Boing Boing: May 2005

Michael Hyatt says: "In the Eighties I worked at Polaroid's floppy disk factory in Santa Rosa, where they made 5¼ floppys. They had a product they called 'Data Rescue.' The deal was, you paid extra for them, but if they got damaged or screwed up in any way (from spilled sodas to accidental erasure) you could send them in and we'd try to recover the data. The marketing kit included a disc and some mustard and ketchup packets. The idea was you put some data on the disk, then covered it in goo, ran over with your desk chair, spilled whatever you wanted on it, and sent it in. We'd get the data back and you'd be so impressed you'd buy the damn things no matter what they cost. The secret? We cut the disk jacket open, slid the 'cookie' out and gently washed it in the sink. After much expermentation, we determined that Dawn dish detergent was best. We then hung them up to dry in the lunch room on a piece of twine with wood clothes pins. When they were dry, we put them in a new jacket and ran the basic data recovery tools of the day, Norton et al. "

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Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

At USDA, the Mouse Is in the House

(washingtonpost.com) : "Employees at the Department of Agriculture's main cafeteria were just sitting down to lunch on Friday when security guards ordered everyone in the huge eatery to leave. Al Qaeda? Bomb scare? No. Mouse droppings. The D.C. Department of Health closed the cafeteria for failing to pass inspection. Yes, the USDA, home to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the meat and poultry inspectors -- the agency that is part of the federal system for protecting the nation's food supply, was in violation of the D.C. Health Code. There were several citations, according to the inspection report, including: 'water leaking excessively' in the ceiling, employees not wearing hair restraints, and inadequate cleaning of the inside of ice machines, cabinets, surfaces and equipment. The biggest problem, however, seemed to be mouse droppings found everywhere -- in the dry storage room, by the salad bar, behind the ovens, near the serving line, ...

BW Online | March 1, 2004 | Software : "As Stephen and Deepa emerge this summer from graduate school -- one in Pittsburgh, the other in Bombay -- they'll find that their decisions of a half-decade ago placed their dreams on a collision course. The Internet links that were being pieced together at the turn of the century now provide broadband connections between multinational companies and brainy programmers the world over. For Deepa and tens of thousands of other Indian students, the globalization of technology offers the promise of power and riches in a blossoming local tech industry. But for Stephen and his classmates in the U.S., the sudden need to compete with workers across the world ushers in an era of uncertainty. Will good jobs be waiting for them when they graduate? 'I might have been better served getting an MBA,' Stephen says."

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