Aug 22 2009 High Security: USB Drive Has Number Lock
Worried about somebody getting at the precious files on you flash drive? Try keeping it in your pocket and not leaving it on the bus. But if you're really worried you should handcuff it to your wrist like a briefcase filled with pirate treasure. Alternatively, get a Personal Pocket Safe USB Drive ($99).
[The drive] features a built in num keypad that requires you to enter a pin code before you can access your data. It is the 256bit encryption, if someone try to access your data by forcing access, the Personal Pocket Safe USB Drive will automatically destroy all data stored on the drive. However, if you do worry that you'll forget your PIN you can back everything up online, and there's also an optional PIN replacement assistance service available too.
Wow, that seems pretty intense. You must have some seriously serious files in order to require this much security. What are you, a spy? And, if so, how about hooking me up with a bow tie camera?
Personal Pocket Safe USB Drive [likecool]
Thanks to Ste, who keeps his data protected the old fashioned way: with hungry lions.
Feb 5 2009 Verizon Customer Service Reps Fail At Math
This is a call to Verizon in which neither of the two customer service reps that get on the phone can distinguish the difference between $0.002 and 0.002ยข. Thank God that wasn't me, because I would have shot a laserbeam out of my eyes and accidentally killed the cat. No, I don't have a cell phone, so I don't have to worry about incompetent customer service reps. But what I do have to worry about is rats gnawing through my land line. I saw one drag a whole loaf of bread behind the refrigerator!
Thanks to Joel, Chad and Ollie Williams, who once killed a 411 operator for giving them the wrong number to a nudey bar.
Aug 6 2008 Radiohead's House Of Cards In LEGO Form!
Remember Radiohead's House of Cards video that was shot with lasers instead of cameras and then all the data was made available to everyone to do whatever they wanted to with it? Well Ian Mackinnon took that data and rendered the video in 3D using LEGOs. Wicked! I embedded the video in high-quality because the low-quality one was looking kind of blurry, but it's still not super. But hey, we work with what we're given, don't we? You wouldn't ask someone you allegedly love to use a pump, would you? No, because you respect what they were given. Even if they are 26 cards short of a deck. HIYO -- card tie-in!
Radiohead's House of Cards Video Rendered In 3D Using Legos [gizmodo]
May 13 2008 Hard Drive Crusher Looks Like Drill Press
EDR Solution's Hard Drive Crusher costs $11,500 and looks suspiciously like a slightly modified drill press.
With the Hard Disk Crusher you can crush over 60 disks an hour. It drills through the hard disk's spindles and physically creates ripples in the platters making it impossible to recover the data. One customer informs us that they destroyed over 9000 drives in a month, and another customer destroyed over 800 drives in day.The Hard Disk Crusher is durable and transportable. You can put it in your vehicle and take it from one location to another. It uses a standard 110 outlet and can crush a disk in 10 seconds.
If you can crush a drive in 10 seconds, why can you only crush 60 in an hour? That doesn't add up. Does it take 50 seconds to remove the drive and toss another one in? That said, if the power goes out and the feds are coming, you can get a hand pump option for an additional $895 that allows you to break drives with 15 hand-strokes. Warning: Blatant self-advertising ahead.
Okay folks, instead of buying a ridiculous $11,500 drill press to destroy drives, just send them to me. I just started a new company, No Data Left Behind. I destroy drives through a combination of drilling and feeding them to hogs. Of course, I can't actually guarantee data won't get left behind. Or that the drive won't be scanned for credit card info and/or nudey pics first.
Thanks to Gooch, who destroys drives the old fashioned way -- with his teeth
