YING & YANG

At times, it can be difficult when you are a "hardware guy" and a "software guy", instead of one or the other. By that I mean, sometimes it's difficult separating those two schools of thought, physically and mentally. The desk in my office is very reflective of that struggle. I once had a workshop of sorts in the basement, where I would perform strictly hardware- related tasks, and a desk in my office left to strictly software-related tasks. But like all systems, eventually, most break down, eventually new ones are implemented and, in many cases, two systems join to form one stronger system. I would say in actuality it's more out of necessity, or in my case it's a combination of laziness, convenience, children, and well, just life in general, that has forced me to consolidate to a certain degree. While this contribution here may seem miniscule, or even trivial on a grander scale, it has helped me out immensely. Enter the neodymium magnet.

I've been on a scrapping mission over the last few months, collecting metals for some DIY projects. Found a box of my old hard disk drives from college, which I attended in the early 2000s, therefore, these hard drives have easily accessible neodymium magnets inside. For anyone who is unaware, neodymium magnets are the most powerful permanent magnets in the world. So, I decided to turn these magnets into, for lack of a better term, a minimalist tool mount of sorts, for what is now my "off limits" corner of existence that is actually respected, since the rest of my home has been invaded by animals. By animals I mean my dogs and my family.

Quick sidebar here, anyone remember when SATA vs. IDE hard drives was a huge thing in the computing world? Now all you hear is HDD versus SSD and it is so damn obvious which one is better just based on the price alone. My 9 year old nephew knows the difference between a hard disk and a solid state drive... Okay so, before I go on a rant about SATA versus IDE, the importance of knowing what those differences are, and the fact that today, most of the puke-faced, self entitled little shitbags, commonly referred to as "school children", wouldn't know how to build a computer from the ground up if their life depended on it because everything is a wrapped up in a neat little package by their mommies and daddies and corporate giants like Microsoft, I'll just move on.

You're tearing me apart!

I won't go through a step-by-step breakdown of how I got the neodymium magnets out of the three hard drives I harvested. That would be pointless and it would also be impossible. I ripped these apart about two months ago and didn't properly document it. I'm writing this story as if it is current but, alas, it is not. Hope that little bit of honesty hasn't ruined this for anyone.

The Magnet Links

Pretty self-explanatory, a step by step guide is rather redundant for anyone with even a grain of technical know-how, some proper gauge wood screws and a screwdriver. It's quite impressive how powerful these magnets are though. Behold...

Rip it and Grip it.

I did have to take the battery out for it hold so it's not like you have Clark Kent in the palm of your hand. Nevertheless, very efficient, very small, and very strong. They also have helped me to put a tiny bit of organization into my otherwise disorganized way of living. Thumbs up from me.

Never seen a man thank a magnet? Now you have.

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