2 random questions

[ctrlaltdel]

1. what are sparks? you rub two bits of metal and something shiny flies off... what are those shiny bits really?

2. when good programs get uninstalled, where do they go?

3. no more random questions.

[Death Mage]

Those sparks are remnients of good programs that get uninstalled.

[extropalopakettle]

The sparks thing is a good question actually. I don't know how easily you can make sparks by rubbing pieces of metal together, but you can by rubbing some substances together, and the sparks are just tiny hot pieces of one of the two things rubbed together. The interesting question is what are the properties of the substances that make it so easy to get the tiny broken off flecks hot enough to glow?

Then there's static electrical sparks, but that's not what you meant.

[extropalopakettle]

By the way, I'm not sure sparks and shiny bits are the same thing, in which case it's three questions.

[HyToFry]

I thought he meant metal shavings...

In answer to your question. The good programs sit on your hard disk until they are later over written. There is one area of your hard disk that tells the computer what all the other areas are. In that area, the places where the good programs were installed are turned into zeros (though they still exist, the computer just doesn't know where to find them.)

Later, when a new program is installed, the old program will turn from the 1's and 0's that made it up, to 1's and 0's that make up the new program.

[pikachamp]

is that how those file recovery things word?
i have a question: what is fire? seriously, what is fire? is it heated air? is it something special? what?

[MatthewV]

its magic.

[One Skunk Todd]

According to Richard Pryor fire is inspirational.

[extropalopakettle]

[Beartalon]

Sparks (when materials are used that won't normally spontaneously combust) are the discharge of static electricity. Atoms get their electrons reassigned, and the result is an electric charge which is discharged as a shock and/or light. Nu?

[Planky]

Simple, fire=pain

[ML]

I think that these are the sparks that he means.

Sparks like that are little tiny bits of very hot metal, just like you suggested.

Why are they hot? Metals generally can bend a long ways before they break (unlike, rock or ice). When you bend a piece of metal in the deformable range (that is, beyond the range when it will resume its original shape) it get's warm. You are applying energy, and that energy is being converted to heat. When are grinding (like in the picture) you are bending a very small piece of metal so far that it flys off. This makes it very hot, and very hot things glow. You can probably tell how hot each spark is by it's color, but that is beyond me.

I have a gut feel for what fire actually is, but I'm actually not sure, so I'm going to leave that one for someone else.

[Mercuria]

fire = combustion reaction?

[chief ten beers]

I think luminous's couch is on fire.

[chief ten beers]

and pay no attention to that title! I've had nowhere near 1/2 a keg and I am just a little more than barely buzzed.

[Milt]

Yeah Pika, that's how recovery software works.

By "is it something special?", I guess you mean "is it a different state?" I don't exactly know, but I think it's excited air. It gets so excited that it gives off light. Sort of like... like a sugar high.

[ctrlaltdel]

the shape of the sparks has really got some issues with the theory of sparks being the actual bits of metal. unless, their 'shape' is distorted by our vision, sort of like the sparks on the water drops.

[ctrlaltdel]

oh and fire is a piece of plasma - something between gas and liquid

or i'm wrong

[Samadhi]

quote:

---

oh and fire is a piece of plasma - something between gas and liquid
or i'm wrong

---

True.

[HyToFry]

I don't think so... Fire is a gas. Plasma is REALLY REALLY <explicitives> HOT! Like the sun. Or at least that's what I learned in school, so it's probably crap.

But, for now, I'll maintain that fire is a gas. Very hot gas.

[HyToFry]

Fire is accompanied by flame.

Flame is:

Originally posted by flame via dictionary.com:

---

The zone of burning gases and fine suspended matter associated with rapid combustion; a hot, glowing mass of burning gas or vapor.

---

[Orbiting]

"Fire is the reuniting of matter with oxygen. If one bears that in mind, every blaze may be seen as a reunion, an occasion of chemical joy. To smoke a cigar is to end a long separation, to burn down a police station is to hold homecoming for billions of happy molecules."
- Tom Robbins

[Werebear]

First, files in the Recycle Bin are *NOT* deleted files. They're still active files, marked for deletion. When you empty the recycle bin, the files are truly deleted.

Now, Deleted files are exactly the same as they were before you deleted them, save the first character of the block is replaced with a special character that signifies an unused block. If a file is two blocks, and is called "AUTOEXEC.BAT", then those two blocks would then be re-named " UTOEXEC.BAT", the first character being a special character that signifies an empty block. So if you deleted every file on your hard drive, all you would have done is delete the first byte of each block... if at that point, you had an undelete program, you could give the files their names back and "undelete" them. (each time you undelete a file, the program asks you to give the file a letter, it doesn't remember "UTOEXEC.BAT" used to be called "AUTOEXEC.BAT")

However, Once you start writing new files on your drive, though, it grabs whatever blocks it wants to write... it doesn't care what was in it previously. So if your new file was 4 blocks long, it could ruin 4 different deleted programs happily. If you tried to undelete any of these 4, it would fail. Remember, most programs aren't stored in consecutive blocks... if you delete a file towards the beginning of your hard drive, it automatically fills in that block first. That's why defragmenting your drive is important, so the programs aren't scattered all over the drive, slowing down drive access.

When someone wants to make sure noone finds the information that was deleted on their computer, they use a program like WIPEDISK. Wipedisk finds each unused sector, and fills it with 0's. This eliminates possibility of undeleting.



[This message has been edited by Werebear (edited 08-07-2003 02:48 PM).]

[HyToFry]

And even then, the info can still be recovered. Not very easily then... you need to turn them to 0's, then 1's, then 0's again. Then it's gone for good.

[robichelli]

"What is fire? It's a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledegook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know. Its real beauty is that is destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets to burdomsome, then into the furnace with it."

Ray Bradbury Farenheit 451