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Comment by hart_russell | Hacker News Reader

Can I get an explainer on how this would help in a disaster recovery situation?

I was thinking it could be pre-loaded with tons of relevant media and reference materials. Plus being a general purpose tool. I could see distance sailboat cruisers packing one away, similar to how they would pack some redundant spares of key electronics, or an industrial sewing machine like a Sailrite, for enhanced self-reliance in challenging environments. Pack a 3d printer in there too!

> "I could see distance sailboat cruisers packing one away..."

...where the high humidity and salt air of the ocean would corrode the heck out of it. The author mentions that it has air vents.

A Panasonic Toughbook would be a far better choice.

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean he added vents to the pelican case, since he specifically states that this time he did not make holes into the case.

He has to open the case to use it, no? Quoting from the article:

> "I also added cooling vents- the internal Pi 4 has a fan on it, but it needed vents too- so if you look close you can see vents above the connector panel and above the display."

I assume one could use it to store and read back an offline dump of wikipedia[0] in order to help recreate society.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

In all the ways having a known good/not hacked working linux computer with all your diagnostic and recovery tools installed.

Extra its not reliant on external power, periphials, and is very water resistant and environmentally sealed (the main / only benefit over just a laptop)

A raspberry pi doesn't make a good candidate for that, as it boots into a proprietary, closed-source system before loading Linux. It's hard to beat a toughbook, or even a ruggedized tablet, for any such scenario, especially as they are still sealed when in use. The BOM cost for this project is also relatively expensive - I estimate it around $600.

Well obviously at the end of the world, SOMEONE has gotta bring HN back online!

don't be such a buzzkill! :D

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