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The Teddy Borg is Alive!
probabilistic writes: "Check out what bored MIT students are up to -- a few of my friends, in their never-ending quest for network connectivity and female companionship, created the Teddy Borg. It might look like an innocent teddy bear, but behind the soft exterior lurks a GigaFast 5-port 10/100 ethernet switch."
What's the point of this? Maybe networking a bunch of animals together? Or the proverbial Beowulf cluster of stuffed animals?
"A group of words expressing something other than their literal intention. Now that... is... irony!" - Bender
Oh, well. If it was done at MIT it must have been impressive. As a non MIT graduate I would find it impossible to put some electronics inside something else.
Actually I'm going to start a new project: given raw materials of a computer and a box, I will put the computer inside the box. Clever eh?
Actually no. It'll never be interesting because I'm not at MIT.
I bet you could sell these things like hotcakes for LAN parties. Seriously.
...Steve
I'm sorry, but that's kind of ... impossible.
The Raven
The Raven
I'm sure there could be a million inventive ways to hide our mundane technology into things that are more decorative.
How about hiding a switch inside a picture frame... or even better a wireless switch...
Computers like any other technology component ultimately should be invisible or at the very least appealing to home users.
I have a feeling that this bear, like many other "whim" ideas may be the beginning of something much better.... A step in the "refinement" of home computing.
Some girls just don't have a sense of humor.
She likes it because its cute.
You like it because its a Giga switch
I to wondered what the heck "Teddy Borg" is for....
Then I saw the poll at the end.
Desirable to geek chicks.....
Guess this is why I'd never get into MIT. These guys KNOW how to get laid!
I think the project could have been helped a lot by using an actual Borg Teddy Bear.
--Metrollica
"Bother," said the Borg. "We've assimilated Pooh."
Let's see them put a network switch inside a *real* bear. Then I'll be impressed.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Yeah, the next step is to extrapolate and sell this great idea to Microsoft so that they can install the .NET platform on teddy bears and other kinds of toys. Resistance is futile.
Engage!
Yah. I was thinking I could do the same thing with a wireless hub and a stuffed bunny (anntenne in the ears).
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
...is because MIT/IS does not allow switches on the network. All you are allowed to do is plug cat5 directly into a port. If you need more ports, you gotta tell IS to give you more. This incredibly public advertising is a good way for the admins to take away your connectivity :)
I dont have a
i submitted a story last week about IBM embedding strong cryptographic chips in their computers and it was rejected.
instead we have MIT boneheads embedding a switch in a bear.
to get a story posted to slashdot. I always wondered how to get my articles actually up there. NExt time I have a story, I will shove it into a stuffed animal and prepare my servers for slashdotting.
Gimme a break already.
comment directly in my journal
This doesn't sound like much.
Now, if you put a Wi-Fi hub in the teddy, that would be something.
For extra credit, make it so that your girlfriend likes it and keeps it in the bedroom, so that you can surf the web conveniently behind her back..
The page you were looking for has apparently been eaten.
Sorry. I was hungry.
It been slashdotted already?
Ok, slim material, but I did like seeing the status LEDs in the eyes.
I dunno, maybe it's just me but I woulda used red for the bear's eyes
And as far as his "vain hope of attracting women" goes, well, dude thay're the vainest! (ie don't cross your fingers, and wait for the phone to ring)
:)
It has a Matrix reference too. :)
;)
Hmm, I think I need an Ant Farm with geeky cables, LEDs, etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Judging by people's posts thus far, most just don't get it. What's the point to this--it's just a switch in a teddy bear? Heck--I could do this on my own. It's not that interesting. Oh wait, since it was students at MIT, it must be really neat.
Frankly, I doubt most people here could ever get it. This teddy bear is so cool only because it makes a much nicer UI than a cheezy box with a few blinken lights and ports. It's soft and fuzzy. It's not beige and scary. If I had a daughter, I'd love the idea of giving her a laptop and a switch like this. All of a sudden, the idea of a "sleepover computer party" wouldn't be so gosh darn nerdy. They could stay up all night playing with Virtual Barbie or whatever is the software of the year.
Plus, what's so special about these MIT guys is that they have documented the heck out of this little endeavour. I'd gladly hire one of these guys to work with me. Sure, it's not the best idea every conceived--but at least it's documented. I could now go and reproduce their efforts without much thought.
In all, it seems rather impressive to me. It's a neat new UI that's not typical. It's documented to all heck. That beats half of everything I've ever done.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
We all know this is just MIT's devious plan to begin marketing computers to elemetary-aged girls. :)
Put one of those wireless netcams in it. Give it to the hot chick down the hall, Instant Free DormPorn. Of course this is very illegal and I am not responsible for the beating you will recieve from her boyfriend and subsequent jail time if you get caught.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
"Awwww, what a cute teddy bear! His eye's even light up!" (reaches out and grabs bear, ripping out cables in the process)
"Nooooooooooooooooo! Not my game of Quake!"
"I don't trust goats," --To Catch a Spy
Sorry...I couldn't resist... ;-)
"It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
Yeah. I stopped reading right there. I don't want to know how to access the bear's ports, thank you very much!
They forgot an option on their poll.
Fire hazzard.
I was forced to vote evil in the absence of a fire hazzard option.
A little work on its "speech" curcuit and "Network down, waaaaa!"
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet.
The ping in the last picture on the Teddy Borg has the IP 18.238.3.106 listed. I can ping it from here.
a DoS attack on a Teddy Bear?
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
First person to crack up buy the round after work.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
First a Teddy Bear switch. What's next, a potpourri heat-sink for your CPU, perhaps?
Smell the over-clocked goodness.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Yeah, this one ain't working, see how my parent post got modded up to +5(funny). Maybe I should try being duller.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Check out the furbeowulf cluster -- similar except it uses fibre instead of cat5.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I don't think this story was posted because people thought it was something impressive. It was posted because people thought it was something funny and original, not every story posted has to be an earth-shattering breakthrough so stop complaining about it. And the fact that its from MIT has very little to do with it I imagine, its just a funny story that Timothy thought we might enjoy.
/* Of course I'm real, but can you prove it? */
I'll have to give it a try again a bit later once things settle down.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They have some class B networks as well (as if a class A network is not enough for them). It's a well known fact that MIT has more IP addresses than the whole China.
I see many misdirected e-mails in my future.
I wouldn't mind a Domo Kun stuffed animal switch. You could have some sort of LCD readout in his mouth, or have him emit steam from his butt due to excessive packet collision.
They already have a flapping-arm Domo Kun that flaps its arms if you run an IR remote control to it.
It's good to know that stories like these get published, while entirely irrelevent subjects are rejected in record time by our watchful editors. I mean, just take these two for example:
- MS Paints Bulls-Eye On AOL. Certainly of no import to the technically oriented. Little squabbles over who's going to control internet access for millions isn't much of a news item.
- Stupid White Men Debuts At Number 3 On New York Times Best-Seller List. Everyone knows the average geek can't stand to read more than five minutes of political commentary, especially if it has nothing to do with Linux. Little things like investigating the shenanigans surrounding the 2000 presidential elections aren't at all interesting - in fact, they're downright unpatriotic! Besides, most techies are white and we wouldn't want to offend their touchy egos.
Yes, the more I read slashdot the more I'm convinced that our editors do a wonderful job of culling out all those 'unimportant' stories so that we don't have to exercise our brains and do the culling for them. Especially when it's so much more critical to know about the latest kernel release, or the newest toy.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Where's the embedded webcam for girl snooping? I think (based on /. article summary) that this teddy is supposed to be in the room full of girls providing network connectivity for them (as official service) and pictures of girls in the room for those interested (as "unofficial" service).
:)
hany
Well.. even better.. instead of stuffing network switches into a teddy bear, why not stuff a cable modem / adsl modem into one? I guess those would sell more popularly, and I would definately have a Tux penguin sat on top of my PC knowing that it actually served a purpose :)
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
My girlfriend built herself her own computer, but the smell of the chemical cleaners used on the case were really strong, so she hung an air freshner inside the case. It worked.
Great minds think alike... that was the *first* thing I thought when I saw the pics. To be fair, stuffed animals are required by law to be (to a certain extent) fire-resistant. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have the thing in my house. For the record, I voted for "sick" and "cool". Cool because, fire hazard or no, it's cool. Sick because the cables come out of its paws.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Well, if you stuck the right kind of hub in there, you could have "3-opening action". Hrm. Would it be insanely perverse to run streaming RealMedia out of a RealDoll?
What is WRONG with these people?
They go through all the work of gutting a cute 'n' cuddly teddy bear, stuff it full of network electronics, and don't even put a webcam in the eyes?
Now that would be an evil idea. "I want you to make sure you put this bear on your dresser so you can see it every night when you've crawled into bed." And so it can see YOU, young lady! Heh heh hehhhhh.....
Sorry. I'll go get some coffee now.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Ok, I did the math. At 9,972 undergraduates, graduates, and professors, that works out to
- one desktop computer
- one notebook computer
- one library computer
- 12 toilets
- 1,667 coke machines
per each person
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets