[SunRescue] Rant on industry employment practices, was RE: 16MB memory module for Voyager

[Cyrus M. Reed]

On 8 Jan 2001, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
> > 5.25" floppies tend to go bad after a while, but the 3.5" ones will last
> > longer as long as their well cared for.  Of my personal disks, I think
> > I've only seen about one or two 3.5" disks go bad - but I've seen many
> > more than that die, which wasn't surprising considering the shape that
> > most were in, like someone had run over them with a car, etc.
> 
> I have to disagree here, poor care isn't the only thing that kills
> floppies.  They're a teeny tiny sheet of plastic with iron filings glued
> on, basicly.  They don't last forever, unless you don't ever use them. 
> I should also note that there are two kinds of floppies, the kind you
> buy at the store, and the kind that software is shipped on.  The former
> are crap, and often fail/start out broken, but nobody gets the warranty
> on them.  The ones that are (were?) used to ship software are always in
> good shape to start out with, and don't die very easily.

I didn't mean to say that poor care was the only way floppies die, just
that it seems to be the prevailing cause.  There's more than one way to
skin a floppy... :)  Bad drives are another nasty way to do it.  But
overall, if you take care of the disks, they'll take care of the data on
them barring any freak accidents.

> exclusively now, but I work at a college, and I spend probably 5 hours
> durring dead week, and finals week working on floppies, and so do the
> other three guys in the office.  That's a LOT of time for those little
> buggers.  

Heh, I used to do that up until about two months ago, when I moved to a
less stressful line of work. :)  I've seen a few floppies that I was
scared to even put in the drive they were so chewed up.  It's amazing to
me the abuses people can do, and still expect things to work.  I think the
toughest part of "data recovery" is telling the person that their 50 page
thesis is *gone*.  It was always sort of like the lottery, sometimes the
person would get angry, or be near tears, and even occasionally accepting
considering the circumstances.  If I didn't distrust technology before I
had that job, I certainly do now.

-Cyrus