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USB Menorah
Fiver-rah writes "There's USB Christmas trees; lame acrylic things with LED lights that are powered by your computer. It's an amusing idea, but it doesn't really take advantage of being attached to a computer. Enter the USB Menorah. It can correctly calculate the dates of Hannukah for at least the next few thousand years (or any historical date back to 2 B.C.E.). As well as 'lighting' the candles based on when the sunsets (I set the default geography for San Francisco/Berkeley, but you can enter any latitude/longitude and (assuming you don't live too close to the arctic
circle) it will be correct to within a few minutes. Furthermore, the shamas (candle you use to light the other candles) can blink out any morse-code message you want--it'll convert the words to morse code for you! And you can even put it into Kwanzaa mode! Each candle can take three different colors (Red, Green & Yellow),
allowing you to do some animation. Software is a GPL command line program for Mac OS X. Basically only the USB communication stuff needs to be ported for other OS's. Delcom
(the manufacturer of the USB interface chip) supplies drivers for
Windows, and a few people have written Linux drivers, so it wouldn't be
too hard for a motivated individual."
+5 Confusing
nice idea, but I think the plastic look isnt to attractive.
-------- Could we (as a
i saw a usb powered toothbrush at some obscure japanes page, are there anything YOU cant power with usb?
*resistance is futile, or fuzzy, i dunno*
... they need an industrial designer to make a candle stick shaped body for these suckers. A bunch of LED lights on a bread board a minorah do not make.
Couse what do I know, I'm not Jewish.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
This story goes well with this story.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Anyone got a translation of the video he's got linked? I may try if I get really bored, but if there's someone who's got experience dealing with morse, it'd prolly be a lot easier for them.
The Message
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
The lamest USB gadget you can think of :
...
1) USB machine gun
2) USB umbrella
3) USB Inflatable doll
4) USB stapler
help me out here...
My FireWire Christmas tree beats the crap out of that!
Though perhaps "FireWire" isn't such a good word to use in the context of combustible wood...
The coolest voice ever.
I'm just curious. It's like a program to work out the day of the week on which Christmas Day fell that only went back to the time of Constantine.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Now I just feel silly... and slow. I must need more coffee. Or maybe a USB Menorah.
"...The mice will see you now..."
While basically gimmics, stuff like this USB powered menorah and the USB toothbrush may be looked back on historically as the dawning of the pervasive computing age..
Next thing will be to make them interface via wireless ethernet.
Oy...and for this I sent you to MIT?
Is a USB FM Radio. They seem to have made them a few years ago, but there don't appear to be any widely marketed now.
ummmmmmmm.............the menorah is JEWISH, not muslim..........[offtopic]and anywho the us will not be safe until idiots like you figure out that the us is all made up of immigrants from all over the world......what would you do if they asked for the same to happen to you? [/offtopic]
I hope the people buying this tree realize that they have to keep an old computer working for a few thousand years and pass that computer to their children and so on and so forth. It would be a shame to not take advantage of its ability to calculate a thousands years into the future.
It would be really cool though if it could masquerade as something else when it's not christmas (holidays whatever). Both me and some of my friends are usually too lazy to take away decorations after christmas and you usually end with some smartass comments during summer.
How about lame LEDs on a circuitboard?
Jeez, if you're gonna be making fun religious hacks, don't knock the other stuff for being lame until your stuff doesn't look like it was ripped out of something else.
Here I was expecting some fun candle-shaped thingy...
You can't take the sky from me...
why pay? USB devices rarely work under Linux.
A dreidel with Bluetooth?
Think anyone's going to pay retail for that?
I'm waiting for the USB dreidl. Now that's a fun idea!
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
for their UPS kept their menorah lit for 8 full nights after the Syrian army cut the power!
Thus thou shalt celebrate for 8 days, lighting one LED each night.
Vonal Declosion
You already invoked the Godwin rule by uttering neo-nazi trash.
You've got to "live and let live" when it comes to Israel. Obsession with hating the Jews will bring you to no good end.
(For those who are interested)
Although, most people who use this would probably know that this should not be intended to replace the actual lighting of a menorah.
In order to fulfill the religious requirement of lighting the menorah for the 8 nights of Chanukah, you need to use either candles or olive oil (to burn). (the other requirement is that all the candles except for the one used to light the others, must be at the same height)
I have some lights on my 'power station' that flicker and kind of move around like a candle light, don't know what these bulbs are but they could be used for the candle lights, if of course they all don't overdrive the usb power.
Natural-Selection Be
I'm not Jewish and I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject. All of the specifics in this post come from a book i've been reading, "War Without End" by Anton La Guardia, a reporter for The Daily Telegraph in the 90s.
Yawn.
Or maybe just some karma.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Just to be precise, the device that is used during Hannukah is not a "Menorah," but rather a "Chanukiah" [Chah-noo-kee-yah, with "Ch" pronounced gutterally]. A "menorah" is the seven-branched candelabra that was around in the ancient temple (and often used today in synagogues as decorations). A "Chanukiah" is a nine-branched candelabra that is used on Hannukah to celebrate the 8-day "hannukah miracle," where legend had it the temple candles burned for 8 days and nights with oil that should have only lasted one night (so therefore a chanukiah has 8 candles plus one candle to hold the shamash, the candle that lights the other 8). Sometimes the nine-candled version is called a "Hannukah Menorah," but just "Menorah" is technically the seven-branched one, not the one used druing the holiday.
No, I'm not someone who goes around correcting people about this. I really don't care either way, but rather just in case anyone was interested...
ignorace...
i would think that this would be a well recieved hack, but it seems that you guys have nothing but brainless negativity. Who cares if its just in its preliminary stages? he ordered the parts, put it together, a wrote the code in about one week. besides he already has a case designed for someone else to make.
i hope everyone that posted something stupid\bigotous feels good about themselves.
-Emoticon
Ramadan ended weeks ago. Now who's the insensitive clod?
Heck, it conveniently ended shortly before US Thanksgiving...
(to start, this may be offtopic, but I am merely responding to the above question to settle this issue which seems to come up every time something Jewish or Israeli appears on Slashdot)
There are many kinds of zionism.
Zionism is a political point of view; Judaism is a religion which may incorporate some kinds of Zionism.
The term Zionism comes from biblical verses referring to Jerusalem as Zion (or Tsion in Hebrew). At its core, Zionism is the belief and aspirations that the Jews should have a homeland in Israel.
As I stated at the beginning, there are many kinds of Zionists..
- Political Zionism - there should be state that can be used to protect Jews from violence (i.e. holocaust, etc.) and will give them a sence of normalicy
- Cultural Zionism - Israel should be the cultural centre of the Jewish people.
- Labour Zionism - To express the love for the land through working it (i.e. agriculture)
- Religious Zionism - Certain Jewish laws can only be kept in Israel, as a result, in order to fulfill these laws, one must be in Israel
- Socialist Zionism - To build Israel as a socialist state where all classes can unite and overcome anti-Semitism.
It should be noted there are other Zionists that are not Jewish that believe that all the Jews need to return to the Holy Land in order to fulfill the messianic prophecies
I hope this helps.
Baroch Ato ashem Alokenu Melech Haolam Asher Kideshanu Bemitzvotaz Vezivano Lehadlik Ner Shel Hanukah
Amen!
Baroch Ato ashem Alokenu Melech Haolam Sheasa Nisim Laavoteinu Bayamim Hahem Bazman Hazeh
Amen!
Latces anyone? What about Sofganiyot?
All this religious stuff, and here Chris Kringle is getting oppressed! I want my USB RUDOLPH
This is my sig.
---
USB Menorah (Y/M/N) Y
Why not?
Why can't you just use the computer's clock to see what date it is?
But...wasn't jesus a Jew?
As opposed to the non-combustible variety?
Ever tried to burn wet wood?
The coolest voice ever.
That's the nerdiest thing I've ever heard about. Seriously. And I've used /. for almost six years.
I get the joke, I know it's funny, but my little PC gentile heart just won't let me laugh...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Yes it does! It might be the year of your lord, that doesn't mean I have to include him/it as mine.
The potato it is uninformed.
Not to split hairs or anything, but plenty of Jewish people wouldn't touch a USB menorah because they forego use of electronics on holy days. Also, no one lights menorahs during Hanukkah. They're called hannukiahs. A menorah has a completely different spiritual meaning and was kept lit in the Jerusalem temple. People like hannukiahs at home.
Wow, blinking LED's.. too bad my freshman year college blinking LED projects didn't make it to /. /.-able part of this project.
The USB interface has got to be the only
I got a couple of those trees for myself, and I stuck them up on my PS2 for a little holiday cheer :) Then yesterday I kicked the cable and one fell onto
my concrete floor and broke in half :( A little superglue will fix it up though I think,
for now it's just balanced on top and still looking good. The trees are awesome, very very pretty, shifting from color to color :) I got some for all of my family, they like them a lot.
No, actually sometimes phrases adopt a meaning which is not implied in the basic definition of the words involved due to colloquial use. Fox holes in the Vietnam War come to mind as they for instance did not ACTUALLY contain foxes.
AD and BC are generally inoffensive to anyone unless they have a specific problem with Christians. Many of those people may not admit, even to themselves, that they hate Christians because they don't have a problem with individuals of that faith but instead associate the group as a whole with other things they dislike.
Disclaimer before you jump on me about this: I am an atheist. I just also happen to be an individual who doesn't like to see stupid, unnecessary language changes because of extremely whiny people who like to stereotype others of particular groups.
Many Orthodox Jews in the 20s were strongly against Zionism, because they were waiting for Israel to be given to them by God, and the vast majority of non-Orthodox Jews were against Zionism until the 40s because they were citizens of their home countries (Germany, Poland) and had no intention of leaving. It was only when Jews could no longer live in Eastern Europe (where the majority lived before WW2) that Zionism gained any sort of acceptence in mainstream Judaism.
It's kind of like how the Palestinian Liberation Organization was only formed after Egypt realized that the Arab countries in the Middle East couldn't get rid of Israel by traditional military force.
True.
That's pretty late considering that the first wave of modern Jewish migration to Israel were students of the Vilna Gaon in the first decade of the 19th century, also early Chassidim went there with the prominent Rebbe of Vitbesk along with a large group of other Chasidim at around the same time. They were far more than 43 families of a small fringe group; in fact they were emmissaries, including prominent leaders, of both Chasidim and Misnaggedim, the two largest Jewish groups of Eastern European Jews both then and now.Which is a very antisemetic paper, regardless of it's other possible merits in British journalism.
The other required feature is that regenerative braking isn't allowed to dump power back into the power line. It has to dump it into a resistor bank, so as not to do "work" with the energy of descending riders. This is normally enabled only on the Sabbath.
Of course, these features combine to use far more energy than normal mode, so they don't comply with the spirit of the Shabbat, not to do work. Just the letter.
Here is a bit of clarification as to the parent. First, I'd juest like to clarify that this theory is the one adopted by most conservative and reform rabbis, and at least some Orthodox rabbbis, so critiques of the reform movement are at best off-topic here. The original Chanukkah celebration had nothing to do with 8 days of oil. In the original celebrations (i.e. the Book of Maccabees), the Jews were celebrating the holiday of Sukkot (a harvest festival), which they had been precluded from celebrating earlier because the Asssyrian Greeks occupied the temple. Sukkot was one of the three pilgrimage festivals where the entire population would travel to the temple, so the temple's occupation pretty much nixed the whole holiday. Therefore, it was observed after it's liberation, and was simultanioulsy a celebration of the victory and the Sukkot holiday. This later celebration is what we now know of as the Chanukkah holiday. The Chanukkah Candelabra is called a Chanukkiah, not a Menorah, because a Menorah is 7 branched whereas a Chanukkiah, what is used an Chanukah, is 9 branched. The 9 branches came because of the 8 days, not the other way around. Sukkot, the aforementioned holiday, was an 8 day festival. The parent post got the idea right, just a bit backwards. The 8 days came first, the myth came later. As to the myth about the oil, I don't know about it's exact origins. I believe it has some textual origins, although I don't know how vague. My guess (remember this is a guess) is that it started like many traditions, in that a Rabbi began doing it, other people liked it, so they began doing it, and everyone passed it on to their children. Eventually, it spread throughout the community. I'm fairly sure that the 2BCE has nothing to do with this, but is probably something in the technical limitations of his calculations.
No, he was an Israelite. Modern Judaism shares lineage with the Pharasees and later exposure to the mysticism of Babylon. Most Israelites during the time of Jesus were considered "goyim" by the ruling Pharasee tribe.
One thing this product doesn't do though... it doesn't sing the blessings for you. It should at least have a karaoke mode.
Those rules were made by people. I'd guess that originally, only olive oil was permitted, and that it took a while before candles (which were the high-tech lighting method) were allowed.
Interesting, because the book has a rather pro-Jewish slant actually.
Yawn.
A USB Mohel?
Input the parameters pertaining to the size of the infant in question and bada boom bada bing, the unguarded fan blade does its work.
No thanks. I'll pass.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
With respect to Palistinian foreign aid:
It is my understanding that the EU has given the Palistinian Authority a few billion dollars a year. Unfortunately, most of that money went to fund Arafat's palaces, terrorism, and some went to anti-Semitic text books.. i.e. (true story), in their gradeschool math textbooks, they have examples like this "if you have 10 Jews and you kill 3, how many Jews do you have left?"
The Palistinians need to make some major changes before there is any chance for peace.