Slashdot Mirror
Last Year's Gadgets Get New Life As... Jewelry
Will Sherman writes "Liz McLean Knight, a Chicago native, has applied her interest in electronics, computers, and music to a line of jewelry created under the name, Zelle. The catch? She almost exclusively uses spare computer and electronics parts in her work. Many of her pieces would be a perfect gift for your LAN admin, that cute girl in the IT department, or your favorite DJ. Among other things, she sells a belt made from IDE cable, necklaces made from capacitors, and a cuff bracelet made of midi cables. But can she turn my broken iPod into something wearable?"
I've had a keychain of a 4MB DIMM stick for years, and my wife has 8088 earrings =)
Which IT department is that?
This gets better every time it is posted.
But seriously, anyone who would actually wear this stuff has enough old parts lying around to make his own SCSI cable, RAM-encrusted thong.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Laptop, Cell phone, PDA, iPod... now you're telling me I need jewlery scavanged from old hardware? I don't think so ;)
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I ran across a link involving the same jewelry not long ago. In case (read: when) the main site gets slashdotted, or if one just wants to see all products without pagination, you can view them all here:
http://www.zellestyle.com/catalog/index.htm
if I gave my wife that stuff. I don't know about others, but it really doesn't look that good to me.
I guess if it were functional I could see using the IDE belt. You could hook a couple hard drives in holsters off the belt and hot plug the cable into your computer.
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
has this stuff already been on ThinkGeek? http://www.thinkgeek.com/apparel/jewelry/67b3/
aside from being a dupe, this is nothing new as there have been dozens of others doing this stuff for quite a few years now. but thanks for the advert.
I really don't see this stuff catching on, diodes aren't a girls best friend.
had cat5 bracelets before, not sure if they still do. Bought one, had a zelle style label in it (it was packaged in a petre dish). Oddly I bought my gf both the necklace and the bracelet you mention. They are of good quality and 'zelle' is fantastically kind, she responds to emails personally. I would highly recomend any of this for a geek! (some of it is relatively gender neutral).
dc
I'm not quite sure who this line of goods is targetting, I mean anyone geeky enough to wear a necklace of capacitors is probably going to have the materials and the interest to build/have built one already and be enjoying its uniquity, rather than being off-the-peg 'geek fashion'. Still, its an option for those who wish to carry their array of spare cables and components with them at all times.
Business Voyeur
It is slashdotted, but I think we can assume the caps are in series or not connected to eachother. A large series of caps isn't going to be dangerous. Neither are individual ones.
A large number of caps in parallel might be bad if someone intentionally charged them, but I can't see how that could happen accidentally.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The way the capacitors are arranged in the picture would seem to indicate that all the leads are shorted together, and thus the danger of things getting zapped from accumulated charge is nil.
Wearing some cool gadget that you've made for yourself as jewelry/accessoire is usually ok, but the pleasure comes from the personal value the item holds to you.(at least in my case) Buying something ugly(personal opinion on the pics in TFA) in a hopeless effort to put an oreal of strangeness around you is about as bad a taste as possible.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Intel has been doing for years (probably other chip makers too). Back in the late 80s, Intel produced a marketing tidbit key ring that had a 286 die on one side and a 386 die on the other embedded in a flat hexagon of resin. The dies were mounted on something printed with some bubbly marketing speak about power for today/ power for tomorrow yada yada yada...
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
thank god i don't have any kids
if sign.nil? Sig.new
What did you use to contain the vapor?
I have an Intel SIMM that I use for a keychain (yes, Virginia, Intel used to make low margin memory chips, too), but I'd caution against this.
First, many of these components have sharp edges. If that's not dangerous enough for you (after all, edges can be sanded down), many electronic components contain toxic waste (you know, the usual litany of heavy metals and so on). I'm not sure you want to give a gift that might cause cancer, mmkay?
Keychain made out of old RAM - easy to do, just get a key ring and any old SIMM, DIMM, or SODIMM (I advise against a SODIMM, though. The EDO SODIMMs are worth their weight in gold due to inflation, the SDR SODIMMs are still kinda useful, and the DDR SODIMMs are really useful. If it's dead, OTOH...)
;-)
Keychain made out of an old/dead CPU - if it's ceramic, don't bother. If it's organic (like a P3, some socketed K7s, P4, P-M, or K8) or plastic (like some Pentiums (Classic and MMX), socketed Mendocino Celerons), it's fairly easy.
Now, I just want to meet the girl that would wear the capacitor necklace... I've got dibs on her
Actually, the capacitor necklace is like one of those costume jewelry necklaces with a black (plastic?) hoop to go around your neck, and semicircular rings hanging from the front with other semicircular rings hanging from them. This is sort of like a short netting with the capacitors hanging down. So it appears that some of the capacitors would be in parallel, but I don't think they are actually attached electrically. Also there are only six of them, and they are probably in the 50-100uF range, so they wouldn't pack much of a punch.
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
Hey I make belts and necklaces out of soda cans!
Can I get my website advertised for free?
Old news... I first learned about her by downloading some of her tracks off of music.download.com
You should listen to "late Blazing Kinch Theme"
Crazy talented this girl is.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
I wonder what kind of jewelry she'll make from her newly smoking webserver...
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Discrete components often have leads that have been tinned with lead-based solder. I'd be very cautious about wearing anything next to my skin long-term that was coated in lead.
On the other hand, the stuff looks really cool and a lot the items don't have that problem.
Hell, I'm holding in my hand a keyring made out of a pentium cpu die sealed in plastic. It's so old it's not even cool to carry around any more.
so I'm asking, what exactly does it take to make a front page story on Slashdot? I submitted a report on Dotster.com compromising customer PII data and trying to cover it up, but that didn't even warrant a "go F*ck yourself".
I'll bet if I skid marked my underwear and it looked like Steve Jobs hugging Larry Ellison it'd be the story of the day.
.....your server goes down.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Seriously - I'm as geeky as anyone, but who would really wear this stuff? If I gave a girl something as nasty as this I'd expect a very cool response.
Oh wait, it isn't. Sorry, I just got so used to it :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Yeah. None of the links seem to work.
Do jedi's build their own lightsabers?
Please hand over your geek card and exit the room...
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
She must also be running her website on an antique server, as it is already broken down under the Slashdot pressure.
Pat
I'd guess a sysadmin or their hosting company got scared. I was able to visit it shortly after the article was fresh new. The third link I clicked on their page got me the 403-ed.
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Old Hotness: A 12AX7 necklace.
Nothing says "Geek Sophisticate" like analog.
"Wanna come up and look and look at my Mcintosh, sweetheart? If you're good, I might let you play with my Moog."
...would do better than to give the gift of floppies.
/a little dating advice.
"that cute girl in the IT department," is not going to want IT jewelry that isn't functional. Women don't want to have obsolete technology turned into ear or neck decoration unless it doesn't have sharp edges, looks very cool, or is made by their kid.
Try giving a 256MB USB 2.0 keychain drive instead on a necklace if you want to be popular. Keep the 286s in a box at home to show your grandkids.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Are there any after all?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I used to make jewelry from chips. Had earrings made from EPROMs, split open, and necklacess made from 286s which had the cap un-soldered, and the cavity filled with water-clear epoxy.
Nobody bought them then, either. They were too common, too easy for any geek to make.
These days, my jewelry is less geeky, and far more salesworthy. I learned.
Lemon curry?
"This food is problematic."
You mean there's still life for my old Commodore VIC-20?!
This might help:
n dex.php?cPath=2_191 6 eaf71c4cd3b/index.html
http://www.elsewares.com.nyud.net:8090/commerce/i
http://mirrordot.org/stories/0f913e82ea69e3b260d1
Mod me -1: absurdly alliterative. It's late, I'm tired.
--Moiche
Don't forget the perfect pick-up lines when giving your "cute IT girl" her jewelry:
"I want to give you a RAM."
"Can I discharge on you...with my big capacitor?"
"IDE like to get into that belt. Get it? IDE?"
"I'll help you flux that capacitor."
"Here's some RAM so you can always remember me. Yup, all 2 megs of it."
"Hey baby, wanna create some ESD and ruin a few chips? (wink wink)"
"I like it when you talk SCSI."
"I wanna C my P on U."
Ok, I'll stop....
"This food is problematic."
There is no jedi, there is no spoon, er lightsaber, wait... Can I have a do-over?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
what they're going to make out of their server, after it overheated from being slashdotted.
These are baddass.
more stuff.
Huh. This is neat..not quite my taste but close to it. I'm taking a metalwork class right now, and before I saw this article posted today I had an idea to make a silver necklace or bracelet out of metal imprinted with patterns from printed circuit boards or FCP cables. I can use either a hydraulic press (a modded car jack) or a rolling mill to achieve the imprint. Both options are destructive to the material. Unfortunately, I'm told that PCB board will just shatter if you put pressure on it. Anyone have any ideas?
As last, a perfectly disquised gift of toxic waste. A gift of lead and other poisons for the people you don't want around for the next round of gift giving. And, they're all gifts that keep on giving... Are you allowed to recycle these again after they die? Reminds me of those people who were bringing recycled cesium canisters to raves in Brazil and using the cesium powder as makeup, they didn't last long....
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
SLASHDOTTED!!!!!!
We apologize for the inconvenience.
They agreed.
I have freaks! I did something right...
I noticed you used the singular and not the plural when you said "... that cute girl in the IT department". I'm guessing you did this on purpose, as there really is only 1 cute girl working in IT today (hint: west coast!).
With lines like that, no wonder it's so hard for nerds to procreate.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Now that have fried fried server, I'm sure she'll have a lot more to work with.
if only she could turn the /. effect into something tangible she'd be rich!
This is becoming more commen among jewelers... I've seen a number of folks that use circut boards, etc in their jewelry... (I'm into amature jewelry, and lapidary myself and it is my nontech skill that will keep me fed once all the tech gets EMP'd one day...)
Here's some cool pics of computer "jewlery":
http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/2roses.htm
I'm sure there are others out there, but I found these recently and really liked them...
There is a general gallery of the ganoksin jewelry folks here: http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/gallery.htm
Lots of pretty stuff to see...
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Well, it looks like she can now use the slowly smoldering bits of her server to make more jewelry....
I think the magnet is actually a joke (as in, it's supposed to work, but they chose a magnet BECAUSE it was a bunch of floppy disks). The disks aren't usable, after all.
one with the gay black Republican.
I already handed in my N.E.R.D. card when I fell asleep watching Star Wars many moons ago.
I gotta be honest and say that Star Wars fits nicely into that category and not one of the 'geek' variety.
-- If I were a fish, I'd be wet
Cufflinks... CueCats
Isn't there a whole issue about some of these components being made with lead?
Seriously, I can't be the only one who does this: http://www.deviantart.com/view/18247115/
Dirty Pirate Hooker
One man's -1, Troll is another's +1, Funny. I wasn't being a bigot.
The bracelet webserver this site was running on has been sold. Thanks Slashdot!
Beware the fury of a patient man
- John Dryden
Guys, the worst way to attempt to initiate a relationship with a woman you're attracted to is by immediately giving her a gift. It send the wrong message and sets up the wrong expectations. Just ol' fashioned conversation is the way to go - just say, "hi"
...than most of you thought... Indeed, even longer than a few of y'all have been alive.
In 1982, Khan wore a pretty cool necklace. [0]
Definitely in the same vein as capacitors and IDE cables...
-F
[0] Geez, I need to get decent picture hosting...
Back in the early 90s I remember the Computer Museum in Boston having a bunch of stuff like this for sale in their gift shop. I still have a 3 ring binder that was constructed out of discarded PCBs(chips removed).
Unfortunately Boston's Computer Museum closed in 1999, but apparently the computing artifacts it contained are now at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. If it's anything as nice as Boston's old Computer Museum, it's definately worth a trip for anyone in that area. I thought the room-filling exhibit of just a piece of ENIAC was worth the price of admission alone.
True story:
About a decade ago, I worked for a midwestern school district. We went around doing general IT work ("everything but pulling cable through the walls") in the schools. Every so often, we'd need to put in Ethernet hubs, and we'd need to hook them together with coax cable.
We all carried a small supply of those little T-connectors and terminators. I chained some together and clipped them to my jacket. It made a nice little dangly. The "fashion" caught on.
One day, my boss called me into her office at the end of the day, laughing. She told me I'd have to stop wearing the connectors on my jacket, because she'd gotten a complaint from the high school that I was walking around...wait for it...with a CRACK PIPE dangling from my chest.
With CRT's that would just bring on neck injury lawsuits.
LCDs however, imagine getting a 15" LCD with a wallpaper of Flavor Flav wearing his clock, all of that hanging from your neck!
Can you tell me what time it is? YEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHH BOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIII!
I must say, that's a pretty snazzy do-up of osCommerce. Pretty cool products too.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2000-12- 22&res=l
unzip ; strip ; touch ; grep ; find ; finger ; mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; fsck ; umount ; sleep
actually just a few days ago i was bored so i picked up an ide cable and an extencion port cover and made a suimple bracelet. it was pretty cool, but bulky.
Think your commodore 64's really neato? What kinda chip you got in there, a dorito?
Yep, when she gets sick from the heavy metals in capacitors.
Seriously- someone needs to tell this woman that a fair bit of the stuff in electronic components is TOXIC, and very much so.
Please help metamoderate.
3 or 4 years ago I made a bunch of jewelry out of old computer parts, much of it was similar to what I see here. Then I was called a geek, now its news. blah!
This crap was old when my GF was buying it in 1988.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
user moderation/metamoderation is fundamentally incompatable with post editing.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
hahaha. this is a vendor site for Zelle jewelry. I'm quite amused that they have born the brunt of the slash., Why not try frying these servers?: http://www.zellestyle.com/ http://www.fracalspin.com/ Fun times abound. Werd to the dot.
I want to see a pair made from a couple of old 1 Farad electrolytic capacitors.
Wow... Look at THOSE big cans!
Isn't that what Apple's recycling program is there for?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Jacob Nielson's cartoon says this best.
Girls don't even like that kind of stuff, man.
They want RAM.
I always wanted to see someone go way overboard and make a suit of samurai armor out of 30-pin simms.
I made some ethernet jewellery for some geek friends who got married (yes, it happens) recently. I put them in a nice box labelled 'to my favourite twisted pair'.
like dupont making a diamond head usb thumb drive
I've managed to do one with a ceramic cpu (old pentium 1, holds the key for my case). Remove all the pins, save for 2 rows on 2 adjacent edges. Place a piece of wire between the rows on each side with a loop sticking off the corner. Fold the pins down over the wire, solder down. Works well with just about any non-slot CPU.
-ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
For the guy who is just getting laid too much and wants to stop.
I remember earrings made from the cores of Pentium chips with the FDIV bug - the ones Intel recalled. I suppose Intel had to do something with all the recalled CPUs.
Not to mention the leaking acid....
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
(This is actually a serious problem in software today. Don't encourage it.)
It's tragic. Laugh.
Yes, you do.
(All of us straight males and lesbians, anyway.)
+++ATH0
Ya know how if you post a comment to a story that has comments you've modded, those comments lose the mod points you've given?
If you revise a post you made, it should revert to no moderation bonus up (although negative modded posts may still remain at -)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Some years ago, while installing hardware for a lan-party, my belt broke... Hand-holding my pants for three days wasn't an option, so I took a spare CAT-5 cable and used it as a belt. To make it a little more fashionable, I made some eight-shaped knots as a belt buckle. This added the benefit of having a way to actually close the belt.
With two RJ-45 connectors hanging from both of my sides, I really wanted to plug myself on the router...
It was the fastest belt I ever had: 100 Mbit (and full-duplex)!
main(char O){O++&&(((O-291)*O+27788)*O-868020?1:putchar(O++
In the early 80's, we worked at DEC when they were Wallstreet's darling and could do no wrong. My wife worked on CAD software at the mill in Maynard. Across the street was a goldsmith [Richard Goddard,who is still there]who, in addition to generally good and creative work in tradtional materials, was turning rejected microvax parts into ear rings. As manufactured, they had enough gold plate for the lead bonding that they actutually looked like jewelry when you pried them open. I bought her a pair. Now I guess the fashion world has come back around...she probably tossed them out.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Gotta love the slashdotted message on their site :)
I have seen key chains made from old computer chips, but this is a bit more extensive then that. Pretty good way to recycle, though I don't know how many women will use such a product.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I would have MUCH preferred to read your story about Dotster. I've had a lot of headaches dealing with those people in the past, while trying to manage a group of web sites for a previous employer.
It wouldn't surprise me they screwed up and tried to cover it up....
As for your iPod, turn it into a belt buckle!
or else!
"Cute girl in IT department ... " LOL, you guys crack me up.
This was not new, I used to work in an electronic component store in downtown toronto, selling like COMPONENTS.. so like caps, resistors..etc.... and there was a girl who is from the art college (later found out) comes in all the time.. and get various and odd value caps and resistors... in very discreet form.. so.. this got us curious.. and i decided to ask her why.. and turns out that's what she's doing.. she's making jewellery with these "colorful-bits-and-pieces" (her words) and sell them in the college ...
Is this stuff really meant to be worn? No.
But can she turn my broken iPod into something wearable?"
Just like that old skool rapper who used to wear the Clock around his neck...
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Back in the late 1970s, we used to take the Polapulse batteries out of used Polaroid SX-70 film packs and used them to power LED jewelry.
t ml
One woman wore a 2732 as a pendant and claimed the title EPROM Queen.
Lately, I have been teaching middle school girls how to make LED jewelry out of lithium batteries. This is all explained at:
http://members.tgforum.com/jamie/Articles/gnerd.h
Someone makes jewelery from electronic parts, and this is front page news?
In Toronto there's a surplus electronics shop that's near the art college. By now, whenever a woman buys capacitors, resistors, or other small components, it's common for her to be asked whether she wants them to *do* something, or if she's just making jewelery out of them...
the oil-filled capacitors leak, apparently, but the capacitors in that photo are "dry"