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."

Comments

Saddam would love one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

+5 Confusing

USB toothbrush

[fabio]

i saw a usb powered toothbrush at some obscure japanes page, are there anything YOU cant power with usb?

Judging from the pictures....

[trotski]

... 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.

Re:Judging from the pictures....

[cliffy2000]

Well, LEDs on a menorah could very well suffice, depending on the circumstances.
I mean, the lighting of the candles might be awkward, but it certainly can be done. Judaism is not really so much of a methodical religion as much as it is a spiritual one.
Of course, what do I know? I'm a very bad Jew.

Next Poll ...

[lemonjus]

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...

Yeah, well...

[Faust7]

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...

Why 2BCE?

[panurge]

Why does thing go back to only 2BCE? The origins of Chanukah go back further than that, to about 2300 years ago if I remember correctly.

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.

Re:Why 2BCE?

[sigxcpu]

The current Jewish calander is only about that old. (give or take a century).
Before that the dates were decided apon witnesses of the new moon coming before the Sanhedrin. (the high court)
So any exact date before that is meaningless, as there are no records for the length fo each historical month. (29 or 30 dayes - this is a moon month)

Re:Why 2BCE?

[Stigmata669]

No clue about the software limitation, but I learned a little about Chanukah from a Rabbi who visited my highschool Western Religious Cultures class.

Apparently, there is strong evidence that the myth of the eight days was actually developed some 500-800 years after the events of Syrian oppression that began the Chanukah celebration. The Rabbi explained that the current theory (he is a Reform Jew if that makes a difference?) is that some religious celebration was not observed because the group of Jews were in hiding and that after they felt safe to come back into the open, that they celebrated over the course of 8 days rather than just one, and the tradition stuck. The Menorah was adopted as a Rabbinic invention several hundred years later, so perhaps it is intentional (or appropriately coincidental) that it only goes back to 2BCE.

Re:Why 2BCE?

[Anonymous Coward]

about 2300 years ago if I remember correctly.

Jeez, how old are you?

As my mother would say...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oy...and for this I sent you to MIT?

Planning

[fiskbil]

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.

lame acrylic things?

[Scrameustache]

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...

Re:Morse code, eh?

[Odin's Raven]

Anyone got a translation of the video he's got linked?

Let's see, I believe it says:

Help...me...

Obi...Wan...Kenobi...

You're...my....

only...hope...

;-)

Up next

[Anonymous Coward]

A dreidel with Bluetooth?

Menorah

[mabu]

Think anyone's going to pay retail for that?

And the Hebrews celebrated...

[CptChipJew]

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.

Re:Put the Mudslums in camps - nat'l alert is rais

[Stigmata669]

Well, here's my 2c on the topic. Zionism refers simply to returning to The Holy Land (tm), and has been branded as distinctly Jewish the same way anti-semitism refers to being anti-Jewish rather than against the semite race. The current government in Israel is a secular Zionist movement, and some of the first settlements in Palistine were actually Christian Zionists. In 1866 43 families American Mormons (The Church of the Messiah) moved to Palestine to make ready for the "Second Coming of Christ". There were several other Christian Zionist movements, but all of them failed in short order. Many orthadox Jews in the 20s were strongly against Zionism.

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.

"Menorah..."

[BTWR]

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...

Yes.

[Faust7]

As opposed to the non-combustible variety?

Ever tried to burn wet wood?

Wow

[Laconian]

That's the nerdiest thing I've ever heard about. Seriously. And I've used /. for almost six years.