CD's DEVELOP CUTTING EDGE

[IRON-PAWW]

The following is a *serious* article published in my local newspaper which had me laughing my *** off.

After years of helping us go faster, computer and consumer electronics makers may soon echo road safety campaigners in urging us to slow down or risk injury and death.

Researchers in Sweden have found that today's CD-ROM drives and DVD players can shatter disks, sending out knife like shrapnel at near the speed of sound, causing injury and damaging equipment.

At close proximity the shards tear into 3mm thick aluminium, or 1mm thick steel, and mince through soft body tissue, according to researchers.

In tests conducted at engineering firm Atlas Copco's labs on a variety of CD and DVD discs, from boxed software to recordable media, researcher Jorgen Stadje found most were unable to sustain the high revolution speeds of the latest drives.

CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives are in a lot of modern equipment, from home and office PC's to in-car navigation systems and portable notebook computers.

"CD-ROMS could be hazardous to your health, and DVD's even more so," Mr Stadje said.
"At too high RPMs then blow up with a bang and could, in the worst case, cause injury to people."

He blames the makers for trying to best each other over who has the fastest drive. But while drives are getting faster, the relatively fragile disc media is not keeping pace.

"There is a limit that cannot be transgressed - the plastic's tensile limit," he said. "Unfortunately, some manufacturers have alreay passed it and we have had emails from many on the internet who have experienced fractured discs."

"Earlier experiments have shown that shrapnel is capable of tearing holes in the roof and cracking aluminium sheet. This is a potential consumer problem waiting to happen to many buyers of a new generation of players."

CD's and DVD's, called "optical" discs because their data is read by laser light, have their performance rated by multiplying from a base speed.

Mr Stadje suggests owners of PC's and digital video equipment should sit at least 5 meters from their equipment.

He also urges users to consider wearing protective goggles and clothing possibly made from kevlar, a material usually used by the military and police forces in the manufacture of soft body armour.

##

Knew I bought that kevlar suit for something.......

[punkrawk]

This is such utter ******** and you know some wise *** mother fukcer whos just a big ****face is gonna go and purposely get injured and ruin the whole Goddamned situation for the rest of us. **** wearing body aromor, i leave that for CS. if anything, put kevlar on the DOOR OF THE DRIVE, not yourself, dumb motehr****er.

[ptamim]

LOL funny. I'm more likely to get shot driving to the hospital in Downtown Detroit ! Hell give me some body armor !!

Dr. T

[ryandinan]

The guy reccomends sitting FIVE meters (over 10 feet) from your computer???? A kevlar suit?????
I can just see it now....IT professionals wearing HAZMAT suits before leaving for work in the morning.... "Honey, have you see my protective GOGGLES? I gotta sit in front of a computer all day!".

Holy crap....

-Ryan

[IRON-PAWW]

Muh HAHHAHAHAHAHA! I know. I simply couldn't belive a guy with more than 5 brain cells could suggest you get suited up in KEVLAR, wear goddam attack goggles, and sit over the other side of the freaking livingroom, just so you can mess about with your PC a while.

"Darl, just gonna play some music on the pc!"
"ARE YOU MAD YOU STUPID WOMAN!"
"Wha------?"
"You'll get killed! Wear this, this and THIS! And goddam well sit over there!"
"Attack goggles?"
"Yeah and don't take em off till I say!"
"Are you feeling ok? You look------"
"YOU'LL DIE! The CD will explode! The PC will fly to bits and you'll get track 5 inserted in your eye socket!!!"
"Riiiigggghhhhhht."
"Death! Destruction!"
"Darl, there's this hospital I know about..........."

[muzikjunkie]

silly swedes, their stupidity makes me laugh

[OutKlast]

Whats even more funny is kevlar wouldent even protect against that sort of shrapnel. A knife will go right through kevlar, you'd need an iron clad suit to stop that kind of shrapnel.

But perhaps that could be a good thing, just think of the stereotype of IT guys, overweight/skinny pimply nerds with excessively thick glasses. Now wearing a 200lb suit to work on computers they'd be buff beyond belief.

[punkrawk]

i'm beginning to think the whole articele was a spoof. and i'm pretty sure that sitty 5 meters away would be more like 17 feet, not 10! **** who has a room that big to store their computer so far away. and imagein all the extension cables youd need to make alll ur input and output devices reach! yeah, definate phony.

[IRON-PAWW]

Wasn't a spoof. Found it in computer section of my local paper.

[Fhantazm]

Yah, its been around a while now. Sad to see that people have nothing else to report on.