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Wooden Computer Accessories

polyp2000 writes "It's always interesting to read about case-mods, but this company has a novel twist, for nature loving geeks. Maybe even the perfect accessory for a wooden case mod. Swedx do a nice line in wooden monitors, keyboards, and some sweet looking wooden mice in a selection of different woods."

467 comments

  1. Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Computers for the Ahmish.

    1. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Actually it's a Mennonite thing.

    2. Re:Finally! by Coneasfast · · Score: 0

      Computers for the Ahmish.

      don't you mean 'computers for the amish' ?
      sorry, i'm being a spelling nazi :)

      --
      Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
    3. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sorry, i'm being a spelling nazi

      Don't you mean "Sorry, I'm being a spelling Nazi."?
      Sorry, I'm being a grammar Nazi.

    4. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amish? nope, Swedish ;)

    5. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually computers are already being used by many Amish to run their businesses. I believe, much like with cars, that as long as it's not flashy (probably painted matte black), then it's kosher, or whatever the Amish for "kosher" is.

    6. Re:Finally! by AnonymousKev · · Score: 1
      Computers for the Ahmish

      I just thought his <voice actor="Ahnald"> tag was eaten by slashdot!

      You know that quote in his hit movie, The Termite-nator, when Arnold hands the wooden computer to the Orkin man just before the Termites hit:

      "Here is your Ahmish Kompuy-tor. It will be bahrk"

      --
      Anonymous Kev
      Proudly posting as AC since 1997
      (Finally got a dang account in 2004)
    7. Re:Finally! by UserGoogol · · Score: 1

      Capitalization isn't grammar. Sorry, I'm being a semantics nazi.

      --
      "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
    8. Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Capitalization rules are considered part of written grammar in American English. Argue with the MLA if you disagree.

  2. Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    After years of your computer giving you wood, you can finally give back.

    1. Re:Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Apple turns out a ine array of beautiful elegant designs, but all the PC accessories just look like they escaped from the set of a cheap sci fi film set."

      Yeah. Lots of unassuming black boxes (that stay out of my way) in cheap sci fi films.

    2. Re:Finally by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 1

      This is Slashdot. Having 50%+ of the Score: 5 posts be "Funny" is the norm. If you're tired of it, try what I did. Go to your preferences and chance the mod value for Funny to "-2" (or more). Really makes a big difference.

    3. Re:Finally by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 1

      This brings new meaning to Windows goes *down* on me.

  3. Wooden you just know it! by Phidoux · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now my pc will burn with the rest off my house! Aggggg!

    1. Re:Wooden you just know it! by AdamTheBastard · · Score: 0

      Due to past experiance I can asure you that if your house burns down you'll lose your PC too.

    2. Re:Wooden you just know it! by Phidoux · · Score: 1

      You already tried the wooden PC?

    3. Re:Wooden you just know it! by mesach · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just imagine thier server room RIGHT NOW...

      I bet the Halon can't keep up with that tinderbox!

      --
      moo.
    4. Re:Wooden you just know it! by Skidge · · Score: 1

      Now your PC won't release as many noxious fumes when it burns with the rest of your house.

    5. Re:Wooden you just know it! by fshalor · · Score: 1

      Just imagine all the RF... RIGHT NOW. :)

      1. Sound dampening will be better.
      2. Depending on finish, dust accumulation can be worse.
      3. Eaisier to maintiain the visual appearance after 10 years. (Pledge anyone?)
      4. Slashdotted site, so I didn't get to examine what they did inside the cases.

      Um... can we get in trouble for causing a real fire through the /. effect? Looks like we may have at least knocked them out.

      --
      -=fshalor ::this post not spellchecked. move along::
  4. w00t! Woodie PC parts by Rellik66 · · Score: 2, Funny

    to go with my woodie station wagon!

    --

    Too many zeros, not enough ones

  5. Still... by detritus` · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Definitely not the case and/or setup for those overclockers out there :) especially with heat output getting real close to 100W...

    1. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Watts is not a measurement of heat, even if your drawing 100W of power, that doesn't guarantee that it'll be hot

    2. Re:Still... by sjlumme · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Over here, we had the "silverware computer" running a webserver for a while. It was a standard AMD box assembled out of mostly dumpster-dived components, except instead of giving it a proper case, they stuck it in a wooden kitchen drawer. It served webpages just fine as long as nobody closed the drawer all the way, which would cause the AMD to overheat.

    3. Re:Still... by fabs64 · · Score: 1

      Watts is a measure of energy, heat is energy.

    4. Re:Still... by mabinogi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      no, Joules are a measure of energy, watts are a measure of power, which is energy over time. Specifically, joules per second.

      But regardless, the 100 joules per second of energy being produced are not necesarily 100% heat.

      lemons are yellow, but that doesn't mean all yellow things are lemons.

      --
      Advanced users are users too!
    5. Re:Still... by SiliBelgian · · Score: 1

      Joule is a measurement of energy or work, as is calories.
      Watt is a measurement of power.
      Power is energy divided by time.

      --


      "Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
    6. Re:Still... by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 1

      So are light, radio waves, and sound. What's your point? The AC was right.

      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
    7. Re:Still... by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It all ends up as heat eventually - unless you use it to drive an endothermic process or store some of the energy. Most of the joules used by a computer would probably be heat from resistance, etc. and any light, sound, and whatnot produced should wind up as heat pretty quickly, too.

    8. Re:Still... by silentbozo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Heh, I've actually thought about sticking a computer under a kitchen/bathroom sink, and connecting a heatpipe from the processor to the cold-water line. There's plenty of unused room under there, and noise isn't an issue since it's not living space. I should have thought ahead and embedded telephone/network/cable/and power in the cabinets when they were installed. As it is, to do this means fishing more wire into the wall :P

      It's a good idea to put the components in a metal enclosure - it's a nasty thing when an electrical-short inspired fire breaks out (scary too - I fried a UPS once, there was the brief foomph as the circuit vaporized, then the smoke as it consumed the available oxygen/fuel inside the metal case.)

    9. Re:Still... by LarsWestergren · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Definitely not the case and/or setup for those overclockers out there :) especially with heat output getting real close to 100W...

      That does not really matter. As others have pointed out, the heat disappation of your metal case is close to zero compared to how much is dissappated by the air circulated by your case fans, so switching to wood won't make any difference.

      There are lots of predicatble jokes here about it catching fire, but most traditional Finnish saunas are made from wood. You can actually have wood panelling right next to metal that is so hot it's glowing red without the wood smoldering. Though just like with saunas, it would probably be best not to use wood that is impregnated or treated with anything for the cases, as that might give off not very healthy gasses if warmed up.

      With regards to being heavy - it might be a bit bulky, but I think I read wood is actually one of the strongest materials compared to its weight in the world. Hey, here is an idea, how about spider silk cases?

      Finally, the environmental question: wood is about as renewable resource as there is, and we have lots of it in Sweden. As long as the wood doesn't come from protected forests ("ur-skog") or rainforests, you can't really get more environmentally friendly.

      --

      Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

    10. Re:Still... by LarsWestergren · · Score: 1

      You can actually have wood panelling right next to metal that is so hot it's glowing red without the wood smoldering.

      Perhaps I should clarify that by "next to" I didn't mean touching of course, but a couple of centemeters away... and at least when the pipes from the fireplace is glowing dark to medium red there is no problem with the wood catching fire or even getting very warm, I know from personal experience.

      If it is getting cherry red or bright red I might start to worry, both about the wood being burnt, and the metal getting deformed. :-)

      --

      Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

    11. Re:Still... by fabs64 · · Score: 1

      the original post said an output of 100W of heat; one would assume all the heat stays as heat.

    12. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      isn't the humidity in a sauna high enough to keep the wood from burning at all?

      just a thought, it's been a long time since i've been in a sauna. or a turkish prison. do you like naked men, lars?

      fred

    13. Re:Still... by LarsWestergren · · Score: 1

      do you like naked men, lars?

      Hey, who doesn't? :-)

      --

      Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die

    14. Re:Still... by MikeFM · · Score: 1

      I made a cute lil wooden case for a mini-itx system. It was pretty nice. One of the benefits of how cool they run. I thought it would be nice for an office computer given it was tasteful looking, small, and almost completely silent. To bad where I live now I haven't got access to a workshop. I had several offers to buy the cases from me for resale.

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    15. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Just so you know, when you've born in a culture where sauna is an everyday thing, there's nothing sexual about it. Sauna is purely for cleaning up, relaxation and boozing. You also develop a healthier attitude about nudity.

    16. Re:Still... by budhaboy · · Score: 1
      I've thought about making wooden cases, but my concern is that there may be a problem with the wood expanding more than metal when it heats up, causing cracks inthe MB...

      Am I nuts?

    17. Re:Still... by holizz · · Score: 1

      I read the headlines on Slashdot just before I went into my physics (mock) exam this morning. If I'd just read part way down this topic I would probably have got 6 more marks or something because I forgot P=E/t. Argh!
      Although it was probably Slashdot that contributed to me not revising in the first place.

    18. Re:Still... by B'Trey · · Score: 1

      I'd buy a cheap PC case (a local shop carries them for $12 sans power supply) and cut out the metal plate where the mobo mounts. Depending on your design, you might want to keep the back plane attached. Mount it to your wooden case using screws in elongated slots with the slots running in the direction of the grain of the wood. That will allow the wood to expand and contract without stressing the motherboard. As a bonus, you can run a ground from the PS to the metal base, which makes sure your mobo is well grounded.

      --

      "The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.

    19. Re:Still... by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      Just make sure to use a GFI outlet.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    20. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Women go to saunas, too! (you insensitive clod)

    21. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are lots of predicatble jokes here about it catching fire, but most traditional Finnish saunas [finland.fi] are made from wood.

      This is a valid comparison? How hot are those saunas anyway?

    22. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It varies... a good sauna temperature is between 80 and 100 degrees celsius (176 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit), up to 120 (248) for manly men and less for the weak and elderly. Surely comparable to an overclocked CPU...

    23. Re:Still... by 74nova · · Score: 1

      let me just say first that i think that is a very cool idea. however, im not sure i would trust the plumbing on that one. if something breaks, you have a nice heat-pipe-turned-water-channel straight down to your board. if youve got the extra money and the gfi your other reply-er suggested, its worth a shot. maybe extreme overclocking of an older machine would even make the project cooler...ahem...so to speak.

      --
      use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
    24. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you beam your energy into space.

    25. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What matters here is thermal resistance.

    26. Re:Still... by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 1

      Well, some percentage of energy in the PC is lost not as heat but as direct radiation of RF into space when it is converted into high frequency signals. For example, imagine a 50KW radio station - that transmitting energy doesn't go off as heat, a lot goes out the antenna.

    27. Re:Still... by shamino0 · · Score: 1
      Definitely not the case and/or setup for those overclockers out there :) especially with heat output getting real close to 100W

      Of course, they're not selling computers. They're selling keyboards, mice and LCD monitors. None of which are going to consume that kind of power. Their 19" monitor only consumes 50W.

    28. Re:Still... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >lemons are yellow, but that doesn't mean all yellow things are lemons.

      true - and while all blueberries are blue berries, not all blue berries are blueberries.

      um. where were we going with this again?

  6. The next thing in retro: by os2fan · · Score: 1

    I suppose that halt+catch fire will take on a whole new meaning!

    --
    OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
  7. Just like the wooden car with wooden wheels by Dylbert · · Score: 2, Funny

    It wooden work.

    --
    I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
    1. Re:Just like the wooden car with wooden wheels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wood gerk.

    2. Re:Just like the wooden car with wooden wheels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      All jokes aside, it would work, it might even work well, up to a certian speed...

      then it would probably explode, sending toothpick like shrapnel in all directions..

      Heck, the spokes on Model A's and T's were wooden.

  8. Talking Heads by 1000101 · · Score: 1

    For some reason, the song "Burning Down the House" comes to mind.

  9. So? by tonyr60 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So what else is new? Here is my first bought PC... http://www.computercloset.org/OSI-C4PMF.htm

    And that brown stuff on the sides is real wood.

  10. Shame by z0ink · · Score: 1

    Too bad we'll probably never know if this site gets /.'d since it's in Sweden.

    --
    Steal This Sig
    1. Re:Shame by flewp · · Score: 1

      And if their server(s) are in these wooden cases, it might just burn up.

      --
      WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
    2. Re:Shame by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 1

      Meaning??? Are you implying that Swedish web sites all behave as if they're slashdotted? Even when they're not?

      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  11. binary troll! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    01101010001100000011000000100000001101000011000100 11000100100000010100100010000000110111001100110110 10000010000000110101011101010101100000110000011100 100011010100100001

  12. Plenty of wood already .... by pararox · · Score: 4, Funny

    As if most Slashdot readers truly need more wood when sitting before a computer ;)

    1. Re:Plenty of wood already .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah man we are all hung like horses right?

    2. Re:Plenty of wood already .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      hobby horses, maybe...

    3. Re:Plenty of wood already .... by Cali+Thalen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Gods...I hate to post this in reply about wood, but....

      Did anyone else see the URL for that site and immediately try to figure out if it was something akin to goatse.cx?

      See... ./ does rot the brain...

      --
      Chaos, panic, disorder...my work here is done.
    4. Re:Plenty of wood already .... by SkunkPussy · · Score: 1

      See... ./ does rot the brain...

      http://www.retrogames.com/pics/goatse.jpg

      --
      SURELY NOT!!!!!
  13. Interesting by Felinoid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not nessisarly practical but intresting.
    I can see walking into a log caben and finding a computer in a woden case, woden monitor and woden mouse and keyboard.

    Might also work for a CEO who wants the building done in wood motif.

    --
    I don't actually exist.
    1. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and a woden dicshunery on the shelf

    2. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bro, what are you talking about?

  14. /.ted by amigoro · · Score: 0, Troll
    But fear not. It's google cache to the rescue!

    Moderate this comment
    Negative: Offtopic Flamebait Troll Redundant
    Positive: Insightful Interesting Informative Funny

    --


    Nothing to see here
  15. wood? by dj245 · · Score: 1
    I for one bow to our new gods of super high conductivity and heat-dissipating.... Wood?!?!?

    WTF why has my Prescott case gone up in a fireball and electromagnetic interference fried all my electronics?

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    1. Re:wood? by Moofie · · Score: 1

      Because you don't understand that heat transfer via moving air is about 20x more effective than passive cooling by conduction.

      You might think that your aluminum case keeps your PC cooler, but to a very good approximation, you're wrong.

      Airflow is the ONLY issue.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
  16. Yawn. by Chess_the_cat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Mac prototype was made of wood and so was the first mouse. Nothing new here.

    --
    Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
    1. Re:Yawn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's an Apple ][, not a Mac, brainiac

    2. Re:Yawn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many of the early CP/M PCs were also made partially of wood. Northstar Horizon comes to mind and I think the Sol20 also had wood sides.

    3. Re:Yawn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure you're not thinking about the Apple I?

    4. Re:Yawn. by the+pickle · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it was the Apple I, not an Apple ][, you brainiac.

      p

    5. Re:Yawn. by bgspence · · Score: 1

      I was an Apple VAR with a 128K Macintosh that I upgraded to 512K following the instructions in a German Mac magazine. It required unsoldering the memory chips, soldering in sockets for the new chips, and adding an extra address controller chip.

      When the SE came out, I did an upgrade offered to VARs to swap systems. Apple offered only about $400 for the old motherboard and floppy, so I decided to keep them. I found another article about using an Atari monitor for the video and sound. So, I added a couple of chips to a daughter board with a commercial power supply and had the makings of a new system.

      My company was making speaker phones out of wood, so I had our woodworker make an oak, (not apple), case to put under the Atari mointor. I added a fan and had a 12" screen wooden Macintosh.

    6. Re:Yawn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Splinters in the hands made it hard to continue viewing porn on the computer using a wooden mouse.

    7. Re:Yawn. by Endive4Ever · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Apple 1 was a circuit board. No case, and you had to come up with your own power transformer to plug into the rectifier/regulator built onto the main board. And you had to wire in your own keyboard, a parallel-strobe ASCII keyboard. Then you hooked in your video monitor.

      It all sat on the table, a bare circuit board, unless you got creative, which some people did with wood.

      There was no 'official' Apple 1 case. The reason they didn't ship a power transformer with the circuit board was because of weight. In that era it was expected that anybody serious about it would know where to buy their own power transformer, or have one on hand.

      It wasn't at all the same company that Apple is now.

      --
      ---
    8. Re:Yawn. by Azghoul · · Score: 1

      Way to be an asshole.

      Here's a hint: There's not much new out there AT ALL. Someone finds this interesting, you don't have anything useful to add, shut the fuck up.

  17. FCC? by ocularDeathRay · · Score: 1, Interesting

    isn't there a bunch of problems with EMI here? I thought this stuff needed to be surrounded by something conductive. oh well... back to bzflag

    --
    Obama is a twitter sock puppet
    1. Re:FCC? by enosys · · Score: 1

      It's easy enough to put something conductive on the inside of a wooden case. It's not a new problem either; what about stuff in plastic cases? I've seen metal screens, foil or even conductive paint used in such situations.

  18. nice theme... by Whitecloud · · Score: 3, Funny

    wooden cases huh? wouldnt want an Athlon in there, the heat might cause an office fire. Whats next, tablets made out of stone?

    I can see it now, the boss walks in with his shiny (heavy) new tablet, suddenly those power point presentations are elevated to commandment level. Plus if someone disagrees, it doubles as a pacifier.

    --

    Do you need a website upgrade?

    1. Re:nice theme... by mubar · · Score: 1

      wooden cases huh? wouldnt want an Athlon in there, the heat might cause an office fire.

      There is no concern, as others have already pointed out. Even the hottest Athlon wouldn't produce even nearly enough heat to cause the least damage to case, and it catching fire would need literally enormous amounts of heat. If you just have the normal air cooling you'll be just fine.

      Overall after reading this discussion it seems to me that people don't really know about different materials' properties. Think about it, you have lots of plastic parts inside your case, cables all kind of stuff. These are much less heat-resistant, they'll start melting in so low temperatures that wood won't have any impact. Yet when was the last time you saw a melt IDE cable? No, your computer won't cause fire and if it does that'd be because something stops the air flow, wooden or aluminium case won't make any difference to that because it's not the aluminium case that keeps computer cool. And in the event of real home fire started from the couch or TV etc. the computer will ultimately burn, too, even with a case made of steel.

      Besides, people have used TVs with wooden chassis for decades, those don't cause fires any more often than plastic ones. Wooden case mods have been around for ages too. And Swedx is only selling wooden monitors, keyboards and mice, all of which are probably plastic, and thus questionable if heated, in a regular PC. So this news doesn't pose a problem to anyone.

  19. Uh, oh.. by Rellik66 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Will a slashdotting catch the server on fire?

    A fire hazard to be sure

    --

    Too many zeros, not enough ones

  20. dirty by minus_273 · · Score: 1

    ok i first look at the link swedx.se and think someone has pulled a fast one on the editors. I click on it (yeah i know, bad practice when you suspect a bad link) and i see these mice that just look dirty. I dont know if it is just me, but those mice, with the two buttons and the black scroll wheel nested in the middle, looks like a certain part of the anatomy.

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:dirty by matoh · · Score: 1


      Well, the mouse *does* serve the same place in Swedish slang that another furry animal, the beaver, does in American - leading to an tiresomly unending series of jokes about "fiddling with the mouse", etc...

      For that reason, some people tried to call a computer mouse a "rat" in Swedish. Didn't catch on...

      That aside, I thinki your imagination needs a good cleaning; sometimes a mouse is just a mouse.

  21. /.tted already? by thatiger · · Score: 1

    Does anyone actually get some sleep instead of maliciously targeting and slashdotting sites 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365...... you get my gist.

    --
    Nosce te ipsum! -- Know thyself.
    1. Re:/.tted already? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is more then one time zone in the world, idiot.

    2. Re:/.tted already? by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, there's Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.

      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
  22. The poor server by Depili · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I hope, that their web-server ain't made of wood...

  23. Wooden keyboards and mice? by Dark+Nexus · · Score: 1

    Can anyone else say "splinters"?

    --
    Dark Nexus
    "Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
  24. You love nature so much that you by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    cut down a tree in honor of it?

    Hmmmmm..... Anyone else see somehting wrong with this picture??

    1. Re:You love nature so much that you by Apiakun · · Score: 1

      Agreed. One would think that a nature lover would be against products that needlessly cut down trees, wouldn't one? I think this is more the sort of thing that a nature hater would enjoy.

    2. Re:You love nature so much that you by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      I was about to post the same thing. Wouldn't nature lovers rather have the trees out in nature instead of dead on their computers? It is similar to those moronic christians who cut down evergreen trees because they symbolize eternal life. Do they realize what they are doing? I have never understood that concept.

    3. Re:You love nature so much that you by Brandybuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cut down a tree (renewable resource) versus mining bauxite (nonrenewable resource). The answer is trivial when you think about it. While it's a bad thing to cut down entire rainforests of hardwood just to make mice, it's even worse to mine entire mountains level just so you get a 1337 aluminum case.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    4. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd wager you do less damage to the environment cutting down a tree than mining for the ores necessary for metal, generating the heat required to mix/form the metals, drill for the oil required to fuel the ships to deliver the case from China to the US, etc etc..

    5. Re:You love nature so much that you by dnahelix · · Score: 1

      Especially since the original pagan tree decorating ceremonies were done outside, to the living, eternal green trees growing in the forest. Even those ancient people knew it would die if you cut it down.

      --
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      They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
      I Hate \.
    6. Re:You love nature so much that you by timeOday · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Do you worry about breakfast cereal depleting our precious natural corn resources?

      The key of having enough of a renewable resource is getting people to value it in the first place. With the $15 I pay to cut down a Christmas tree, the forest service plants several more. (And that is in fact exactly what they do with the money).

    7. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Aluminimum is pretty recycleable; of course the cases they make are 99% likely to be non-recycled aluminum.

      Epoxy a bunch of cans together to make a computer case, and I'll sure as hell be impressed (talk about insulating).

    8. Re:You love nature so much that you by corngrower · · Score: 1

      Not to mention all the fossil fuels that were required to transport and turn the raw ore into usable metal.

    9. Re:You love nature so much that you by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 1

      Not me. I use OLD stuff over again.
      I refurbish and recycle.
      And when I say recycle, I don't mean into raw materials, I mean refurbish and put back into service....

      http://www.systemrecycler.com/

    10. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What do you mean? It makes perfect sense here in America. To prove that killing people is wrong, we kill people who kill! And we try to impeach Clinton for getting a blowjob, but we let Bush steal an election, lie about WMD to start a war, and hook up Cheney's old companies without punishing him. Chopping down a tree to honor nature makes perfect sense in American logic.

    11. Re:You love nature so much that you by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      Well I may have been a bit unclear. I wasn't talking about christmas trees in relation to the environment, I was talking about them in relation to what they symbolize. Evergreen trees symbolize eternal life(since they keep their leaves all year), yet people kill them. They kill a tree that symbolizes eternal life just so they can put it in their living room. It isn't eternal now! It completely nullifies the symbol. Now, instead of having an eternal tree, you have a tree you have to throw away in a few weeks. I understand the concept of christmas tree farms; there is one a couple miles out of town and I drive by it quite often. However, I do not understand the concept of killing a symbol of eternal life.

    12. Re:You love nature so much that you by fbjon · · Score: 1

      Cutting down a tree doesn't mean you don't like trees. Rather, that you like trees so much that you willingly grow them, and make things out of them.

      ... And don't start something about the trees' feelings and whatnot.. :)

      Oh, about christians cutting down christmas trees.. what has christianity and eternal life got to do with this very old tradition?

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    13. Re:You love nature so much that you by Bastian · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm not sure what wood options you get with these, but some woods aren't much more renewable than mining.

      Attempts at replanting logged / burnt tropical rainforests haven't been all that successful, because the ecosystems tend to be so funky and tightly woven.

      At least metal is scrappable, although it's been @$%!#%$ hard to find a scrapyard that will take the random chunks of various metals I have lying around since I can't produce anything in any real quantity.

      No, no, at the rate at which people use up any resource nowadays, including "renewable" ones, I think we're going to need something that renews a lot faster than trees but can be used for many jobs wood currently serves to make treas really count as renewable. Rate of production has to match rate of consumption; otherwise even petroleum counts as a renewable resource.

    14. Re:You love nature so much that you by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      The very old tradition is to decorate trees outside, not to cut them down and bring them inside. It isn't a matter of liking the trees. You have to look at the symbolism and understand why christians stole the tradition of decorating a tree. Evergreens symbolize eternal life, so christians liken that to christ's eternal life(or some bullshit like that). However, they are really killing the tree that symbolizes eternal life. In a way, they are killing christ. Stupid christians.

    15. Re:You love nature so much that you by snicklas · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually it's very japanese. some believe that the true life of a tree is far more than just its life in the ground, and that truly beautiful furniture is the highest form of praise for a tree.

    16. Re:You love nature so much that you by Brandybuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pine, oak, ash, beech, maple, etc., are all "farmed" woods suitable for mice that don't require any rainforests to be stripped. Even apple and cherry wood from old orchards is suitable for small items like these, and would be very cool.

      If you want some exotic rainforest hardwoods instead, there's no need to "strip log" them. Selective cutting preserves the ecostructure quite nicely. Clearcutting is a sign of bad government management of resources. It's easy enough to brand "eco-friendly" lumber to make sure you aren't buying mouse made from clearcut timber.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    17. Re:You love nature so much that you by zakezuke · · Score: 4, Funny

      The answer is trivial when you think about it. While it's a bad thing to cut down entire rainforests of hardwood just to make mice, it's even worse to mine entire mountains level just so you get a 1337 aluminum case.

      Empty soda can.... about 17 g
      Ennyah ATX case... 5 kg

      Knowing your case can be recycled into about 294 cans of jolt cola... priceless

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    18. Re:You love nature so much that you by Canadian_Daemon · · Score: 1

      Use a plastic tree, they are more 'eternal' and will not (hopefully) die.
      But on a serious note, not everyone believes as you do, and not everyone views evergreens as symbols of eternal life. Can you not understand the concept of tradition, or are you unwilling to understand it? There are many trees, and many people see the symbol of christmas to be a more meaningful symbol than eternal life. Not that I agree with either of these two sides, however, as I am an atheist and don't care too much about saving the trees. (why waste money saving trees/whales/domestic animals when there are more important matters ( 3rd world nations with low economies, AIDS epidemics, floods, poverty, slavery, disease ))

      --
      This sig is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
    19. Re:You love nature so much that you by kistral · · Score: 2, Funny

      Bauxite, is that what you build that awesome baux with?

    20. Re:You love nature so much that you by Blastrogath · · Score: 1

      > Clearcutting is a sign of bad government management of resources.

      In many cases it's not so simple, the road to the logging site can do more dammage than a clearcut. (polluting streams with silt etc.) And some areas have steep enough terain that selective logging means you must use hellicopters to move the logs.

      --
      "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato
    21. Re:You love nature so much that you by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      You are all over the board, dude. I am an atheist, too, and I'm not religious. I grew up with a plastic christmas tree. Do you not understand the concept of a symbol? Without the symbolic meaning behind the tradition, the tradition is meaningless. I am not saying that I necessarily believe in any of this; I am just stating the historical and symbolic meanings behind christmas trees. And what the hell is the symbol of christmas? If you are talking about christmas trees, then the reason why trees are even used in christmas traditions is because they represent eternal life. It all goes back to that.

    22. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Christmas trees don't symbolize eternal life. They're an ornament, used only because of tradition, and nothing more.

      Whether or not a different religion used them as symbols of eternal life is completely irrelevent.

    23. Re:You love nature so much that you by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Knowing your case can be recycled into about 294 cans of jolt cola... priceless

      Knowing that 9 out of 10 cases never will be... shocking

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    24. Re:You love nature so much that you by Penguinshit · · Score: 4, Insightful


      actually, if you cut the tree correctly, the stump will live and produce yet another tree. Only the part you cut away dies (and even that could be coaxed into becoming its own tree).

      I propagate roses all the time in this fashion. It's called "asexual reproduction" (something with which many slashdotters are invariably familiar...).

    25. Re:You love nature so much that you by Dark+Bard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      When's the last time you flew over Washington state? It looks like a big checkerboard. They're sneaky and leave a strip along the road to fool you into thinking there are trees. It's a myth that the trees are replanted. Until recently the lumber companies argued that clear cutting was good for a forest. Kind of like extinction is good for a species. Some trees are planted because they are forced to but most of the forest are lost and we'll never see them come back in our lifetimes. Most lumber companies operate as strip miners and will keep cutting trees until there aren't any. They'll simply move onto the next resource when they run out. It doesn't make sense but blind greed rarely does.

    26. Re:You love nature so much that you by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      Knowing that 9 out of 10 cases never will be... shocking

      I never thought i'd get rid of my old AT tower. You know the type taking the full sized power supply. Mine was black and hunter green, very smashing... but alas it had to be retired due to the fact that the best motherboard I could get for it is a 66mhz FSB penitum II / celeron class one.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    27. Re:You love nature so much that you by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      Oh okay, it's just a tradition. I understand now. There is no symbolism. The tradition just started because someone liked evergreen trees. Okay. Makes perfect sense. Dumbass. Why they hell do you think the tradition got started? Evergreen trees symbolize eternal life because they don't lose their leaves in the winter like most other trees do. And what the hell are you talking about other religions? I'm pretty sure that CHRISTianity is the only religion that uses CHRISTmas trees.

    28. Re:You love nature so much that you by sirsnork · · Score: 1

      Haven't read the article (wouldn't want to ruin the tradition), but maybe is they use recycled wood, as they would then be saving trees that would otherwise be cut down to make computer parts

      --

      Normal people worry me!
    29. Re:You love nature so much that you by aastanna · · Score: 1

      Meh, just saw something on the news today about the need for selective cutting and burning in national parks. We need fire protection in the forests to help our cities close to the forests, but it leads to an artifically high level of growth that is dangerous and leads to the fire problems we've been having in the last few years.

    30. Re:You love nature so much that you by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Forest fires are a natural part of forest life. It is only when humans do everything they possibly can to prevent forest fires that all this underbrush develops and makes for a massive fire when the time comes. Stop fucking with nature and it will stop fucking with you.

    31. Re:You love nature so much that you by Monkelectric · · Score: 1

      Aren't clarinets made of a very rare wood that only grows in africa and india, and takes decades to mature?

      --

      Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley

    32. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No? What would that be?

    33. Re:You love nature so much that you by Endive4Ever · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but the rich liberals who donate to the Sierra Club have vacation homes out in the nice woods. . .

      --
      ---
    34. Re:You love nature so much that you by slycer9 · · Score: 1

      >>I'm pretty sure that CHRISTianity is the only religion that uses CHRISTmas trees.

      Actually, untrue. Several variants of the Pagan religions still use an evergreen tree in their Yuletide ceremonies.

      The christmas tree (and to a large part, christmas itself) stemmed directly from pagan ceremonies going back FAR beyond the birth of Christ.

      THAT'S why he's talking about other religions.

      --
      Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
    35. Re:You love nature so much that you by prockcore · · Score: 1

      It's easy enough to brand "eco-friendly" lumber to make sure you aren't buying mouse made from clearcut timber.

      That reminds me of fretboards. For some reason I can't think of the wood, but there's a dark hardwood from Hawaii that is prized fretboard wood. It's rare because it's illegal to cut down the tree, you can only harvest the wood from trees that have fallen over by natural causes.

      If anyone can remember the name of the wood, I'd appreciate it.

      My brother has a custom guitar with this fretboard. The wood for the fretboard cost more than the rest of the guitar.

    36. Re:You love nature so much that you by Endive4Ever · · Score: 1

      The sad thing is, your kind of thinking has been driven out of the 'recycling' movement, which is largely a mouthpiece of the container industry.

      The container industry wants us to buy aluminium from them in the form of cans, then give the cans back to them for free, and buy them again. Similarly with bottles.

      In the old days 'recycling' meant such practices as returnable milk and beverage bottles. I remember the last time I brought an 8-pack of 16 ounce Pepsi bottles back to the corner market. The lady at the counter said they would take them, but that none were being delivered anymore.

      Recycle doesn't mean 'shred or melt' it means re-use. And reusable means use it over again and/or refill it.

      But enough preachy talk. . .

      --
      ---
    37. Re:You love nature so much that you by Endive4Ever · · Score: 1

      I have an AT footprint motherboard that I am about to throw on eBay. It's a 100 MHz FSB one that will take the first generation Pentium III processors.

      But the cool thing to do with one of those big old tower cases would be to put an old XT motherboard in it. Done right, you'd have the space to install all four floppy drives than an early floppy controller could support. Underclock! ! !

      --
      ---
    38. Re:You love nature so much that you by BrynM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Have it both ways with Hemp Plastics. Hemp can grow so rampantly it has to be gotten rid of with other wild weeds, such as thistle. How much more renewable do you want?

      --
      US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
    39. Re:You love nature so much that you by Chainsaw · · Score: 1

      Could it be koa (acacia koa)? It's the only Hawaiian wood type that I know about.

      --
      War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
    40. Re:You love nature so much that you by squaretorus · · Score: 1

      Cutting a Christmas tree will not allow the stump to produce a new tree - inless you cut the tree above the lowest branches (thereby reducing return on initial cutting as most trees are sold by height) in which case you will essentially get a coppice like series of growths from the the tree (actually very unusual in the species used for Christmas trees) which would require a vast number of man-hours per hectare to manage if they were to produce another crop of viable Christmas trees.

      If you are growing deciduous trees for firewood then this is a fine technique - I may be about to plant a couple of acres of mixed hardwoods for a wood burning stove (and to get some squirrel shooting funtime).

      Christmas trees are an attractive proposition because they crop relatively quickly, you get high(ish) returns, its cash, everyone turns a blind eye to anything evil like clearfell and pesticides 'because christmas wouldnt be christmas without a dying tree in the house'.

    41. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (and to get some squirrel shooting funtime).

      You sick bastard!

    42. Re:You love nature so much that you by Micro$will · · Score: 1

      With a jigsaw and some spare time you can do what I did and put an ATX backplate in there. I had an old full tower AT case I converted to ATX a while ago, and recently got the chance to throw the rest of it together. 6 CDROM bays plus 4 harddrives and gobs of room for cables and airflow. No front panel USB, but I solved that with a dremel.

    43. Re:You love nature so much that you by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      With a jigsaw and some spare time you can do what I did and put an ATX backplate in there.

      I'm not at all opposed to cutting an atx hole in a case that has enough in the way of platform. I have an old gateway case I did this too. I've done this many times.

      However, my AT case only has enough in the way of platform for baby AT motherboards, not full sized AT motherboard. ATX will offen fit perfectly in a true blue full sized AT case. I could spotweld or screw in an additional platform, switch to a baby AT power supply, and I might beable to mount in a full sized ATX board... but given the low cost of replacement cases, I just scrapped it.

      Otherwise, i'd be happy to saw / dremmel away.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    44. Re:You love nature so much that you by Avihson · · Score: 1

      Except that trees have a finite life span, they are renewable, and as a nature lover I am in tuned with nature. It supports me, and I support it.
      I take from it, and I give back to it.

      For every tree I cut down, I plant two. Yes I live on wooded land and heat with wood. How many trees did you plant last year?

    45. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sounds fun to me

    46. Re:You love nature so much that you by CmdrGravy · · Score: 1

      I believe they are, I read about it once and I'm think it was called 'plywood' or something like that.

    47. Re:You love nature so much that you by SkunkPussy · · Score: 1

      It is similar to those moronic christians who cut down evergreen trees because they symbolize eternal life

      Its a pagan tradition.

      --
      SURELY NOT!!!!!
    48. Re:You love nature so much that you by NotClever · · Score: 3, Informative
      A myth? Wow, that must come as a surprise to the millions of trees that are planted yearly by lumber companies.

      The lumber companies know that more land isn't being created, and if they cut down all the trees, well, um, they're going out of business. Most lumber companies aren't stupid enough to do that to themselves.

      Perhaps what you are seeing are the farms. Fly over any farmland, and you'll see exactly what you're talking about.

      --
      Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
    49. Re:You love nature so much that you by NotClever · · Score: 1

      Damn, so many lies, no line breaks...

      --
      Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
    50. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +5 interesting? You stupid fucks. His reply had nothing to do with my post. He simply misinterpretted it. How does that deserve a +5? If anything, it should get a -1 offtopic. Stupid goatropers.

    51. Re:You love nature so much that you by bluGill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't know much about washington state, but I do know that in MN where most of the logging is Aspen (for paper, a fast growing tree), the best way to harvest them is clear cutting a small area, and letting nature take over and re-seed. There is a lot of wildlife in MN that prefers this system. Some like the forest just after the cutting, while others like it just before, but if they would leave it, the forest would change again.

      Note that I'm talking about one particular type of forest, and this practice is only done on land the lumber company owns. State and private land is managed differently, for different growth, even there though, clear cutting and then replanting gives all the new trees a better chance at survival.

    52. Re:You love nature so much that you by SubtleNuance · · Score: 1

      Or, if you buy a potted and alive tree, you can plant it. Just a small bit better.

    53. Re:You love nature so much that you by dschl · · Score: 1
      Clearcutting is a sign of bad government management of resources.
      Been reading too many ecofreak brochures again, have we? Statements like the above are simplistic generalizations at best, and outright lies at worst. Not all forests are alike. But don't listen to me, because you wouldn't believe me anyways. Listen to Patrick Moore, a PhD ecologist who also was a founder of Greenpeace. He has a few nice articles posted on clearcutting and biodiversity in clearcuts.
      Selective cutting preserves the ecostructure quite nicely.
      Uh, yeah, whatever. And can also permit root rot in the remaining trees, interfere with stand dynamics, progression, etc. Do you know what happens when you harvest a tree species which needs lots of light as a young plant, while leaving a lot of mature trees to shade the understory? Hint - you've changed everything. Some species require major disturbance events (fire, blowdown, etc) to regenerate, and will not regenerate on sites where shade is present.
      --
      Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
    54. Re:You love nature so much that you by Penguinshit · · Score: 1


      I wasn't necessarily talking about the saleability or profitability of the resulting stump product, just that the tree itself would live.

      In fact, many of the tree farms near where I live specifically *require* you to cut above the lowest branches for this very reason.

    55. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Uh, where do you live? I'm guessing it's far away from reality^H^H^H^H^H^H where Christmas trees are actually grown.

      Ever heard of tree farms? They're private ventures. That's were Christmas trees come from, unless you walk into a forest and cut it yourself.

    56. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having had the opportunity to spend time in Oregon & see the clear cuts up-close and personal, I can tell you that not all loggers are replanting. They leave the slash behind, the land torn up and absolutely nothing left to hold the soil down. Its irresponsible. I don't know if the fault is the loggers or the landowners (logged land is not necessarily held by USDA or logging firms), but the mentality looks to me like clearcutting now for the short-term buck, with no plans for long-term harvesting.

    57. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another sub industry is the construction lumber and paper makers - a lot of the South is covered with pine trees grown expressly for this use - and they lumber companies replant them assiduously - or they'd be out of a job.

    58. Re:You love nature so much that you by Catbeller · · Score: 1

      Well, manufacturing anything costs trees. To build a factory, you need to cut down trees. To build the walls and furniture, trees. To produce all the paper that everone insists on in business, more trees. To open a mine to extract ore, you need to clear the land. To run the mine, you need trees for various things. To make plastics, you need trees for manufacturing, paper, wood for the executive fireplaces, paper for the candy wrappers the plant workers eat.

      If you want to talk real waste of trees, let's talk about product packaging. My God.

      I love trees in the same sense Tolkien did. But at least you can grown more, if you don't just slice everything down for the least cost and cause erosion of the topsoil.

      Q: why isn't the U.S. planting millions of oak, maple, cherry and other hardwood trees in all the acres it's given away to lumber companies? Bad management and greed. Pine grows faster, so you get a new forest more quickly after nuking the last one. So fast-growing soft wood is being planted.

      Op: we need to plant forests made of varieties of hardwoods, to minimize monoculture danger, and maintain them so that future generation can have decent wood instead of the glue and pulped pine that we've grown used to. In other words, reregulate the lumber companies, and put the government back in the management seat. And, oh yeah, regulate the wood prices. We're being royally ripped off for the wood we already own.

    59. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      However, all you x-mas punks who cut down 4" wide spruces prevent the development of 2' wide spruces which are required for building classical guitars with a two piece top.

    60. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The lumber companies know that more land isn't being created, and if they cut down all the trees, well, um, they're going out of business. Most lumber companies aren't stupid enough to do that to themselves.

      To me, you sound like you have a pro-logging bias, but in response: Lumber companies also know that money doesn't just appear in their bank accounts, and that they must harvest (waitforit..) *lumber* to get money. Mmmm.... money. Now, clearcutting every available tree may not be advantageous to the luber co as an organization, but it could be *very* advantageous to Mr CEO of LumberCo who would get a bonus if output exceeds threshold this year. So they may damage the environment and their own futures for the sake of temporary (and highly individual) rewards.

      THAT is why we don't just let lumber harvesters determine their own ethics..

      If you read the post you replied to instead of skimming it for points to rebut, you'd realize what the poster meant was that Not All trees are replanted. You didn't bother to read the whole post so you didn't see, just 3 sentences later, that the poster *states*! that: "Some trees are planted because they are forced to[...]", which pretty much moots your post.

      >> Wow, that must come as a surprise to the millions of trees that are planted yearly by lumber companies.Lumber companies plant trees because if they didn't, they wouldn't be in business. You make it sound like the honest, hard working lumber companies are ever-so dedicated to the common good. Even if 99% of lumberjacks fit this definition (and I don't know that they do), increased logging is only merited by employment concerns, and there are better ways to employ 50 guys than clear-cutting an old-growth forest and leaving behind a dead-zone of square rows and columns of trees in which the old ecosystem cannot survive, but non-native species easily uproot native species.

    61. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those are some hideous websites. Can they at least try to make it look like they weren't designed by a bunch of aging hippy stoners?

    62. Re:You love nature so much that you by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Been reading too many ecofreak brochures again, have we?

      Not at all. I avoid such literature like the plague.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    63. Re:You love nature so much that you by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      In many cases it's not so simple

      Of course it's not so simple. But when the primary factor influencing environmental policy is public perception, then clearcutting is bad. Warm fuzzies trump scientific ecological studies every time.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    64. Re:You love nature so much that you by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, the good old days. People recycled, turned off unused lights, and kept their land free of litter, not out of any religious duty to the Earth goddess, but simply because it was the pragmatic thing to do.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    65. Re:You love nature so much that you by squaretorus · · Score: 1

      Apologies for clinging to economic reality in any given situation! (thats sounds sarcastic - its not).

      Also - cool name!

    66. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Growing hemp is far more wasteful than growing trees.

      Logged forests are far more biodiverse than any sort of farmland. Farmland rates very low on the biodiversity scale, not much better than a parking lot.

      Interestingly, most eco-extremists are against food engineering, which allows for more efficient food production on smaller amounts of land, so that more (starving?) people can be fed. They are pro-organic foods, which by definition take more land. More farming land = less biodiversity = less room to grow trees with more biodiversity.

      The hypocrisy of the environmental fascists abounds, and you've all been suckered into it. The primary goal of the environmental fascists is: a lot less of you and your damn computers!

      Promote sensible environmental policy. Plastics and hemp ain't it.

    67. Re:You love nature so much that you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought hippies were against food engineering because the resistance somehow spreads to other plants. Sure, your corn grows fast and is reistant to all pests, but what if we gave those abilities to thornbushes, poison ivy, and dandelions?

      Or, how 'bout the fact that "engineered" are crops patented? So, I'm growing my organic stuff, but the guy upwind of me isn't. Oops! I'm now breaking the law. I must pay the agricultural company for the use of their product!

      That's what they mean when they say you're messing with mother nature. Things are more complex than just switching genes.

    68. Re:You love nature so much that you by BrynM · · Score: 1
      Logged forests are far more biodiverse than any sort of farmland. Farmland rates very low on the biodiversity scale, not much better than a parking lot.
      Properly farmed land can be supplemental environment for many species of plants and animals. You might be interested in checking out The Land Institute in Kansas, where they are using the natural biodiversity of the plains to raise crops. If you can get past your knee-jerk prejudices you would find there are some great ideas being formed there - by "hippies". I've been to the Land Institute and what they do is interesting if not amazing. They are also the keepers of the last natural virgin plain in the United States, which is worth seeing by itself. Sadly, it's only a few acres because of - you guessed it - the type of farming that led to the "Dust Bowl".

      As for me being suckered into the rhetoric of the eco-extremists... they don't like me either. I give them as much hell as anyone else that dismisses an idea off-handedly out of spite or prejudice for a percieved group of "fascists". The problems I have with engineered food relate to intellectual property, market control and exploitation more than anything else. I'm a pragmatist, not an environmentalist.

      Be careful slinging around the term "fascist" as it's usually a sign that you are one.

      One final thought: I would say that logged forest and woodland is equally as much of a tragedy as a modern farm. I live in Northern California where farming is rampant and clear cutting is common. i have seen a great deal of both. Both are a waste of resources.

      Okay, there is one more thought then I really am done: Log in and be proud of your opinions when you post. You make some very good points, albeit in a very negative way. If you can, next time offer some alternatives instead of simply criticizing.

      --
      US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
    69. Re:You love nature so much that you by DerekLyons · · Score: 1
      Cut down a tree (renewable resource) versus mining bauxite (nonrenewable resource). The answer is trivial when you think about it.
      No, it's trivial when you *don't* think about it.

      Trees aren't really a renewable resource, not on human timescales anyhow. Those 'miracle trees' you read about that grow in 20 years are pulpwood trees, unsuitable for just about anything but what they are bred to do... Which it to produce cheap cellulose for paper press board and chemical feedstocks. Furthermore, growing useful trees is a fairly chemical and energy intensive process, you don't simply plant 'em and come back forty years later.

      It's also a brainless oversimplification to state that Bauxite isn't renewable, and to leave it at that. While statement is of itself true, it ignores the fact that the resulting aluminim is recycleable. (Which wood by-and-large isn't.)

    70. Re:You love nature so much that you by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      As far as I know, time is the only nonrenewable resource. Everything else can be recycled

      --
      What?
    71. Re:You love nature so much that you by NotClever · · Score: 1
      Nah, I don't have a pro-logging bias, I just don't like the tone that came out of the post that I replied to that logging companies are out to log all the trees and then move on to something else (perhaps harvesting old homes for their wood?).

      I've seen that the logging industry has done some awful things in the past. But you need to look at how many (most?) are running today. The environmental lobby has done some good in getting lumber co's to be better citizens.

      As for your final paragraph, which basically says that cutting old growth forests is bad, well, can't really argue. My guess (uneducated for sure) is that most of the damage was done long in the past. Is much of that type of clearcutting still being done today? I'd be surprised...

      --
      Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
    72. Re:You love nature so much that you by DuranDuran · · Score: 1

      > I refurbish and recycle. And when I say recycle [...] I mean refurbish and put back into service....

      Doesn't that mean you refurbish and refurbish?

      I think you mean you refurbish and reuse!

      --
      "You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
  25. I'm surprised by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would have thought the Norwegians would have been the ones to come up with the wood first.

  26. heat by Stevyn · · Score: 1

    The problem with wood case mods and I'm sure monitors is proper heat dissapation. The wood must be thicker than plastics and certainly metal and would hold a lot more heat compared to these other materials. This constant heat expansion and contraction would probably lead to cracking over the years, as regular furniture.

    1. Re:heat by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      But wood is also a lot better in sound dampening then metal or plastic. So you can make up the heat problem with more fans. As well it depends on the design of the case. Such as the design of the G5 the fact that the case is metal has more to do with the style that apple wanted then heat control. The heat control is basically the fact the g5 looks like a cheese grater. and there is a solid air flow.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  27. About 6 years behind the time. by blair1q · · Score: 5, Funny

    Didn't Jack Gallo, publisher of Blush Magazine, have a wood-cased LCD flatpanel monitor on his desk?

    Why yes, he did.

    In like 1998.

    And there's always competition.

    1. Re:About 6 years behind the time. by Chief+Technovelgist · · Score: 2, Informative

      William Gibson called custom computers sandbenders in his 1996 novel Idoru - so that makes it 7 years behind the time ;)

    2. Re:About 6 years behind the time. by dstrupl · · Score: 1

      Another competition: here (www.woodhoff.com).

    3. Re:About 6 years behind the time. by Mad+Man · · Score: 1

      re: About 6 years behind the time.


      I'm surprised no one has mentioned Luddite.com, which has been around for at least 6 years.

      They even have wooden cases for Macs.

    4. Re:About 6 years behind the time. by Angry+Toad · · Score: 1

      I recall seeing an ad for something like this in Byte magazine circa 1979.

      /nothing new under the sun...
    5. Re:About 6 years behind the time. by pcmanjon · · Score: 1

      Solid Wood PC Keyboard - Ash

      Regular price: $580.00 Sale price: $560.00

      Solid Wood Mouse $105.00

      Solid wood complete PC peripherals set (Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard) $5,250.00

      Too pricey for me!

    6. Re:About 6 years behind the time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The smart gay guy in Will and Grace had one, too.

  28. High risk of magic smoke escape! by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 1

    I see this as more justification for the extreme cooling I wanted to apply to my machine. The SO only sees the bottom-line, and not the computing benefits ("why do you want to overclock your machine to 9GHz? It works well at its normal speed! It's too expensive!").

    Now I finally have the means to justify it when the PC burns down!

    --
    I drink to make other people interesting!
  29. Unbended Clippy: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It looks like you are trying to remove a splinter. Would you like me to help?

  30. Imagine Beavis and Butthead... by Sanksa+Wott · · Score: 1

    BH: Uhhhh..... huh-huhhh. huh-huh.
    Uhhh... Hey Beavis...

    Your computer is like,
    giving me wood...

    BV: YEh yeH! HeHht-Heh. Yeah. Its cool.

    BH: Yeaaah. Its coool.

  31. Does this really appeal to Nature Loving Geeks by auburnate · · Score: 1
    Don't you think that true nature loving geeks would want their wood were wood would want to be ...

    Back in the forest, never cut down in the first place!!!

  32. For the "nature lovers"... by rasafras · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sure, they may like accessories from cut-down trees.
    Me, I'm still waiting for my authentic ivory mouse and tiger fur coated keyboard.


    yes, that was a joke

    1. Re:For the "nature lovers"... by discogravy · · Score: 2, Funny
      tiger fur is for the weak.

      everyone knows that the skin of a small child is better for case mods.

    2. Re:For the "nature lovers"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real nature lovers go for the baby seal carcass case mod.

    3. Re:For the "nature lovers"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Baby seal skin "properly tenderized" (beaten with a club) are much better (and a fair bit more durable, too!)

      Children are just in too great of supply. Besides, they smell.

    4. Re:For the "nature lovers"... by mcknation · · Score: 1



      For some reason after seeing the .50 caliber Desert Eagle you made of wood on your webpage I wonder if it really was a joke...

    5. Re:For the "nature lovers"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what a bunch of fucking retards... go fuck your dog in the left nostral, fag

    6. Re:For the "nature lovers"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      everyone knows that the skin of a small child is better for case mods.

      Not too small, mind you. I've found you need one at least 7 or 8 years old to get enough coverage. With the smaller ones you have to do too much stitching together of scraps (e.g. limbs) to cover the whole box. And of course once puberty hits get problems with hair and oils.

  33. Sorry to rain on your parade but... by ev1lcanuck · · Score: 1

    wouldn't nature loving geeks want computers that are not made out of precious trees?

    1. Re:Sorry to rain on your parade but... by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 1

      But isn't the point of being a geek that you never get outside to see the trees?

      Why not cut down several and fashion them into a PC. Then you can love nature from your desk!

      --
      I drink to make other people interesting!
  34. New AOL Slogan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The new America Online 69.0! You got wood!

  35. Nature-loving geeks? by mrselfdestrukt · · Score: 1

    I'm nature-loving. That's why I would never support a company that cuts down trees or buys wood to make PC accesories...

    --
    "I used to have that really cool,funny sig ,but it got stolen."
    1. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm nature-loving. That's why I would never support a company that cuts down trees or buys wood to make PC accesories...

      You prefer plastics & other things made from nonrenewable resources?

    2. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      So what renewable resources are your PC accessories made of? Plastic and aluminum?

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    3. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No offense, but you're one of the people the conservative business-friendly right points to when they talk about leftist wackos.

      You're doing far more damage to the environment with your metal case than you EVER would with a wood case. Just because you buy it at CompUSA, doesn't absolve you of the responsibility for that damage.

    4. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right. You'll just continue to buy "normal" computers with a manufacturing process that goes through tons of other resources.

    5. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You do know that those trees are farmed, right? It isn't like they go out to the forest perserve and start cutting down trees. Besides, how much power does it take to make that aluminum case? And how many trees are destroyed by them mining for the aluminum? Or the coal to make the power with? Or the forest killing acid rain from the coal used to make the power used to make the aluminum?

      -philip.

    6. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by fbjon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Building something, anything, out of wood is a very natural way of doing it. There are a number of species on this planet that cut down trees to build structures, humans are not the only ones.

      Wood feels nice, sounds nice, and looks nice. It is renewable. And you're forgetting WHERE this tree is cut down, is it in an ancient forest with 300-year old trees, or in a homegrown backyard lot?

      "I'm nature-loving."

      Then why not do it the natural way?

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    7. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 1
      "I'm nature-loving."

      Then why not do it the natural way?
      Oh, for crying out loud. What on Earth is "natural" about a computer? You argue about cutting down some trees? What short memories we have.
      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
    8. Re:Nature-loving geeks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Wood feels nice, sounds nice, and looks nice. It is renewable.
      Not exactly, farm grown trees grow much quicker than old-growth forest did, resulting in a looser grain and lower quality wood. Unless you wait about 500 years for the wood to mature slowly, the quality of renewed growth wood sucks, particularly in hardwoods.

      Old growth wood is valuable. Mature Black Walnuts old growth trees are worth about $10,000 a pop, which is why assholes steal them from forest preserves.
  36. Clavia Nord Synth by fishbowl · · Score: 1

    There's a Clavia Nord Synthesizer that has a wheel controller made of stone and a pitch bend stick made of wood.

    It's one thing to have a digital device with natural materials in the case, but it's much cooler when actual parts of the machine are wood and stone :-)

    --
    -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
  37. I think... by Elpacoloco · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wood is maybe not the best idea. I'd like my computer to be silent, dissipate it's heat properly, and otherwise be transparent.

    I just can't see wood fulfilling any of these requirements.

    1. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Termites - Its transparent with termites!

    2. Re:I think... by moltar77 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and weren't we supposed to have transparent aluminum like... 30 years ago?

      ...I'm getting tired of waiting!

    3. Re:I think... by benchbri · · Score: 3, Funny

      I believe you're thinking of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, wherein Scottie gives a plexiglas manufacturer the atomic structure of transparent aluminum as payment for the whale-tank components. wow. I wonder if I can get modded down for nerdy?

    4. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if I can get modded down for nerdy?

      On Slashdot???

    5. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, only here it's labeled as redundant.

    6. Re:I think... by dabadab · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, wood will not resonate as badly as thin metal plates do and probably it very effectively dampens any noise, so yes, it is probably silent.
      Nice, big, low RPM fans can take care of the heat.
      And transparency... well, that's silly :)

      --
      Real life is overrated.
    7. Re:I think... by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, here's what I don't understand. (And please don't take it as a flame or anything.) Why would anyone want an ugly transparent contraption?

      The innards of my computer are a twisty maze of cables, all alike. Between the hard drives, two CD drives, Audigy 2 Platinum front tray, case fans, etc, it's one big mess of cables.

      Not that it would be any better without the cables. It's a colour cacophony of red PCBs, blue PCBs, traditionalist green PCBs, aluminum heatsink on the CPU, copper heatsink on the graphics card, and whatever else.

      Now if I were to also add some lit fans or neon lights, as seems to be the custom, then it would only get an even uglier colour cacophony.

      What's that supposed to look like? A cheap circus tent? A bad acid trip? A sad clown on a really bad makup day? A terror attack on a paint warehouse?

      And the real question: why on Earth would I want to look at that every day? Also: why would I want the others to see that?

      Now I can see haow that would have a novelty factor in the beginning, and can appreciate at least the work of those who personally modded their own case. (Even if to a butt-ugly result.) But... you know... it's been some years already. The novelty ought to have worn off, and you can already buy that kind of cases mass-produced.

      --
      A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    8. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you considered just arranging the components on your desk? That's the closest you're going to get to transparency.

    9. Re:I think... by evilviper · · Score: 1
      I'd like my computer to be silent

      Wood will probably make less noise than metal vibrating.

      dissipate it's heat properly

      Computers dissipate practically NONE of their heat through the case body. Obviously some of the heat goes that way (your case in warm isn't it?) but that is such a tiny, tiny fraction, compared to the huge ammounts of heat being blown out by your power supply fan every second.

      and otherwise be transparent.

      You lost me on that one...

      Incidentally, I happen to have a wooden case around a couple computers of mine. There is an input and output for circulating air, and it works just fine.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    10. Re:I think... by rpillala · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think the grandparent post meant the computer itself should be transparent as in not drawing attention to itself. Not a physically transparent case for the computer. Maybe a better word would have been "unobtrusive."

      Correct me if I'm wrong though, grandparent.

      Ravi
      --
      When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
    11. Re:I think... by sootman · · Score: 2, Funny

      >Well, here's what I don't understand... Why would anyone want an ugly transparent contraption?

      You see, there's this thing called "taste." It's hard to explain but it's different for different people. In short, some people think techy color innards are cool. You're not one of them? Fine. You think your taste is good and everyone else's is crap? That might make you an elitist snob, but hey, everyone's entitled to their opinion.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    12. Re:I think... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I don't think my taste is good. I know it is.

    13. Re:I think... by mustangsal66 · · Score: 1

      Correct!

      I needed a case for a firewall... I had a pile of redwood scraps... and a few hours...

      Spend a few minutes with a bandsaw and some wood glue...

      Sand smooth, and use a satin finish... It sits on the desktop... very quitely and pretty...

      toss in the microATX board and 2 NICs... install fedora... voila.. pretty/functional firewall

      One piece of hardware the wife doesn't mind seeing.

      Now to convince her to let6 me buy the D.Vine 5 htpc case...

      --
      Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
      Sig changed for readability by G.W.
    14. Re:I think... by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      I'd like my computer to be silent, dissipate it's heat properly, and otherwise be transparent.

      It might be a good idea to put it out in the garage and run some real long cables? It should stay nice and cool in the winter time. During the summer, put it in the freezer.

      --
      What?
  38. looks fine.. by Mr2cents · · Score: 2, Funny

    .. for debian woody fans!

    But thanks, I'll just stick to the cheap mass-produced hardware (except the monitor, that's the only computer part worth spending money on imo). Maybe I'm just a functional type..

    --
    "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
  39. oh please by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your computer would never get hot enough to catch wood on fire. You would be able to cook an egg on the metal case long before wood smolders. Even a capacitor popping in the power supply is no big deal. My only conern is RFI, but maybe they put a layer of conductive paint on the inside.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:oh please by timeOday · · Score: 2, Informative

      I presumed he was referring to the insulating properties of wood.

    2. Re:oh please by jpmkm · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh yes, and this is a definate problem since most of the heat is transferred through the case material. Heat loss due to conduction through the case material is nearly insignificant compared to the heat loss due to air circulation by fans. That's why we have fans in computers - to draw in cool air and force hot air out.

    3. Re:oh please by zakezuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Agreed... old fisher tube based amplifiers / radio receivers often had wooden cases. My current receiver is circa late 70s, it's PS is rated for well into the 300watt spectrum... it doesn't catch fire. Both are passively cooled with linier power supplies if i'm not mistaken. Your PC with it's switching power supply shouldn't be much of a problem. It has a fuse, your house has a breaker. Not a problem.

      I'll submit that wood is more of an insolater then steel or aluminium... and is less likely to be good at passive cooling... lets say in the event that your fan fails.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    4. Re:oh please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you /. freaks assume that that the wooden PC will be used as a weather simulator or some ultimate games machine. Perhaps it might be used in a mountain lodge as an internet PC running a Duron processor. Heat not problem.

    5. Re:oh please by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or, the concern may be lack of RFI shielding, where the wood looks about like plastic wrap. YMMV with a Telefunken U47 nearby.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    6. Re:oh please by harley_frog · · Score: 1
      Personally, I rather like the idea of wood (or wood veneer) being used for computer mods. It adds a whole new palette of color and texture for modders. By utilizing wood and wood veneers, modders can make cases that blend in with, rather than stand out, from the furniture, or, be used as accent trim like the classic Bugattis, Duesenbergs and Jaguars. Heck, you can even make a computer desk where the desk is, itself, the computer case. (Which would also make it harder for any would be thief to indetify and walk off with.)

      Of course, that's just my two cents.

      --
      It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.
    7. Re:oh please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'definite' - define, finite
      'definate' - what the hell's a finate?

    8. Re:oh please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So why isn't the mic shielded properly?

    9. Re:oh please by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      I put my computer in the oven. That way it stays relatively cool on the inside. (at least compared to the outside)

      --
      What?
    10. Re:oh please by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      Heck, you can even make a computer desk where the desk is, itself, the computer case.

      Does a motherboard duct-taped to the side of the hutch count?

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  40. Even the cache is fucked. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't get shit, bro.

  41. Stone PC? by phorm · · Score: 1

    Although it would definately be a real bugger to cart around, a stone PC might actually be rather cool. I'm not sure how you would joint it though... maybe stone surrounding a stronger but thin metal frame? Marble would be particularly cool in creating a PC.

    How about plaster? Could you chisel out an artistic PC? Clay.... doesn't it retain shape rather nicely after heating (might be a bit fragile though).

    If we moved away from the metal frames, we could perhaps make some rather wicked PC mods. After all, who can really make a molded metal case without a full forge or the ability to heat metal to molten temperatures, much easier with wood or clay/plaster, etc.

    1. Re:Stone PC? by mirko · · Score: 1
      Maybe if you cover it with slate, which would be the easiest way.
      Otherwise, you can still ask a marble worker to build you a specific box,
      My Uncle would gladly do that for a few hundreds (the bastich ;-).
      So let's look, I've seen (plexy)glass computers (like the g4 cube), metal ones (powerbook g4), now, there's the wooden stuff...
      what about
      • clay-covered ones : pottery pcs ?
      • or ice pcs ?
      • air pcs ? (inflatable boxen)
      • rubber pcs ?
      • ...
      ...hmmmm I remember most pc users I know usually keep their case open (they mention some soon-too-be (changed|added) card but I think it's because they like it better that way...
      --
      Trolling using another account since 2005.
    2. Re:Stone PC? by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 1
      or ice pcs ?
      I've got an ice pick in the kitchen drawer.
      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
    3. Re:Stone PC? by flewp · · Score: 1

      Speaking of leaving the PC open, I've always wondered something. I know it's better to keep it closed because otherwise air doesn't flow nicely through it, but what if you had a desk fan or larger blowing against the open case? Would that be more efficient than leaving the case closed with the case/psu fans?

      --
      WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
    4. Re:Stone PC? by No+Such+Agency · · Score: 1

      After all, who can really make a molded metal case without a full forge or the ability to heat metal to molten temperatures

      Maybe auto-body filler or epoxy? A cast metal case would be beaucoup heavy anyway (except maybe aluminum)

      --
      Freedom: "I won't!"
    5. Re:Stone PC? by phorm · · Score: 1

      Well, really a molded case shouldn't be that much heavier than a non-molded one - assuming the interior is hollow. Your current PC case is (presumably) metal... molding a hollow case with 2mm thick edges would just allow you to make some cool shapes.

      I remember a relative that took ceramics course and made some neat jars etc. I'd almost be tempted to try that for making a mold, then using the mold for something a little more solid (metal, temperature-resistant plastic, plaster?)

    6. Re:Stone PC? by Anonymous+Slacker · · Score: 1

      In the spirit of Mini-ITX custom case modding, I went out in search of some novel object to turn into a case for my PVR computer (mini-ITX motherboard, PCI tv tuner/pvr card, dual hard drive storage). Alas, I was not able to find anything that I liked the looks of and was of the appropriate size (the PCI card and dual-hard drives added just a bit too much to the space requirements), so I ended up building my own.
      Crude wooden frame to mount everything on, whiteboard side panels, and a clear hinged side panel/access door. Final box ended up being something like 12x9x5 inches. It's not a beast, but it does what it's intended to do, and looks better than when it was setting in an opened box on my desktop.
      I'll try to put some pics of it online somewhere when I get home.

      --
      "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!" -Rush
    7. Re:Stone PC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go to your local industrial plastics supply house. They'll likely have tons of shit for molding and casting.

    8. Re:Stone PC? by No+Such+Agency · · Score: 1

      Your current PC case is (presumably) metal...

      Actually it's wattle-and-daub, I bought it in Kenya when I was visiting Africa with Teenage Vision for Christ in Hot Countries. There was this old man at the side of the road selling calabash gourds, and PC cases made of mud and straw. I bargained him down to only $30 US, a steal even without a power supply.

      --
      Freedom: "I won't!"
  42. crack smash by abaybas · · Score: 1

    breaking your computer would give you so much more satisfaction.

  43. Nice! by Zakabog · · Score: 1

    Finally, I can have an entire inflammable expensive computer that warps, rots, gets infested by termites, cracks, splinters, weighs a lot and breaks easily. And destroys trees.

    Just what I always wanted :-D. I'm pretty sure there's a reason we use cheap plastics and metals for building computers. And I have so many cases that I just found outside, what happens when someone upgrades the wood computer and throws the old one outside. No one would want a wooden case that's just been sitting outside for a while. epsecially in the rain, at least if it rains on a metal case you're fine, just dry it off. If it rains on a wood case it'll probably warp, rot, and smell.

    1. Re:Nice! by Xiamin · · Score: 1

      Finally, I can have an entire inflammable expensive computer that warps, rots, gets infested by termites, cracks, splinters, weighs a lot and breaks easily. And destroys trees.

      Have you ever owned any wooden furniture? Like a chair? Or a sofa (they're generally wood underneath the padding)? Maybe a table? Has it had any of these problems? Even outdoor wooden furniture lasts years if properly treated. Not to mention the widespread success of wooden houses.

      Sure, destroying trees is an issue, but trees are a renewable resource, whereas plastic and metal are not.

    2. Re:Nice! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you ever stuck a PC inside of a wood chair? Did you ever have a CPU with enough heat to cook an egg inside of a wood box? Did you ever keep a piece of wood in a VERY wet environment (wood mouse, palms are sweaty...) And just looking at that mouse I know I'd never want to hold one for long. I love the shape of my logitech MX500, it's so comfortable. Same thing with my dual optical logitech mouse that I use for my old computer, it's just so comfortable.

  44. Wow.... by moosesocks · · Score: 1

    It seems as though their server has been reduced to a pile of smoldering embers.

    (BTW, how is a mouse made from a dead tree supposed to be nature-friendly?)

    --
    -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    1. Re:Wow.... by realdpk · · Score: 1

      (BTW, how is a mouse made from plastic and rubber, made from drilled oil and other substances, and shipped across the Pacific Ocean in diesel burning vessels supposed to be nature-friendly?

  45. Getting Slashdotted?? by aarku · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You'd think a company would make sure they have the bandwidth ready before they advertised err submitted the story.

    Wouldn't sweat wreak havok on a wooden mouse, anyways? My lowly plastic one gets stained and dirty enough.

    1. Re:Getting Slashdotted?? by Inda · · Score: 1

      No! Sweat would not matter! We have invented a substance called paint (or clear varnish - does the same job)!

      !!! :)

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    2. Re:Getting Slashdotted?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually I submitted the article because I genuinely thought it was cool, I have no connection with the company in question;

      Its the first one of my submisstions got accepted too so Im proud to have initiated my own slashdot effect ;)

      nick ...

  46. sweet by AnonymousCowheart · · Score: 1

    finally some accessories for my oak c cube for work, and wooden case at home!
    seriously though, look at the the review of a couple of wood cases, some of the pre-made ones are pretty slick!

    1. Re:sweet by Endive4Ever · · Score: 1

      That looks to me like a wooden box that somebody stuck a plastic/metal case inside.

      --
      ---
  47. Poll: Wooden case mods, good or whack? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wooden case mods are...

    Good
    Whack

  48. I thought these were the first by eLoco · · Score: 1

    wooden computer cases: www.luddite.com. Fascinating company.

    --
    sig != null
  49. Jeez.. by NegativeK · · Score: 1

    The way that's server's going now, I'm willing to bet that their stock is about to be real hot.. As in, on fire hot.

    --
    This statement is false.
  50. an actual link by Patik · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    click here

    To make a link, type: <a href="http://www.com/">click here</a>

  51. Gawsh I hope their webserver.... by agent+dero · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why is it that every case mod article we have, that will get slashdotted (they always do), causes at least 10-20 "I hope their webserver isn't $CASEMOD"??

    I mean, we're all smart enough to know that they're actual webserver is probably some black 1U server somewhere

    I don't mean to start a holy war here.....aw, that's another post :-p

    --
    Error 407 - No creative sig found
    1. Re:Gawsh I hope their webserver.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because some people have a sense of humor.

  52. If you do a wooden case mod... by product+byproduct · · Score: 1

    ...send me your old beige cases. As a tech-loving geek, I want to build a house with them. Sweet looking, in a selection of different brands.

  53. Fashion & the Beige Box by spun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For the longest time, the beige box was the height of fashion in the computer world. Everything was the same shade of beige, too. Printers, monitors, cases, keyboards, mice, EVERYTHING. And everything was boxy, too. Rounding the corners on your box was considered daring. Then some bright boy came up with the idea of white boxes. Then the natural corollary, the black box. Then Apple came out with the iMac and suddenly we had six new colors. And we had blobs as well as boxes.

    Of course, we have had case-modders from the get go, and some innovative 'concept' designs have been displayed at trade shows, but in the mainstream, the physical design of computers and accessories has been boring.

    I would love to be able to choose from a wide style of cases for my computer. Computer case design has been unobtrusive and homogenous up till now to please the major buyers, corporations. Now, with many smaller form-factor motherboards, and more people with some kind of fashion sense buying computers for the home, there will probably be an explosion in case and accessory design.

    I'd love to see some nice retro stuff. Cases and accessories that looked like a 1950s wooden stereo, or a brushed aluminum AirStream trailer, or made to look like a sculpture would probably sell well. How about a tiny computer with only USB and FireWire (or maybe BlueTooth or something like it but faster, to do away with cords.) for expansion that comes with matching 'collectable' accessories. Companies could manufacture snap on covers: Star Wars or LoTR for us geeks, sports memorablia for the average joe, unicorns and big eyed ragamuffins for the ladies, and so forth.

    The day of the beige box is hopefully done. I for one welcome our new, more stylish computers & accessories.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by prockcore · · Score: 4, Informative

      Then some bright boy came up with the idea of white boxes. Then the natural corollary, the black box. Then Apple came out with the iMac and suddenly we had six new colors.

      Actually, Sun and SGI were making purple machines long before Apple switched from beige.

    2. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      Circa 1970s it was all woodgrain with chrome/ aluminium, or black plastic trim. For high tech items such as stereo recievers and even the atari 2600, this was where it was at. After all... it matched your TV.

      Well, circa early 1980's, it was black and silver that was the fasion... black plastic and brush aluminium. My old TI was an example of this as well as well as the colecovision. We started to see faux plastic aluminium with our VCRs and such as seen with the toploaders. TVs were still often vinyl woodgrain, Sony had a Silver trinitron model, but black and grey monitor style TVs came into fasion tward the end of the decade.

      Then came the skin tone beige... as seen with later TIs, colecovision adam, atari 400/800 and such. I believe also that IBM used a skintone beige as well. Some of my older workstation monitors like the hitachi reflected this bedge look.

      Followed that was a slightly more mild beige, followed by white.... black for the rebels.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    3. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Penguinshit · · Score: 1


      Most of my computers are in a large, cold, loud room many miles away from me. I don't really give a rat's ass WHAT they look like as long as they do what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it.

    4. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by spun · · Score: 1

      Was your old TI a TI-99/4A maybe? I had one of those, it was chrome and black plastic, you are right, I had forgotten. My Commodore 64 was beige, though, as was my Apple II, and my dad's TRS-80 Model I, and it came out before the TI.

      I guess I kinda oversimplified a bit :-P

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    5. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by spun · · Score: 1

      Well, yes. There will always be a market for rack-mount servers. For other people it's more like "Most of my computers are in a cubicle farm in a big office building, so I don't give a rat's ass what they look like as long as they look clunky and therefore reliable" but I am refering to the fact that many more households are buying computers these days, therefore more people with a different (or no)sense of what a computer should like are buying.

      I see two major niches: one is to manufacture them to home A/V spec. The same width as most stereo and home video gear is. Who cares what this looks like, really, as long as it blends in. The other niche is the shelf niche, making gear that looks good sitting on the shelf or out on a desk. Like Bang & Olufsen audio equipment. Or the phones that look like Mickey Mouse.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    6. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by spun · · Score: 1

      Oooh, I forgot those. The Iris line from SGI were really pretty, weren't they?

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    7. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      Was your old TI a TI-99/4A maybe?

      Yes... the ti 99/4a, though I believe the ti 99/4 was also the same color scheme. In fact, all the TI stuff I had was silver / chrome, from the peripheral memeory expantion box down to the modem, though I never had a faux chrome TI monitor. Fortunatly they didn't make as many beige peripherals as the chrome ones.

      I don't remember the commodore line well... I remember the later atari 1200xl / 800xl were beige / brown, where the XE series was more a slate grey. The last woodgrain atari atari I know of is the 2600... though I can't remember if pong / super pong had wood grain or not.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    8. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Larsing · · Score: 3, Funny

      Or how about building your computer into a sofa, using the excess heat as a seat warmer? (Wait aminute, hasn't Cray already done that..?)
      Or turing your water cooled computer into a feng shuei water feature? (Wait another minute, hasn't Cray already done that, too..?)

      Ah, well, never mind then... ;-)

      --
      Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
    9. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Larsing · · Score: 1

      Like Bang & Olufsen audio equipment...

      Hmmm... how 1337 wouldn't it be with a avant garde B&O alu chassi as the decorative center piece of your living room?

      --
      Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
    10. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just so long as people don't start attaching spoilers to their computers to make them go faster...

      I'd love to see some nice retro stuff. Cases and accessories that looked like a 1950s wooden stereo, or a brushed aluminum AirStream trailer, or made to look like a sculpture would probably sell well.

      I'd rather have one that looked like a "futuristic retro" computer, it'd go well with my foil suit and breakfast-in-a-pill.

    11. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by spun · · Score: 1

      I've seen the 'seat warmer' Cray, It's an octagonal tower with a 'bench' around the outside. Can you sit on it? I saw this one in the mid 80s at Boeing Computer Services, when my mom brought me in for 'bring your kid to work day' so I don't really know. It's a Cray X-MP system, right? BCS had two big octagonal memory towers hooked up to it, as well as a high school gymnasium sized room full of dishwasher sized hard drives, and two IBM mainframes to coordinate the whole deal.

      I don't think I've seen the 'feng shuei water feature' Cray, though. Which one was that?

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    12. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The day of the beige box is hopefully done. I for one welcome our new, more stylish computers & accessories.


      I reread this twice, but you actually didn't add the word "Overlords" at the end of the sentence; somehow it just doesn't feel quite right!
    13. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

      I use an old SGI Crimson as a coffee table.

      It is kind of depressing. Just as Microsoft unjustly gets credit for "giving us easy-to-use computers", Apple gets credit for "bringing us stylish case design".

    14. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Xophmeister · · Score: 1

      Ooh, that'll be tasteful... How about one that looks like a plastic flamingo or a hula-girl with chest mounted USB ports? Sophistication abound!

      --

      Christopher Harrison

    15. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by tverbeek · · Score: 1
      My Commodore 64 was beige, though, as was... my dad's TRS-80 Model I

      The TRS-80's I used at school (Model I & III) were housed in black and grey plastic.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    16. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by NotClever · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and they sold millions of them into homes? Hey, let's go way back - the Timex Sinclair of the early 80's was black! Everything since is just a copy :)

      --
      Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
    17. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by stm2 · · Score: 1

      TI 99/4a come is different colors. I had some of them. they are: Aluminuin silver, White and Black.
      I have picture to show you if you want to see them. But the post regarding how the computer colors match the rest of the furniture is right, never thoght about it.

      --
      DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
    18. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by sootman · · Score: 1

      Beige was never a "fashion." Beige, better than any other color, hides dust. Put a white box, a black box, and a beige box on your cube floor. Wait a month. Look at them. See? Colors were fashions. Beige wasn't.

      Also, dust-hiding is more important for stationary items (desktops, keyboards, pritners) than portable items (laptops.) Hence, early black ThinkPads.

      Cool case mods just like you describe, btw, are at applefritter.com. Lotsa cool retro stuff, but the guy recently redesigned his site and it's hard to find them anymore (no more thumbnails.) A couple are here:
      http://www.applefritter.com/hacks/redrocket
      http://www.applefritter.com/node/view/894

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    19. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "Companies could manufacture snap on covers..."
      I used to have a computer that I had decorated with stuff I "borrowed" off of my friends' refrigerators -- crappy thing was built with a defective hard drive, though, and all the replacements kept coming in bad so I had to eventually scrap it -- now my decorations don't stick to the side of my new one. Stupid Dell's...
    20. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by cpopin · · Score: 1

      Speaking of beige, I just yesterday visited a pottery store that was using an old Apple ][gs for their bookkeeping. And they had an Apple Image Writer!

      --
      -=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
    21. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by lrucker · · Score: 1
      Actually, Sun and SGI were making purple machines long before Apple switched from beige.

      The SGIs were pretty, but Sun managed to find the one shade of purple that's equivalent to beige.

    22. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have seen an advertising photo for the "Cray Couch" with a woman in a formal dress sitting on it. Yes, you can sit on it, though maybe the upholstery was a separate option.

    23. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by spun · · Score: 1

      You may very well be right about that. I haven't seen one in years. I think my memory compressed everything down to 'beige' to save space. ;-)

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    24. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      Yes, we hold the whole clone market accountable for the standardization of cases to make this possible. If it wasn't for the fact that PC motherboards actually fit into a specific size parameter all of this would not really be a viable business option. It was this concept of modular parts that won me over to the PC over things like the Macintosh, who were very hip to changing their case parameters from year to year.

      Hi-Fis were at one time actually pieces of furnature for example. For a price, you could for example buy a combo record player / radio just about anywhere, and there was a choice of wood and finishes available. People I know who bought such things new only stopped using them when they failed... usually when the record player's glue dripped to the platter.

      I have thought about PC and household design, I must admit these cases are most attractive. I also am fond of the idea of incorperating a PC into a desk it self, as a pull out drawer perhaps. That would certainly fetch a serious premium, but be about as unobtrusive as you can get.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    25. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://gallery.pimprig.com/showphoto.php?photo=184 &password=&sort=4&cat=504&page=2

      or

      http://gallery.pimprig.com/showphoto.php?photo=2 47 &size=big&password=&sort=4&cat=504

  54. And next week by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On Slashvertisment Central we will be hearing old news. again.

  55. Fire lesson by Bega · · Score: 1

    Remember kids, AMD processors and wooden cases don't mix! Tell me, what were you supposed to do in the case of a fire...?

    --

    THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
  56. Engelbart's first mouse by ronubi · · Score: 1

    Remember that the outer part of the first computer mouse (invented at my company back in 1964) was also made of wood.

  57. Yes, wood is "nature loving" by zachrahan · · Score: 1, Insightful

    To all those (sanctimonious) posters who say "gosh, those guys claim that they are nature loving, but then they condone cutting down trees to make computer parts" :

    Well what renewable resource is your computer case made of?

    Well, they have to remove entire mountains from the ground to get metal, and I can't say that the petrol industry (you know, plastics!) is too "nature friendly." So come back when you're typing on keyboards assembled from windfall wood and bones of animals that died of natural causes. Otherwise I really don't want to hear about it.

    1. Re:Yes, wood is "nature loving" by jesdynf · · Score: 5, Funny
      So come back when you're typing on keyboards assembled from windfall wood and bones of animals that died of natural causes.

      Picture: A post-apocalyptic world, now grown lush and green again.

      "Father, what kind of animal is that?"

      "That's a qwerty, my son. If you know how to skin and prepare one, you can use almost every part of it to make a keyboard."

      "Almost? What's left over?"

      "The scrowlock and the cisrek. Hell if I know what they're good for."

      --
      Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
    2. Re:Yes, wood is "nature loving" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Awesome. Got a very Gary Larson image in my mind reading your post.

      Image:

      Gromfg coming back from hunting, carrying a dead qwerty. A child cheers him.

      Caption:

      "Grompf rejoiced. He hoped that this time, again, he could get the scrowlock for his collection"

    3. Re:Yes, wood is "nature loving" by Ruliz+Galaxor · · Score: 1

      "Can I have one dad?"

      "Well son, we probably won't be able to catch one. Darn escape key."

      sig(h)

    4. Re:Yes, wood is "nature loving" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Well son, we probably won't be able to catch one. Darn escape key."

      "No, I think I can catch it.."
      Slash, slash, slash, backslash, slash. Pound, pound"
      "Stop that Son. You're making a hash of it."

    5. Re:Yes, wood is "nature loving" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alt+B+cisrek defines a mystic leyline on organically produced crystal-loving keyboards. Try it now!

  58. CD Playing Log by ee_moss · · Score: 1

    About 6 years ago, I found a nice big round log and began sawing a 3" piece off. Then, I took my new CD player apart and routed out the shape of the circuit board inside the log. After using some silicone to secure the circuit board inside the log, I was styling with my newly created CD playing log. It even had a wooden lid and everything.

    I got a few strange looks carrying it around, but for the most part everybody thought it was hilarious. Don't know what damage that laser did to me, but it was worth it.

  59. The only true wooden computer by Advocadus+Diaboli · · Score: 5, Funny
    is called Abacus. True digital computing at an affordable price.

    And there are also analog wooden computers.

    1. Re:The only true wooden computer by brusk · · Score: 1

      Not true. There's also the tinkertoy contraption that plays tic tac toe (built at MIT).

      --
      .sig withheld by request
  60. Just to state the obvious: by madmarcel · · Score: 1

    Suddenly the phrase "Try to avoid bugs" takes on a whole new meaning...

    (No, it's not funny)

    I'm wondering how heavy a wooden mouse would be...would long-term use give you thick muscled wrists? (*NO* don't even think about it ;)

    1. Re:Just to state the obvious: by Petronius · · Score: 1

      Suddenly the phrase "My PC is smoking" takes on a whole new meaning...

      --
      there's no place like ~
  61. How about Bald Eagle feather writing quills,... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...komodo dragon skin boots, recipes using coelecanth as the main ingredient, dodo skin gloves, and other such must have accessories for the fashion concious man?

  62. When I hear "wooden computer accessory" by Advocadus+Diaboli · · Score: 1

    then I automatically think of what in Germany is called "BeiBholz". That's a piece of wood that you want to bite when you get a BSOD while doing some important work. So Microsoft was inventing the market for wooden computer accessories.

  63. repeat? by Mike+Bridge · · Score: 1
  64. No. by willpall · · Score: 1

    Seriuosly? No.

    --
    Libertarian: label used by embarrassed Republicans, longing to be open about their greed, drug use and porn collections.
  65. Neat wood Mac mod by macdaddy · · Score: 1

    I saw a real neat Mac case mod once. Well, really it was a complete replacement. This guy took an old radio case, the kind with the big round dial on the front and everything, and mounted this old Mac inside of it. The dial was then hinged to allow for a front load CD drive, similar to the 20th Aniversary Mac. It was a pretty neat mod. I wish i still had that link.

  66. Anyone that would buy a wooden mouse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is a real ashhole.

  67. (OT) Re:an actual link by tonyr60 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Thanks, but...

    I have my stupid personal life principles.

    One is to NEVER EVER use html when plain text will do. Another is to NEVER EVER have a M$ passport account. There are others....

    1. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by Drakon · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      wtf are you smoking again?
      Text will NOT do- it requires copy, paste, finding and eliminating the /. inserted [ ], and hitting enter
      as opposed to "middle click"

    2. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by Rick+the+Red · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      I have my stupid personal life principles.
      "Stupid" is right.
      One is to NEVER EVER use html when plain text will do.
      Another is to NEVER EVER do someone a favor when you can make them jump through some pointless hoops.
      --
      If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
    3. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by Patik · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      What's wrong with Slashdot-allowed HTML? Links, paragraphs, bold/italic, lists, etc. all add a lot to the presentation and legibility but little to bandwidth. I didn't ask to have it in a large, yellow, cursive blinking font, just a clickable link. 'Cause you know, that's the whole point of the web (hence "hypertext").

    4. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have my stupid personal life principles. One is to NEVER EVER use html when plain text will do.

      Maybe you should make it a point to never ever use ALL CAPS in plain text when you can use italics in HTML!

    5. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by tonyr60 · · Score: 1

      Nothing is wrong with Slashdot-allowed HTML in my opinion.

      I choose not to post, or email, anything in html because I wish the readers of what I post or email to see exactly what I mean to communicate.

      If you have not clicked on a slashdot link and got an unexpected goatse link then maybe you have not slashdotted much.

      If you had difficulty parsing my original email, then tough, don't bother.

      And, if you are an M$ (l)user then you should really only feel comfortable rendering clear text.

    6. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by Patik · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you have not clicked on a slashdot link and got an unexpected goatse link then maybe you have not slashdotted much.
      First, by default Slashdot mentions the link target's server right after the link in brackets. Second, I when I hover over the link, the URL is displayed at the bottom of the browser (and yes I do look at this before clicking). Third, try quoting sometime, it's very useful, but oh, wait, you can't use HTML, never mind. Fourth, you've got legs, why bother with a car or bike? Just walk everywhere.
      if you are an M$ (l)user
      Wow, any credibility you had left was lost with those two lame, overused typos.
    7. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by wheany · · Score: 1

      And another is "my time is worth more than your time."

    8. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by DrunkenTerror · · Score: 1
      If you had difficulty parsing my original email, then tough, don't bother.
      I didn't get your original email. Please resend it. Thanks in advance.
    9. Re:(OT) Re:an actual link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First, by default Slashdot mentions the link target's server right after the link in brackets. Second, I when I hover over the link, the URL is displayed at the bottom of the browser (and yes I do look at this before clicking).

      So you take the time to read the text beside the link, and you take the time to read the text displayed when you hover over the link, but you complain about having to cut and paste an immediately discernable plain-text URL? Amazing, really.

      Never mind the fact that #1 is easily fooled by using the good old Amazon-redirect-to-goatse trick. But hey, whatever suits you.

      Wow, any credibility you had left was lost with those two lame, overused typos

      I guess I shouldn't point out your grammar slips too then, right?

      • Second, I when I hover over the link... (extra "I")
      • Third, try quoting sometime, it's very useful, but oh, wait, you can't use HTML, never mind. (should be three separate sentences instead of a run-on sentence)
      • Fourth, you've got legs, why bother... (missing "so" or similar linking word, or should be a new sentence)
  68. No /.ing! by NineNine · · Score: 1

    I just want to point out that this is one of few small sites that survived a good Slashdotting, and that it's running IIS/ASP

    1. Re:No /.ing! by TiggsPanther · · Score: 2, Informative
      ...one of few small sites that survived a good Slashdotting...

      Not by 9am GMT it hadn't.

      Tiggs
      --
      Tiggs
      "120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
    2. Re:No /.ing! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And still at 2004-03-23 23:36 GMT it is reporting
      "We are sorry, but we have more than 800 users trying to connect at this time." Good idea to put a connection limit on IIS, mebbe.

  69. Um... by finker · · Score: 1

    I'm waiting for someone to post a reply about their "Wooden Accessor{y/ies}" -- I know someone wants to.

    1. Re:Um... by phamernik · · Score: 1
  70. Finally by Coryoth · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Argh. Too many stupid jokes are the only things getting moderated up at the moment.

    I'm so pleased to have heard about this - I've been after this sort of thing for a long time now: case mods etc. that have elegant or classical styling instead of the usual "how many lights can I stick on it" crap.

    I'm quite sick of beige boxes, and ugly designs - why can't more companies go for something like this? How about some nice brushed steel keyboards and mice? How about a nice (fake) tortoiseshell keyboard and mouse combo?

    Apple turns out a ine array of beautiful elegant designs, but all the PC accessories just look like they escaped from the set of a cheap sci fi film set.

    About bloody time, that's all I have to say.

    Jedidiah.

  71. Wooden webserver by fliplap · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Its amazing how much faster a wooden webserver burns . Plus you end up with a nice pile of ashes instead of a melted heap.

  72. To all the damn-hippies by Julian+Morrison · · Score: 1, Insightful

    What, you think nature doesn't fell trees? Imagine how much termites must itch, and never being able to scratch...

    When you whine about "cutting down trees", consider the fate of useful and useless species. Corn versus wildflowers, for example. Wood is probably the sole reason there's any trees left standing anywhere.

  73. News Flash by Linsaran · · Score: 0

    Oh gawd, I can just see it now, I'll be at home watching the news and there'll be some story about a horrible fire that killed a bunch of people and caused some significant property damage. Then the chief of the fire department in whatever city this happens in will come on and say that they traced it back to some script kiddy who decided to pick up one of these l33t wooden cases and then over clocking their woefully outdated processor to the melting point.

    --
    In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
  74. Blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linux for da Dutch!

  75. Ob. slashdot bs: by anethema · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Maybe they made their network cables out of wood..because they are slashdotted!

    Or one of many jokes about slashdotters beeing no stranger to wood and computers! ho ho ho..

    --


    It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
    1. Re:Ob. slashdot bs: by anethema · · Score: 1

      I wasnt going for moderation, just commenting on the standard humor I expect from slashdot..

      So I guess...a redundant moderation is fitting :)

      --


      It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
  76. It's the second coming of Jesus. And he's a geek! by CaptainCheese · · Score: 0, Troll

    Umm. that's it. . If you don't get it, think about what jesus did for a living....

    --
    -- .sigs are a waste of data...turn them off...
  77. Sandbenders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm just waiting for my sandbenders.

  78. IT people and woodworking by LuxFX · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm an amateur hobbyist woodworker -- it's nice to build things you can hold -- so I love seeing stuff like this, and hope one day I'll be good enough to make them, too.

    The funny thing is how many people seem to be in my position. When reading newsgroups like rec.woodworking, I came across a lot of tech-types that have either turned to woodworking as a hobby in their spare time, or in their laid-off time.

    Anybody else on this board that have moved toward woodworking?

    --
    Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
    1. Re:IT people and woodworking by way2trivial · · Score: 1

      Yes, I now own (as of 48 hours ago) a heavy duty hand router
      this in addition to the jigsaw, dremel, and various pieces I already owned....

      --
      every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    2. Re:IT people and woodworking by zakezuke · · Score: 1

      Anybody else on this board that have moved toward woodworking?

      I consider my self to be an amature. I've restored a number of old speakers like wooden sansuis mostly. Most of my experence is putty work and staining. The largest thing I constructed is a component stack for a friend, as well as making mods to my stereo component to accomidate the extra wide reciever I have.

      I have more advanced plans in mind, like my desk for example, typical free standing L shaped partical board wonder.. already added a set of drawers, plan to replace the top with some spiffy wood.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    3. Re:IT people and woodworking by Inda · · Score: 1

      Nope, the other way round.

      8 years I spent working with wood. Not making furniture but I had all the paring, turning, and joining skills if needed.

      Turning is very enjoyable but also very dangerous. In fact all woodworking is dangerous so be careful.

      What do blunt tools cut? Fingers! - remember that. My dad, who was a joiner, lost 2.5 fingers on a spindle-moulder. Just be careful.

      In the evenings I used to script webpages. Today I write webpages for a living. I do miss getting my hands dirty.

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
    4. Re:IT people and woodworking by MrRTFM · · Score: 1

      Absolutely - I love woodwork (but I dont get a lot time to do it at the moment)

      I've always liked building things, and after the first 10 years buried in computing I had a woodwork building frenzy - the first 3 pieces of furniture were crap, but after that they became pretty good.

      It's just like programming - you see something (an app or a table) and think - I could build it better than that - so you try it.

      I highly recommend woodwork to any IT person who feels they are fed up, its a great complimentary hobby.

      --
      You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
    5. Re:IT people and woodworking by LuxFX · · Score: 1

      already added a set of drawers, plan to replace the top with some spiffy wood.

      Here's my favorite tip: get veneer on ebay. While getting lumber on ebay isn't very cost effective because of shipping costs, veneer is very cheap. I've got a Paxton's in my area, which has the biggest veneer selection of a store I've seen, but veneer on ebay typically is 1/10 the cost, and you can get some really beautiful sheets, too. Exotic woods with beautiful figure.

      Here are my favorite vendors, if you're interested in topping your desk with some amazing veneer (that's my own plan)

      - greatdane6
      - thouge (online store: ROSEBUD VENEERS -- this guy is great for enourmous quantities (300sqft) or matching veneers)
      - derwood7

      --
      Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
    6. Re:IT people and woodworking by djh101010 · · Score: 1

      Anybody else on this board that have moved toward woodworking?

      Yup, I built my house (footings, foundation, all the framing, roof, electrical, plumbing, drywall, the whole bit), and am currently working on building selected pieces of furniture as I find time.

      Like you say, it's nice to have that visual progress of having something you can point to, and that other people can understand. "What did you do at work today?" "Well, I reconfigured the kernel on our database server so that the blah blah blah" doesn't make sense to anyone, but "Hey, check out this end-table I made over the weekend", even someone who doesn't understand the work involved can at least understand what you did.

      That, and it's nice to be able to work in the shop, turn off the constant buzz of thought & just work with wood.

  79. Obligatory Slashdot Intellectual Snobbery/joke by Crypto+Gnome · · Score: 1

    I'd never buy a wooden computer.

    I'd never even accept one if it was given to me.

    Reminds me too much of Greeks Bearing Gifts.

    (clue for the philestines: I think we have enough trouble with TROJANS already)

    --
    Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
  80. Bah by zyridium · · Score: 1

    If I get a wooden keyboard it has to have wooden keys... Not some cheap keyboard with wood glued on the outside :-)

    1. Re:Bah by jantheman · · Score: 1

      Too right, I have been dreaming of veneering my IBM M keyboard, but it must be a major hassle to do those keys. I'd pay UKP1000 for it though.

      --
      -- Mod me down. I am not a karma tart. ffs,gag
  81. Prices! by Coryoth · · Score: 3, Informative
    I managed to track down some pricing, at least for the monitors:

    15" TFT 458 Euros
    17" TFT 604 Euros
    19" TFT 1090 Euros

    Which is not all that bad considering how nice they look - here's a german shop selling them for those that are finding the site slashdotted.

    Jedidiah

  82. wouldn't this be by timmarhy · · Score: 1

    shit heavy? this seems like a truely bad bad idea. you'd be much better off with a wooden finish, or even a wooden desk whichyour pc fits into. I'm baffled at how well a wooden mouse would work as well.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  83. Finally!-Spell-er-up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "sorry, i'm being a spelling nazi :)"

    Now that's not fair. Were's the "Spelling Mussolini", or the "Spelling Pol Pot", or the "Spelling Castro"? Why do the Nazi's have all the fun?

    1. Re:Finally!-Spell-er-up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Troll?? Aaron, is that you?

  84. The important question by CyberSlugGump · · Score: 1


    Can it run 'Woody' Linux? ;)

  85. No need for a deoderizer near the computer space by Pengunea · · Score: 1

    What would really sell me on this is if the wooden items smell slightly of wood. Now that's something I would really welcome to my computer table. It would break up the smells of the everyday with a pleasing, natural scent.

    Come to think of it, how many people are really aware or concered by the smells that surround their work area? Aside from the smell of ozone when something pops. That's a natural header to the worrying smells list.

    --
    Starkle, starkle, little twink.
  86. There was a little wooden PC once... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It had a wooden case,
    a wooden mouse
    a wooden keyboard
    and a wooden cpu
    and it wooden go!

    1. Re:There was a little wooden PC once... by metalslinger · · Score: 1

      It had a wooden case,

      And it was called Apple.

      --
      /. Heroics - 99.999%
  87. my idea!! by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 1

    For many years I have wondered why there wasn't someone doing this.

    Personally, my idea was that you could design a case, monitor, keyboard, etc. so that it would fit various styles... say Cherry in an ornate antique style, or a circa 1901 arts & crafts mission oak look, etc.

    --
    This space available.
  88. RTFM, People by xanadu-xtroot.com · · Score: 1, Informative

    There is nothing about teh chassis itself. This is just monitors (LCD's), keyboards and mice.

    --
    I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
    I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
  89. Wood computers are just the thing... by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1
    to navigate that wild and wooly steam powered internet thingie.

    RS

    The flayrod's gone askew on the treadle!"

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  90. Metal computer desks by suso · · Score: 1

    Now they will have to make metal computer desks to match the wooden accessories.

    As my wife just said, how will you know when to stop typing.

  91. Safety risks by Joey+Patterson · · Score: 1

    IMHO, there are some serious safety issues with these wooden peripherals. I mean, first we had to worry about carpal tunnel and RSI, now we'll need to add slivers to the list.

    * rim shot *

  92. nature lovers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why would nature lovers cut down yet MORE trees to make computers???

  93. I had wooden peripharals once by Grizzlysmit · · Score: 1
    But they wouldn't work :-D
    --- especially all that wooden cabling.
    --
    in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that :-D
    Francis Smit
  94. Puntastic by Dylbert · · Score: 1

    I wonder how many more "wooden" puns we can fit into this post:

    - "This thing wooden work"
    - "All they need now are wood chips"
    - "What are all these woodmice doing infesting my computer?"
    - "Does it use Pine for mail?"

    The possibilities are endless.

    --
    I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
    1. Re:Puntastic by Dylbert · · Score: 1

      "It needs another stick of RAM"

      --
      I swear, if I see another Slashdot comment with "It will be interesting to see"...
  95. mod parent up... by caino59 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    fo sho.

  96. Slashdotted by breon.halling · · Score: 1

    Man, we totally just clearcut their servers.

    --
    "Yeah, well, Dracula called and he's coming over tonight for you and I said okay."
  97. ...this is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm afraid I don't understand the symbol of eternal life being a tree. Trees die. All trees die. They die if you cut them down. They die if spend 16 hours a day tending them. They might outlive you, but they still die...all of them. Maybe we could make eternal life trees out of somthing cool like carbon fiber that would last a bit longer. I like the presence and smell of a real evergreen in my house for Christmas, but a symbol of eternal life? Never crossed my mind...

    Oh Christmas, Oh Christmas Tree
    Your not the way you used to be
    You once green, but now you're brown
    And all you've leaves are on the ground
    Oh Christmas, Oh Christmas Tree
    Your not the way you used to be

    1. Re:...this is stupid by IceAgeComing · · Score: 1

      Where do you live? In the northern hemisphere, winter causes most trees to look dead. The pine trees are the exception. Hence they are a symbol of hope for people freezing their asses off.

      In ancient times, pine trees were not cut and hauled into homes to celebrate yuletide. They were decorated outside. I daresay there are places in the world where this is still true.

      Pagans who were forced to choose between becoming Christians or being burned at the stake nevertheless continued the tradition. Hence the happy Christmas tree.

      For those of you reading this who are not from the U.S., it is a widespread practice for suburban Americans to pay $15-$45 in a parking lot for a cut pine tree standing 2-3 meters tall, so that it can be placed inside their home, where it slowly becomes a major fire hazard as it dries out. Most trees originate from private "tree farms" in the Western U.S.; trees are hauled via diesel truck all over the country to satisfy this strange thirst for indoor pine trees.

      I also daresay that nearly all Americans blissfully believe that this tradition happens everywhere people are fortunate enough to afford a tree, like them.

  98. Remind anyone of the Apple I in the Smithsonian by owlicks58 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For some reason remembering seeing the Apple I in the Smithsonian was the first thing I thought of when i thought of a wooden computer case. Have a look Smithsonian Apple I

    --
    -Alex
    1. Re:Remind anyone of the Apple I in the Smithsonian by Bobman1235 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For some reason remembering seeing the Apple I in the Smithsonian was the first thing I thought of when i thought of a wooden computer case. Have a look Smithsonian Apple I

      Jesus, I really thought that was a joke, until I backtracked to find it. Towards the bottom of this page, it says that the Apple I was a kit that you designed your own case for. Who knew?

    2. Re:Remind anyone of the Apple I in the Smithsonian by The+Wicked+Priest · · Score: 1

      Who knew?

      Lots of us, actually.

      F'ing newbie... I bet you've only been into computers, what, ten, fifteen years?
      --
      Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    3. Re:Remind anyone of the Apple I in the Smithsonian by Bobman1235 · · Score: 1

      F'ing newbie... I bet you've only been into computers, what, ten, fifteen years?

      Well, Mr 632846, my 191138 says I've been around here much longer than you.

      Still one of the six-digit unwashed masses, but....

    4. Re:Remind anyone of the Apple I in the Smithsonian by The+Wicked+Priest · · Score: 1

      Actually I read and posted AC for a few years before I registered -- I was just too lazy to do it. Anyway, I said "computers", not "Slashdot". And it was a joke (albeit lame). But you really should know about the Apple I. Along with other early micros... I lived much of it (the Apple I was before my time), but you can at least read about it. You might start here.

      --
      Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  99. Wooden Case + P4 3.4 == Blazing Dorm by Snuffub · · Score: 1

    Throw a top of the line pentium4 in one of these babies Itll be burning in no time.

    --
    --aiee
  100. Smell by Laebshade · · Score: 0

    Now the lube will soak into my mouse!

  101. Coming Soon! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To a Thinkgeek.com near you!

    Almost forget it, the same yada-yada: Both slashdot.org and thinkgeek.com are part of OSDN

  102. sawdust by spectrokid · · Score: 1

    Seems like we just reduced the server to sawdust...

    --

    10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

  103. The question here is... by precogpunk · · Score: 1

    Does their warranty cover termites?

  104. What do you yell when your wood computer crashes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny



    Q: What do you yell when your wood computer crashes?
    A: TIMMMMBERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! :)

    Cheers,
    Bowie

  105. How do I download one? by rixstep · · Score: 1

    I can't find the link...

  106. oh please-Kiln Komputer Krackles Krisply. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Your computer would never get hot enough to catch wood on fire."

    Maybe not. But you're forgetting the long-term effects on wood when heats applied. That lowers the ignition temperature, as well as other undesirable effects.

  107. They just don't work very well by Ray+Radlein · · Score: 4, Funny

    I tried out a wooden monitor once, but the picture was just too grainy.

    1. Re:They just don't work very well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I built a wooden PC once. Wooden motherboard, wooden CPU, wooden hard disk. Wooden go.

    2. Re:They just don't work very well by canavan · · Score: 2, Informative

      The parent post should be modded insightful, not funny - the probably best known wooden display/mirror has just 830 pixels.

    3. Re:They just don't work very well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I tried out a wooden monitor once, but the picture was just too grainy."

      Best funny of the thread.

  108. Fire hazard... by bsbenalber · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nice! No more putting cigarettes close to the keyboard. Mind you, even over clocking now becomes a fire hazard! ;-)

  109. The Wooden Webserver by sam0ht · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ...certainly isn't going very fast now it's been /.ed !

  110. Re:bunch of hippies! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .......bauxite hugging hippies!

  111. Fashion & the Beige Box-Runway Models. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or the third. Go were the water heater, and furnace is located. Attractive aren't there? Why not? Because you don't need to see them. That's the way future computers are going to be. The heavy lifting parts are going to be hidden (although the industrial look may be popular). The parts that you really need to see will be attractive. The monitor will be a flat panel with a matching keyboard, and mouse all wirelessly connected. Same with say a joystick.

    1. Re:Fashion & the Beige Box-Runway Models. by spun · · Score: 1

      What you are talking about sounds a lot likeubiquitous computing, pioneered by Mark Weiser. I think this is a few more years down the road. First will come the more stylish computers that still look basically like computers of today, then the radical redesign of cases and accesories to new form factors, then the cases just disappear and all you ever see is the I/O like you say.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  112. Burn baby, burn ! by jdifool · · Score: 1

    New fantasmatic topic for helpless script kiddies ! -Man, I couldn't use that fscking buffer overflow written in my last l337 e-zine to punish that sux0rZ bastard named cYb3R-h4cK3r. So you know what I did ? -Huh ? -I just went there, and I burnt his pc. -l337 ! hax0rZ man, you 0wn3d his box. (evil laugh) ...

    --
    Let's overcome our weakness.
  113. Make your whole desktop wooden too... by Jack+Action · · Score: 1

    Start with Mozilla:
    Wood Theme
    Walnut Theme

  114. Slashdotted? by Athas · · Score: 1

    Making monitors and mice of wood is all good and great, but they really shouldn't build a webserver out of the stuff.

  115. Olny in Sweden, kids... by Larsing · · Score: 1

    ...only in Sweden! ;-)

    --
    Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
  116. Of course, the Futurama quote by Ours · · Score: 1

    "Bite my spongy woodden ass!" - Bender

    --
    "You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
  117. wooden cases by Loconut1389 · · Score: 1

    I had a few friends in college who built wooden computer cases, several of whom found some massive problems with grounding and one was severely shocked. Though none of them lined their cases with aluminum or other conductive sheeting, which might have avoided the problem.

    Do these wooden accessories need grounding for proper shielding to avoid inbound signal interference?

  118. seen them, touched them.... by timerider · · Score: 1

    at the cebit last saturday... really nice stuff.

    (the 48" tft tv screens at the benq booth were nicer, tho.)

    bye,
    [L]

  119. another wooden case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and another wooden pc manufacturer:
    thumbnails are broken but images linked to them is okay. the problem, description is in latvian

    http://www.lak.lv/?id=515

  120. Been there... by scribblej · · Score: 1

    I built a wooden computer once. It was awesome. It had a wooden hard drive, a wooden monitor, a wooden mouse, even a wooden CPU.

    There was only one problem: It wooden work.

  121. No Hemp? by deathcow · · Score: 1

    I want it all made of hemp products. I can imagine the odor released by the computers of 100 customer service reps in open cubicles. "God, I love walking in here to the smell of computers each morning!"

  122. wood by Wellmont · · Score: 1

    Underclocking-----'nuff said there

    Besdies insulating foam and aspestos isn't wood right up there with keeping heat in?

  123. I have to ask: by renjipanicker · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where do I store my logs?

    1. Re:I have to ask: by polyp2000 · · Score: 1

      why in /var of course ;)

      --
      Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  124. Yeah, love nature by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 1

    Cut down a tree today . . .

    --
    Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
    1. Re:Yeah, love nature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hear the French are working on a cheese mod, and the Swiss a chocolate one. How about a nice knitted cozy while we are at it?

  125. Chinese shuttle heat protection is oak by ZoneKagen · · Score: 0

    The infamous American space shuttle uses hightech ceramics to protect the ship during re-entry. The Chinese could not quite figure out how to adress that particular problem, so they plan to use oak.

    --
    - Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
  126. No it is not. by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    It is not interesting to read about case mods.

    Sorry, read first line of article and had to make the point....

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
  127. legnatile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I didn't read all 200+ comments, but in case you missed here's a must:

    http://www.freaknet.org/asbesto/modding/

  128. They were at CeBit by AtlanticGiraffe · · Score: 1

    There was a rather big (expensive) booth at CeBit promoting this kind of stuff. Probably the same guys. A big booth generally means big plans, so this is one to watch.

  129. Sorry dude, can't go for a beer... by s-meister · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ...gotta stay home and wax my 'board!

  130. Just waiting for the IKEA computer case... by dafdaf · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hehehe. I'd find it quite funny. Maybe the case would be called Noerd ? ;-)

    --
    To error is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the OS.
  131. Tried it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    So I bought myself a wooden monitor. And a wooden keyboard. They looked lovely.

    So I bought a wooden mouse. Wooden speakers, and a wooden printer. Beautiful.

    Next up was a wooden case. Wooden PSU, CPU and wooden RAM. It all looked gorgeous.

    So I got a wooden hard drive, wooden graphics card and wooden DVD burner. All connected with wooden cables.

    With bated breath, and trembling hands, I plugged it all together. And pressed the wooden power button.

    And the damn thing wooden boot.

    1. Re:Tried it. by softwave · · Score: 1

      Somebody mod this post +5 Funny :))))

  132. Quite nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Saw (and touched) them at CeBIT and I think they are nice.
    But I wonder why neither the wheel of the mice nor the keys of the keyboards are made of wood.

  133. My mate already built one by Pop69 · · Score: 1

    My mate built one a couple of years ago

    Probably the first time in years he's been ahead of a trend :-)

    http://alienonline.plus.com/id66.htm

  134. Wooden peripherals have been around for a while by 0x0d0a · · Score: 1

    I remember seeing a wooden mouse, at least (and one that looked *much* nicer than this one -- a bit more angular and with large buttons that covered the whole top). It was being sold with, I believe, either a wooden monitor or keyboard. Darned if I remember which, though. It wasn't both.

    This must have been at *least* five years ago.

  135. What I find sad... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...this was modded funny!!! if you recycle one soda a day, you have 6kg metal to make a PC case.

    How cool is that?

    1. Re:What I find sad... by Anonymous+Slacker · · Score: 1

      ...this was modded funny!!! if you recycle one soda a day, you have 6kg metal to make a PC case.

      How cool is that?


      Not a bad idea for a custom PC case -- made entirely of empty soda cans. If I drank soda and had need for another PC case, I might almost consider that.
      The big question would be: do you stack the cans as they are for a unique look, or pound them flat into metal sheets before fastening them together? Just make sure nobody mistakes it for trash and throws it out or turns it in for the 10-cent deposit.

      "Mom, where's my computer?"
      "What computer? I got $3.75 for taking care of all those empy cans in your room."

      --
      "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!" -Rush
  136. Why not complete the Age of Empires set? by stoofa · · Score: 1

    Now we need a stone one, a gold one and a meat one.

    cue 'back to stone tablets' joke.

    As for the meat one, cue biotech jokes, sexual jokes and Fifth Element quotes.

    So where's the thread?

    Thread's dead, baby.

    Christian Cook

    Sig still gratuitous, so be warned: thinctanc

  137. Wargames... by CBDSteve · · Score: 2, Funny

    Teacher: Who first came up with the concept of reproduction without sex?
    Matthew Broderick: Uh, your wife?

  138. nice to see people up to date by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    not as if other people have been around for years doing the same thing, is it?

  139. Is cardboard "wood"? by tverbeek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because I mounted a small power supply, motherboard, and a hard drive in a FedEx box, as an easier-to-carry alternative to a 1U case (nice and flat, but way too wide and deep) or a typical desktop/tower case (too, well... box-like). As an added bonus, it's less likely to get stolen because it doesn't exactly look like a computer. Though I do have to be careful any time FedEx comes to pick up a package. {grin}

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  140. Beware of the termites! by IroNick · · Score: 3, Funny

    Luckily, there are no wild termites in Sweden, but there are some variant of carpenter ants.

    So who do you call when your mouse got bugs?

    1. Re:Beware of the termites! by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      So who do you call when your mouse got bugs?

      The Orkin man?

      --
      What?
  141. Trees by $exyNerdie · · Score: 2, Funny

    Save the trees please...

    Why? Because after a frustrating tech support call with no real help, some might end up throwing their wodden computer accessories in the fireplace...

  142. I prefer by segfault7375 · · Score: 1


    I prefer this case mod

  143. Jan and Dean make a comeback by Kent+Swanson · · Score: 1

    With an update of an old favorite. I gotta 1600 amd they call it a woodie. surf city here we come It's not very cherry it's an oldie but a goodie. It ain't got firewire or a plexie window, but it gets me on the web you know..... going to to surf city gonna get porn, goin to surf city cause it's two on one.....

  144. How long before by sk3ll · · Score: 1

    a wood worm infects all these lovely boxes!

  145. Alternative Uses by crawdaddy · · Score: 1

    If you buy a model that comes in hickory or mesquite, you can use the case as a smoker if you're an overclocker. Imagine playing an extra-long session of your favorite FPS, then turning off your machine, opening the case up, and removing some piping hot smoked sausage.

  146. leave it to love it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... this company has a novel twist, for nature loving geeks.

    Love nature, support companies that tear it down.

    "Oh, we had the best time in Hawaii! We took a jeep tour of the rainforest, and then we took a helicopter tour over the most inaccesible areas. That night we had a wonderful seafood dinner. We bought some coral jewlery as souvenirs. We just love nature!"

    Like how Dahmer "loved" his victims.

  147. Peripherals shampherals by putamare · · Score: 0

    These guys have cases. All you need is cash.

  148. the LEGNATILE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    don't forget the LEGNATILE, a modded notebook by Asbesto Molesto, from Sicily!

    photo gallery, an english description is at the bottom of the page. It runs linux (slackware), of course.

    http://www.freaknet.org/asbesto/modding/

    odo

  149. And furthermore... by DrunkenTerror · · Score: 1
    I choose not to post, or email, anything in html because I wish the readers of what I post or email to see exactly what I mean to communicate. If you have not clicked on a slashdot link and got an unexpected goatse link then maybe you have not slashdotted much.
    So, are you saying that you don't use html because you think someone else will turn it into a goatse link?
  150. Wouldwerks by grikdog · · Score: 1

    Could be Art! Calder-style wooden mobile made of exploded iBook parts endlessly running Red Pill.... Or stuffed into a mockup of Woz's original Apple I plywood case... Hmmmm....

    --
    ``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
  151. nature loving geeks by Orlando · · Score: 1

    Three words I never thought I would see so close together.

    --
    -= This is a self-referential sig =-
  152. Learn something new today by IceAgeComing · · Score: 1

    Here's a really cool example of how we often learn something after it's already too late.

    A report on widespread landslides in 1996
  153. The other way around... by Chemisor · · Score: 1

    > I'm still waiting for my authentic ivory mouse and tiger fur coated keyboard.

    Uh, wouldn't it be better to make the keyboard out of ivory and put the tiger fur on the mouse? It's kinda hard to paint letters on the fur...

  154. *spit take* by Unknown+Kadath · · Score: 1

    That's one of the few things I've seen on Slashdot that actually deserves +5 Funny.

    You owe me a new keyboard. Preferably one of those spiffy wooden ones.

    -Carolyn

    --
    Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
  155. Please learn something new today. by IceAgeComing · · Score: 1

    Here's a really cool example of how we often learn something after it's already too late.

    A report on widespread landslides in 1996, almost all due to clearcuts Clearcuts that were created up to 50 years ago slid away, destroying whatever trees happened to be growing there. This was a year where in rained a bit more than it had in a while.

    Take it from someone who's walked through the Oregon backwoods:

    98% of the forests in Oregon have been clearcut at least once. Only the more mountainous parts of Oregon have returned to forest, which has caused the near extinction of the lowland rainforest.

    Most of the clearcuts happened with the advent of the chainsaw (they're less than 50 years old). This makes it actually more likely to see a clearcut than not when you're on top of a hill.

    Even old clearcuts still look like clearcuts and will for as long as I'm alive.


    Here's a site with a few cool photos of the Valley of the Giants, a 51 acre "oasis" of lowland rainforest that still remains. It is probably the largest such stand remaining. Note how long it takes to drive there; it's in one of the most remote logging areas in the state. Your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren may eventually live to see trees like this somewhere else.
    1. Re:Please learn something new today. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of trees do you have that grow so slowly? I know that Finnish pine forests grow up to 20-30 meters height in something like 60-80 years. A stand that was cut clear 10 years ago is already beginning to look like a forest...

    2. Re:Please learn something new today. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      So, because you've hiked in a couple forests, you're an expert? Also, since when does beauty have anything to do with good ecology?

      Environmental fascists promote no practical solutions--in their eyes, the only solution is "less people." A lot less people. A founder of Greenpeace has a different, more sensible viewpoint. He promotes more use of wood, as opposed to use of non-replenishable resources or things like plastics that cause worse harm to the environment. (Perhaps you've read the Wired article on him that tried to paint him as a sellout.)

      Q. Why not spend some time investigating environmentally sensible solutions instead of reiterating the same shrill pablum? A. Because that's not as fun as crying wolf.

      As far as the pristine public forests of Oregon are concerned, blame your government for letting them at the trees so cheaply. As mentioned elsewhere, loggers aren't stupid. If they own a fixed amount of land, they'll always be regrowing on that land. If the government is dumb enough to let them rape public forests, take your beef up with the government. Last I looked, Oregon was an extremely liberal state; I'm sure they'll listen.

    3. Re:Please learn something new today. by IceAgeComing · · Score: 1


      If anyone's being shrill, it's you. I didn't assign blame nor spout any radical agenda. I happen to know a few facts about Oregon's history. The first link in my original post is to a scientific paper. Take any claims of "pablum" to the authors, not me.

      Judging from your belief that Oregon is "extremely liberal", I'd say please do everyone a favor and STFU instead of talking out of your ass.

    4. Re:Please learn something new today. by IceAgeComing · · Score: 1

      The main tree is Douglas Fir. It grows quickly, but it takes a long time for the roots to stabilize the soil. This may be due to the soil composition, which is largely derived from volcanic deposits, and also partly due to somewhat steep slopes.

      Here is an example photo of a clearcut. Clearcuts of this magnitude are not uncommon in Oregon.

      http://www.saveamericasforests.org/CorzineGoodal l/ roadsMed.jpg

      If you have Macromedia Flash on your computer, there's a cool interactive map that shows you clearcuts from 1970 to the present. You have to click the year along the top to get the cumulative picture of all clearcuts since 1970.

      http://www.northwestwatch.org/scorecard/overview .h tml

      You'll have to delete the spaces in the two links above that the slashcode inserts.

    5. Re:Please learn something new today. by georgewad · · Score: 1

      First, Oregon is not an extremely liberal state. Portland is a liberal city, but most of the state leans more toward conservative/libertarian-ism.
      Second, IIRC, most of the forests are/were National Forests, so even a more environmental state govt. would have been helpless. While I agree that there are many who cry wolf, there are companies (logging and otherwise) which will put profit over law as long as they can get away with it.
      Wood can be a renewable resource, but the lumbar industry seems more interersted in short-term profits over long term forest care.
      I could go on with lots of arguments, but debating environmentalism with an anonymous coward doesn't seem terribly productive.

      --
      Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
    6. Re:Please learn something new today. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh yes. The call of the environmental fascist: "shut the fuck up." When you can't defend your point, attempt censorship.

      You did spout radical agenda by suggesting that forest aesthetics had anything to do with environmentalism.

      The next poster did correct things more nicely, which points out my error of confusing the ultra-liberal Portland with Oregon. My apologies to that poster.

  156. Not just wood - Leather too by PetoskeyGuy · · Score: 1

    These cases would look so good in my office. I love the look of the leather one.

    http://www.exoticwoodcrafts.com/

  157. Not only a heat problem. by wcrowe · · Score: 1

    Another problem with wood accessories is that wood gives off gasses over time, which will tend to cause corrosion of your electronic components. With small, low voltage components, even slight, undetectable corrosion can have disasterous results.

    Don't expect your wooden PC to last very long.

    --
    Proverbs 21:19
  158. Not the best for abuse by Shiifty · · Score: 1

    For those abuse their computers by kicking them or smashing their keyboards (you know who you are), cheap replaceable plastic parts might be best. I hate to think of the splinters that could result with these wooden items.

  159. Big Fans, Little Fans by virg_mattes · · Score: 1

    > ...but what if you had a desk fan or larger blowing against the open case? Would that be more efficient than leaving the case closed with the case/psu fans?

    Not as effective as the CPU fan, but for all the rest, it'd work just fine. The reason most people don't do it is noise, airflow (your case fans don't move papers on your desk, generally) and power efficiency, which is lower for the desk fan idea because smaller fans doing directed work need less power for the same airflow.
    br. Virg

  160. balsa vs ironwood.... by phyruxus · · Score: 1

    Oak would be fine next to a roaring fire. Balsa is asking for a bonfire. Not all wood is created equal. At least, according to my g/f.

    --
    "A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
    "d'Oh!" ~Homer
  161. Uh oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    >> Do you worry about breakfast cereal depleting our precious natural corn resources?

    What?!? No more Golden Grahams? the horror!


    I was trying to type "teh horror" and accidentally spelled it right. 8]

  162. This makes sense.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    considering the mindset of modern christianity..

    >> They kill a tree that symbolizes eternal life just so they can put it in their living room. It isn't eternal now!

    Yeah, that irks me too. It's par for the course, though... "Love is important, and lovers should always be married. Unless they're same sex, in which case God wants them to be miserable or get electroshock." ... "We must prevent terrorists from gaining influence in any way possible... right after we turn Iraq from a terrorist-free dictatorship to a terrorist-ridden occupied state." ... "Give mercy and alms to the poor... unless they're urban poor, in which case the gruel in their mouths is too good for them." ...

    pattern?

  163. Not transparent as in I can see through it by Elpacoloco · · Score: 1

    I meant that I don't notice that the box is sitting there. I mean that I don't have to notice the hardware.

    I did not mean that the interior of the box can be seen.

  164. way OT by Elminst · · Score: 1

    totally offtopic, but...

    Nice hacked website.

    --
    No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
    1. Re:way OT by jpmkm · · Score: 1

      I didn't think I even owned that domain name anymore. I sure as hell haven't used it in a long time.

  165. Thanks, guys... by pointbeing · · Score: 1
    Just what I needed - another harebrained scheme ;-)

    I found a place that sells 22 mil self-adhesive hardwood veneer and plan to cover a computer case with it. Can someone who knows a whole lot more about this than I do take a look and tell me whether this is a good idea? Seems to me it'd work.

    Here's a link.

    --
    we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
    -- anais nin
  166. Would a beowulf cluster of these... by Anonymous+Slacker · · Score: 1

    ...be considered a forest?

    sorry, had to make the obligatory beowulf joke.

    --
    "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!" -Rush
  167. Fire is not the problem... by Tassach · · Score: 1
    Fire is not the problem, grounding is. With all the components touching a common metal frame, they are all at the same ground potential. If you start mounting components on a nonconductive surface, there's a possibility that each subassembly could develop a different potential, leading to unstable operation and in the worst case, arcing.

    I'd also be pessimistic and assume that a lot of PC components are engineered with the assumption that they're going to be grounded to a common chassis. It wouldn't be hard to build a harness out of some wire and screw terminals and ground it to the power supply's case (or the external ground). Better safe than sorry.

    --
    Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
  168. Wrong! by nlindstrom · · Score: 1
    This is seriously fucked up. It's bad enough that creating a new PC consumes huge quantities of natural resources; now we're going to go and cut down trees too?

    Manufacturing computers is materials intensive; the total fossil fuels used to make one desktop computer weigh over 240 kilograms, some 10 times the weight of the computer itself.

    1. Re:Wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      isn't wood a bit more recycleable than plastics ?

  169. /. effect by abramul · · Score: 0
    We are sorry, but we have more than 800 users trying to connect at this time.

    Is there a mirror, anyone?

    --
    There should be a law requiring/prohibiting that (Please circle one)
  170. Wrong Climate by Elpacoloco · · Score: 1

    That would work in the northern US and Canada, but I live in the southern US, where even the winter is quite temperate and the summer is downright uncomfortable.

    I do like the idea of keeping it in the freezer.

  171. wooden stuff by x3cu370r · · Score: 1

    can i get a corn-husk mouse pad too?

  172. Ultimate Wood monitor by gt623 · · Score: 1

    http://fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~danny/mirror.html

  173. anyone else get this msg? by iamhassi · · Score: 1
    "We are sorry, but we have more than 800 (potential customers trying to purchase merchandise) at this time."

    I know they're being /.ed but it's a business, can't they just suck up the bandwidth bill to make money? I mean what if they were posted on some computer geek news site... oh, wait....

    --
    my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  174. Bonus Points by KatieIsABiggerNerd · · Score: 1

    If there's a flood, your machine will just float right out.