The Whiteboard

Ampt

9:01 PM

@MichaelT only 2 of us - so nothing can be too ugly.

t3chb0t

Thank you ;-) Yes, I know the X next to comments, I just didn't want to remove just mine. I would look strange then.

Ampt

which is probably why I'm not pitching a fit about using SVN. when we merge, we'll just copy and past code

user55340

Environmental variable would be my preference.

user41796

@t3chb0t meh. Anytime you can make Robert look like he's raving, you should pounce on the opportunity

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 bit of a creative approach; wonder if other forces could be used; if not heat, could cold be used?

user41796

9:05 PM

@JimmyHoffa I'm voting for chemical - Fluorine...

user55340

Btw, thank you @t3chb0t for working with us to get the question reopened. It's something we wish more people would do.

5

user41796

^^^ This

enderland

@MichaelT no we're monsters that like destroying things stop ruining that impression!

Jimmy Hoffa

@GlenH7 would that do it?

user41796

Where's the link MichaelT has posted a few times about not touching chemical compounds involving Flourine

Jimmy Hoffa

9:06 PM

@GlenH7 thinks I won't work with

user41796

Yeah, I'm pretty sure FOOF would shred the disk.

Jimmy Hoffa

What about radiation? An old school CT should do something I'd think

but I've no idea how that stuff interacts with an electrical field

Ampt

Personally I like to do things old school - hammer time!

@JimmyHoffa Hard drives? Badly.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Ampt you think radiation would destroy the readability of a platter?

user114359

@GlenH7 I am pretty sure FOOF will destroy anything: pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/…

user41796

9:11 PM

Next question - would the DoD sign off on the use of FOOF as a valid means of destroying a hard drive.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman I just like imagining that FOOF is named so because you set it on things and then FOOF!

Ampt

@JimmyHoffa Hard disks store information by polarizing a section of magnetic disk, so yeah, with a strong enough field, you're going to destroy that information

user114359

@JimmyHoffa use a drill press to put a few holes in the disk

Ampt

@GlenH7 Is the FOOF used up in the activity, or just a catalyst?

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman but the rest of the platters would still have readable bits

Ampt

9:12 PM

I imagine reusability to be a strong consideration in the whole thing.

user114359

@JimmyHoffa I mean put the whole drive under the drill press and put multiple holes through the entire enclosure

amon

@JimmyHoffa Depends on the radiation type, the amount, and probably not for anything you can get your hands on.

Jimmy Hoffa

@Snowman yes, but the platters still hold bits readable with magnetic tools

user41796

@Ampt I'd imagine it's consumed in the process as it's an oxidizer

Jimmy Hoffa

@amon aye; s'pose so

user55340

9:13 PM

Supernova neutrino flux!

Ampt

@Snowman we're talking about agents who would disassemble a wiped drive to hook it up to very, very sensitive equipment to look for signs of data

they will literally read the information between the holes

user55340

what-if.xkcd.com/73

user114359

@Ampt Not if you put the drives in a 40 ton forge press:

user114359

Heavy Press Program

The Heavy Press Program was a Cold War-era program of the United States Air Force to build the largest forging presses and extrusion presses in the world. These machines greatly enhanced the US defense industry's capacity to forge large complex components out of light alloys such as magnesium and aluminium. The program began in 1950 and concluded in 1957 after construction of four forging presses and six extruders, at an overall cost of $279 million. Eight of them are still in operation today, manufacturing structural parts for military and commercial aircraft. They still hold the records for size...

Ampt

@Snowman ok that's a little more than a few holes in it with a drill press :P

t3chb0t

9:16 PM

@MichaelT I've been here for a while already and I'm aware of how the communities work ;-] however sometimes it still happens that a question is not optimal on the first attempt

user114359

@Ampt you upped the ante

Robert Harvey

@t3chb0t So your question amounts to "can I still call this a repository?" Why does that matter?

Ampt

@Snowman Fair enough haha

t3chb0t

@RobertHarvey I'd say I'm kind of a clean code freak and I like to have everything perfect ;-P

user114359

@t3chb0t I am not sure the name matters so much as the use of the code

user55340

9:18 PM

@t3chb0t the volume here is such that we could probably help on chat with each on topic question, and discuss a large percentage of the off topic recommendation and career advice questions.

user55340

I'd kind of like to help out with education questions here, though I do admit that many of them are based on crystal ball gazing and misconceptions that can be frustrating at times.

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