I have some hard drives. I want to throw them out. They have data on them. Some of that data is personal correspondence and some of these hard drives are rather old and I have no idea what is on them, but I'd rather not provide that data to whoever happens to be buying stuff from the local computer recycling center on the off chance its personal. Furthermore, if the government is going to hold that police searches of garbage can be conducted without either a search warrant or any constitutionally required factual predicate than one must assume that all garbage is monitored by the state. Anything less would be a pre-911 mentality. If you are willing to provide the state with warrantless access to your hard drives there is really no point in complaining about 4th amendment issues or warrantless searches at borders, for example. So, I can't just throw these drives out.

Unfortunately, my local computer recycling center makes stern warnings that they are not responsible for data on devices given to them. I don't see why they won't just buy a degauser, but I'm guessing they don't have one, and I'm not going to go out and drop 2 grand on an industrial degauser for my loft.

This puts me in an odd position that I'm sure many of you have also been in:

What do you do with old hard drives? Do they become a permanent part of your electronics junk pile, carried with you everytime you move? Do you know of an inexpensive way to destroy them?

What if TheNew York Times goes out of business—like, this May?

That would seriously suck.

End Times - The Atlantic

Last month, the music industry pulled out its stun guns, aka PR flacks, to bring you the following breaking news:

In a stunning turn of events, the US music industry has ceased its long-time litigation strategy of suing individual P2P file-swappers.

Earlier today, Apple briefly summoned the world's attention to bring you the following incredible (!!!) news flash:

Apple said it would begin selling song downloads from all four major music companies without the anticopying measures that have been part of its iTunes store since it opened in 2003. It will also move away from its insistence on pricing songs at 99 cents.

In other words, Apple's software engineers are so distraught over Steve Jobs' failing health that they have resorted to spinning the deletion of annoying source code as a major product innovation.

Does this sound familiar? Let John Markoff take you back:

Long assailed within the computer industry for routinely adding too many features to its software programs, Microsoft will tacitly acknowledge that criticism today when it starts a Web marketing campaign for its new Office XP software suite that ridicules its notorious Office help system.

The Clippy campaign, which will cost about $500,000, also includes a Web-site-based computer game in which irate users, many of whom have long found the paper clip program annoying to the point of distraction, will finally be able to retaliate by shooting virtual staples, tacks and rubber bands at the animated Clippy figure.

The story behind the story, of course, is that the "music industry" -- by which I mean the cartel engaged in organized trafficking in an artificially scarce form of antique "performance capture" -- is an industry in decline, and the major players are desperate to stanch the flow of attention to other "new" (and more participatory) media. Regardless of these late-stage efforts, the decline, which is both inevitable and inexorable, may be viewed as a leading indicator of a broader, long-term phase shift in celebrity culture.

From the archive:

The trick is to make people think that a certain paradigm is inevitable, and they had better give in.

Also:

Someone from the future, I’m sure, will marvel at our blindness and at the hole we have driven ourselves into, for we are completely committed to an unsustainable technology.

In this case, what's unsustainable is not just the artificial scarcity of individual captured performances, but rather of the underlying capture technology, not to mention the performance itself.

Finally:

But for everyone, surely, ... this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today.

Apple Drops Anticopying Measures in iTunes

Yet the semisweet spot that Pittsburgh finds itself in was never inevitable. As recently as 2000, it had a higher unemployment rate than Detroit or Cleveland. Just as Michigan has traditionally put all its chips on the auto industry, it took Pittsburgh a long time to come to terms with the end of the steel era.

“The emphasis was on fighting the presumed causes of the decline by getting rid of low-cost foreign imports or providing more subsidies,” said Harold D. Miller, president of Future Strategies, a consultancy. “The assumption was that steel will come back and we’ll go back to the way we were.”

Pittsburgh Thrives After Casting Steel Aside - NYTimes.com

Fully 35% of a person’s FICO score boils down to one’s history of making
payments on time. The average FICO score today now is down to 690 after the
borrowing spree of the past seven years. Yet to obtain a plain-vanilla 30-year
fixed rate mortgage, the minimum score is 760. For a 15-year HELOC, it is 740.
And, for a three-year auto loan, the minimum FICO is 720. This is a primary
reason why the credit cycle is not about to be revived. It is not that standards are too tough as much as the unprecedented borrowing binge over the past seven years has left the household sector, at the margin, with a credit profile that is too risky for the banking community to justify to their shareholders.

Merrill Lynch on how fucked things are

as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.

the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

for those of you interested in physical products, fear not. we plan to make a version of this release available on CD and vinyl in july. details coming soon.

Nine Inch Nails: The Slip

Frank Herbert, author of Dune, told ... how he had once been approached by a friend who claimed he (the friend) had a killer idea for a SF story, and offered to tell it to Herbert. In return, Herbert had to agree that if he used the idea in a story, he'd split the money from the story with this fellow. Herbert's response was that ideas were a dime a dozen; he had more story ideas than he could ever write in a lifetime. The hard part was the writing, not the ideas.

Herbert might as well have been talking about technology. Don't get me wrong. Ideas are important. Research is critical to advancing our society. But when it comes to commercialization, it is only a small part of the puzzle.

GT VentureLab: It's the Execution, not the Idea that Matters

Given this unexpected amount, I'm very excited to tell you that 800 buses – instead of the 30 we were initially aiming for – are now rolling out across the UK with the slogan, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life", in locations all over England, Scotland and Wales

Ariane Sherine: We did it! The atheist bus campaign is bigger and better then ever | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Dr. Gupta, who performs double duty as a medical correspondent for CNN and a neurosurgeon, is a leading contender to fill the high-profile position in the Obama administration. The job could be accepted in the coming days, according to people familiar with the situation at the television network and in the Obama transition.

CNN Medical Correspondent as Surgeon General? - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

"For thousands of years, losing teeth has been a routine part of human aging. Now the Washington Post reports that researchers are close to growing important parts of teeth from stem cells, including creating a living root from scratch, perhaps within one year. According to Pamela Robey of the NIH. 'Dentists say, "Give me a root and I can put a crown on it."' In a few years dentists will treat periodontal disease with regeneration by using stem cells to create hard and soft tissue; they will take out a tooth that is about to fall, and reconnect it firmly to the regenerated tissue. Although nobody is predicting when it will be possible to grow teeth on demand, in adults, to replace missing ones, a common guess is five to ten years. Baby and wisdom teeth are sources of stem cells that could be 'banked' for future health needs, says Robey. 'When you think about it, the teeth children put under their pillows may end up being worth much more than the tooth fairy's going rate. Plus, if you still have your wisdom teeth, it's nice to know you're walking around with your own source of stem cells.'"

Slashdot | Tooth Regeneration Coming Soon