Slashdot Mirror
Quickielanche
Let's start this off with
bio2's link to "the tube": an unrollable laptop:super crazy hardware.
seizer sent us the most amusing firewall circumventer: a TCP/IP Email Tunnel.
While on the subject of bizarre technology,
John Petz sent us a webserver running on an Atari 800.
Still not in shock?
hool sent us a hack over at x42.com which uses the hostname as input
to a calculator.
tdunn linked us to a place that lists odd things found inside PC cases.
It includes a *shudder* severed finger tip.
For more wierd tech support, yeahbensteres submitted iamanidiot.com which has some tales that you may or may not believe.
Pike sent us 94 Uses for Old Altoids Tins: Who eats 94 tins of altoids? Oh... wait.
OwenF sent us linkage to the latest robotic pet craze. Look out AIBO, here comes Robotic Fish!
Slashdot's own jamiemccarthy points us to TimeCube.com for all your wierd-science needs.
You econ majors might be interested in
Yhetti's link to the
fortune-cookie market index.
Bradley noted a story about a man who
changed his name to 'Oxford University' to avoid domain squatting charges from Oxford University.
If you have a mission:impossible scheduled next week,
Dr. Manhattan sent us a link to a Swiss company that is developing self-destructing CDs. The CIA has some on back order.
An anonymous reader pointed us to EarthKam, which has several really beautiful pictures of earth from space. Check out their top 10 ... if only
they were bigger they'd make great background art.
And finally for those of you who are sick of all the naughty language
on TV,
deepak saxena sent us a machine that claims it will filter all the damn swearing from TV and video.
I'm waiting for a version that filters out Regis.
He even has an Atari BBS running over the internet!
Is the instructions to the motherboard. They are small so they are easy to slip in -- and the instructions never seem to be around when you need them. If you are taking apart your computer you probably need it anyway!
To follow up to my own post, seems there's a lot of questions surrounding the mysterious "cube full 'o peanuts"
In no particular order:
1) this isn't an illusion...well, not really. Those are real packing peanuts, alright, in a real cubicle.
2) The whole thing took about 20 minutes to set up, and less than 10 minutes to breakdown and clean up.
3) I have all the "other" pictures of the setup of this prank, so when I see this posted as a quickie link 6 months from now off of tedsbeavertraps.com I'll be able to show that this was indeed the product of my co-workers' own sick minds.
Stay tuned, we will probably run a detailed story next week sometime on theswindle.com with all the setup pics, and detailed instructions on how to do this to one of your co-workers. Estimated total cost of materials: $25.
I think the neatest things from this were links off the Altoid tin page, including the match-head sized web server, and the Altoid tin radio.
--Phil (And who doesn't like Unwise Microwave Oven Experiments?)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
The australianIT page search page is giving errors, so I can't find it. I don't even know if australianIT keeps archives.
Here's a link to theregister's article about it. The link from that article to the original is also broken. See http://www.oxford-university.com/ for the guy's side of the story.
The original had more info though. IIRC, apparently the person answers the phone as "Mr University". Anyone know where the original article is?
Bradley
PS - extrans mode is broken again.
Anyways.. goto http://download.linux.com/multimedia/cc.c and download the closed caption reader, it has builtin keyword beep but if you change line 424 to run a system() call you have it run something like 'xawtv-remote mute' and get the same effect as that hardware gizmo..
I think it would be more fun to have it search for words that are obviously censored and play an audio clip of the appropriate word.
- MbM
- MbM
Has anyone had any luck getting squid to accept the URL for the Calculator link? Is the problem
that it really isn't a valid string for URL->URI translation, or whatever?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The Oxford University name-change was pretty funny. Reminds me of an image I once saw that was scanned from a newspaper of a guy who changed his name to Heywood Jablowme. I dunno if it was legit or not, but it was funny nonetheless.
*chuckles*
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I believe this is one of those 'In 1989 we will all have rocket packs...' look-into-the-future articles. Probably just a concept from a design student. Of course it is really cool and I have dreamed of something similar for years. Hopefully polymer based LED's will become a reality and we can roll up our monitors and carry them under our arms.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
Well, here's an classic on that topic:
From: jearney@harp.aix.calpoly.edu (John Earney)
Subject: Re: Backups and copiers
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 1994 08:18:37 GMT
...
I have over 2,000 atari carts and I've only found a couple that don't work
after they're cleaned.
exactly how durable are atari carts? I thought I'd see for myself...
I took a combat cart that was made in the 32nd week of 1981 (you can tell
by reading a little number code printed on the ROM) and did some experiments
on it to see what how much abuse it could take and still work.
1) I took the cart and dropped it out of my 2nd story window onto the cement
5 times. the plastic part of the cart was in pieces, but the game
still worked.
2) I put the cartridge back together as best I could and put it out in the
street. it got run over by a jeep. took it inside and it still
worked. at this point there was nothing left but the PCB with the
ROM soldered on it (and a metal cover that went over the ROM.)
3) I then put the PCB in boiling water for 5 minutes, took it out and
immediately packed it in a snowball that I made out of frost from my
freezer. after 5 minutes in the frost ball, I broke all the ice off
it and plugged it into my atari... It worked!
4) I have this magnet that's so strong that if you hold it within about 1.5
feet from a TV screen all the color gets sucked to one side of the
screen! well, I took that magnet and rubbed it all over the PCB and
ROM. plugged it in... and it worked!
5) next I took a lighter and held the ROM right above the flame. I left it
there for a few minutes until the ROM was smoking and giving off
a nasty smell. I cleaned off all the suit and plugged it in and
it still worked.
6) okay, no more mr. niceguy! I took it outside and had 3 cars run over it,
I threw it up as high as I could and had it land on the cement twice,
and I threw it down onto the cement as hard as I could twice. at
this point the metal cover that goes over the ROM had broken off, the
PCB was chipped on all the corners, the ROM was smashed onto the PCB
so that the pins were all squished on one side and were being pulled
out of the solder on the other side. I had to straighten out the pins
so that none were touching each other and I had to hold the PCB
together in one place so that the metal contacts would be in the right
place when I plugged the game in. guess what... it _still_ worked!!
7) it had taken heat extremes, shock, and magnetism. next up was
electricity. I took the atari power supply (9V, 500mA) and connected
some alligator clips to the output terminals of the power supply.
then I rubbed the other end of the alligator clips across the metal
contacts on the game's PCB. I tried a bunch of different
combinations and always had both alligator clips touching the PCB
contacts so that electricity would be flowing. I plugged the game
back in and much to my surprise it still worked!
8) I grabbed my hammer, laid the game down on the cement and gave it a good
smack. the ROM cracked right in half breaking the silicon wafer.
I plugged the game in and of course it had died on that one.
it took all that abuse to ruin a 13 year old atari game. I'd say they're
pretty damn durable!
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
No one really has 94 tins of Altoids. However, Penguin Mints come in tins about the same size, and I DO have a growing collection. Mmmm....penguin mints....caffeine...must have caffeine.... C A F F E I N E
Why would you think i'm an addict?
-mark
-mark
If your computer says LINUX, run...computers can't talk! [unless you have text-speech software]
The Oxford University one is hilarious... except the link appears to be 404 not found :[
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Mouse (deceased) The PC World technician who discovered the dead rodent believes the mouse had squirmed into the body of the PC through an empty card slot in a bid to keep warm. The mouse presumably died from either starvation or electrocution
My own personal experience can actually help in determining this one, should anyone ever have to determine for themselves whether the mouse inside your computer died of electrocution or more natural causes.
Approximately a decade ago, my phone went dead. An investigation showed a live line at the box outside, so I climbed under the house to inspect the line. At one point, a staple holding the line had pulled free, and the line fell across a heating duct. Near this duct, the line had drooped low to the ground.
Apparently, a mouse decided to test this line by eating the insulation, and had actually cleared several inches of insulation before severing the wire completely. An undetermined amount of time later, while the mouse chewed on the live end of the line, the phone apparently rang.
Telltale signal that electrocution was the culprit? The massive squirt of fecal matter, directly behind the mouse from when it had the shit shocked out of it.
paperbacks.homepage.com
Visit Lockjaw's Lair. He won't bite.
What's with you wussies feeling sorry for that Atari 800 webserver? If it can't stand the hits, it should get off the 'net!
Screw sympathy - let's melt that f*cker down!
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
God damn it.. I want one.. that has to be the least informative page I've ever seen.
How we know is more important than what we know.
An esteemed colleague, Brian Eng, has decided to dye his gigantic afro. Being the procurer of an afro myself, I feel I have an obligation to endorse this on a site that might contain more afro-wearers per capita than any other.
Click here to gently nudge the vote!
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
The roll-up laptop was MY idea! And they all said I was crazy. The design I had was pretty much . . . no exactly the same. I was looking into it over a year ago - finding materials, pcb designs, chipsets, etc.
To those one slashdot who know me in real life:
I told you so!
Oh wait, my design was one better. You could take off one of the ends of the cylinder and use it as a mouse. (Or does theirs have that too? I may have missed it.)
Thanks for the memories. I originally learned to program (after a short stint on a TI/99-4A) in BASIC and assembler on an old Atari 600. People doing stuff like making a web server out of old hardware just crack me up. BTW, I got through fine.
---
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
About the only redeeming factor I see is that the webserver is running apache on FreeBSD (but I'd wager the guy who created the site doesn't even know what FreeBSD or apache are).
So really, did I miss something extraordinary by just skimming that page? If so, please enlighten me.
The link to the company developing exploding cd's was interesting, but what we all really want to know is can AOL be convinced to put the thermite pyrotechnic coating on there giveaway cd's and can the detonator be attached easily to my letterbox?
First off....How horrible... /.ing an Atari. I feel guilty doing it.
Why? Why those damn pseudo animals. The electronic equivelants to complete uselessness. My cat (Not a bot) has to earn a living around the house. She catches bugs and i give her food. Where would someone get so confused on what a pet does?
Why am i ranting. Most likely the result of visiting timecube. I walk away feeling all slick and nasty from that strange little site. Perhaps i am a little to inept to understand whats going on. Either way i feel stretched and chewed apon from the inside out.
The tube may be the coolest little laptop design idea yet. This may be something i can actually get into. Im not a weight lifter and i don't have 0.003 micron fingers capable of typing on some of the keyboards available. So, This may just be the answer.
The man who changed his name. Does it really matter to him? What possible motivation could encourage this behaviour? Let not forget Dotcom guy..arg.
The e-mail tunnel is astounding. To think someone wanted out of the firewall that bad. Wow.
off and out
off and out
With the products of fufme.com soon to be at large, I believe that more strange things will be found in computer cases (wink wink say no more) LONG LIVE REN AND STIMPY!!!!!!!!!!
djsw
Carl Sagan put this idea into "Contact" many years ago. It was fictionally called "adnix." It detected the speech patterns of advertising and blocked them out. Fictionally, following soon after "adnix" came "preachnix."
I find it faintly ironic that the preachers beat everyone else to it. Considering the sponsors of that site, I'm sure we'll see "DarwinFree" and "BiasedLiberalMediaFree" next.
Every time an Atari 800 dies, a new one emerges from eBay to replace it. Thus is the endless circle of Atari.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
That reminds me of a site i visit frequently-- here's a link. it's a real webcam, and much more useful.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If you look a bit back from the "Tube" page to here, you find that the fanciful tube is one of the ideas from the same people (IDEO) that helped design the Palm V and the Transmeta Web-slate. So, such a thing might not be too far off (though the title of the whole thing was "Welcome to 2010").
The whole series of stuff is pretty cool - flexible large-screen TV's, VR cave style "smart cubicles", and other cool things. The article seems to have a broken link at the end of the chain though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Heard this story a little while ago, and I believe it was in reference to the CurseFree product. Seems that they had programmed the thing to flag on keywords. Not too uncommon. Problem was, it was pretty undiscriminating.
The most egregious error? The "Dick Van Dyke" show was titled the "Penis Van Lesbian" show.
Possibly an urban legend, but it sounds plausible to me.
I love this quote:
"Strict and Religious Settings
Curse Free TV's Strict setting filters out all offensive phrases, including when the names of God are used in an exclamatory way. The Religious setting, however, when viewing Christian programming, allows the names of God to come through without filtering them out."
Well, thank ---!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Just thought I'd share this photo of what happened to one of my co-workers last week. We're a pretty cruel bunch, and simple pranks just don't cut it in my office.
yes, it's going to be blatantly obvious by the time i say this.
/. will subside to a non-overwhelming level as this article disappears into the void of "older stuff", but surely the Atari 800 will be so traumatized by this event that it will take years of therapy before it fully recovers psychologically.
yes, it's cliched to say this, and it's a running joke on slashdot to say things of this sort.
but it needs to be said:
cdmrtaco.. what were you THINKING?? unleashing the slashdot effect on an Atari 800?? That's just CRUEL!!
the quickies have been up eight minutes, there are only four comments, and ALREADY the poor thing's slashdotted all to hell.
Yes, i realize in a couple days the traffic from
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
With an HTML page of only 250 bytes, this process can support several hits per second on the 9600 baud link!
*wince*
~=Keelor