Cryogenic Mouse Mod

mrsaggy writes "When you get sick of putting an aluminium case on your PC, and lighting up the keyboard, here is something you can do with your optical mouse. Does anyone know where I can get a Han Solo lego figure ?" Thats a pretty funny mod. Ya don't see many mouse mods, and that one is pretty cool.

Comments

w00t!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I can overclock my mouse to 800 dpi!

Cache

[bleckywelcky]

/.ed already, geez. Here's the cache (although somewhat useless without the pics, heh).

Re:Cache

[SpatchMonkey]

Here is a mirror of the site.

Ya don't see many mouse mods ...

[great throwdini]

... especially on that site.

/. Effect and all ...

This has got to be illegal...

[jonman_d]

...obviously, you're violating the rights of the Lego Creature. Everyone knows, you're only allowed to detain people without charges and without a lawyer, indefinitely, if they're "enemy combatants." I don't see the little Lego dude exersizing free speech, so he hasn't done anything wrong! You can't do this!

instead of mod'ing your mouse ...

[Triumph The Insult C]

you could

• go outside
• take a shower
• switch to diet coke
• get the artifical cheese dust out of your facial hair
• get a real, living girlfriend. japanese anime (although cool) doesn't count

Re:instead of mod'ing your mouse ...

[SirSlud]

instead of spending time insulting somebody, you could:

- go outside
- take a shower
- switch to diet coke
- get the artifical cheese dust out of your facial hair
- get a real, living girlfriend. japanese anime (although cool) doesn't count

*crash* goes the sound of your glass house losing its final and fourth wall as your rock careens across the lawn ..

Yes, I realize I'm being hyporitical, but at least Im being upfront about it. ;)

Re:instead of mod'ing your mouse ...

[GuyMannDude]

get a real, living girlfriend. japanese anime (although cool) doesn't count

Yeah but the problem is that I don't meet any gorgeous green-haired female ninjas with 38DDs who can kill monsters effortlessly in my line of work...

GMD

Re:instead of mod'ing your mouse ...

[ocie]

Watch the Simpsons:

Woman: Comb the Sweet Tarts out of your beard and you're on.
CBG: Don't try to change me baby.

Re:Computers are tools

[dioxide]

my mom gardens and does some koi pond stuff as a hobby. her tools are shaped like turtles and other things of the sort. theres a difference between doing a job out of necessity and doing it for amusement and peace of mind, and if making the tool more appealing to yourself makes you happier, than why not?

Re:Computers are tools

[SirSlud]

Fetishising over ones tools is nothing new. Our Engineering Mascot at U of Waterloo was a 6 foot long Rigid wrench - one of only 5 in the world. We didn't do anything but worship it. It was a 'waste' of a wrench (at least with mods you can still use the tool), but it certainly isn't an isolated case.

Asides, why are cars stylish? Answer: because you have to look at them a lot, so asthetics are important. Why are computer mods stylish (and build by people who use their computers alot): because the user has to look at it a lot, for long periods of time, thus its stylish.

Everything is a tool. Should we design buildings to all look stylistically exactly the same? What are you, a borg? :)

Why Mod??

[oldzoot]

Computer modding seems to me to be the current day version of hot-rodding cars back in the fourties and fifties. Sure, people still hotrod cars, but not to the extent that they did back then. It was a just maturing technology that had not reached it's performance peak - much like computers are now. What standards exist give a reasonable base for which to develop commodity enhancement products which can be used to customize the look and boost the performance of a computer , allowing the owner to express their individuality and technical prowess.

Re:Why Mod??

[lingqi]

...It was a just maturing technology that had not reached it's performance peak - much like computers are now...

give me *one* explanation how neon lights and acrylic windows and whatever make your computer perform better;

on the contrary -- do you know why computers uses metal cases? because in the times of solar flares, radiation will pass through you tiny tiny capacitors in your DRAM, usually leaving a stream of drained capacitors; -- metal cases help in that respect. (and i am not making this up)

so i would think that with a window on your PC, it would be *more* flimsy rather than less.

as for mouse mods... sigh... get a life yo.

Re:Why Mod??

[inburito]

Not exactly correct. The metal cases are there to diminish any interference your computer might cause to other electronic devices AND to reduce the interference other electronic devices might cause to your computer! They cannot totally shield your computer but definetly do a better job than not having anything.

Suppose, for instance, that you have an poorly shielded switching power supply. These are not terribly uncommon among cheap computer equipment. Generally it would be a brick that's between your electrical equipment and the outlet. Now take this brick next to a regular monitor (pretty poor shielding here too) and you begin to see nice interference effects! Now guess what happens if you have something similiar next to your unshielded computer.

You don't even need to consider anything related to memory but just the hard drive cables at udma speeds of 33 and over are highly suspectible to noise! It won't take very long until your computer is pretty much locked up and you got corrupted data on your hard drives. I've even had problems from using bad udma-cables (all the problems disappeared when I just got new cables) due to electrical noise probably generated by the fans or other hard drives or the powersupply.. who knows.

The fact is that solar radiation isn't going to do much to your computer (satellites are affected, however) unless you live in polar area and the flares leake from Van Allen belts, but that's a different story. Not shielding your computer is a bad thing because of not only the interference it creates but also the interference it receives..

Re:Why Mod??

[balloonhead]

There seems to be a lot of "why?" questioning about this whole mod thing. Firstly, Why not? It's arguably a form of art - are you saying why should anyone do art?

Secondly, the issue of aesthetics is a big one - if you think it looks good, then do it. No-one else needs to agree, otherwise we'd all wear the same clothes and part our hair the same. A lot of human existence is about aesthetics, not even going into Darwinism.

Thirdly, individuality. Before skateboard-style (or any other fashion) became mainstream, it was done only by a few people expressing themselves in a new way.

If you still don't understand why people mod then I presume you wear your dad's clothes, don't look at them before or after you put them on, got the car which was the most practical for the cheapest colour, have no wallpaper in your house, have a two-colour graphics card, and your {girlfriend¦boyfriend} is ugly as sin but has a lovely personality.

Who to Freeze

[dprovine]

What this really needs is a Sigourney Weaver doll,
like from the start of "Aliens", with a little spider-crawley alien climbing in through the glass.

That effect....

[Tetsu no Chef]

(images had to be scaled down due to linkage from HardOCP)

Congrats! Now that Slashdot's linked to you, you won't even notice that HardOCP traffic!

Talk about cruelty to Lego's...

[stirfry714]

I mean, first we cut off your legs, then we enclose you in a small airless chamber, "freeze" you, and then jerk you around for the rest of your pitiful existence...

Hmm, sounds like the plot for a B-grade movie. Wait, didn't it already get used in "Boxing Helena"? Sherilyn Fenn in a box, Serena in a box... hmm, what will the MPAA say?

Re:Talk about cruelty to Lego's...

[Phexro]

"Sherilyn Fenn in a box, Serena in a box... hmm, what will the MPAA say?"

PG-13. LEGO women don't have breasts.

Mice modding...

[Wrexen]

Does anyone have advice on how to open these mice? I have a bunch of the MS Optical mice pictured in the page I'd like to mess with, but I'm not sure how to get the cover off in a non-destructive manner.

Re:Mice modding...

[Wrexen]

Nope, surprisingly enough there are no screws underneath that sticker. There's even a little dip where you'd expect to find one, but no screw to be found :(

Re:Mice modding...

[zemaxuser]

If I'm not mistaken, the screws are under the plastic bearings that the mouse rides around on. These are just held on by a little bit of adhesive, and can be pulled off carefully and reapplied without too much trouble.

Re:Computers are tools

[NumberSyx]

What is with all these 'modding' nonsense. Do you see builders modding their trowels to look like glass spaceships? Or plumbers modding their wrenchs to look like Xmas tree decorations?

No I have not seen anything you mentioned, but I have been to car shows and seen some pretty cool car mods. If its alright for car owners, why not computer owners ?

Slashdot Cache

[Photar]

OK ok. If they don't want to bother to provide a slashdot cache system. How about just linking straight to the google cache and save everyone some effort.

Re:Slashdot Cache

[Peyna]

If Slashdot can handle its own load, I'm sure Google can handle a few extra thousand from Slashdot. It's just ittybitty servers that can't take it.

Mirror Site Here (w/pics)....

[codewolf]

Mouse Mod

Easy mouse mods

[Tycho]

Mouse mods aren't that hard to do. You can get a multi-button ADB mouse if you make a solder bridger and switch out the IC, the cable, and the through hole resistors of a Logitech made Apple branded mouse, with those of a Logitech made PS/2 mouse. The mouse automatically works as a multi button mouse in OS X and Linux, but to get the other button to work in older versions of the MacOS you can use a shareware program or you can hack up the MouseKey control panel from Logitech so that it works with the mouse. The PS/2 mice that work for this are non-scroll wheel Logitech mice made from 1994 to 1998. You can tell if the Apple mouse will work for this if the first two letters of serial number starts with LT or LC and the third character is a number four to eight. Inside the PCBs of both mice should look very similar.

Body Mouse

[Comrade Pikachu]

You want a mouse mod? I got yer mouse mod right HERE.

And HERE.

The Body Mouse creator's website.

Re:Computers are tools

[Stoutlimb]

"I mean a hyundai will get you from point A from point B..."

I modded my Hyundai accent. It got me laid.

Bork!

Mirror

[SpatchMonkey]

As the site seems to be slashdotted right now, here is a mirror.

What is the world coming to...

[swaic]

Everyone seems to think that every piece of hardware needs windows... :)

Re:What is the world coming to...

[sunhou]

Just wait, pretty soon we'll be reading articles about computers with (beowulf) clusters of mice. Although once you have more mice than you have appendages, there isn't much point to it.

Actually, that raises a serious question though -- has anyone ever used a computer with two mice, or even wanted to? Was it/would it be useful in any way? (I could see a computer with two mice in a public place, easily used by left-handed and right-handed people. Any use beyond that? Is there ever a time, other than while playing games, that two separate 2-D controls would help?)

Re:Computers are tools

[Telecommando]

I believe you're mistaken
According to this the wrench is only 60 inches long. That's 5 feet.
And it's hardly rare, if you go here anyone can buy one for only $224.50.

I know these aren't that rare as my father was a plumber/pipefitter and had one of these for over 20 years.

Mouse mods.

[SN74S181]

Ya don't see many mouse mods,

On a few occasions I've cut my track ball or mouse open and used trace cuts and jumper wires to make it into a 'natural' left handed mouse. There are control panel settings in most windowing software to do this for you, but not that often on games, particularly older classics like Heretic (which I still occasionally enjoy playing). There's also some satisfaction in telling right handers who use the machine that they need to go into the control panel and switch the mouse to use it right handed.

Re:LEDs

[Safety Cap]

How did he know where to sauder [sic] it in?

Check out the folling Mod sites:

1. Led Mouse Mod
2. The Mutation Center

Han Solo Lego Figure

[mshowman]

http://shop.lego.com/product.asp?id=%7B9E27F7B5%2D 67FB%2D4DC3%2D81C9%2D0F33C98BF11F%7D&OrderBy=0&Cat ID=%7BA319A2F3%2D2540%2D4F7E%2DA702%2D4FF709118FB7 %7D

Han Solo makes the mod complete

[gripdamage]

Does anyone know where I can get a Han Solo Lego figure?

Get your Lego Han Solo here!

A more useful mouse mod

[shird]

For a slightly more useful mouse mod, check out this MouseFan mod, which will cool your hand as you surf. Seems like something that could even go commercial.

Its too bad I have a cordless mouse and this would drain the battery, otherwise I'd probably do it myself.

Re:A more useful mouse mod

[4thAce]

It looks like a cross between a mouse and a hovercraft.

Certain individuals might, however, benefit from cooling applied during surfing the Net.

Forget Captain Solo

[Spencerian]

I'd rather have something more esoteric.

Like grafting Walt Disney's face on a Lego and "freezing" it. Or maybe just a Mickey-on-Ice.

(Yeah..it's urban legend, but it's still amusing.)

My turntable mouse mod

[t0qer]

http://home.pacbell.net/toqer/P1010007.JPG

Sorry about the small pic :)

I used terminatorX
http://www.terminatorx.cx
and mounted my optical mouse to a cheap 10 dollar turntable I got at the flea market. Instead of connecting it to the gearing like the terminatorx site shows, I rely on the actual vinyl underneath which makes it much more like spinning vinyl.

I have a few issues with it, maybe some /.'ers would want to take a stab at.

1. I would really like to raise the mouse to be about an inch above the vinyl. How would I change the camera's focus?

2. It seems "laggy" (sorry best word I could think of) Would it really be worth it for me to go out and spend another $40 dollars to see if the 2.0 versions are less laggy?

Anyways, I hope you found my comment to be both insightful, interesting, and informative, please mod accordingly :)

--Toq

Mascot?

[mangu]

Well, I read in /. or a link from here a few days ago that the CalTech engineering mascot is a beaver. Do you think a six foot wrench is nicer to have than a warm, furry, beaver?

Re:Mascot?

[SirSlud]

Forget that, think of the magic that comes from mixing a rigid tool with a beaver! Collaberation, baby!

I'm making three

[gad_zuki!]

Namely Hunter, Kimball, and Kaminsky. Or you know, I can get some kind of life.

Thank you all.

[japala]

Nice to see so many visitors in my site. Too bad that the line is so slow. Hope you still have the patience to wait the page load. Thanks. :)

Aluminium inside his mouse?

[comcn]

I hope he didn't short anything out with that alumunium next to the PCB in the mouse. A modded mouse isn't a lot of good when the electronics stop working...

Don't Do This!

[Myriad]

...AND to reduce the interference other electronic devices might cause to your computer!...You don't even need to consider anything related to memory but just the hard drive cables at udma speeds of 33 and over are highly suspectible to noise!

Which is precisely why placing a Tektronix 608 Vector Scope (basically a CRT in a box) - that is hooked up to your soundcard to produce weird swirly effects - directly on top of your computer is a Very Bad Plan.

Trust me, I know from what I speak:

"Hey, that looks pretty cool."
(mere moments later)
"HEY! WHERE ARE ALL THESE BAD SECTORS COMING FROM?!!

Fun while it lasted...

Stoners

[inKubus]

I'm surprised he didn't try to make a bong out of it. . ;)