Anyone who has flown in an airplane is familiar with the small tray table that folds down out of the seat in front of you for use as a small table during your flight. For many years, it was common to design these tray tables with magnetic strips within them, to help hold them in place when they are in their storage position, folded into the seat ahead. The magnetic strips hold the tray table in place with the help of metal strips in the seat, to keep it from falling immediately out before the passenger can use the main mechanical latch. Pretty nifty idea, right?

Not if you are using a laptop computer atop the tray table. Under certain curcumstances - the magnets being of a certain strength, the computer positioned just right - these magnets have been known to erase the hard drives and disks in the media drives of the laptop computer. Everything stored and saved inside - gone, in an instant. So be careful, your data could be lost in flight.

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