explosive. Just needed a ceramic casing to contain it long enough to melt the whole drive into slag.
A friend and I did some experiments that looked pretty promising. I'll have to post some video someday. Of course, we didn't have any actual use for such drives personally.. it was more just an excuse to melt scrap hardware into slag.
Have you tried accepting credit cards directly? You'll still get a $10 fee for chargebacks. *IF* you're not dealing with a high-risk industry, PayPal's not all that bad. I've received hundreds of PayPal shopping cart purchases from customers in 24 countries, and have had only one minor problem.
Yes, they charge more - over 3% on most of my transactions - but there's no monthly fee. I'm just now getting enough sales volume to make it worth switching to a regular merchant account with a 2.02% discount rate (plus $0.27/transaction). PayPal's an easy, low-overhead way to get started.
That said, their customer service sucks big time. Got ripped off by a vendor and discovered that even if you receive an empty package that's good enough for them. They won't do anything to the vendor. And it's damn near impossible to get a human on the phone.
If you're looking to get a merchant account, I'd suggest checking out MerchantPlus.com. I'm only using them for payment gateway service, but they've been very responsive. I had my account set up less than an hour after sending a message, and got an immediate response to support questions. I can't say the same for most of the other outfits I checked with.
A lot of it comes down to the customers you're dealing with. Some people are never satisfied, and in certain industries you can expect people to try to rip you off. Caveat vendor.
Yeah, but if sea critters are dumb enough to choke on six-pack holders, introducing them to hundreds of feet of tough mylar tape is probably a bad idea.
Speaking of dropping tapes, we once had a DLT 4 tape go bad, so out of boredom I pried the cover off and wedged the corner of the cartridge in one of the ceiling panels so that the tape could freely despool.
Now, I have no idea how long one of those tapes actually is, but it's LONG. The thing was fluttering away for quite a while, building up a huge pile of loose tape on the floor.
All of this got me thinking - what would happen if you tossed one of these out of a plane at 10,000 feet? Would the air resistance be enough that it'd break before unwinding? Would it unwind all the way before hitting the ground? Does mylar tape show up on radar?
I might be tempted to try it someday if it weren't for the potential to drape over power lines and start a fire or choke wildlife...
"Do they just order a delusionometer from a scientific supplies catalogue?"
I designed and built my own. It's the best ever built, and I'm undoubtedly the greatest delusionometer designer there is.
Ok, we've got thousands of desperate and dateless geeks here. We're always complaining about the way corporate America manipulates public opinion through advertising and devious PR. And as a group we've proved the ability to raise millions of dollars for geek causes.
Anyone see where I'm going with this?
And can anyone suggeest a national PR firm that accepts PayPal?
"1- No messages from the SIPRNET are transmitted over the internet"
...nothing like what you mention"
I didn't say Internet, I said unclassified networks. NIPRNET is not the Internet. TACLANEs ARE used over the NIPRNET.
"#2- The secure facilities that you mention are
See my other reply about SCIFs, with the link to the physical security requirements. As for the conduit requirements and such, that's common in less secure facilities like where you might find SIPRNET. Don't have the relevant standards documents handy, but I can dig 'em up if you'd like.
"I'm afraid the ruling bodies in the DoD simply do not watch THAT many movies"
Pressurizing conduits tells you if there's a break. The telephone company does it all the time. Fiber is used because you can get around some of the spacing requirements - there's no crosstalk. Depending on how secure the facility is there can also be requirements for how often you have to physically inspect all conduit, and what color the conduit has to be.
No, like a SCIF.
Of course, something as Earth-shattering as UFO proof wouldn't get anywhere near a computer only approved for 'Secret'. Think secure facilities with guards, shielded rooms and computers, and vaults. Where classified networks do exist, you'll see mandatory physical separation distances between cables to avoid crosstalk, heavy use of fiber optics, pressurized conduits, and so forth.
Fortunately I don't often have to deal with that stuff. As exciting and mysterious as classified data processing might sound, it's mostly boring and a freaking pain in the ass to deal with.
What, you expect US readers to be able to handle an exotic measurement like a cubic centimeter? Please.
(US readers: a cubic centimeter is a 'metric' measurement equivalent to about 1/44 jigger.)
It's still easy to conceive of a situation where they wound up there by accident. Program gets cancelled, someone rounds up random abandoned stuff and throws it in storage, couple years later that area gets renovated and everything gets shuffled to another unused area, whoever's got the key retires and their successor never has any reason to access a bunch of junk and forgets all about it.
;]
Hell, I've heard they've still got the Ark of the Covenant somewhere in one of those warehouses.
"Sounds to me like someone at NASA was building up their own private collection, and used a room they thought they had the only key to, not realizing there was a master key system in use."
I don't know about that. I work at a certain military facility, and in the building where I used to work there was a room way in the back of the basement, through two sets of locked doors, that used to contain a computer system I was responsible for and still had parts and manuals and such. I found out about it from someone who used to work there, and when I went to get access it was determined that not only did no one have access, but no one was even declared as being responsible for the area.
And this wasn't just a matter of not knowing who had the key. All the doors were tied into the central entry control system and there simply weren't any prox keys issued with access, aside from some master keys used by maintenance.
Keep in mind that this is a military base, and very few active duty types stick around for more than a few years in one assignment. The room in question was run by contractors, and hadn't been used over the span of a couple of contract transitions.
I did finally get access and found a whole rack of modems (1200 or 2400 baud, I forget) still powered up and ready. A power line monitor had run itself out of recording tape years before but kept going. To this day there are still racks of VAX spares and tape reels down there.
Oh, and it turned out at least one portion of that area WAS being accessed. Turns out the maintenance guys had figured out no one ever came down there and had turned an adjacent office area into their private lounge.
Anyway, never underestimate the ability of the government to lose things. Portions of buildings included.
Are you kidding? This has been shipping with the default load of MovieOS for YEARS!
"A lot of energy" is a relative term. They've got an energy density of what, about 160 watt/hours per kilogram? Compare that to more than 13,000 for gasoline.
Batteries just suck. When is someone going to invent Heinlein's Shipstone?
I don't get it. Where do the pigeons fit into this scheme?
Pff. I'll save my money for the Radeon 6502.
Must.... resist... urge to Google!
Yeah, she IS pretty hot. Too bad we don't have more people around trying to impress her these days. ;]
What's more, you don't even need to know how to run the copy to be 'saved'. As long as you've got everything stored, it's just a matter of waiting until someone figures it out. From your perspective, it'd be an instantaneous jump from the moment of being scanned to the moment that someone started executing the copy.
Could this be a related species, perhaps?
This is exactly why I don't let my PC watch TV.
And anyone with this attitude really needs to read Heinlein's "The Roads Must Roll". Guess what? Your garbage man can take exactly the same attitude. You're not really as powerful or indispensable as you probably think.
My standard deal is 20% off for balloons and other educational uses. I also donate freebies from time to time for good causes.
Oh, and of course, it's all Open Source. BSD license. And the firmware's recently been rehosted on SourceForge.