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Hacking Santa
Inigo Montoya writes "Josh McCormick outlines how he has hacked a 5-foot tall, $49.84 Wal*Mart animated dancing and singing Santa into saying and doing things his creator, Gemmy, just hadn't intended him to do. With some outboard electronics hacked into the right places, Josh has made this Santa sound and act like a drunken old mall santa on Christmas Eve.
There is also a video too."
It's the anti-santa!
That's actually funnier than I expected...thanks for the laugh!
Well I know what he wants for x-mas... a new server that was slashdoted before it even went live...
Put this thing outside on Christmas, singing random anti-Christmas songs, and let the mayhem commence!
...some people have a little too much technical know-how combined with too much time on their hands. And where's the penile mod? What good is a druken Santa that isn't a child-lusting perv?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
"I saw Mommy slashdotting Santa Claus, underneath the mistletoe last night..."
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
And remember, not only does he see you when you're sleeping, but he knows if you've been bad or good....
"Lost time is not found again."
A mirror of the story can be found here.
A mirror of the video can be found here.
So I went browsing the isles of Wal*Mart and see if there were any good hackable items to be had there.
Yarrrr, sailing the treacherous Isles O' Wal-Mart... Harpoons at the ready, lads - thar she blows! Arrr, that's a fine shot, me hearties - ye got 'er right in the Nascar logo! Now heave to and bring her aboard!
Looked easy enough to trace... and all the smarts appeared to be in Santa's left shoe.
This sentence struck me as really funny for some reason.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I couldn't get it to load but while trying I thought of a few fun things for him to say:
"No kids, I don't really exist and all your toys were made in China."
"Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night!"
"Anyone seen my whiskey flask?"
"Remember kids, be good and don't pee on Santa's lap."
"Where are all the good lookin' Ho Ho Ho's?"
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It says right there:
(please do not link directly to video)
Did you miss that?
Hmmm, maybe not - that might really traumatize the youngsters into saying something horrific like "Merry Christmas!"
Evil Overlord Rule #86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
It's like the companies would want the customers to toy with their creations like this. Don't we all just remember what happened to the Furby Baby?
Awesome! Just what you can expect from a real Santa!
[%] Cingular Ringtones
but that Quicktime logo with a question mark over it is new.
Walmart Singing & Dancing 5' Santa Claus is currently.. Out of stock..
My god.. It's full of drunken santas!
No more I say.
Mess with Google
Finally. I asked a worthy article on Slashdot for x-mas :-)
Wonderful. I wonder if this could be considered a DMCA violation? It would be interesting to find out.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Hahaha, I just got sent out of the library for laughing so hard.
That ought to be placed out side a shop.
--
Apparently around 40 of them have already been sighted:
a s-run-amok-nz.html
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18122005/80/drunken-sant
Drunken Santas run amok in NZ
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Forty drunken Santas rampaged through central Auckland, stealing from stores and assaulting security guards, the New Zealand Herald reported on Sunday, in a protest against the commercialisation of Christmas.
Police said some of the Santas threw beer bottles, one tried to climb the mooring rope of a cruise ship and a security guard was punched during the fracas.
Buy Santa. Hack Santa. Return Santa.
To WalMart: Please, for the sake of the children, check those return Santas before putting them back out on the sales floor!
oh noes! It's a YULE TIDE!
That is just so wrong, on so many levels. Besides, you could just hit a mall and find any number of REAL drunken Santas...
A Series Of Tubes - The Remix
From what I gather, the head can just spin around endlessly... Am I the only one thinking "Exorcist Santa"???
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Who's the first to install Linux on Santa?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Or Bum-O-Claus, as you might say in the US. Old but good, definitely NSFW.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
http://mirrordot.org/stories/fa756a2843d4d8db92057 c6045370a73/index.html
I've put together a school of Big Mouth Billy Bass, and have allowed them to describe how painful it is to be caught and placed on a wall. This work has been shown in art galleries in Washington, DC. Link: School of Fish Pain.
ADMINISTRIVIA:
You may mirror this page and contents in its entirety. (In fact, please do!)
But please do not look directly into the eye of Santa's personality chip, it is scary, black as coal and could cause sudden disillusionment!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Yeah well, it's annoying to see stories like that get put on the front page of /. when a newsworthy story like this doesn't get put on /. and winds up with two diggs.
Oh god, I think im going blind!
Plase, dont click that link. Think about your eyes!
(No naughtyness except for the gross colors)
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
He knows when your are sleeping,
He knows when you're on the can,
He'll hunt you down and blast your ass from here to Pakistan.
You better not breathe, you better not move,
You're better off dead, I'm telling you, dude.
Santa Claus is gunning you down!
old news!
Am I the only person who keeps thinking:
"YULE TIDE!!!"
Hack A Day had this up on their site a few days ago here. In the comments on that page, there is a link to this really creepy hack that someone did with one of those Santas.
Oops! That wasnt programmed in the Santa. It was a bug .
The sheer guts of linking to an mpeg straight from the frontpage of slashdot... it is mind bogeling.
The best Christmas item is a mistletoe belt buckle! The Trailer Park Boys Christmas Special reveals the true meaning of Christmas. It might be on DVD and is out there at places like Torrentspy and Mininova.
Do NOT taunt Happy Fun Santa!
... highly unlikely that this will go down.
Santa should really sing that part of the Black Eyed Peas song that goes:
"My humps, my humps, my lovely little lumps - check 'em out!"
Thank God I posted this Anonymously.
I haven't read the article... but is this Santa made by Sony? ;-)
w00t
This guy turned his santa into a kicking hangman http://www.hauntershangout.com/home/santahangman.a sp
Take a look at the mods here compared to others. This is funny.
Anyone ever hack Teddy or are familiar with technology? I want to make a remote controlled one thats says funny, crude things to unsuspecting people in my guest bedroom....
-- Alex Esselstein ABE Technology Support Services http://www.abetss.com aw@esselstein.com
Because he would want people to link to it through the Coral Cache, which it has been, to prevent a slashdotting.
www.gaian-mind.org - eco-punk/crust coop and collective | www.anarchistfederation.org - so cal anarchist federation
I bet Tookie would have thought this was HILARIOUS! Too bad he's dead, though.
Do you think he'd object to his dead and rotting corpse being hooked up to animatronics? He could me used in mock gangfights at like, Compton Elementary. To show kids the danger of gangbanging.
Maybe they have changed the models, but the Santa I bought has an audio-in jack. Heck the box even advertised a Kareoke mode. Just plug in a mic, or any alternate audio feed, and you have the same thing.
Why is it that someone who makes a drunken santa gets on the Slashdot front page, but this does not:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/xmaslights.asp
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
No; actually, that's a feature.
I can't find ONE evil robot Santa from Futurama reference in this whole thread. For shame!
How about "Happy repressed, then deified, then glorified, then internationalized, then commercialized, then trivialized, then polito-sanitized ancient winter solstice celebration!"?
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
a drunkin santa.. ppfffttt thats nothing new to me. my dad has always been an alcholic!
I figured this story would never hit Slashdot. Hey, nice to see! Now to barrel through all the comments and try not to get my ego too bruised.
BTW, I am working to make a more detailed step-by-step on the instructions.
LOL - Good one. If I actually had a bandwidth bill, I would have put advertisements on the top to compensate for it. Many thanks to submitter, BTW, for using Coral Cache!
http://www.local6.com/slideshow/news/5490957/detai l.html?s=1;p=news;dm=ss;w=400
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Warning, 720x480 version ! (divx 1.7 MB)
Bad rootkit from a DRM'ed CD of Christmas songs?
When a store has something returned to them, they LEGALLY can't resell it as new. The only options are selling it as used or sending it back to the manufacturer to have it certified as refurbished. I don't know about you but I don't think I've ever seen Walmart sell any used or refurbished items.
It would've been nice to have someone unwittingly receive a hacked Santa, but (un)fortunately laws meant to protect consumers from getting ripped off by unsrupulous retailers are also protecting us against this type of practical joke. Although that doesn't mean that YOU can't buy one of these Santas, do the hacking yourself and give it to someone you know.
I was actually wondering the other day if this thing is modular because it is the same as the Halloween skeleton as it moves the same way and has the same height. The only differences are the look and the sounds.
I wouldn't be surprised to see an Easter bunny on the same frame but I think what is more interesting is what people are going to start modifying their Santa to.
...you wanked that much you only have a 1" dick - boom boom!
If it doesn't violate the DMCA, it isn't a good hack.
My other first post is car post.
You appear to be decorating a christmas tree,
Please bear in mind that any DRM-free gifts and paraphernalia will be reported to the authorities in accordance to the DMCA.
This would be also be a good time for upgrading to Microsoft Office XP2008 Pro with new and improved text scanning and reporting to NSA (A subsidiary of Microsoft).
Also, why not spend some time with the family this year and sort out all your Microsoft licensing conflicts? We hear little Timmy has been a naughty little boy and not read and agreed to all of his EULA's.
From your good pals at Santa C. Enterprises (A subsidiary of Microsoft), N.pole.
I saw around 40 drunken Santas out in Portland, OR on Friday night. Apparently there were a lot more of them than I actually saw and they were on a city-wide pub crawl.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
He didn't know where he got all the stuff he was hiding - all his stealing was completely subconcious.
Oh, so he was a Kender?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
According to the article, since all the 'accepted' entries were sexual in nature, a bulge in Santa's pants that pulsed in time with his dancing would probably have been just what the show was looking for. After all, what's more X-Mas than Santa with a boner?
I refuse to shop there until they allow unionization efforts without management thuggery.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I know her too. She does some awesome voices. Quite sexy, but too bad she's married to my friend Mana Taria.
Seriously, I have relatives who are convinced that the multi-language instruction book on a Timex watch is an example of how they're being marginalized by the liberal society around them. Real example. And yes, whatever Santa could say by default would somehow be wrong for those folks. Doesn't really matter what it is.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
is DASH-SLOTTING mommy...
chrisssmus juss ain' chrissmus, widhout sumhwun to hummmp...
WOW, the screen word image is CONDOM... holey moley...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
It's a yearly tradition.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
They do this here in the US too, one of my friends was a santa. They all pick weird names with "santa" in them, he was "Santanista". then they go out and get shitfaced and maraud around town.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Talk about doing something the hard way. I have one of those Santa's....and it has a 1/4in jack in the back. You can make it say whatever you want it to say.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
please do not link directly to video
you're welcome!
a beowulf cluster of robot drunk santas...
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
Funny video. But if we are hacking into Santa's one of us need to get an life.
Welcome our drunken robot Santa overlords.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
God designed your brain to be good, but instead your using it for evil. The only reason God doesn't sue you using the the DCMA is because all the lawyer's already work for the Devil.
You know, it seems like you could get a pretty good result just by switching the personality chips in the Santa and Freddy Krueger models.
Someone got successfully sued for hacking Teddy Ruxpin.