Ye Olde World Charm

The Solitaire brings us a link to Datamancer, where Richard R. Nagy shows off his Steampunk Laptop. The attention to detail and the creative style, which includes a copper-plated keyboard and speakers shaped like violin f-holes, make this an impressive case mod. From Datamancer: "This may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts."

Comments

That is truly amazing work ...

[ScrewMaster]

Although the HP laptop does bring new meaning to the phrase "turnkey system".

Dear Santa.....

[Stanislav_J]

I know now what I want for Christmas.....

I usually don't fawn over things like this but, damn, that is one friggin' awesome thing of beauty.

The Fossil Computer

[PIPBoy3000]

Years ago, before I had my second kid, I created a Fossil computer that was Victorian themed in brass, wood, and had an old fish fossil mounted where the tag went. It took a huge amount of time, but was one of those great father-son bonding experiences (he has a full machine shop, so he did most of the work). I loved the look and still feel I should turn it into a Media PC and stick it in our living room.

It seems a little sad that it's now my daughter's computer, sitting on the floor. The most excitement it gets these days is to play online Barbie or NickJr games.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[ScrewMaster]

Nice job. Personally I've always liked the idea of a computer system simply disappearing into the background as just another piece of furniture (never really understood the case modders that put electroluminescent tape and UV tubes inside their machines. But hey, whatever floats your boat ... no accounting for taste.) Quite some years ago, strictly as an experiment, I took my regular tower case and covered it in mahogany-grained contact paper: the front was already black so they went well together. People would look at my keyboard and display and ask me where the computer was. It was right there on the floor in front of them, but since it was almost a perfect match for my desk it blended right in and they didn't see it. I dunno, must've thought it was a wastebasket or something

I loved the look and still feel I should turn it into a Media PC and stick it in our living room.

You know, you should do that: put together another system for her, and return your wooden gem to its former glory. I have an old Compaq desktop enclosure that I use in our living room as a media PC: it fits nicely in the entertainment center and that's all well and good. However, if I were to do what you did and turn it into furniture, I'd buy myself a lot of brownie points. Well, and now you've gone and made me think about my next winter project ...

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Harmonious Botch]

Fossil computer? Does this mean it runs windows?

Re:The Fossil Computer

[ScrewMaster]

Nah ... it runs Ancient UNIX.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[PopeRatzo]

I salute the creativity and craftsmanship that go into these projects, but "Steampunk" has not only jumped the shark, but the shark has torn it to bits and there's blood in the water. In fact, you can have my portion of all "tech-nostalgia" and divide it amongst yourselves. I've finished with it, thanks.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[aurispector]

Who gives a flying fuck what YOU think?

Re:The Fossil Computer

[QuickFox]

Who gives a flying fuck what YOU think? Just in case you didn't notice, I would like to point out that you are not being entirely polite.

Furthermore, please note that this is a discussion site. This means that it is intended as a place where people may voice their thoughts and opinions, just like the grandparent did.

You might consider bearing this in mind in the future, should you wish to give a less stupid impression.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Anonymous Coward]

When the warm fire of faith is getting a little too toasty it's nice to open the window and let in some of the bleak certainty of reason to get things back to a nice temperature. Similarly, if it's getting a bit too bleak in the certainty of reason, it's nice to have the warm fire of faith to keep things comfortable. Only the fool who understands the true nature of neither would find either exclusive.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[value_added]

People would look at my keyboard and display and ask me where the computer was. It was right there on the floor in front of them, but since it was almost a perfect match for my desk it blended right in and they didn't see it.

Well, that's a start, isn't it?

I'm thoroughly impressed by people who have the time and skill to do what the guy in the article did, but my compromise approach has always been to put everything in a cabinet and hide it. It's a shame the desktop computer hasn't evolved into something that's rack mountable, or alternatively, something that resembles audio equipment. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of audio equipment that I wouldn't mind putting anywhere in a living room or even a bedroom, but a plastic/metal box with a big stupid DELL logo that's plastered with cheap assed "Intel Inside" stickers?

There are alternatives, of course. But typically such an approach would require building everything yourself and not objecting to paying premium prices for specialty components and/or cases.

And then there's those folks who live in an alternate universe. I've always wondered whether long term Mac users all live in post modern looking New York lofts, or whether they live in crappy apartments and houses with popcorn ceilings, beige walls, beige carpeting and cheap fake wood furniture like the rest of us, and don't really notice or mind the fact that their white plastic devices don't really go with anything other than more white plastic, plastic in other colors, or metal.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[ScrewMaster]

Nice speech. I have the exact opposite perception: only a fool who understands the true nature of neither would find them remotely similar or of equal value.

I will say that Robert A. Heinlein had a pretty good grasp of both, and that's who I was quoting. The two are, at the most basic level, incompatible. That's because faith is, by it's very definition, unreasoning. Much anguish has been caused down the centuries by repeated attempts to merge the two. In most cases, that meant simply ignoring reason, ignoring what is entirely ... in favor of faith. It just doesn't work, you know it doesn't work, and you can't make it work by calling someone a fool. When you get right down to cases, what do you call a person who insists that his own worldview is correct, flying in the face of reality which says otherwise? Yet, that is precisely what those of faith will do. That's their choice ... but don't try to legitimize their unreason. Only a fool would do that.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Anonymous Coward]

True, I sure don't give a fuck what you think.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Windom Earle]

That's right. Fashion may come and go, but the nixie-tube digital voltmeter on my bench just keeps on measuring.

IOW some of us sat and watch it come and go. The excellent gear sticks around, though. I fired up an old Superior Instruments CR Bridge (with 'eye-tube' indicator) last week that probably hadn't been powered in two decades. Yep, it still works, and now it will be useful. I keep saying that someday I will put my vacuum tube random noise generator online to share it as a source of randomness with the world, but haven't done that yet.

It breaks my heart to see people putting current ITC boards (obsolete before the glue hardens) into cool but gutted vintage gear, when the original gear still had a long useful life ahead. To be ironic, if I had a bunch of money, I would order the latest new Dell box, gut it, and install a MicroVAX in the enclosure. (preserving the enclosure and hardware from the orignal, so it could be put back together after a few milliseconds when the cleverness wore off)

Re:The Fossil Computer

[tubegeek]

Nixies. The technology that died too soon. R.I.P. -j

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Anonymous Coward]

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

(Yes - I am aware of the irony of AC talking about first-rate intelligence.)

what do you call a person who insists that his own worldview is correct, flying in the face of reality which says otherwise?

I call you a fool for having blind faith in reason. :-P

Start reading up on Zen philosophy.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[clang_jangle]

Obviously, it's a plan9 fossil setup -- duh!
Please turn in your geek cards on the way out.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[White Shade]

I think the problem with nice looking computers is that everyone upgrades their systems so often that it's foolish to spend the money on "looking nice" when it's gonna get tossed pretty quickly. Stereo equipment tends to last a lot longer. Still, older stereo equipment definitely had more charm than even the modern stuff does; wood or faux-wood, brushed metal, giant knobs, etc.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Falladir]

I doubt that faith is often billed this way in the unenlightened circles where it is most successful. If your religious leader, whom your society reveres, tells you something, you'll be inclined to believe it not because you "have faith," but because it's the most reasonable explanation you've been given. Put another way, you can't have faith that's the antithesis of science unless you've been trained in science. Faith, then, does not have as long and illustrious a history as the faithful would make it out to have.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[hurfy]

"I dunno, must've thought it was a wastebasket or something"

Hmm, now i know my next mod.......

Wish i could see the one we are supposed to be talking about :(

Re:The Fossil Computer

[ScrewMaster]

Hmm, now i know my next mod.......

Huh ... that's not a bad idea. Matter of fact, it could still serve as wastebasket: just put a false floor in it. You could fit a Mini-ITX motherboard, power supply and a hard drive in there easily. Use USB or Firewire for your peripherals.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[mr100percent]

I think Apple really figured that part out, but I think you already said that. The color iMacs (blue dalmation and floral print) were something you could put in the living room. Also, they had asthetics in mind when they built the Twentieth Anniversary Mac and replaced it with the G4 Cube.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Eternauta3k]

Maybe if you understood faith as something beyond god, as a belief that things may not be as they seem and the future isn't as bad as one's limited perception might say.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Grishnakh]

Your idea about the Dell sounds like a total waste of time and money; you're talking about installing the guts from an old, slow computer into a modern chassis that cost as little to make as possible and has no interesting or redeeming qualities: this is "the worst of both worlds". Better ideas are where people install modern computer hardware into old SGI chasses, which were arguably works of art.

There's two things that are important with industrial items like this: 1) how useful is it, and 2) how pretty is it. Old nixie-tube gear is definitely pretty (at least the nixie tubes are; frequently, the boxes they were installed in were quite boring); my old Tektronix 465 oscilloscope is very attractive, IMO. Some things stay attractive decades after they were made. But many others don't. Dell computers are NOT attractive, and no one's going to save their Dell chasses 20-30 years from now to put new computers inside.

Your nixie voltmeter is good because (I presume) it's both attractive and functional. Voltmeters haven't changed substantially over the years, and if you just want to measure volts, yours will probably do it just as well as any new one (and probably better than cheap new ones which aren't very accurate, whereas many of those older ones had 5-6 digits). My Tek oscilloscope still works great for measuring analog waveforms, and is simpler and easier to use than modern scopes (plus it's easily repairable, unlike modern gear which is basically throw-away).

So I don't see the problem with putting modern computer parts into gutted vintage gear. (What's an "ITC board" anyway?) A lot of vintage computer gear looked great, such as old SGI and Sun equipment, but the parts inside just aren't very useful unless you want to spend your time with an 80s-era UNIX machine that can't even browse the web, and uses tons of power. Modern computers are far more useful (especially when loaded with Linux!), and are only short-lived because people always want faster machines with more storage, not because the hardware wears out quickly (usually). Stick a modern motherboard and HD into an old chassis and you have both beauty and functionality, just like the laptop in this article.

I've got a few Nixies packed away that I plan to make something useful out of, eventually. But I won't be using vacuum tubes or anything old to drive them: the circuitry will have a modern microcontroller, and a SMPS to generate the 180VDC needed to power the Nixies.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[somersault]

I call you a fool for having blind faith in reason Was thinking something similar, but you have said it rather more succinctly :P

Re:The Fossil Computer

[aurispector]

Meh. I was cranky and inarticulate.

What irritates me is people's offhanded dismissal of a nice piece of art that obviously took a great deal of effort to create.

Dismissing this as having "jumped the shark" sounds like it came from a spoiled, whining child with a picosecond attention span, incapable of delaying gratification for even a moment who is constantly demanding more, more, more. Is that the prerequisite for being an arbiter of style? Or is it simply the the pose of someone wishing to sound like one?

If there's something better out there then SHOW me, because it's easier to destroy than create.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[blincoln]

It's a shame the desktop computer hasn't evolved into something that's rack mountable, or alternatively, something that resembles audio equipment.

It's certainly possible to get rack-mount cases for desktop PC hardware. New Egg, for example, has a number of them that I'm looking at. I imagine the reason that it's necessary to go out of your way to get one is because most people don't have racks at home.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Anonymous Coward]

And who gives a flying fuck what YOU think?

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Windom Earle]

So I don't see the problem with putting modern computer parts into gutted vintage gear.

Well, that's fine, I guess, if you don't mind that a lot of people will shake their head at your practices. Do you know what you'll look like to the vintage computer community? Think about what a retard you would feel like right now if you'd gutted an Altair 8800 to put a shitty 386DX motherboard in it fifteen years ago. What would you have now?

I guess from a collector's point of view, when you waste off old gear, it makes the gear that still exists more valuable. But from the point of view of a historical conservator, which is where the vintage computer community is headed, you're a pariah. A dumb pariah who can now run 'doze on that wreck. We're really impressed.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Nick Number]

GIGO indeed.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Anonymous Coward]

God never asks for blind faith. He asks us to trust that there is more to Him than He has yet revealed.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[somersault]

He doesn't even ask that o_0 He 'revealed' plenty in the bible. Maybe you mean asks to trust there is more than most of us have personally seen or experienced.

Re:The Fossil Computer

[Grishnakh]

If you want to preserve old computers to keep in a museum, go right ahead. They can take up space in your closet. But there's lots of people (I'm not one of them, BTW, I'm only arguing for them) who would like to have an old, attractive computer in their office or someplace similarly visible, and have it actually doing something useful instead of just taking up space. Also, comparing an Altair 8800 to an SGI seems rather dumb to me: the Altair is extremely rare, whereas the SGI isn't that old, and isn't that rare. Are you actually arguing that we should preserve all the SGI computers we can find (which probably numbers in the hundred thousands)? That's just wasteful. Or are you arguing like some that we should keep using these ancient computers as-is?

As for the "shitty 386DX motherboard", I would imagine anyone transplanting internals like this would update the internals every few years.

You sound like one of those anal, uptight people that gets upset any time someone modifies anything, because it "destroys the historical authenticity". Get a clue: most people aren't museum curators, and don't really care about historical authenticity. That's why there's people driving around in 1940s cars with brand-new electronically-controlled engines installed.

A wooden laptop... what next?

[Doug52392]

I HAVE to have that! Not only is it a great laptop, but also it has it's own anti-theft. Who would steal something that could be easily overlooked as an old box?

Re:A wooden laptop... what next?

[Sorcha Payne]

It kinda looks like an old box that might be worth something, so thieves don't even need to know its a computer.

appropriate user

[v1]

This would have looked right in place in the recent remake of the movie Time Machine. The gears in the lid are a very nice touch.

Only thing that I wouldn't like is how big it is. It looks to stand over 3" tall, a lot of that is in the lid I think.

Re:appropriate user

[ScrewMaster]

I have the feeling the thing is intended more to impress people than anything else, and it is impressive.

Not Steampunk per se...

[bomanbot]

Meh, as long as it doesnt really RUN on Steam, it is not a Steampunk Laptop to me ;)

Re:Not Steampunk per se...

[ScrewMaster]

Well, that's really easy to fix. Go download Steam and run your computer on it.

Re:Not Steampunk per se...

[value_added]

Yeah, but it DOES run Linux. ;-)

Re:Not Steampunk per se...

[Grishnakh]

Technically, it probably DOES run on steam, as do most electrical things in the world. See, electricity is typically generated by either burning some fossil fuel or by creating a nuclear reaction with U-235, and using the heat generated to turn water into steam, which then turns steam turbines. The only exceptions are hydro (dams use water to turn turbines directly), wind (wind turns turbine directly) and solar (PV: electricity is directly converted into electricity; however, there's also solar power stations which concentrate sunlight and heat water into steam).

So, "steampunk" is probably a bit of a misnomer. A better term might be "brasspunk", since a lot of this stuff seems to use brass or copper, as they were more popular for some things in those days since it was easier to work than iron or steel.

alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find alternative designs here.

Re:alternatives

[Hal_Porter]

You can spot these hidden goatse links quite easily. Let's break the code

Here's a search for "test" on google

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=test&btnG=Google+Search

Now q is the search string. btnG is the function. If I clicked I'm feeling lucky I'd have got btnI instead.

Let's look at the parent link.

http://www.google.com/search?Searchq=old+world+case+mod&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&gn=10&refer=4e9fd9f4624c02685096769364a81d95&ref=cff0e9b1f2db017a44b88bb0d174771d&q=goatse.ca&btnI&link=hooray

Searchq is ignored by Google. The next few things are obfuscation too. At the end we see q=goatse.ca and btnI which means I'm feeling lucky. First hit on goatse.ca is the dreaded image and btnI means "I'm feeling lucky", i.e. jump to the first hit.

Re:alternatives

[celardore]

I'm not sure this would even be that easy for Google to fix. Sure, they could probably not accept GET requests using the btnI parameter, but don't some things pretty much rely on the parameter? Firefox for instance uses a form of "I'm feeling lucky" when you enter words into the address bar and press enter, I do not know if Firefox explicitly calls btnI, it might have another method.

I don't mind clicking a goatse link so much, as I can just roll my eyes and press the 'back' button. The last measure link that was posted using the same method last week was worse, even on Ubuntu I had to kill the firefox process. Its an interesting exploit though, but my advice will simply be to be cautious of long google links now.

Re:alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

the md5s in the link are slashdot, and goatse.ca respectively. In future, I can provide alternative MD5s to assert myself as the troller. I AM THE TROLL. Ph33r me, because once I get myself a first result on google again, back comes the last measure! I can use snipurls, btnI and even domain redirects. I consistently bookmark my trolling posts, and check back later to review the comments, which are always appreciated, as they help me improve the trolling process.

I have experimented with hex encoding certain terms within the link, but Slashcode seems to correct that. The exploit reaches further than just slashdot, or even google. I have to ensure that the terms I use correspond to content I wish to deliver to the user in the first result of Google. Now we move onto some more advanced Google Gaming.

Stay tuned for more troll posts. To ensure that I am not connected to any of the much lamer trolls on Slashdot, I will include an md5 hash as further obfuscation in the url, but I hold the original string. If you ever need to know if the google link you were looking at is a genuine troll (I Haven't thought up a cool name for myself yet, any ideas?) then you can always check the md5 which I will supply the uncrypted md5.

Happy holidays!

Re:alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy holidays to you too. If you're lucky, Santa might bring you a life for Christmas!

Re:alternatives

[TheRaven64]

Google could prevent this pretty easily by only allowing I'm feeling lucky if the referrer is Google itself. This would actually be in their interests, since it would mean they'd get to show adverts, although since the only people who ever post links to I'm feeling lucky (as opposed to the URL of the resulting page) are trolls it probably isn't worth bothering with.

Re:alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems you missed an important part of my message. The fact that other services perhaps utilise the btnI feature, such as Firefox. If these services DO indeed use the btnI 'feature', if Google made it so it only worked if the referrer was Google, other service providers would not be able to use the feature. I do tend to use it in FF a lot, rather than go to google etc.

Re:alternatives

[TheRaven64]

The referrer header is set by the user agent. User agents, such as FireFox, could set it when submitting queries using the I'm feeling lucky feature. Links, however, could not.

Re:alternatives

[Hal_Porter]

I see you are a worthy opponent! Good show!

You keep inventing obfuscations, and I'll keep decoding them.

HINT: If an Anonymous Coward (or anyone else) posts any links to snipurl, tinyurl or any such site, check the moderation before clicking on it. Unless it got a +1, don't click.

Re:alternatives

[Hal_Porter]

I just clicked the link here at work, and Google seems to have done something. Now it doesn't have the "I'm feeling lucky" behaviour - i.e. it displays a page of search results for goatse.ca instead. Very interesting! Even more interesting, my slashdot post is on the second page of Googling for goatse.ca

http://www.google.com/search?q=goatse.ca&hl=en&start=10&sa=N

Does this mean that Google is reading this conversation?

Re:alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad advice, I got burned last week by one that some jackass modded up. Never click on AC links.

Re:alternatives

[Mr2001]

To ensure that I am not connected to any of the much lamer trolls on Slashdot, I will include an md5 hash as further obfuscation in the url, but I hold the original string. If you ever need to know if the google link you were looking at is a genuine troll (I Haven't thought up a cool name for myself yet, any ideas?) then you can always check the md5 which I will supply the uncrypted md5. Yeah, sure, but we all know MD5 has been cracked wide open. You could be anyone!

Time line....

[mulvane]

This story is about as old as the genre of the articles coverage itself.

Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

It really is a shame to put that much effort into making something, and then totally ruining it with that cover, that just screams that the creator knows nothing about how clockwork actually works. It really is kind of an eyesore on an otherwise beautiful piece of work.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, I tend to agree. Now, if that clockwork were motorized and actually did something it would be unbelievably cool. Imagine if you turned the key, and the clockwork engaged and did a Rube Goldberg thing and finally turned the power on.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, ok. I strongly recommend that you do NOT go to a modern art museum. They are full of representations of things that cannot possibly work. I guy like you would blow a gasket in mere seconds.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[nurb432]

True, but how many people will take that close of a look, or actually understand?

Re:Too bad about the cover

[CensorshipDonkey]

If you read the article, you'd see he originally attempted actual, moving clockwork on the back powered by an electric train motor. However, in order to hold gears in the very precise positions necessary, their axles must be set in a thick piece of material. This made for a top case so thick and heavy the laptop would overbalance and fall backward when opened. So, he instead went with a thinner, workable cover and cosmetic only gears.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Provocateur]

No, no. Maybe a minor attention to that detail, but it would definitely bump up the functionality a notch. I'd like to be able to tell someone who needs the time to look at the laptop cover, or point to it, with a Spock-ian eyebrow lift. Remember when Intel made some concept art for laptops? Some of them managed to trickle down to actual implementation in the form of CD/MP3 players that didn't require you to boot up or open the laptop. Another was a display on the lid that could show the time and so on.

Still, kudos to the artist! We're not worthy!

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

Sorry, I do know art. I know it well enough that I also know that it goes deeper than simple looks. Which is all this is, disregarding all but the most shallow features of what it tries to replicate, ending up as mockery instead of an homage.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Anonymous Coward]

Please post photos of your projects that you actually have built where the gears actually work. Or else, maybe you could apologize for being a bit of a jerk.

It's quite easy to say things like "the gears should actually work". It's a lot harder to make them work.

It really is a shame to post a comment on /. that just screams that the poster is a bit of a jerk.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[ScrewMaster]

their axles must be set in a thick piece of material.

Yeah, alignment is critical with mechanism that tiny. Actually, what he could have done was have smaller pieces of strong material: that would have provided local rigidity without as much mass. Oh well. In any event, no I didn't read the article, I was too busy marveling at the pictures.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

Dude, that's the most childish argument on the internet. Please don't make it around grown-ups, OK?

You can judge a book without being able to write one. You can judge a building without being an architect. You can judge a meal without being able to cook it.

And "it's too hard" is not an excuse for doing a poor job. If it's too hard to do it right, don't bother doing it. Make something else that actually looks good.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

Anybody who knows how a gear or ratchet works?

What is this, a defence of the lowest common denominator?

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Falstius]

"I read it for the Articles, I swear"

Re:Too bad about the cover

[NekSnappa]

Ah, the true sign of one "Who Knows Art." Self important snobbery.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, the thing that bothered me was the quill pen in the video of it turning on.
Quill pens are just the shaft, they didn't leave the feathers intact.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

And the true sign of the incompetent: mocking others for having knowledge.

PS: Try re-reading that discussion. I am not the one who bought up art, nor the one who implied that knowledge of art make a person somehow superior.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, that's the most childish argument on the internet. Please don't make it around grown-ups, OK?

Naw, there are way more childish arguments. E.g.: "FUCK YOU!!!!!111"

You can judge a book without being able to write one. You can judge a building without being an architect. You can judge a meal without being able to cook it.

Eh, true enough.

You can also judge things without being overly harsh. Saying that something could be better is one thing; saying it "screams" incompetence is over the top.

And "it's too hard" is not an excuse for doing a poor job. If it's too hard to do it right, don't bother doing it. Make something else that actually looks good.

See, right here is where you lose it. That dude did NOT do a "poor job". That laptop is a beautiful piece of work.

In matters of taste, there can be no dispute... if you had made a milder comment like "I'd have liked it even better if the gears actually did something" I wouldn't have commented at all. He made a project that he found worthwhile, and the vast majority of people seem to be oohing and aahing over it. And here you come along saying that if he couldn't make the clockwork do something, he shouldn't have made the whole project in the first place. Did you read the link, where he talked about trying to make the clockwork do something? He had already started the project. I guess you feel at that point he should have just thrown everything in the trash bin?

Maybe YOU have ridiculously high standards, and you see a horrible failure here. But I think you are being way harsh.

In fact, I'm upgrading you from "being a bit of a jerk" to "being a dick about it" status.

P.S. I'm kinda guilty of the same thing, huh. I could have just ignored you, and instead I took the time to criticize you. I was hoping that you might feel some twinge of "yeah maybe I'm too harsh" but I guess I was just wasting both our time.

I just hope you don't harsh on people like that face-to-face. Not the recipe for happiness in your life and not the way to make lots of friends.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

If you actually went back and read what I said, you would have seen that I called it beautiful. It's simply that the crudity and tackiness of the cover is such a stark contrast to the beauty of the rest of it that causes me to react so hard to it. If he had just left the cover an empty plate of wood, it would have been a much better work overall, for instance.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it was a charger to actually power the thing...

Re:Too bad about the cover

[clem]

You can judge a book without being able to write one. You can judge a building without being an architect. You can judge a meal without being able to cook it. But is judging all you do? You don't have to excel in every field of endeavor in order to criticize. However, nothing tempers judgment like putting your own ego on the line in order to create something of merit. And it's been my experience that the bigger the blow hard critic, the less they've attempted (much less accomplished) in their own lives.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

So what is this now, a pissing contest? I'm pretty sure I've accomplished a fair bit more than you, if that's what you're wondering.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Lemmy Caution]

Art really does create a system of knowledge. I know, from the outside, that's hard to tell, and that expertise in aesthetics seems to contradict the claim that it's all a matter of taste. But just like you aren't really going to be able to explain the origins and nature of your expertise in computers to your Aunt Tillie, it is difficult to explain the origins and nature of expertise in art, as well.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Lemmy Caution]

And you are correct. It is hard to explain aesthetic insights like this to people who don't have a background in it, but it's true: adding the faux gearwork moves the work from the evocative to the connotative - from evoking the aesthetics of the Victorian era to simply referring to it, and that acts to diminish the effect of the piece (just like dressing as Batman for Halloween is less effective when you are wearing a shirt that says "Batman!" on it, instead of being the shirt that Batman wore, to use an example as far removed from the language of normal aesthetic judgment as I can think of.)

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

Thanks for supplying the big words. That is exactly what I meant, but I do indeed not have much a grounding in the theoretic discussion of aesthetics, so I lacked the vocabulary to express it properly.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

And that was a big mistake. He should have scrapped the clockwork idea entirely, and the result would have been much more pleasing.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Grishnakh]

Maybe he should have used a plate of titanium instead; it's much lighter than steel but with comparable strength. Especially in the 6Al-4V alloy.

Of course, this would have been rather expensive...

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Grishnakh]

I disagree.

It's true, you can judge a meal without being able to cook it, but for your opinion to have any weight or validity at all, you need to be able to compare the supposedly poor meal to a better one.

For instance, if you go back in time 20,000 years and visit some cavemen, would you tell them their meals suck because they don't have any bread? In that case, your opinion would be stupid because 1) the cavemen have no bread, and 2) no one else has any bread available either (it hasn't been invented yet), so it's not like you can point to something better.

Let's look at cars. Do today's cars suck because they don't have Mr. Fusion power sources, and require fossil fuel (or vegetable oil) to run? Of course not; you can't compare an actual thing with a hypothetical thing. It's futile and ridiculous to compare something that's state-of-the-art with something that hasn't even been invented yet, and may not even be possible.

It's the same with this laptop. You think it sucks because the gears don't work? Have you built something similar with working gears? No? Well, can you point to something similar with working gears? No? Then your opinion is worthless.

I can look at other hobby projects and say I don't like them because 1) I can do much better myself, and I'm not exactly an expert craftsman (and I have some examples) or 2) I can easily find much better examples with a Google search. But I don't see many projects like this which are even close to this calibre of artistry and detail, so in my opinion (and apparently many other peoples') it's an excellent work of art as it has no peers currently.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Goaway]

It is not specifically that the gears don't work. It's that the gears break the illusion of it being a Victorian piece of hardware. I can easily tell you how to improve it: Just remove the gears entirely. They only distract from the whole.

Plus, what this guy said: http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=390610&cid=21721994

Re:Too bad about the cover

[fireboy1919]

But just like you aren't really going to be able to explain the origins and nature of your expertise in computers to your Aunt Tillie

Can you actually quantify it? I could actually tell Aunt Tillie in objective terms the origins and nature of my expertise in computers. She might not understand, but if we wrote it down, she could go out and start looking things up until she did.

I'm an audio tech, and I have to say that there's a lot of similar snobbery in sound. Other than loud and soft (which refer to amplitude), bright/cool (lots of overtones - which are frequencies above the primary ones), and dark/warm (lots of undertones - frequencies below the primary ones), there are lots of entirely undefined words that people use to describe their sound for essentially no good reason.

People use colors (like, for instance, blue), or other temperature indicators (hot has nothing to do with warm, cold nothing to do with cool) in ways that mean almost nothing and are only described using other nonsense phrases (i.e., it sounds like the way that a badger is).

This is very bad! If you can't put into objective words why a piece is the way that it is, then you may be just projecting your own emotions onto it rather than figuring out what the piece is communicating (or failing to do so), and why it is good or bad!

Visual art is pretty much the same. When I look analyze visual art, at first, I may only be able tell you my impressions. When I analyze it more, I can always tell you how I arrived at them. And that isn't usually going to be a long list because for some reason most pieces aren't that complicated.

Case in point - one of the deepest portraits - and famous for it - is the Mona Lisa because of that smile. But what can you talk about there? You can talk about the smile, the eyes, the position of the hands, the background, skin tone, hair, and the colors chosen, and that's about it. If you can stretch that into more than a two page explanation (and you're not just giving background on the painting), then you're moving from objective analysis of a painting into an autobiography of your own soul.

expertise in aesthetics

So explain using objective criteria what's bad about it. Talk about the places you can't find beauty that you expected it; talk about color theory; etc., but don't just claim you're an expert and leave it at that.

That's the true sign of a hack.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[jonadab]

> So, he instead went with a thinner, workable cover and cosmetic only gears.

That's fine as far as it goes, but the cosmetic clockwork still should have been laid out in a plausible arrangement. It doesn't bother me as much as the other poster, but I did notice it.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Grishnakh]

That sounds fine to me. I'm just arguing against the posters who don't like it simply because the gears don't really work. Your reasoning is a little different from that.

Re:Too bad about the cover

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, say what?

HOAX

[Anonymous Coward]

This was proven to be a hoax why dredge it up now?

Re:HOAX

[Anonymous Coward]

Get raped, spammer.

Ugly

[tristian_was_here]

Its ugly, its the sort of thing my great, great and great grandfather would use to help him navigate on the high seas.

Re:Ugly

[Windom Earle]

It's the kind of thing my grandpa would have found at the dump, brought home, and converted into something useful.

I think I caught 'the bug' from him. He once turned an old wind-up phonograph mechanism into a jig to make his spearfishing lure rotate out in the ice house on the lak.

Re:Ugly

[ScrewMaster]

I think I would have liked your grandpa.

Ye olde worlde .... YECH!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ye Gods.

Once upon a time, there was a letter, Thorn. It made a th sound. It came to look like the letter Y. Then it disappeared. What we are left with is Ye Olde Everything.

Thorn in the form of a Y survives to this day in pseudo-archaic usages, particularly the stock prefix Ye olde. The definite article spelled with Y for thorn is often jocularly or mistakenly pronounced /ji/ or mistaken for the archaic nominative case of you, written ye. It is used infrequently in some modern English word games to replace the th with a single letter.

Sigh. Anyway, the computer is amazing. I have to find one of those Underwoods.

Re:Ye olde worlde .... YECH!

[RFaulder]

Also funny that this is a Victorian era look, but old english is a few centuries before that. I'm sure in another hundred years we'll have people talking about ye olde Slashdot, too.

Re:Ye olde worlde .... YECH!

[Webs 101]

I was going to point this out, but I'm somewhat heartened that somebody equally pedantic beat me to it.

Re:Ye olde worlde .... YECH!

[srmalloy]

It's one of my pet peeves, too. The usage in the illiteracism "ye olde" comes from the usage of the eth character 'ð' to spell 'the'; over time, the character was partially elided as a shortcut in writing the character, so that only the cross stroke and the upper end of the riser were drawn, looking like a superscripted 'y'. People who read period texts or signs would see what looked like 'yE' and took it to be a period usage, rather than an abbreviated form of 'the' (and pronounced the same way). Over time, the usage -- particularly in the phrase 'ye olde', has come to be impossible to eradicate.

Re:Ye olde worlde .... YECH!

[tengwar]

Conversely, there used to be a letter yogh in Scots, which for similar reasons became written with a "z" character. This is why some names and place names are pronounced oddly - for instance Menzies is pronounced "Mingis"

Love it

[pkadd]

I gotta get one of those. I've always been a fan of retro and nostalgia when it come to technology. I can't seem to find a price, though :/

/.ed

[gaderael]

Me doth thinkest yonder website has been Slashdotted...eth

Re:/.ed

[Pollardito]

Blinketh thine lantern once if the slashdotting cometh by tube, twice if it cometh by dumptruck

Re:/.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Thou art a very astute young man, forsooth this site truly hath been Slashdotted.

He'll get some of my cash

[dada21]

Here's an artist worth supporting, not for the work he's done, but for the work he's going to do.

Is it frivolous? Yes, but most art can be called that. Is it useful? Probably not, but we all need entertainment.

As a "jackass-of-all-trades" myself, my biggest wish was to be able to make my dreams into reality in a physical aspect, but I don't have the drive to work on a project as long as this guy does. Heck, even complicated LEGO designs lose my interest less than half-way through.

If you have a little bit of wealth, don't forget to support the arts -- it's the job of the wealthy to bring the unmarketable to the masses.

Re:He'll get some of my cash

[muridae]

As someone who puts together what ever junk or pre-used items I can find into something interesting or, sometimes on rare occasions, useful, I want to thank people like you.

I just finished an art project that used 9 Wii remotes, only two of them were owned by people working on it. The rest were donated by folks who just wanted to see what we could do. Granted, being students and not 'real' artists yet, they also wanted them back afterwards. Never would have been able to have the display without that help.

Great, but...

[TransEurope]

...are there any sites with selfmade high quality _Cyber_-Punk casemods or gadgeds around? I visited a dozen casemodding gelleries, but i found nothing really cool or interesting there. Any tips for good sources?

Re:Great, but...

[xaxa]

We don't have time, we're too busy clubbing etc :-)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a VNV Nation concert to attend, which I just woke up for :-D

Corel Cache

[Razed By TV]

http://www.datamancer.net.nyud.net:8090/

Re:Corel Cache

[skoaldipper]

Thanks for the cache. To all others wanting a sneak peek, well worth it.

It looks like he's running grub, and powers off the laptop unconventionally with a ... wouldn't be very sporting of me if I finished that sentence, now would it?

Slightly off topic - clockwork

[Kupfernigk]

For those who like clockwork that actually does something, the Russian Orion watch company makes inexpensive skeleton watches with both front and back transparent. Kind of an open source watch, for around $100

The problem with something like this computer is obsolescence, whereas an analog clockwork watch may wear out but will not become obsolete. Babbage was all too well aware of this, because owing to the slow pace of mechanical development, his designs became successively obsolete before they could even be built. It's a pity.

Re:Slightly off topic - clockwork

[atamido]

Link to Orion Watch:

http://www.orion-watch.com/

what the fuck is a steampunk?

[pjbaldes]

It was bad enough that boingboing devotes half the damned blog to steampunk shit, but now I have read about it here? steampunk, as an aesthetic is the most unappealing and annoying thing I have ever seen

Re:what the fuck is a steampunk?

[paleo2002]

I guess you didn't like Bioshock then . . .

I'm not a big fan, I've only read The Difference Engine. Stephenson's Baroque Cycle may count too. The point of the genre is to draw attention to the parallels between the modern boom in technological progress and innovations on a similar scale which appeared at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries. Appreciation of history and all that.

As for aesthetics, well art simply is.

Re:what the fuck is a steampunk?

[mad flyer]

Dude, the other half is only "those wacky japanese" crap...

And the third half (!?) is devoted to half backed attempt at capitalising on the lolcat joke.
  In the beginning it was the fake old comics, now the fake history doc...

Talentless attention whoring at its best...

If only I could find the youtube about lolcat in ancient egypt... this one at least was funny...

Re:what the fuck is a steampunk?

[LordNightwalker]

Probably not what you're looking for, but it includes "lol", cats and ancient egypt: http://youtube.com/watch?v=NVOFmu2ZIqI

Re:what the fuck is a steampunk?

[rah1420]

I normally don't respond to trolls but come on - De gustibus non disputandum est, bro.

Re:what the fuck is a steampunk?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that his point was that as an aesthetic this virtue of historical connection is lost. It's just a bunch of metal crud bolted onto a laptop.

Building a functional difference engine: cool, and bonus points for elegantly design;
Sticking bronze plates onto a laptop making it heavier; interfering with wifi (probably); and with no practical effect at all: have fun if you're doing it, but ... meh... it is a bit tiresome;
Writing historical function: good if it's insightful and consistent enough, otherwise STFU.

The key here is _functionality_. Even extravagant and esoteric form is appreciated here, but it has to do SOMETHING, or demonstrate some not-totally-obvious physics/math/science-in-general principle.

so what?

[Anonymous Coward]

this was on msnbc.com about a month ago. so much for slashdot being up on the latest tech and trends.

Erudite Trolls

[TaoPhoenix]

Dear Mr. Troll.

At least you have given a high class description of your eyeball wrenching escapades.

However, Goatse is no longer the cutting edge of Troll Theory. You're much too good for that.

Instead, make yourself a valuable memeber of the community by supplying links related to the story titles. In this case, it would be a "hard hack laptop", which would be a photoshopped image of the Dell Gaming Machine with a Mining Excavator parked on top of it.

More Laptop Retro Moddings: Retro Typewriters

[wehe]

This is not the first steampunk laptop. Besides this approach there is a special retro modding technique: converting a laptop or notebook into a retro typewriter.

I wonder what...

[biscon]

these f-holes are for ;)

The worlds of Belief and Reason are Orthagonal

[beer_maker]

Nice description of your position ... from a reasoning point of view. As anyone who has attempted to understand the feminine mind can attest, reason isn't everything.

I will happily agree that science (the world of Reason, or Rational thought) cannot be made compatible with any scheme of religion or belief, because they do not intersect to any great degree. Science is a wonderful tool for explaining how things work, but it cannot do diddly to explain the 2AM question "Why are we here?" (And the mere existence of the Creationist Museum proves the converse.)

My question is why people keep dragging out this moldy old conflict? We all hold mutually exclusive thoughts in our heads ('All politicians are crooked' vs 'My senator fights the good fight', for example) so why can't we just drop this disagreement? If you fervently believe that Science holds all the answers and your neighbor fevently believes the FSM hold them instead, what have you lost?

As for myself, for matters pertaining to materials, speeds, and distances, and all things that can be measured, I choose Science and Reason as my tools. I believe that the scientists who do that stuff have a method that gives a very accurate result, a very good picture and explanation of the way the world works. For matters unmeasurable, I have found no such system or method that can explain them nearly so well ... but I'm not so arrogant that I assume there can be no such system. I believe that many religious laws make excellent interpersonal 'Rules to Live By' even if they can never be "proved" to have come from their purported source.

Re:The worlds of Belief and Reason are Orthagonal

[Atlantis-Rising]

Only moderately related to your topic...

As anyone who has attempted to understand the feminine mind can attest, reason isn't everything.

Humans are eminently predictable, and the female of the species is no exception.

It's merely a matter of having enough information to be able to make at least a reasonably accurate stab at predicting what the response will be in any given situation. The more information, the more accurate your prediction, much like predicting the weather.

That doesn't mean that the weather doesn't operate along guidelines that can be analyzed, does it?

Really, that's an issue I've always found- people give up when they see a complicated issue. "It's not logical, because I can't see the logic behind it."

And yet that description belies the flaw: The fact that you, or I, personally, cannot determine the logic behind a system does not mean that a system does not operate along logical lines.

It means we have yet to determine what those lines are.

Re:The worlds of Belief and Reason are Orthagonal

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are eminently predictable, and the female of the species is no exception.

I knew you were going to say that.

Re:The worlds of Belief and Reason are Orthagonal

[Joe Tie.]

If you fervently believe that Science holds all the answers and your neighbor fevently believes the FSM hold them instead, what have you lost?

Nothing, unless he then goes out to vote for policies which put FSM over science, outright outlaws areas of scientific investigation, or scares schools into yanking funding for programs which touch on their forbidden areas. All of which happen a lot more than most people seem to be aware of.

Re:The worlds of Belief and Reason are Orthagonal

[BarryJacobsen]

Only moderately related to your topic...

As anyone who has attempted to understand the feminine mind can attest, reason isn't everything.

Humans are eminently predictable, and the female of the species is no exception.

It's merely a matter of having enough information to be able to make at least a reasonably accurate stab at predicting what the response will be in any given situation. The more information, the more accurate your prediction, much like predicting the weather.

That doesn't mean that the weather doesn't operate along guidelines that can be analyzed, does it?

Really, that's an issue I've always found- people give up when they see a complicated issue. "It's not logical, because I can't see the logic behind it."

And yet that description belies the flaw: The fact that you, or I, personally, cannot determine the logic behind a system does not mean that a system does not operate along logical lines.

It means we have yet to determine what those lines are. I think he was saying that feminine minds are not logical (3: capable of reasoning in a clear and consistent manner) where as you are saying they are logical (2: Based on earlier or otherwise known statements, events, or conditions). Something can be both logical and not logical at the same time as long as we're using different meanings of the word logical in each sense :P

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Site is slashdotted, so here is a mirror link:

http://www.duggmirror.com/mods/Steampunk_laptop_2/

Posting as AC to not be a karma whore.

cache

[sabrex15]

cache:
http://www.duggmirror.com/mods/Steampunk_laptop_2/

Old news

[CorbaTheGeek]

was on Wired blogs Nov 2nd...

Gizmodo interview with Datamancer

[Fzz]

Seeing as Datamancer's site is slashdotted, you can catch the laptop on Gizmodo . Better still, here's their interview with Richard Nagy, its very talented creator. Cheers, Fzz

I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote = "You can judge a book without being able to write one. You can judge a building without being an architect. You can judge a meal without being able to cook it."

To JUDGE something you need some expertise in the field, otherwise it is just an OPINION. You can give your opinion of how a book reads or how a building looks, but to JUDGE something you need a field of knowledge behind your opinion.

Just my opinion on it as I am not educated in internet ramblings so therefore I cannot judge!

actually...

[__aapspi39]

I started this post to say that his website looks more dated than the contraption

Then i had a proper look at the keyboard and...my heart melted. Maybe its getting close to xmas.

I'll take 3.

My favorite steampunk:

[Anonymous Coward]

Best juxtaposition of new and old: a 21st century computer with a 19th century typewriter keyboard attached to it.

My personal favorite: the keys Q and A and Z aren't lined up, and the spacing between them isn't the same, either. The reason for this? No, it's not anatomical -- it's another leftover from mechanical typewriter days. If Q-A-Z were all in the same column, their typebars would have to occupy the same space (or be funny-shaped, but I guess the effort to machine fancy typebars wasn't worth it back then).

Heck, I'm almost surprised there's not a quill holder on the side of my monitor, or a spittoon on the side of my case, or a CAPS LOCK key on my keyboard.

Re:alternative DNS

[Technician]

Searchq is ignored by Google. The next few things are obfuscation too.

I use filtered DNS. When these pesky links show up, and still require a DNS lookup, the filtered DNS takes care of it for me. It is good for most stuff that is NSFW. As a bonus, it filteres most phishing and malware servers. I love these guys.

http://lifehacker.com/software/security/block-porn-and-more-with-scrubit-240213.php
http://www.scrubit.com/