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Hardware Reuse Contest Entries Revealed
teqo writes "The outstanding German computer magazine c't had a contest in which they challenged readers to submit their coolest recycling projects for obsolete hardware, and the entries have been revealed to the public now. There is an artsy and a practical category, and although it is in German, the pics make lots of submissions intuitively grokkable." (On the right hand side of the page, click the links beneath "Kunst" -- artistic -- and "Funktion" -- functional.) My favorite is the laptop with a solar-powered backlight.
Follow the links under 'Kunst' and 'Funktion' on the right side bar.
The only german I know is "Die Bart, Die", and it isn't on the site.
I'm lost!
TELESCOPE!
Click here for a machine translation of the site for you English readers.
Use Minidisc? Join the Minidisc.org forums.
My first thought was the Super Bowl Ad close to the end of the game (maybe even right after) in which the kid builds the robot in the garage. Its a Nationwide ad and is hilarious. If you have not yet seen it, watch for it!
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Poor heise online servers, they just survived days of SYNflooding and now they're being slashdotted.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I see that someone else had the same idea... http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55850
I've been doing this since I had a broken piece... years ago...
I still have about 15 30pins Simms (Goldstar) left... Anyone want a keychain?
I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
How is this Informative? It's stated right above in the article summary! Or did the "editor" add it in without using an Edit/Update tag?
well if you americans hadn't gotten involved in WW2 you'd all be speaking german now..
What do you mean? I can read it just fine.
Or did you mean 'understandable'?
Would be easier if the site was actually readable to someone in the United States.
Not to the intended readership, no. Much easier to read German than English if you are German, you know.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Do they have a precise definition of what constitutes "obsolete hardware?" If they're talking about functional obsolescence, then a calculator may not be obsolete for decades. A CD-R becomes obsolete the moment that someone copies an AOL CD. A Pentium 4 becomes obsolete the moment that it belongs to my grandmother.
Seriously, how much power does this save compared to the computer's total useage? I have never tried to use my laptop in bright enough sun to power its backlight. My question is: how does it not wash out? OK so maybe the answer is there but I totally don't read German.
How about some way of using ambient light to replace the back light? In that case, the amount of light you get would closely match the amount you need.
The solar cells the guy is using aren't enough to make much of a dent in the overall power usage but they could put a decent charge on the battery if he didn't use his laptop too much. It reminds me of a solar powered flashlight.
Its a PITA to keep it tuned, but it has at least 4 voices!
g econtent?lp=de_en&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de% 2Fct%2Fmachflott%2Fprojekte%2F55771
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pa
man, I feel like mold.
I haven't really had the time to browse all of the ideas here, but this one really stands out to me
RFID and Barcode Beer Fridge
If looks aren't decieving, you can use this baby to check your beer supply, and maybe even let you check from work to see what you need to pick up on the way home for the weekend.
Mach flott den Schrott
Ihre Meinung ist gefragt: Bewerten Sie die Einsendungen des Recycling-Wettbewerbs
Mit der Ausgabe 25/04 startete c't Ende November 2004 den Recycling-Wettbewerb Mach flott den Schrott, der die originellsten, schönsten und nützlichsten Konstruktionen aus High-Tech-Schrott belohnen soll. Die wesentliche Teile der Objekte sollen aus gebrauchten Computern oder ausgemusterter Peripherie stammen und sie sollen anders genutzt werden, als der Hersteller sich das ursprünglich gedacht hat.
Der Wettbewerb hat zwei Kategorien: "Funktion" und "Kunst". In der ersten sollen Werke antreten, die im weitesten Sinne eine technische Funktion erfüllen. Dazu gehören beispielsweise Roboter, Messgeräte, Uhren und Lampen. In die zweite Kategorie fallen alle Werke, bei denen allein der künstlerische oder ästhetische Wert im Vordergrund steht.
Auf diesen Seiten präsentieren wir die Wettbewerbsbeiträge. Sehen Sie sich um, staunen Sie, lassen Sie sich zum Nachbauen anregen und diskutieren Sie in den Foren mit, die es zu allen Projekten gibt.
Außerdem bitten wir um Ihre Mitwirkung an der Online-Nominierung der Endrundenteilnehmer. Bewerten Sie jedes Projekt bis zum 18. Februar nach vier Aspekten mit Schulnoten. Dazu finden Sie unter den Objektbeschreibungen jeweils einen Link.
Die besten Konstruktionen nehmen dann an der Endrunde auf der CeBIT 2005 teil, wo wir sie auch auf dem Stand des Heise Zeitschriften Verlages (Halle 5, Stand E38) ausstellen. (je)
---
I hope that that was immensly helpful to all of you!
Vast ist dis? Neiner blinkenlights?
I cut the DIN 5 connector (old style keyboard) and the PS2 mouse connector (MiniDIN 6) off very old obsolete motherboards.
Then I combine them with a 40 cent microcontroller (AVR Tiny11) to make MIDI tone module controllers from standard PS2 keyboards.
It works really well. Press the keys, notes go on, release keys, notes off. Just like a piano keyboard but smaller and much cheaper. There are, however, certain key combinations that don't play full chords. I'm not sure if it's the internal keyboard matrix decoding or the microcontroller's firmware.
Is there a plan to recycle their webserver?
And my favorite one is the LED/IC insects. Go figure. http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/56058
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/56016 :)
Thats a nice hard disc bike
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
http://www.larkfarm.com/honeywell_answers.htm
M R- V13.html#Animals
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/TheCompMusRep/TC
My father used to have a miniature of the Honeywell Animals kangaroo as a paperweight.
Ich kann nicht Deutschen lesen Sie unempfindlicher Klumpen!
Actually, if you live in the United States and can read German, then technically it fulfills your requirements. As it is, I'm an American in Japan and I can read it just fine. Maybe it's just a question of geography? ;) (Doesn't hurt to speak German, though.)
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Good to see you back. Where have you been?
Alles touristen und non-technischen peepers!
Das machine control is nicht fur gerfinger-poken und mittengrabben. Oderwise is easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowen fuse, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Der machine is diggen by experten only. Is nicht fur geverken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseenen keepen das cotten picken hands in das pockets, so relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights.
Instead of trying to do a solar-powered backlight, I wish more manufacturers would offer the option of a reflective or transflective LCD screen. This is like the screen used in the Gameboy Advance-- in bright sunlight, it looks fantastic. Indoors, they're not quite as nice as backlit, as they are typically sidelit to bounce the light off the rear reflector. It's a tradeoff. But you could use your laptop with no backlight power as long as there was good ambient light.
There was at least one laptop made with one of these-- If I remember right, it had a Transmeta CPU, but it's been a while. NEC Versa Daylite, or something close to that, and I think some of the Panasonic Toughbooks designed for outdoor use have them as well.
Since skirt star need a guitar, no meal remained for me: ... Amiga 500 + guitar neck.
Coworker: Andre Pluemer and friends, those from time to time parts of the Sperrm?
Rock on... berzerker!
Macquarium: http://www.lowendmac.com/compact/macquarium.shtml
It seems like most newer keyboards don't have the problem of recognizing too many keys at once. I remember playing mortal kombat on my old 386 with two people on the keyboard and the trick wasn't skill, but to press enough buttons to keep your opponent's key presses from being recognized.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I don't see why this was modded funny. I have several German friends who are quite sensitive to the subject of WWII. They hate Hitler and Nazi's just as much as anyone else. To jest that they would invade Poland out of boredom or ressurect the 3rd reich isn't just in bad taste, it's plain wrong.
Perhaps if we ('we' in my particualr case being the US) didn't have slashdot we would be incarerating Japanese born US citizens, or hosing down black civil rights protesters! Funny, no? Didn't think so.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
So, you are suggesting that the company should redo their website because somebody posted an article about them... In an age when machine translation is perfectly understandable with a little effort, and the article is mostly pictures, and a significant amount of slashdot's readership doesn't have english as a first language? Twit.
You know, I was just thinking that myself... it's almost like he's taken social commentary and made it into some perverse art form...
The best feature of this is that you will extend the life of your product by a long time. PDAs, Cell Phones, MP3 Players, video game systems, Digital Cameras... they would all benefit. Sure, the initial hardware cost might be a little bit more, but in the end I think the cost would be worth it.
Ich hoffe das das äußerst hilfreich für euch alle war!
quite uninteresting.
See my post on the phone discussion posted right after this story.
I know quite a few Germans myself, and they don't agree with your German friends at all.
...
So don't think your German friends represent a clear majority opinion, in Germany.
There are laws in Germany which make it risky to express your true feelings in public, and so many people would not admit that the Germans still feel quite some pride when they think about the days of the Third Reich.
As for those laws : you can't legislate the true sentiments of a people.
Of course, we all know what a valiant effort Finland made in WWII
To jest that they would invade Poland out of boredom or ressurect the 3rd reich isn't just in bad taste, it's plain wrong.
Yes, Germans today are much too busy making anal fisting videos to even think about invading anyone.
" ... or hosing down black civil rights protesters!
I don't know about the civil rights protesters, but I'd like to take a fire hose to all the scum who drive around with loud car stereos. To be fair, not all these idiots are black - some of them are people who seem to want to be black. In any case, no civil rights for any of these scum, they ALL get the fire hose.
While the solar backlight might be interesting I just can't ignore these
they're just so darn cute.
I made a key fob out of an old IBM Token Ring PCMCIA card. My keys are impossible to lose :)
Or locking people up on an army base in Cuba to sidestep your constitution?
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Those light shades made from a thousand CDs are pretty cool looking. I want one for myself, but it seems pretty hard to do in the post AOL cd error. I guess I need to start collecting. Here is the link http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55857
mnewberg.com
It's about time they focused on recycling computer parts. I have to admit I wasn't too wild about their prior recycling efforts. All they came up with are things like lampshades, book covers, yarn, felt & socks.
Speaking...
...four languages - is an interpreter
...three languages - is an interested
...two languages - is usual
...one language - is american
"Anal fisting" sounds a bit too much like invading somenone anyway <wince>
Dave
artistic
- objective sculptures
- shape, light and sound objects
- symbolic stuff
- flat objects
- environment
- jewelry
- fancy stuff
functional
- computer equipment
- furniture
- home and garden
- kitchen equipment
- light engineering
- measurement engineering
- robots and models
- sports and toys
- sound and picture
- clocks
- miscellaneous
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Wow, that has to be the shittiest piece of ascii art ever posted on /. ...
Um, the poster you replied to was quoting The Simpsons:
Parole Board: "Why do you have Die Bart Die on your shirt?"
Sideshow Bob: "No, this is German, it means The Bart, The"
Parole Board: "Oh well, nobody who speaks German could be an evil man".
Good effort though.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Another stupid Troll moderation. The parent was actually being rather funny by offering a reversal of the tired 'If it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking German' routine. Read the post next time before jerking that knee and waving the Stars and Stripes.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
and a significant amount of slashdot's readership doesn't have english as a first language?
Well, even though English isn't my first language I'd prefer text to be in english rather than german. Just because you don't natively speak english that don't mean that you know all other languages.
So on an english site it is preferable with english texts, as that enables everyone to read, rather than just a small group of gearmans/french/italians/swedes/etc.
But ofcourse they don't want to translate the site just for slashdots sake, but that's another discussion.
At least it's only painful to a maximum of two people.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
There is an ad for the "Robots" movie in the third quarter, but no ad for "Nationwide" or did he mean nationwide? There doesn't seem to be anything involving kids and a garage either.
True - but the career builder ads with the monkeys are just hilarious!
The Bud-Light ones arn't bad either.
***Commercial Spoiler Ahead***
The kid puts together a robot and then brings his folks out into the garage. They beam at the kid as the robot waves, and smiles (his mouth is made up from what appears to be graphic equalizer slides). Then laser beams shoot out of the robot's eyes and it starts blowing up parts of the garage. It turns, see the family car and blows it up;-)
I think it was on after the game during the postgame frenzy.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Perhaps the submitter of the story should have thought ahead and added a machine translation link aswell...
Silly rabbit
Yes, the fridge is literally cool. But also check this ones, they are my top 6 (in no order):
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55930 a clock
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55876 another clock with 25 timezones
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55978 homemade STM (Scanning Tunneling Microscope), that is really awesome
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/56047 a high precision scale
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/56016 a motorbike out of hdd parts
http://www.heise.de/ct/machflott/projekte/55688 a cool robot
Hitler was an Austrian. Please remember this, we Germans are very sensible about that fact, because we dissociate from Hitler in special and the Austrians in general.
So imagine a scenario when globalization collapses and no one has the ability or technology to manufacture complex goods like computers. All we'll have left is the remnants of circuit boards that will either be used to hobble together computing devices or art because of its increasing rarity.
-- Making computers see, hear, and think... http://www.componica.com/
IF you ever bothered to leave your basement and see the world, you will find there are groups of people in every country that only speaks one language.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.