How do engineers relieve stress?

[feren]

Well, the find an old antenna mast... and an old 9GB SCSI drive from Seagate that dates back to the mid 1990s and is completely worthless in today's data center... then they find a sequestered spot in an old warehouse and play golf while I film it. These will probably require QuickTime to watch, but there are photos, too.


Here we have a perfectly innocent Seagate Barracuda 9GB SCSI drive from an old Sun Multipack. It never really hurt any of us, but we had a lot of aggression to take out today and it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I almost feel sorry for it...










The above photographs were taken shortly after the main round of golf had taken place... you can see the logic board is not in good shape, and you can see in the second and third shots the top of the case has already separated from the main part of the chassis. The fourth shot, with my shoe co-starring in the photograph, clearly shows that the bottom of the SCA connector has been broken away.

I happened to film a few of the beatings this drive took, and here they are! As I mentioned above, you'll probably need QuickTime to view these movies, which are "3g2" format. Of these I have to say that my favorite is the one featuring Ug, because of how wicked-cool the sparks are. Ug is, without a doubt, our reigning champion for distance and for form.

• Sheena versus the hard drive -- this has a satisfying impact ring at the end.
  
• Torg versus the hard drive -- good air in this one.
  
• Ug versus the hard drive -- lots of sparks and then the drive completely disappears!
  

After we got tired of playing golf we sort of prodded the drive's beaten chassis around a bit and gave it a few kicks for good measure. Just before we decided to call it a successful end to a very infuriating day we were all surprised to discover that Sheena had a bit more pent up rage that needed venting. She decided it was time to put the poor disk completely out of its misery and proceeded to pound it mercilessly with the old antenna mast. This proved to be the fatal insult to the massive internal injuries it had already suffered -- it was not long until the poor old disk ruptured like an obese Ebola victim. What follows is graphic and intense and should not be viewed by the elderly, the young, the infirm or anybody who has a soft spot in their heart for old technology! The second shot shows the carcass of the drive as well as the implement of its demise.







The moral of this entry is, I guess, that one should not frustrate my clique at work -- we'll play golf with your head.

we need your medicine

Comments

[neuracnu.livejournal.com]

There must be a name for this. Geek snuff?

[ronbar.livejournal.com]

Gnuff? Violent warranty violation? Mutually-assured end-of-life? Post-consumer destructive testing? Mean Time After Failure (MTAF)?

I'm trademarking that last one.

[tetragon.livejournal.com]

You have seen this, right? :)

http://hackedgadgets.com/2006/04/27/hard-drive-destruction-video-collection/

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

"'Cause it's die muthufuckas, die muthafuckas..."

[wolfbrotherjoe.livejournal.com]

What proof is your medicine again?

Fun

[(Anonymous)]

Let the bodies or in the case HDs hit the floor.

-Poodge

[ronbar.livejournal.com]

I still don't get where the special-effect-quantity of sparks came from in the third video. I didn't know metal could spark against a smooth surface like a polished concrete floor. How hard did he hit that thing? Is he a golfer with a 600-yard drive? Did the disk reach orbital velocity?

[captain18.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of when the only IT guy from corporate that we liked announced he was leaving. We had a Quantum Bigfoot that was dead and we toasted it -- literally, with a mapp gas torch, then put it in the weekly fedex to the home office for him with a note asking if he'd deal with just one last trouble ticket.

I wonder what happened to the pictures... I'm pretty sure there were pictures...