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Beware of Fake Monkey Automatons
rkinch writes "The Mechanical Music Digest gives this warning about bogus monkey automatons that seem to be flooding the antiques market. These supposedly 19th-century hookah-smoking shrunken monkey heads are actually clever modern reproductions tricked up to look old. That "Marvo the Magic Monkey" specimen hanging on your wall may not really date back to 1879."
If you have something like that hanging on your wall, well....
You're sicker than we all thought.
If you want such a grotesque thing in your house, this may be nature's way of punishing you for it.
And here I was, thinking this was a political story...
i win! time to be moderated
I have this image of Taco in a room with all these mechanical talking monkey heads. :)
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
On the other hand, it's probably my fault.
I shouldn't have believed it when the guy told me that it wasn't uncommon for antique monkey automatons to take AAA batteries.
But, damn!
Take a look at this article! Yet another lame piece of shit that gets published on frontpage of Slashdot. Most of you must have noticed that majority of the intelligent people have left Slashdot. There is a great thing happening underground - a completely new discussion forum for intelligent individuals. It's a secret society for hackers. Hackers will need to request access to discussion forums - outsiders can't even read comments. Keep your eyes open! More information coming up soon..
what the FUCK? This is probably the strangest thing i've seen on /. (this isn't memepool taco!!)
Very creative reproductions... found myself wondering if I was looking at pictures of originals or the fakes aforementioned. A very odd past-time of making dead things into amusing entertainment peices. I honestly don't think I know a single person who would purchase such a thing.
--I will never be as 1337 as root...
/. has been messed with by those evil Time Travelling aliens.
They really need the dimensional timewarp watch so they can fight them, before they die from CJD.
riiiiiiighhhttt....
this is a joke right? this is stuff that matters???
How come when I post something interesting it doesn't show up, ever. Just rejected. But then someone moron accepts this GARBAGE. Go slashdot!
idiots.
Why is this on slashdot? Is it April 1? Is the monkey in that machine running slashdot now?
How does one become a slashdot editor? Serious question. Is it an employee of OSDN or VA? Is it a volunteer job? Is it freelanced out? Is it someone who contributed over 1000KLOC to slash?
Can someone tell me how this fits under the catagory of toys?
Is this some prank to /. this guy's page?
Easy on the bong, there, timothy... You're starting to post weird stories to slashdot again.
It's a sad day in America when a man can't trust that his mumified monkey corpse impaled on a mechanical rig in the reproduction of an Arab smoking a controlled substance isn't the genuine article.
I am confused firtly, about how this is /. material, but I guess the real question is does anyone have video of the monkey smoking, cause that would really be a cool conversation piece, I mean what chick doesn't get turned on when she sees a monkey smoking?
...I've said that many times
Because only genuine shrunken monkey heads come with an Evil Curse (tm).
jeez, and all this time i've been fearing REAL monkey automatons...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Slashdot Editors = Room full of monkeys pounding on typewriters.
:-)
Hope this is what they do to the bad ones
www.christopherlewis.com
The alert (hope it isn't /.ed into nothingness)
Please tell everybody you know!!!
I guess this is an on topic story if only for all the comments of "What are those monkeys smoking?" directed at /. crew.
News for garage salers. Stuff that doesn't FUCKING MATTER at all to a small subculture of freaky linux types
Do the monkeys run on Linux?
WTF?
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
... next time I'm shopping for bizarre shrunken monkey head antiques!
Actually, fakes are very common in the antique world.
I think it's time to launch a new /. category -
Monkey Automatons!
Seriously, how is this "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters"??
Til the first virus/worm hits the fake automaton monkeys, THEN you'll be sorry!!!
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
This is a perfect example of why Slashdot has jumped the shark.....watch it continue on a spiral down the drain. Half the articles here I've read before they're here....so much for a 'good' news...
1) Mechanical Music Digest: Ah, a publication about music. Does the monkey make music? Can we legally make copies of the monkey's songs? Is the monkey using DRM-enforcing mechanics? Additionally, this publication is about mechanics, and mechanics are cool (especially quantum mechanics, which the monkey probably uses.) ... fill in your own reason why Fake Monkey Automatons 0wn j00 here.
2) warning: bug in the Monkey can share your files with everyone on the net
3) automaton: Monkey Automaton vs. Grendel, dude. Bulldozer-like ramps beat pneumatic spikes 9 times out of 10.
4) Magic: Gandalf has magic. YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
5) hanging on your wall: like my 80-inch plasma TV, baby
6) 1879: 0x757 in hex, which is a palindrome. Both hex and palindromes rock.
7)
Make a punch the monkey joke and win $20.
...I told you never trust a monkey!
The end.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This has to be the most bizarre /. story since JonKatz's Message from Kabul.
Where's the foot icon? This has to be one of those irrelevant funny-ha-ha posts...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"Do not meddle in the affairs of Fake Monkey Automatons, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
Oh wait, that's wizards. Nevermind.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
Didn't anyone read the article? It say that the things are plaster among other materials
You forgot, the vengeful editor.
Or were you too intimidated to include him?
All right, but in all seriousness this is a serious problem in our country. Stringent lobbying agaisnt tobacco companies has forced them to explore new markets.
The result is that an increasing number of monkeys have started smoking. It's very sad, even monkeys in captivity are being targetted. As if this wasn't enough, Phillip-Morris has started it's own line of theatres for monkeys...just to get them to start smoking.
Now I know you guys are giving the mods flack for putting this article on front page...but there is a growing smoking monkey problem in this country. So can we please have some constructive advice on how to save the monkeys before it's too late?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Is it just me or is this a very odd analogy for the RIAA poisoning P2P networks?
If it is, nice piece of sarcasm indeed =)
I'm going over here and I don't know why!
Table-ized A.I.
WTF?
A: Just check Slashdot for improbable inventions, overdone CowboyNeal jokes, and bogus monkey automatons.
Oh yeah, like you'd mod me up if I posted with my name.
As a card carying geek, I don't see anything in the bylaws about...oh, wait a second. Monkey heads *are* in the bylaws. Carry on, then.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
And Slashdot for that matter. While what you say is historically correct, Slashdot is now fully owned by VA Linux.
Taco and the boyz from the hood are all VA Linux lackies now.
timothy: Well Taco, this is some pretty good stuff.
CmdrTaco: Yeah, fer sure. Hey, lets post something stupid. Find a story, somethin about smokin' dope.
timothy: With a monkey! Yeah.
CmdrTaco: Those slashdotters. They'll read anything, and then bitch and complain about how it sucks. Where are those cheezy poofs??
Just imagine a beowolf cluster of 19th-century hookah-smoking shrunken monkey heads!
;-)
I'm at the karma cap--time to troll.
Welcome to Slashdot. This is stuff that matters.
Now shut the fuck up. If you want serious discussion all the time there are other options.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
I know it's ultraportable, but I definitely think that in this situation Monkey Linux would be a wiser choice.
I fricking hate monkeys.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
Seriously.
My only question is..WTF?
-Nano.
Rolling on floor laughing! :) That was a good one. And it's good to see that the traditional hacker joke about Beowulf cluster is alive and doing well. Traditions are important!
I'm glad to know my hookah-smoking caterpillar is still the genuine item!
I think the basic problem here is that the editors each have some kind of quota. But nobody's standing back and saying, "Is this editor really making an effort to select interesting, relevent stores, or is he just going through the motions?
I want a sign for the front fence: "Beware of Fake Monkey Automatons". The house up the street only has pit bulls.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Suggestion to timothy and any other editor: if it's nearly impossible for a thread to contain interesting, insightful, or informative posts, perhaps you should rethink publishing it to the front page. Beyond a few wisecracks and a lot of (deserved, IMO) bitching, what else is there really to say about these... these... monkeys?
Here are your mod choices for 99% of this stuffed monkey thread: funny, overrated, underrated, off-topic, troll.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Days ago, I submitted the Buzz Aldrin story about how he punched out a 'no-moon-landing' conspiracy theorist, and invited /.ers to discuss the various conpiracies out there. It was rejected.
Instead, we see this.
Good luck, Slashdot!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Are you trying to tell me that my funky monkey is from a flunkey punky junky?
Oh man! I want my blankey.
Table-ized A.I.
yeah man, nothing worse than virus-infected fake automata monkeys. It takes a shit on your hardwood floor and then says:
This is a excite game
This game is my first work.
You're the first player.
I wish you would like it.
The level of professionalism around here has seriously dropped.
Does that mean my Dogs Playing Poker next to my Monkey is fake too? Damn. What about my Black Velvet Elvis and my Tiffany lamp?
A moment after entering the previous post, I realized I should have titled it "Editor Automatons". Oh well!
I hope that costs you a couple of your cellular minutes you brainless monkeys... hey! now I see why you like the monkey, you both are brainless oafs that are fake and shallow and go through life trying to 'show' and 'look' like something you can never be. However, I am betting the fake monkey head is not too full of its own self importance, so I think I would prefer the monkey head to the yuppie version.
Anyone else read Phillip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle?
..The brookyln bridge is not for sale, the beans aren't magical, if anyone had a method to beccome rich over night they wouldn't have to sell it for $50.. And last, but not least, there are absolutely no hot naked sluts waiting for your email.
The plural of automaton is automata, just like that of criterion is criteria.
If cinima and short story have taught me anything in life, it's that if you buy an evil looking monkey releated item you're going to get screwed in the end.
Best evil monkey automaton sighting? My vote goes to "Merlin's shop of mystical wonders", as seen on mst3k. Even creepier than the monkey was the fact that not only the mother, but the grandmother as well thought an evil looking monkey automaton would make a great gift for an impresionable little kid.
Everything will be taken away from you.
...as opposed to REAL monkey automatons who are on a quest to take over the world.
Get your metallic paws off, me, you damn dirty robotic ape!!
http://www.flamingmailbox.com/maccomedy/movies/
Table-ized A.I.
not yet...but perhaps they should...*devious grin*
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
This is without doubt the stupidest thing ever posted on slashdot.
you leeto bastard!
It's too bad that the whole topic can't be moderated (-1, Offtopic).
...in the White House, why bother with a fake one on the wall?
This is the most irrelevant article I've ever seen on slashdot.
It's annoying on weekends when things are so quiet here, but that's fine. Even CmdrTaco and friends have to have some time off. But I'd rather it remain silent then this dumb shit.
Fuck you.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
I refresh slashdot Fake Monkey Automata? What the hell is this?
Egg Troll votes for Michael. Here's a meta-poll: how long before all posts in this thread get modded down -1, rtbl-style?
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Seriously.
Let the /. user penis jokes begin...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't A/C reply your own post in a desperate attempt to get mod points, you twatwaffle.
Yeah, like, I take this corpse, cut off it's head, smoke it so that the smell permeates the whole place, then stick the remains on the wall.
The rest of my group are really impressed giving grunts and ughs of approval and envy. Next weekend we're going to go to a wildlife 'refuge' and pay several thousand dollars to tie down a big cat and shoot it in the head at point blank range to show what manly hunters we are. It's a real sport I tell you.
Yes I am. And to Usenet as well.
Taco, Michael, Timothy, Cowbay Neil and some others probably made millions out of this. I suppose they are all millionaires by now? It's like american dream. They started slashdot with zero budged all they needed to do to become millionaires was to click some mouse to accept/reject stories.
This page was generated by a Squadron of Fake Automated Monkeys for rogerwong (104575).
Nothing to see here folks, move along now... move along
I can assure you I have nothing to do with it. It was truly funny. If you don't find it funny, then perhaps you are not like us - hackers. We are hackers and we like hacker jokes. Every true hacker must have posted at least one beowulf cluster joke!
...But the fact that a self-respecting nerd has *also* lost that trust in American products is truly disappointing.
I must say that the recent explosion in not ONLY Athlon chips, but also P4 chips, and *boxed*, not just OEM purporting to come with a "mummified hookah smoking monkey" is really disappointing. This and other Slashdot stories lead one to believe that the rare few *real* processors attached to mummified hookah smoking monkeys may simply have been victims of improper cooling, leaving only a vast body of imitations for the rest of us. It's enough to make you cry. Sure, there are mummified stoned orangutans, acid-dropping monkeys, and many, many really nasty-looking bits of beef jerkey glued to P4s. There are even a few mummified humans that bear a resemblance to the expected mummified spider monkey, but the much-sought after original may be lost to us forever.
Imagine the damage to the open source community! Companies considering using pot-smoking mummified versions of their mascots as trade-show freebies are already having to pull back their plans.
It's a disgrace. As a multiple donor to the EFF, I demand action! Some of those simians may well have been webmonkeys, and the disgrace to the tech community reduces all of our credibility!
May we never see th
...I thought it was about Steve Ballmer.
RMN
~~~
Are you people SO self-absorbed you can't sit back and LAUGH at life and some of the strange things in it?
Good lord, stop taking yourself and this site SO seriously and relax a tad!
I for one think it's funny as hell and a nice break.
I shall be there shortly. In the mean time, here's a classic Usenet troll for you to enjoy.
timothy: Well Taco, this is some pretty good stuff.
CmdrTaco: Yeah, fer sure. Hey, lets post something stupid. Find a story, somethin about smokin'.
timothy: With a monkey! Yeah.
CmdrTaco: Those slashdotters. They'll read anything, and then bitch and complain about how it sucks and we suck. Where are those cheezy poofs??
...is not that someone is trying to scam buyers with unauthentic products. Fake Rolexes, junk laptops and a ton of other crap on eBay slips through the cracks. -1: Redundant. No, what I find truly disturbing is the fact that there are actually people interested in buying a product that contains a dead monkey's shrunken head. Eww.
I think I'm gonna lose my lunch.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Those bastards. He always did have a little bean head.
[Insert Ximian joke here]
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
I was trying to buy up a whole mess of them for my monkeys and typewriters project. Now I'll just have to write [insert favorite OS or project here] myself.
Of course, I did manage to recreate the blue screen of death with three monkeys in ten minutes...
-tpg
Right, in the fortune file you go.
it has been at this low for a very long time, /. is usefull as a forum and that is about it.
It even has the original Elvis music box in it!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I cannot believe that you were able to troll so many people.
About a year ago, I wrote a troll that extolled the greatness of Microsoft. The first letter of each paragraph spelled out "This is a troll". There were a lot of hits. Unfortunately I posted it as AC and I can't find it now.
MSCEs look and act like programers. Sometimes they can be lead into the light. Sometimes they can't. It's hard to tell. Beware.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Slashdot was created way back in 1996/1997. By the time traffic grew to the point where serious money was required to run it, Hemos (Jett Bates) took over as the guy who sold ads to advertisers. Ad money was fairly easy to get back then, so this worked out well. Their little company, Blockstackers, created the AdFu, Slashcode, and many other projects.
/. flame treatment. Which was ironic, as the Andover.net buyout thing was put up a week or so later. As Jack said, "don't mess with us -- or we'll buy you out ;)"
Andover, a very respectably REAL LIFE publication with years of experience, noticed Slashdot and thought it'd add well to their Andover.net online version. So they entered into negotiations with Rob and Jeff. Around this time, Jack Byrar (one of the colunmsts of Andover, now working on Newsforge where I used to work) wrote some articles about Linux use that got the
One of the contract requirements was that the core (Jeff, Rob, Jon Pater) have complete veto control over everything. If Andover wanted Slashdot to change its layout, they had could say no and not be fired (or face any other negative reactions).
But then VA Research (recently renamed VA Linux Systems) decided to buy out Andover.net and create OSDN. VA had owned the odd site (I know they had Segfault as an employee thing, but I'm not sure if they bought Freshmeat or Andover did, it's been a while), but they needed something to wrap around their Sourceforge idea (recently stolen from Bowie J. Poag, as Bowie tells it).
Anyways, the integration of many, many diverse sites, each running their own homebrew perl or PHP code didn't end up working out as well as originally hoped. OSDN became a bigger and bigger bit of branding, but the sites themselves didn't support anything like single sign on (although cross-site searching works, AFAIK). Plus, when you think that VA's only big income sources were incredibly low margin hardware and Andover's online advertising, you see why they made some of the decisions they did in 2000 and 2001.
First, they bought Linux.com, created Newsforge.com, and tried to make their dead-tree break with Open magazine. It worked out well enough that Open magazine broke even in the first year, but they needed to restructure seriously in 2001. They divested themselves of Open, and they divested themselves of some sites (like Kuro5hin, which I'm also associated with).
Slashdot (and the rest of OSDN) started to get more invasive advertising around this time too, as a way of getting more revenue from advertisers.
VA Linux Systems are basically a value-added Linux software for business systems company, with OSDN tacked on. How it will work out, I don't know. If they hadn't restructured in 2001, they would've been out of money by now. We'll see what their next SEC filling says.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I bet the antique market hikes up the prices of these wonders. I'd like a hookah smoking monkey automaton, but dont want to have to pay through the nose for an "antique". Anyone know where I could buy a mokey smoking hookah?
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
The biggest nit to pick about that is that Slashdot was one of the last Andover purchaces in their buying frenzy of sites, mostly software listing sites and review sites. They had a healthy stable of Windows freeware sites, reviewing sites, and clipart and font sites, most of which (imo), were crap. Winfiles.com and later on, nonags.com were far better than their freeware sites, and their clipart site was useless.
But then, I didn't include stuff like that because that's not what my post was about - it was about how Chips and Dips turned into a site with a post about Fake Monkeys, and the people involved, not the (rather boring, imo) story of the corporate trading and shuffling. Taco's opinion on things is pretty much in alignment with mine - if foo Inc. goes under, where foo is the company owning/hosting Slashdot, things just move on. As long as foo Inc. can't place stories, who cares who the owner of the week of Slashdot is? Taco, Hemos and all might lose or gain on their paychecks, but it won't really affect the reader experience (unless bandwidth can't be paid for, but that's a pan-internet problems for all sites).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Ok, so I'll be careful when picking up Shakespere stories created by an infinite number of monkies that *actual* monkies were used.
Thanks Slashdot!
Just key in your email using a series of steam powered levers.
/. doesn't have to be all about file sharing and Linux distros. In my book the fine folks who collect these items are bona fide Geeks. It's educational to peek at the drama of their very different world.
"The Fake Monkey Automatons" would be a terrific name for a rock band.
Dan Gunn got nearly 300 for his tolkien / star wars / jesus troll, and that wasn't even trying. Mind you, that's probably because he doesn't sign his posts with the word "troll".
San Francisco has a museum, the Musee Mechanique, with some automata like this, real ones, along with a nice collection of mechanical coin-op musical devices. They're being pushed out by a renovation of the Cliff House, and there's a petition to save them. Please sign. Thank you.
Touch my MONKEY!..
Had to be said!
Including mine?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
because they all taste the same, original
or not.
--- Eat my sig.
When I read the article, my first reaction was, ok, so someone is faking these to make money. Then I took a quick look at the pictures... I mean, shit! A dehydrated dead monkey in some weird box, yuck the shit fuck that's totally disgusting.
Who the hell buys those things anyway??
I prefer a full picture when finding out about something, not half of one. Especially online, where someone may be happening by, and might want more information about everything, I think the post helped a lot.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
read the history of automatons and youll be impressed. Plus, its a monkey smoking a hookah, how can you not want to see that?
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
You know, just when I thought I'd read a relaxing bedtime story on slashdot... my one source of sanity in the world... I refresh, and there's the cursed truth: "Beware Fake Monkey Automatons!"
What sick kind of people live in our world that would put a fake dried monkey together and sell it?
And what's the reasoning behind posting this on slashdot?
Suddenly, the plot thickens... I'd bet a shrunken monkey head that timothy and rkinch were at least THINKING of purchasing a Sun-Dried-Goodness of a Monkey Automaton! Is it true? Hmm?! THIS is where the interest in dried monkey corpses lie! Well, forget it buddy! It's PLASTER OF PARIS! Ha!
That's almost worse than catching your landlord walking around in women's underwear.
MONKEYS + SLASHDOT = NET NET?
It's on /. because the site has a 'no deep links' policy, right? /. editors have totally lost thier minds.)
http://mmd.foxtail.com/info.html
(of course, if Im wrong, then
When you see the monkey, smack it! (TM)
[SaveButt]
* This comment is not affiliated to AOL Time Warner in anyway possible, by means of copy, automation, digital or otherwise, until the end of days.
[/SaveButt]
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
This post will probably be CENSORED by MICHAEL SIMS.
Hey, as long as they can type...
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Is it just me or does this sound like those fake Cornell boxes being churned out by the AI in Neuromancer? What got me was the phrase "shadowboxed" in the article.
Very odd indeed, I'm glad they ran this because it's so strange.
I wonder if the RIAA is going to get involved... who owns the copyright on the monkey melody?
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Yeah, hardly an auspicious sample of /. comments.
What I find most bizarre are the numerous "this isn't nerdish" comments. I'm guessing that those comments come from those who enter nerd-mode when they sit in front of a computer screen, and deactivate nerd-mode when they logoff and go do [insert your choice of non-nerdish activity--anything that *I* would write here would wind up as flamebait].
I'm a full-time nerd, as in 24/7/365. If something is interesting to me, it is therefore(from my perspective, that is) nerdish. I'm guessing that timothy feels the same way.
~a