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Real Wood iPod
An anonymous reader submits "People have tried modding their iPods using wood before, but it took the genius of ZapWizard to create the Real Wood iPod. Hand carved from a solid piece of African hardwood to a thickness of just 2mm, the end result has to be seen to be believed. Wood grain is the new Apple White!"
African wood...
More importantly, the wood enclosure adds a depth and warmth to the music that simply isn't possible with man-made plastics. The resonant frequency of hardwood reduces jitter in the decoding circuit so the result is a higher fidelity experience.
Does it float? It would be very useful companion while swimming ;)
the doc
How long until we can start getting, say... a mahongany powerbook?
A pine iBook sounds appealing
Business Voyeur
Looks great, but 'carving by hand' does not include the use of a dremel rotary tool.
I wonder how the touchsensitive selection wheel does work... Yes i read the article... (perhaps i missed something?)
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
No.
iSore???
http://www.sydney-webcam.com
I expect there is a mrket out there for all sorts of wooden covers. Just think of a phone with a wooden cover.
My absolutely favorite were five iPods in a row done by Dale Chihuly in his Macchia glass patterns. Insane !! priceless is more like it.
Plastic isn't any better, its made using oil.
There's enough pictures on there that this could easily go down.
Here's a Coral Cache of it to help ease some of the disappearing server Slashdot magic.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Great, now I need a termite protection plan for my iPod.
Some softwood types are also sensitive - old-growth redwoods forests and high mountain areas. Forest Service roadbuilding typically costs about 10 times as much as the value of the wood that gets logged using those roads, so it's essentially subsidizing the destruction of old-growth forests; the Clinton administration belatedly got around to banning it in many areas, and the Bush Administration rapidly re-authorized it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Carpenters can make magnificent things out of wood. Okay, wooden objects (like this) are for everyone, but some people want wooden inlays in their cars too. I think that would be comparable.
I think it's a great mod. Still, I wonder how the wheel works. (As others have already posted) I don't have an iPod myself (yeah, a Shuffle, but that doesn't count), so I don't really know how they work.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Wood is a lot easy to sustain than plastic. You can plant new trees and harvest them in 20 - 100 years. What's more, chopping down trees and planting new ones is actually better for the environment than simply leaving the trees there. As a tree grows it generates more oxygen and takes up more CO2 than an old tree.
Plastic, which comes from oil, takes a bit longer. Recycled plastic is a possibility, but that doesn't generate new oxygen or decrease CO2 levels. It still takes energy to do the recycling process.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Plastic: Made from Oil.
Metal: Mined out of the ground, heated with electricity generated from Oil, or Polluting Coal, or *heavens* NuCuLar energy, or River Blocking Dams.
Wood: Actually a non-perishable resource, if the right species are used. Maple is good.
That said, you can obsess over whatever you want, that's your right, but be aware that there's no such thing as "clean" technology. Even if you go back to making plastic out of wood pulp, that is not guilt free.
And forget about going tech-less. The Native Americans cleared land by burning, and many parts of the globe suffer from desertification and treelessness from cutting firewood and overgrazing.
Hopeless, isn't it?
--
BMO
I guess apple wood isn't hard enough, but it seems like a natural choice for this particular application.
iWoodn't..
woody ipod is nothing new, I'm not impressed. But if the guy showed a sarge ipod...
\u262D = \u5350
you've got wood, haven't you !
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Some people have clearly too much time on their hands. Some of those put it to good use and we call them "artists". :)
I think he's using a click wheel rather than the newer touchpad kind.
Predictive text is shiv!
You can check out some of this other work here: ProjectRedwood 3.0. I've been following it for a while and he says he has to finish by August so expect big updates.
You're not kidding. I am still working with my CNC machinist on a solid granite back for my limited series U2 iPod. The granite reduces the vibrations from the iPods on board digital clock and from any CMOS gate switching during operation. I've seen some online studies that the granite dampens the vibrations and makes the iPods last a LOT longer (besides the obvious quality difference at the ear..). Are you doing any iPod overclocking or extra cooling? Have you thought about replacing your wall receptacle outlets to feed your iPod the cleanest power?
regards
iJack Simpson
owner, Yahoo iPod Overclockers Forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/iPodOverclockers/
Strangely enough, converting an entire tree into CO2 by either burning or decomposition will release exactly the net amount of CO2 that the tree absorbed over its life. Weird huh?
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
Im just waiting for technology to increase enough so we can build these things out of plastic... that will be the day. Now dont get me wrong... wood electronics are great... but wouldnt plastic be awesome?
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
I used to use mahogany at work to make full size models of car parts. Lots and lots of mahogany. Lots and lot of waste (although a great deal of it found its way into my home).
...I also used plastic. Horrible nasty stuff full of carcinogens. Expanded polystyrene made flies go docile. Scarier than wood.
People used to say similar things to you about harming the Brazilian rain forests but it's simply not true. The mahogany from the rainforests was never good enough for making models; it was only good enough for making crap furniture. Our wood came from plantations and this was 15 years ago.
I think its all been given a bad spin. Most of the time Pine is used and you can almost watch that grow.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Of course, a genetically modified tree could grow iPods in place of branches.
Ahaha...
I call BS until someone posts a photo of this wallhanging. Seriously. If it's really that cool, someone would have taken a snapshot with their cameraphone by now.
It's not like Steve Jobs invented the iPod or the MP3 player concept himself anyway. The Diamond Rio was one of the originals and AFAIK, Apple outsourced the iPod development to a freelance EE.
Aren't whales an renewable resource?
stuff that matters. i guess this time the matter is wood.
Because I know iWood!
nice, but isn't the long term problem that the wood is likely to crack or split, either just naturally or from impact. he said it already split four times when making it. 2mm thick wood, i'm not sure how tough that "would" (ahem) be. i guess there are ways of treating wood to make it stand up but how reliable it would be to mass produce i don't know... looks nice now though :)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
To clarify for clarifications sake, it can't really be true that *all* the CO2 is released, since the tree may become trapped in sedimentary rock, and become a deposit of fossil fuel over the next few millenia. Until it's dug up and burnt.
In terms of conservation of matter (plus the fact that photosynthesis is essentially the reverse of respiration, especially in terms of waste products), if the tree is burnt, then the net amount of CO2 absorbed over its life will be equal to the CO2 released over its life plus burning.
If the tree is entirely decomposed, then all the carbon will be recycled back into the environment. But not necessarily all as CO2, since some anaerobic bacteria metabolise sugars in low oxygen conditions, producing by-products like alcohol and methane. Eventually it may all be converted back to CO2, since that is the main waste-product of burning and respiration. But this is simply a further application of the conservation of matter.
And do note that all instances of the word 'burnt' refer to some sort of perfect combustion of all fuel, leaving no soot or charcoal behind.
In other words, the post you originally replied to was a vast over-simplification.
-Tez
Haskell, the static-typed, lazy, polymorphic, programming language.
There's not a way to make plastics without oil, but there's a way to make oil out of organic wastes which can, of course, be used to make more plastics.
This was some pretty cool stuff.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
Because it's made from oil?
Nope its a 4th gen. This is from the creator in the article discussion:
As many have mis-read. This is not a old generation iPod with a scroll wheel. This is a 4th generation iPod with touch click wheel. It is held together by little tabs.
Mole? 4? Cars?
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
Show me a picture of it after 6 months of normal use and let's see if it looks as great as the crummy white plastic finish would.
OK, basic conservation of energy: unless you're feeding the process with juice from a nuclear plant or some other semi-renewable energy source you're just transferring the energy expenditure from the non-rewewable fossil fuel you used to make the plastic to the non-renewable fossil fuel you used to provide the energy to make the oil to make the plastic. Except you lose efficiency on the intermediate steps.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
"Immediately, as a result of this rather provocative article, there will be a rush of people going to go buy rare wood."
"These people and their iPods are killing millions of people and destroying the Earth."
Oh spare me, troll.
And how much wood do you need to make an iPod faceplate? A few cubic inches?
You deserve to be tweaked, but good.
I want one of these. I haven't justified the price for the 92XL...yet.
http://www.gerstnerusa.com/Exotic.htm
But look at the prices!
The following 3 chests are available to order in your choice of exotic woods.
92XL Pro Series I Chest $2560.00
41D Classic Chest $1340.00
212 Treasure Chest $1180.00
Mmm...lovely.
--
BMO
I always suspected Apple's smooth, white finish would ring true with those still trapped in the 70's... Maybe the next generation ipods will feature avocado green and harvest gold cases! Kill me now.
It's the same problem that plagues Batman
...and that's all there is to it.
"Okay, wooden objects (like this) are for everyone, but some people want wooden inlays in their cars too. I think that would be comparable."
Wood inlays consist of thin slices of wood covering a substrate. Wood inlays are generally used for decorating a flat object and it is possible to have curved wood inlays. This iPod case is a three dimensional carving made from one piece of wood, not an inlay.
Wood carving and wood inlays are both techniques that can be used to create beautiful works of art, and both techniques can be combined in the same piece.
...for someone to rebuild an iPod with vacuum tubes and a bakelite case.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
since posting this on /. just begs for opinions, here's my critical opinion of this clever, creative work:
the wood with gloss looks very nice. the snaps on the back and smoothness of the finish makes it look very classy. however, the click wheel and button look VERY cheesy, too rounded. if it wereless glossy and rounded, and probably with engraved control labels, it would be much more professional and easy on the eyes. the screen was not cut out professionally at all. you did such an excellent job on the rest, why skimp on the screen?! the cutout is wavy, not smooth, and it looks very last-minute.
but all in all, great stuff. and i like the black dock.
But at least we're rich. And have lots of THINGS! And STUFF! That's where real happiness comes from.
Right?