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New Mac-o-Lantern
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that it is that time of year again, time for a new pumpkin computer. This time it can see via webcam eyes (thanks logitech), breathe through its nose using a case fan, and talk out its mouth with a speaker system. The insides are made of a custom power supply and mac-mini Core Duo system. The lighting is made of neon wiring thanks to Startech.com mutant mods. Check out the last page with a video of the pumpkin in action."
Are they going to leave it out on the porch over Halloween night so the neighborhood kids can smash it?
I thought one couldn't tinker with MACS?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
So, uh.. Does it actually do anything interesting besides rot?
Case mods are cool and all, but I'd want something with a little more "cool" factor with an organic (and potentially hardware-damaging) case. Maybe put it on a controlled rotating platform so you can watch people? Or remotely connect to it and have it speak to unwary guests?
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
What strikes me is that 20 years later, voice synthesis still sounds like a Commodore 64:
"Hello, I am Dr. Sbaitso. How can I help you?"
Otherwise, this pumpkin is pretty cool. Hopefully they take the parts out pretty quickly, it could get pretty messy. Imagine a computer stuck in this pumpkin!
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
I think this would be a better pumpkin to have voice synth honestly... What the heck is scary about a Apple computer pumpkin? It went sour on you?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Another interesting one was shown on today's Rocketboom. Direct link to the pumpkin PC page is here.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
I wonder if Microsoft would force you to buy a new copy of Vista if this was done to a PC running Vista? Somehow turning your case into a pumpkin seems like a "major upgrade" to me.
Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
I just saw a pumpkin camera - which is probably a bit more cool (IMHO) than the other mechanical monstrosity. After all, cool electronics and a mac mini is no match for a cheap roll of film, a small hole and a good hour of taping ? :)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Mac devs getting into the fun with some Halloween themes in their latest builds.
"Sufferin' succotash."
By Joy of Tech, don't forget about your Jobs-o-Lantern:
8 83.html
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/
Scary! Wooo!!
... He looks sad.
God Be Gone
As cool as it is, I certainly wouldn't leave it out on my porch... someone's gonna steal that motha'.
Woah... nice revisionism there... IBM didn't decide to stop making PPC chips for Apple... Apple pulled the plug on IBM because IBM wasn't going on a route that Apple wanted. They cooked up a lot of FUD about PPC chips not being powerfull enough or being too hot for them to justify their switch to Intel. Funny how previously with the macheads it was all sweetness and light with PPC being the bees knees and Intel chips were for pussies.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Mac-o-Lantern! The new Mac-o-Lantern with unique turbo rotting action and redundant web cam RAID array!
It's the BEST computer in the WORLD!
Slashdotted in 3...2...1...
"I'm in it to win it, and no limit is my home." - Snoop Dog c/o PvP Online (July 12th, 2006)
Thanks again for providing "news"/"stuff that matters".
That was startlingly lame- it doesn't even look scary, nor is its voice terribly spooky. 0 stars out of five.
You're pretty much right on the ball. Intel chips WERE for pussies. IBM DID have powerful, efficient chips. When they no longer did (pretty much about the time the Powerbook G4 was becoming outdated and the G5 just couldn't be made efficient enough for a laptop), Apple switched to Intel. I hope they switch again if they find something better. To me, that's way better than being any one chipmaker's bitch. IBM's doing great making chips for all the major consoles. Apples doing great with the Intel chips. Ya gotta go where the best tech is for your business.
Pretty close, but no cigar. No FUD involved.
When the PPC first saw light of day, it was the thing. Low power consumption, ran cool and that wondrous promise of scalility to the moon. It had the potential capability of kicking ass and taking names and could eat the lunch of most anything even near to its class (and a few others).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC covers the tech end.
And then AMD's and Intel's new iron started hitting the market. First it was just them being over-revved to full tilt Ludicrous Speed, and then the architectural improvements started going in...
The problem was that Apple was not the major consumer and IBM was not keeping a great many "RSN!' promises it had made to Apple concerning performance increases and production. IBM was aiming for the embedded market (X-Box, anyone?) and had its own plans for what was to be the shape of servers to come. Apple wanted that G5 laptop real bad, or at least one capable of keeping up with the Other's Intel offerings. The companies parted company with no (outward) hard feelings.
You might think them fickle and unfaithful, but the Macheads did have crowing rights about a "consumer supercomputer"- for about four months. Then time marched inexorably onwards and the PPC couldn't keep up. Apple saw the writing on the wall, shrugged, and went where the performance and price they needed was.
And that is how the Mac Pro become droolworthy.
Someone must tell Apple about AMD!
I want to see pictures a week later. You might regret putting a fan on it.
(And my captcha for this post is 'unclean.')
"A nice picture of the beautiful and clean Mac logo. I dream about this logo at night sometimes. It adorns my life."
Aaw!
Wah!
So they need a "1.83GHz Intel Core Duo" to light a pumpkin?
...of these would actually be kinda cool
At my office, the pumpkin carving contest has become a tradition. Almost always they turn into mini-ITX computers running Linux (because we can't afford all those WinXP Professional licenses for trash boxes).
/dev/dsp at random times, randomly during working hours we had the pumpkin switch on a USB turntable and start playing funky disco music (George Clinton, Avg White Band, etc).
I keep the same mobo for it year after year, sometimes buying a new one (the nano-ITX from VIA works good).
Every year the cron job the pumpkin executes gets more complex.
This time in addition to catting out spooky wav files to
I think next year we might actually slip in a small LCD screen if there's budget money. The pumpkin went 802.11g last year,
Core 2 Duo is more efficient in a laptop than AMD's nearest offering. Ergo, Intel get the contract.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
the coolest thing about this project is the fact that such an extraordinary amount of precious time was squandered on a fruitless(!) pursuit
Does that mean they used the pumpkin computer to play WoW?
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
http://jschilling.net/sw_jackomac.php
the local computer store guys got on here again this year.
http://www3.uark.edu/bkst/pumpkin/ was last year's pumpkin.
At least nothing important will be ruined if the pumpkin rots or gets destroyed.
have way too much time, money on their hands. BTW, the synthetic voice generation of the mac still sucks pretty hard. When will they get something that is actually recognizable? I'm an eMac owner, and such have to say that the hardware I own is already a mac-o-pumpkin.
Oh, how I long for mod points. This is an excellent description of what happened.
I'll be the first to admit, I was a little wary when Apple made the switch to Intel, but I can now see that it wasn't a mistake. I was never one to bash Intel/AMD, (but I probably did it at least once or twice). Instead, I targeted the thing I think is the most broke on PC systems, and that's the operating system. IMHO, it has been broken for years, and I don't think Vista, while it holds many improvements, will be much better in the areas that I believe are broken.
Heh, I made a Frank the Bunny pumpkin this year, based on this design that I made, carved in one of those fake, carvable pumpkins that lasts from year to year. I put it out front, put a candle in it, and got some great pictures. Unfortunately, Frank had other ideas -- he apparently looked at my house and said, Burn It To The Ground.
An hour later, I just happened to pass by the front door when it burst into flames, scorching the front of my house with a 2-3 foot high fireball. Apparently those things are highly flammable, and you're only supposed to use light bulbs no more than 5 watts in them. That's what I get for not reading the directions. At least I was able to get the fire put out, and thus it didn't expose my kiddie-pr0n dungeon.
I fire an arrow spell from my Staff of Longbow!
If you're a Mac user you'll be looking forward to Alex, the new voice included in 10.5.
Anyway to keep this all on the topic of pumkins, here's my geometrically correct soccerball pumpkin.
Happy Halloween All.
I know of at least 3 ways to gunk up hardware that take less effort.
Wait... four.
for fuck's sake.
Mac-O-Lantern
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it