h a l f b a k e r yNaturally, seismology provides the answer.
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A largely conventional hard drive with an expiration date. It contains a timer and is manufactured using an inflammable case and platters. One year after manufacture, it plays the message "This drive will self-destruct in ten seconds", proceed to heat itself to several hundred degrees and catch fire.
It
is of course internal only. Also motivates backups.
Mission Impossible Thumb Drive
http://www.thinkgee...gets/security/99f1/
This thumb drive will self-destruct in ten seconds. After 10 incorrect password attempts. [Cedar Park, Jul 18 2010]
Hot Drive
Hot_20Drive
Was that really 2004 ? Sheesh, doesn't time fly ... [8th of 7, Jul 18 2010]
[link]
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//internal// sp. infernal, as in "infernal device" |
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Good point. Fire extinguisher card optional. |
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OK, thanks. I'm finding it hard to believe this idea's not on here already in some form but i've taken a look and it seems to be absent. I find this very surprising. |
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What [Grog] would have said if he hadn't simply quoted [8th]. [+]. |
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Just buy anything but a Mac, and you get this as a standard feature. |
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Well, now that you mention it, [swimx2], I WAS thinking that as long as you're going to have a nice fire in there, it would be oh-so-polite, [nineteethly] if, at the very least, a nice steaming fresh bun or other such pastry pops out of the DVD tray when it's finished... |
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We did CDROM pizza oven already ... |
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[21 Quest]: I didn't know Steve Jobs starred in Dirty
Harry. |
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[21 Quest] You're confusing a Mac with an iP(hone)|(ad).
What you get on a Mac is BSD, which serious open-source
nerds consider more open than Linux. Very friendly
environment for non-proprietary software, I've found. |
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If you've had difficulty building from source under OSX, the
problem might be that you haven't installed gcc, make,
and all that stuff, which is included free, but not pre-
installed on the hard drive; it's on that "Developer Tools"
DVD that came with your Mac. |
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As for the robotic arm and gun, that's a myth. Since OSX is
basically
Unix, what actually happens is that your toaster grows an
arm and stabs you in the face. |
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Apple prosecuted Franklin for the Ace back in the early 'eighties while IBM invited PC clone manufacturers into their factories so they could do it better. Says it all, i think. |
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Apologies for veering off topic a bit:
[Ian]'s not wrong.
The iPhone is a phone 2nd, and media thingymajig first.
I've got one, it does a good job of many things and has
some new touches that other devices didn't have a few
years ago. However, some simple things give clues away:
the lack of decent SMS 'draft' folder, the recent aerial
debacle for the iPhone4... Sure, it is a phone, but it's a
media device with a cellular connection - and the media
(apps, iTunes, etc.) are something Apple want to ringfence
at all costs. |
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<coming back on-topic>
hard disks typically have a life span limited to a couple (or
several) years. If the self destruct happened at the point of
life expectancy, this could be a useful feature for planning
your data storage needs... |
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<also off-topic>
The other thing to bear in mind [21Q] is that Apple and
Google are new to producing phones. They may have
varying degrees of assistance from existing Market players
(manufacturers etc.) but they don't have the history of the
Nokias of the industry. This means a) a fresh look, and b)
characteristics of their 'primary' business come through. |
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Apple has been very closed (despite what it says) and
Google has been less closed (not all the Android phones
have same level of hack-ability). Apple is bringing in an ad
based revenue system, but was mainly about a model
centred on iTunes; meanwhile Google is gearing up to use
'targetted services' based on your personal data. It's in it's
interest to be open... |
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Wasn't [8th of 7] after a new category for ideas like this? |
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Hmm, the mac thing is a bit of a diversion - the hardware is sourced from the same far-east factories as any other hardware supplier, so quality issues should be just as good/bad as for any other company in the market. The computer/mobile device thing, as others have noted is different too and there (again as others have noted) apple do seem to be deploying a different strategy in their computing arm as opposed to their mobile device arm - the first being far more open than the second Mac OSX is a great mix of shiny stuff sitting on a solid BSD core - effectively providing the 'M1 tank' of Neal Stephenson's article 'In the Beginning...Was the Command Line' and all placed neatly under the hood of their 'Euro-styled sedans' - something that Microsoft may care to consider... |
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But the posting is about hardware, rather than software OS - and while I don't like the prospect of my hard-drive exploding within my machine, it is interesting to think of how perceptions might change if storage media had a fixed lifespan, and the behavioral changes that might ensue. |
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[21_Quest] //why would they make their computers so
developer-friendly//
Because their OS was getting long in the tooth, and they
wouldn't commit the resources to develop a new one
completely in-house, the way Microsoft did. Also, because
their business is hardware, so it's not crucial to profits that
they own their software 100%. |
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However, it is crucial to controlling the user experience,
and Apple's all about that. When they were able, in pre
OSX days, they behaved closer to your description (even
deliberately breaking third-party programs that didn't
conform to their UI guidelines, so it was rumored). |
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You'd think they'd be unhappy to have me running
programs that use X11, Tkinter, etc. for a UI. The
fact is, though, Apple started providing a native X11
client (you used to have to get a third-party one), so I
think they're more than tolerant of open-source; they
seem to be promotng it. Another example is the inclusion
of numpy with the native Python instalation on recent
versions of OSX. |
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I believe they're relinquishing control over Macs (the Intel
CPU is, ultimately, an even bigger concession) because
they see gadgets like the iPhone & iPad as the future of
the company. |
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[zen_tom] //if storage media had a fixed
lifespan//
They
do, but
longer than most people care about. It's a serious problem
for archivists, though. This idea could be viewed as a
dramatic reminder of that important, overlooked fact. |
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Yes, that's part of it - security combined with motivation to back up. |
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