'Urban Mining'

[jeff of pa]

Thierry Van Kerckhoven has an eye for hidden value. The Belgian can look at a pile of shredded scrap metal from electronic devices and recognize what it is made of. Not only that, he can tell how much it's worth.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...767178,00.html

[Kentucky Kache]

That would be a good thing to know. All I know is, there are some really strong earth magnets in those hard drives. I like to use them when hunting for meteorites.

[jeff of pa]

I'd like to know why the Hard drive is built
like the Black box on an airliner.

but the rest is destructable

[theirratonalist]

I'd like to know why the Hard drive is built
like the Black box on an airliner.

but the rest is destructible

First off, this belgian guy is doing what everybody else has been doing for decades. He is recycling electronics for the gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, palladium, ect. Only recently has the Rare earth metals been taken into consideration, because of China's rare earth metal supply bottleneck.

The hard drive is built like a black box because it is the most sensitive device in the computer. A few dust particles can ruin the platters, and destroy your data. It spins at thousands of RPMs. It is a modern marvel of technology, and it has recently hit a development wall. The recent popularity of Flash hard drives is because the hard disks are too sensitive, and have many failure modes.

[FormerTeller]

Great video!

[cyberdan]

All I know is, there are some really strong earth magnets in those hard drives.

You can say that again. Don't ever lat a finger get caught in the path when two neodymium are attracted to each other.

Ever try to pick up a lobster and lost? It feels the same. I know

[boogeyman]

Yup!!!! Will pinch off a neat little piece of skin

Hint #2 don't lean your meteorite stick against the truck, at least if you value the paint.

[Randyd]

Don't put your spare magnet (the 200# one) in the lower pocket of your cargo pants and then walk close to your friend's truck fender!
Randyd

[boogeyman]

Don't put your spare magnet (the 200# one) in the lower pocket of your cargo pants and then walk close to your friend's truck fender!
Randyd

Now that'd be the $10,000 video!!!!!!!!

[bonfire]

dont put them in the same pocket as your cell phone either