Slashdot Mirror
The Neuron Drive
billy writes "After two weeks of planning, painting, cutting, and slicing, I have completed my idea for the Neuron Drive, the world's first 80GB canvas. It is a fully functional USB hard-drive. The Neuron Drive contains 2 fans and 1 Maxtor 80GB hard-drive. It is fully functional as a hard-drive and both fans spin."
How well is it dealing with being on fire?
Now I can combine my two dream jobs into one exciting career path: art thief and data pirate!
Oh man, I can't wait for a high-brow credit card company to install some of these in their art gallery / server room.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Stuff that matters? That some guy wants to sell some art on Slashdot? On the plus side, when the dupe is posted, it will have some funny comments. (unlike this post)
nothing to see here
The fans spin, wow! Sign me up for that, talk about art pushing innovation.
To be honest, this might have been worth something if the drive was anything other than a Maxtor.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
so he mounted a hard disk drive to a picture? i mean, case mods are cool. This is unique i guess, but I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed..
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
It's an interesting idea, and kudos for pulling it off, but I do have a little constructive criticism. The hard drive seems minimally integrated into the piece -- there is a large neuron area where you cut the hole for the drive, but the actual aesthetics of the hard drive don't have much to do with the surroundings. It feels like a first draft in this respect.
Secondly, the fans baffle me. Given their distance from the drive, while they may be function in that they work, they're not functional in that they have no practical purpose. And how do they integrate with the "neuron" metaphor? Fans don't transmit information -- it seems that they were put there for the sake of having more things poke out for the back, but I think it would have more of an impact if the drive itself were more of a focus.
Again, this is intended as constructive criticism, stuff to think about for the next iteration. Congrats on completing the project. I hope there's more to come.
..and don't want to click the link..
some amateur artist has stuck a hard drive onto a painting.
Personally, it does nothing for me, the painting would be more interesting without that hard drive stuck there (and with a few lighter colors or highlights so it isn't so dark overall).
Or at least don't show the brand and label of the hard drive, it really sticks out like a sore thumb.
If I were creating something like this, I"d put the hard drive where you couldn't see it, and just put some LEDs or something on the front. And the fans too, those are okay and would make the viewer "think twice" about what might be behind.
Keep trying though, it's a cool concept.
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/522c43281d7bde218 5d2d7a523fdf2cf/index.html
that's just stupid.
not even clever. ooo, i glued a hard drive to a poster.
-.no
That's just ugly.
I wouldn't hang it on my wall.
Seriously, something you painted to fit a "cool someone will buy this" theme plus computer parts does not make an art piece. I don't care how much of a geek you are. Was there ANY thought about composition?
If you want to be an artist, you need to think about making art, not making something "cool" that someone will want to buy. Don't sell out like that.
- From an artist to you.
A serious work of art with a joke for a disk drive.
What would the MTBF of this painting be?
Oh well, what the hell...
The art itself is decent enough, but I don't think that's necessarily the thrust of this.
I think what he (the artist) might be asking us to do is to challange our technological paradigms. I mean, why shouldn't our hard drives have ornamental value as well as technological? A lot of computers are still ugly white rectangles that invade a room's space rather than compliment it. How about a hard drive vase? Maybe a webcam inside of a bust? I don't really know where to take it myself; 'course I'm not an artist. But I think it's a good idea for our gadgets to be works of art as well as utilitarian tools.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Technically, the hard-drive can be replaced if needed. Hmmm, Would it still be art with a 400GB SATA drive in there. I dunno, seems like a waste of a good picture to me.
Seriously, I mean, how would you use the HD? One would half to have a pretty long IDE cable. Why put a HD in a painting, w/out it having a purpose. Unless he gonna integrate a motherboard into another one...it seems pointless
I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life
Two whole weeks ?! Wow, what an immense amount of sweat equity. And the planning was included in the two weeks? Wow, um, I'm underwhelmed.
I guess it shows how much planning went into it.
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
did taco have a kid?
ôó
i wanted to see this, mirror anyone?
What goes around comes around, kid.
no. breeder 'tardedness. gay is good.
1) Integrate hard drive into painting
2) POST ON SLASHDOT
3) Profit!!!
What can I stick on a frame and call it 'art'?
I guess in that two weeks of planning, and painting, you neglected to address the fact that submitting your story to Slashdot would bring your web site to a grinding halt.
Hey - I'll give you 50 cents for the fans if you give me free shipping?
...and some of the articles I submitted to /. were rejected!
Does he need to keep his wall cool ? I doubt their airflow would make any difference to the temperature of the drive. and why not build it into a mechanical piece of art ? like make it the engine block of a model hot rod. Or perhaps something industrial looking with pipework everywhere. and to spur this into a more challenging topic, isn't a neuron more of a relay or transmitter in the brain than it is a mass storage device?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I liken the fans to Alzheimers or other neurocentric deficiencies of the mind. They are insanity and confusion, a spiraling of the thought process out of control.
... partaking of both +Funny and +Insightful, yet different from either ... I'm not sure what to call it, perhaps +Dreamtime or +Neal-Stephenson-Metaphoric ....
Your intriguing comments deserve a new mod category
-kgj
-kgj
"One art, please."
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
poor billy blog
This is a bold attempt at combining different media that challenges the way we think about blah, blah, blah... Just kidding. This sucks.
Why stop with wall hangings? Why limit oneself to 80 GB?
My mom has been taking a bunch of pictures with her old trusty $100 Olympus D-100 digital camera, but the laptop that she keeps in the kitchen was low on space and doesn't have room for another drive. What to do?
Happily, my mother has a cherished Kitchen Aide mixer - and by welding a bracket onto the mixer, I mounted a 160 GB drive to it. Then I added a USB-to-IDE interface, and now she's baking with tasty gigabytes.
Yum, wholesome goodness. Who could ask for more?
Remove the cover from the drive so that you can see the platter. Paint a groovy spiral on the mirror surface of the platter. Fire up the drive. Oooooh, ahhhhhh. Now THAT would be art.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
When I was new to slashdot I tried to submit a story about my work (see below), but soon realized that I would only be rejected. After all one person's work isn't a big deal in terms of the whole community. This article has really opened my eyes however. Back to the submissions board.
Philosophy.
It's interesting how the human mind tries to make sense out of chaos... It's an integral function that helps us survive... Someone sticks two fans on a painting and advertises it on Slashdot, and immediately people will find depth and symbolism in it. Sometimes, it's just a fan.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
Because it doesn't. Can we get real articles on /. please.
His server must be integrated into a painting too.
What kind of lame name is that? Unless it includes a built in Neuralizer (You know, that's a nifty idea... erase your porn collection via mobile phone when you die.... but that'll still leave the dildo collection...), Another name would have been better. Like the name, "BFUSB Drive"
~The TwoTailedFox posts again....
now that we have slashdotted his painting has now has a dali
Since it's slashdotted, here's a brief description: it looks like a handful of distorted blue jellyfish with a few PC components dropped on them.
(Yes, I'm being very snide, but that's because the author tagged the entry as "Genius.")
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
This is plain stupid, useless and very amateur.
I can also take a photo of one of my test PCs which does not have any case
around it... I'm sure it will be of interest to most people here... at least
as much as this crappy article.
I guess that the submitter and the canvas only share one common neuron. Unfortunately, it holds the disk.
I'm really wondering what "interesting" articles we'll see after this...
willy
It _speaks_ to me, it really does.. The diametric clash of postmodern introspection with the bold colours of a renaisance optimism trancends the fundamental dichotomy of the other, to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the artists compassionate soul,leaving me with a profound and vivid insight into, er, into.. whatever it was the thing was about. Oh but the technological blackness, the deep gravity of that unfeeling automaton sucking the life of humanity into its dark data claws, ceaseless, unfeeling, relentless abberation on the face of mankind. Oh the inhumanity, the blackness, the horror, THE HORROR!
:)
Can you all not see what is being put before you, have you no vision? This is Art! Pure genius, and if it's not may God strike me d
(with a teacup raised to Douglas A)
Why is that everytime I find an awesome article someone always beats me to it!
The HyperCube custom kit....now that was classy! The guy went to the trouble to remove all stickers and polish all exposed metal surfaces before installing. Beautiful work on the lighting effects. If I were to get slashdotted over a piece of artwork, I would hope that it could compare to the HyperCube instead of an oversized undercapacity USB drive.
I agree, "does not make an art piece" it's ugly. It took him two weeks? That kind of quality should only take a couple of hours. Art is a case that hides the fact that it contains a computer or computer parts constructed into an object (like airplane framework mods). I personally think that the RS/6000 rack is a work of art (reminds me of the monolith from 2001.) I keep all of my personal servers in one.
Maybe it's time I revisited the wooden Buddha statue case idea... I wonder how much it would cost to make it from jade...
"Lame" - Galaxar
...it actually is quite strange. But then again this is a hobbyist, so may dare I say: Nice piece. Nice effort. But it does have room for improvement.
May I recommend a source of inspiration?
For building everyday stuff into pictures, I suggest looking at paintings from the man that 'builds pictures' - as he calls it - and is generally considered one of the greates painters of our times.
One of his goals actually is to inspire people like you and me to do this kind of stuff themselves.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Maybe, but it is not necessary to run 50 "stories" a day just to run stories. Slashdot could run 5 or 10 really good stories.
But than, advert impressions would go down, drying up the cash cow (they don't call him "RobLimo" for 'nuthin!.
On the other hand, it is US who come here, click on these stupid masturbation stories, and help drive those advert impressions up, so who's to blame?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Perhaps thinking it is a fan is finding too much depth and symbolism in it. Maybe it's really just chunks of plastic and wire, along with pieces of magnet and a metal axle. Indeed, perhaps thinking of such things as "wire" and "magnet" is putting forth too much symbolism and depth! They are in the end just collections of subatomic particles.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Other than a fancy name to conceptualize the piece, the artist missed his mark entirely... sure there's a drive... sure there are two fans... sure it "works"... but the drive is just THERE. It's not actually a piece of the canvas in any conceptual way beyond location and name.
If the drive itself had been more integral to the piece, and there was some sort of yin/yang between it and the canvas I'd call it art. Personally, I think it's two disassociated items duct-taped together for no apparant reason, then given some stupid name to try to make up for the lack of artistic merit.
Sorry. And yes, I studied art and art history, and have a BAA in it. Now, having said that, I fully admit that my OPINION is no more valid than anyone elses - including the artist's.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Mount the drives on the ends of arms on axles as part of a mobile with the fans immediatelly behind with slip-ring contact assemblies providing power. Maybe sixteen of them all flying around in different directions as a modern art exercise. And with wireless connections from each sending data back and forth making them functional if kooky.
Now that would belong on Slashdot.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
..sans drive and two fugly fans, is not too bad, actually. In my opinion, what he's done to it is vandalism.
I find it strange, however, that an advertisement is posted as a story, on slashdot. Well, whatever...
Sigged!
That was missing from the mirror, and the original page was slashdotted...
I'll have to go see it, but I still fail to see the connection from your description (it appears you agree)... no real reason for the hard drive to be there except to complete a sad joke in the name of the piece.
My opinion: if you need to know the name of a piece to appreciate it at all, then it's not good art (I can think of no exceptions off hand...). This is worse - knowing the name only lets you know that the artist has a long ways to go.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I thought it might be Billy Chenowith now that he's flushing his lithium down the toilet again.
So, is that what the goatse picture is all about? The man trying to get the CPU back out?
emt 377 emt 4
The punchline is how much they cost: Six dollars a pound.
(As an artist myself: it's funny because it hurts.)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
It would look better with the "bottom" circuit board side facing out, rather than the Maxtor label.
--
make install -not war
People can sit and stare at the sky for hours and see different shapes in the clouds. It can turn into a whole story based on what each random puffy cloud brings. Mother nature or God didn't create the clouds in a certain way for the person viewing them. The person viewing them saw what he needed to see in them. Someone else could have seen something completely different or nothing at all. Art just provides another vehicle for this sort of thing. Both to the viewer and the artist that may subconsciously or consciously impart some sort of meaning to it.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
He's a fark photoshopper. A good one, too!
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
. . . are you guys the ones who keep the >$200 tennis shoe market alive?
Eight bucks, new at K-Mart. My dress shoes I got at the City Mission, virtually new for a buck.
KFG
The AC was wrong; the hard drive IS visible. He thought this was the final shot (presumably because it was captioned "the completed oil, still a little wet"), but this was actually it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
How about Duchamp's "Fountain"? By itself it's just an up-turned urinal. With the title, it's... something else. And Bruce Nauman's photograph of himself squirting water out of his mouth seems fairly pointless until you know it's entitled "Self Portrait as a Fountain" (at which point it becomes a self-deprecating reference to Duchamp).
There are a lot of art pieces (mostly 20th century and later) that are built on the relationship (usually ironic) between what they look like and what they're labeled. The interconnectedness of text and visuals doesn't make the art any less "good"; it's just more modern.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
What about flush mounting the drive with a Plexiglas cover (yeah warranty voiding) and do a partial cover with come of the oil paint for a more integrated look.
I do like the idea of peripherals as art, and with the slew of laptops auto magically turning into wall tops this is an interesting addition to it all, For future art projects a wall top with the interesting hard drive (like the one I described above) displayed in a full height canvas would be a very interesting art meets technology project.
With this you could have the laptop screen saver be various alternative images to fill in the hole it created and change the art work it is in. (family pictures would definitely be a lame use of this kind of art hack.
convictushome.blogspot.com
At least yours was better.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
He would have got the entire PC into a few different frames, you know motherboard on a ship going over the end of the world, CD drives sticking out of Michel Angelo's ass, Spearers in some Rubenesk type of painting...
platter...
Somehow I think my clock is cooler than your nasty purple neuron painting.
Best part: it doesn't use USB!
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
You are so cool! I wish I had totalfark so that I could be as awesome as you guys. Thanks for sharing. We all appreciate your valuable input.
Uh, yeah, art is always about depicting things photorealistically. That's why the paintings of Picasso, Van Gogh, Mondriaan, Escher, Dali etc. were always wonderfully accurate renditions of their subjects.
Oh wait, they weren't. At all.
Numbnuts. Who's the douche again?
if you could make a functioning mini-itx pc onto that canvas, i'd be impressed.
Rock is Dead! Long live Paper and Scissors!!
Excellent.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I dont see the point
um... ...
'nuff said.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I don't really want a Neuron drive right now. Just sign me up when we finish the improbability drive.
The only good thing I can say IBM Deathstars is that I have never lost any data to them. Always could tell when the drive was about to go, and was able to copy everything off.
On the other hand, Western Digital drives just fail without warning. Stay away from Western Digital, they are useless junk.
That's funny, not art. Unless funny = art. "Art" is one of those things that is defined and redefined based on the artist and the observer. Some say the guy who throws his feces at canvas is making art. I don't. I don't think inverted urinals are art. I don't think taking a picture of yourself spitting is art. And a hard drive pasted to what appears to simply be a "partially blue canvas" isn't art. I don't care how clever a name you come up with.
But hey, maybe I don't know art, but I do know what I hate.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
Look, I'm not taking the extremist Dada or post-modern viewpoint that art is whatever the artist declares to be art. But yeah, being funny can definitely be art. Isn't humor creative? Gods, if art has to be as serious as you insist, then I'm not all that interested in it.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Except I'm not trying to sell anything and I don't have any links to any of my artwork associated with my slashdot account nor do I want any. It's honestly how I feel.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Is it wrong for me to think this is totally gay? BTW does this come in a multi-painting 1TB RAID configuration?
nothing more, nothing less...
-Arash
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
It is an excrescence. You must never show that to anyone. Burn it at once.
I for one am glad to see someone putting computer equipment in something other than grey boxes. I think it would be pleasant not to be surrounded by all of the hardware. I have often thought of doing something to hide away all of the parts. Who says USB external drives have to be in enclosures?
This could be really bad ass.. I think most of your /.ers either don't realize or don't care that he made this oil painting (it isn't just some "poster" as some have said).
I think that the hard drive is an eye sore... I really like the desing of the painting, but I HATE THE hard drive sticking out of it.. I think if you put the cover of the USB drive over the hard drive and painted over the cover, something which matched the painting instead of this UGLY eye sore.. it might be kool..
Just my 2 cents...
-=Linsys=-
http://www.intrusionsec.com
I've got something better than an oil-on-canvas painting with a built-in hard drive: A COMPUTER with a built-in hard drive!!!
You can run but you can't hide, except, apparently, along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Wow, you call me narrow minded, yet you catagorically assume that things must either be purely funny, or deffinitively serious. Being funny, or ironic does not make something art by itself. Humour can be a part of art, and art can be clever. It's not an all or nothing, black or white situation.
Then again, if my post is "ironically elitist" I suppose it fits within the perview of your definition of art. Yay me!
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
You are officially on crack buddy. The drive is definitely part of the final piece...
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
...but what I really want to know is: Is it fully functional?
You're a sub-par photographer.
hey, my personal troll moderator -- perhaps you'd like to talk to me instead of down modding every one of my posts? you are showing great maturity there.
Glad to hear that you've changed your mind about that.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I was going to say the same thing. I have been running WD's for quite a long time. My current devel machine still has a 60GB IDE I picked up 6 years ago and not a problem since. Also have a 40GB I transplanted to my brother's computer that's been alive and kicking for longer than that!
;-)
Both of those drives have been put through hell, both in terms of the tasks set upon them, and also physically, since the 40 GB was in my old machine that I always kept on the floor with the side panel off (it got HOT). Cat pissed inside there one day. Corroded the modem all to hell but the drive (while pissed on) still hasn't had problems. The cat, however, didn't fare so well
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Down at the bottom of the Neuron web page is an encoded program which I cannot fathom. It decodes itself and executes itself. "Hiveware exploder"!
Does anyone know what it's doing?