Indiglo Clock Case Mod 136
WEEEEEEE writes "Just saw over at GideonTech where they just put up a new Indiglo clock mod for a computer case. With avid LAN party go'ers around here, seems like a easy to do mod to keep track of time while you're fraggin' away. More on it over the HOWTO area."
Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
Only thing that happens is that
Slashdot is just dying (Score:4, Insightful)
Every single one of you knows who I'm talking about -- mostly college freshmen and high-schoolers who are nothing more than console gamers with top-of-the-line PC equipment that is only used as a forum posting, warez-downloading, gaming machine and not for anything remotely constructive or interesting.
They're the kind of people that glittery casemods attract, and they're the exact people slashdot should NOT cater to, as they're alienating their core audience. Slashdot should run less stories about casemods and more about phsyics breakthroughs, Linux standards, Microsoft's crimes, what's going on in Congress.
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, my coworker knows a lot about the good old times. They used those brand new Mainfraims. Everything just worked. But nowadays everyone uses those strange PC's. Nothing works anymore. He wishes everthing was like in the old days.
I can understand, that people liked how it used to be. But time is allways moveing forward. Plus, people tend to forget bad stuff faster than the good things. This makes for a skewed memory of past things. That's why I'm a little skeptical about the good-old-time stories.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:5, Insightful)
And you think you're part of that core audience? You have a SID well past the half-million mark, which means, unless your account is a dupe, you haven't been here very long at all. I happen to be one of those "nu-geeks", who also happens to have been a member since '98.
Perhaps the core audience (re: key demographic) is somebody who reads the page, clicks the links, and buys the merchandise! Who better than those college freshmen/high school seniors with all that glorious disposable income.
If you think there's any such thing as a single community here, you're sadly mistaken. There hasn't been a single community since I started reading /. There are, instead, many communities, which /. happily caters to by posting stories that might interest people in those communities.
And who's to say the people who know more than "jack shit" don't happen to like casemodding and hardware news as much as your "nu-geeks"? Not everybody is as willing to pigeonhole themselves as you apparently are.
(OT) Finally, I'd just like to mention that I'm getting slightly sick of all the elitest snobbery amongst the "Linux Gurus" around here. I have 5 machines, all well used, running Windows, Linux, Freebsd, and (gasp) OS 9. That doesn't make my penis any larger, that doesn't make me live any longer, and that doesn't make me want to prance around like some kind of lord.
You talk about the people installing linux and using it for a week as if it's supposed to be a bad thing. At least they're trying something new. Maybe they'll try it again, maybe not. I do know this, though. If I'd seen people acting as piggish as the *nix elite around here, and hadn't had the support of the few people willing to help me surmount the ridiculously steep learning curve, I probably would have deleted it too.
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
Just to partially disagree also, I know alot of geeks my age that are concerned with similar issues rather than what their case looks like in the dark. But there are alot of posers out there and
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:2)
For what, people trapped on a desert island, forced to do IT work without any bulk cable at all?
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:2)
I have to go make some transistors now.
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:2)
They're the kind of people that glittery casemods attract
I like well-done case mods because they look interesting and are an expression of the owner. I built my current PC with a Lucite case and dual blacklight neon tubes for that very reason. It's more fun to have a glowing clear box on my desk than my old beige case.
Does that mean I'm not also interested in physics and politics? No. But wait, I also run an M$ OS at home, so I must be a "nu-geek" even though I've been using computers since I was six*.
Not liking a particular type of article on Slashdot isn't something to have a heart attack over. It's easy enough to ignore the ones you're not interested in. I do it all the time.
* Apple IIe Forever!
Old iron (Score:2)
TRS-80 before that, but I don't like to talk about it.
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:1)
nuGeek (Score:2)
I like the term. I've frequently wanted a word for these folks, but didn't have one. nuGeek. Nice.
Re:Slashdot is just dying (Score:2)
Linux postdates the hippie by quite a bit.
Slashdot needs a separate computers MOD topic (Score:5, Interesting)
Such topic would also make grouping mods together very easy, in order to come back to them later for example at the time you need the most (inspiration, inspiration...;)
Re:Redundant (Score:1)
Re:Redundant (Score:1)
Now all my system needs... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now all my system needs... (Score:2)
Hit the Eject button... just don't call technical support when your cupholder breaks :)
Re:Now all my system needs... (Score:1)
Is it like TIMEX? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is it like TIMEX? (Score:1)
Obligatory (Score:2)
Not if it's running Windows, or more appropriately, if it's this guy's server.
Re:Is it like TIMEX? (Score:1)
Just Announced.. (Score:4, Funny)
I could see this becoming a standard feature... (Score:2, Interesting)
...in a few years.
I mean, microwaves have clocks. They don't actually need to know the time (except under rare circumstances). Ditto ovens, coffee makers, etc, etc.
Computers, though, actually need to keep track of the time. Most are set reasonably accurately. So why not?
Re:I could see this becoming a standard feature... (Score:1)
It requires the screen to be on. (Score:1)
I don't get it.... (Score:1)
First, my watch, then my cell phone, then, when all else fails, there's always that little clock in the bottom right corner, opposite of the start button. (Yes, Windows. I am a gamer.)
Lighted fans, windows letting massive RF out to disrupt ham radio/give cancer/whatever, cold cathode lights, are there any case mods that actually have any functional use, or do those just not make it as stories because of lack of coolness factor?
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:1)
Re:I don't get it.... (Score:2, Interesting)
mounted a fan (with a guard) to draw air across my
extra hard drives... I mounted them by attaching
four sheetmetal strips to tabs at the top of the
case above the power supply (it's a full tower).
These two mods allow me to add 5 more drives to the
case, and keeps them (and the rest of the case)
cool. Barracudas run too darned hot without a
serious airflow over them.
I also clipped apart a pile of "Y" power connectors
and soldered them together (with heat-shrink) to
make a power-bus. This eliminates the considerable
instability caused by daisy-chaining "Y" connectors.
My system had 11 drives, but the power supply only
had 4 power connectors... each "Y" only adds one
extra connector, so it was a huge array of them
before I did this. It makes the wiring much neater
too, at least the power wiring (I still have 2
SCSI busses throughout the case).
It's not glitzy, but it's functional.
inventing a case mod... (Score:1, Funny)
Homer: You mean like an electric blanket mobile?
Frink: Uh, well... possibleh... or, you could take something that already exists, and find a new use for it. Like..
Homer: Hamburger earmuffs!
Frink: Uh I suppose that would qualify.
already been done! (Score:2)
Homer must not have seen Hats of Meat [hatsofmeat.com].
A good question to ask with casemods is... (Score:2, Insightful)
If it doesn't, i'm afraid i'm not that interested.
Re:A good question to ask with casemods is... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm windowing/lighting one of my old PC's 'cos it's going to be a backup machine/MP3 player in my living room, and when I'm done with it it'll definitely look better than a beige box in the corner of the room. Also, it gives me something to do 'cos I'm bored out of my mind at home.
Cheers,
68K.
Re:A good question to ask with casemods is... (Score:2)
Cars are just metal boxes with a wheel at each corner, the only way to make them look better ir to put them throug a scrap yard and recycle the metal into something interesting.
Same goes for beige box computers. Putting a hole in the side just gives you and ugly box with an ugly hole. What's the point? Stick it under the desk or put a plant in front of it and use the effort/cash to do something which has some chance of atually improving something.
Re:A good question to ask with casemods is... (Score:1)
Re:A good question to ask with casemods is... (Score:2)
Not really, it's just that they are so BORING. Car designers are like PC designers and mobile phone designers. They all make a big fuss about lways coming up with essentially the same design as everyone else. Look at a car from 50 years ago and one from this year, the designs are only trivially different, still a box with a wheel near each corner. Of course it is really the consumers who drive the conformity.
My point wasn't that it doesn't make sense to make things look better, but that cutting a hole in a beige box and panting it blue doesn't cut it. As I said, putting a plant in front of it would ave more positive effect for less effort.
Exactly! (Score:1)
Kidding aside, I happen to think that design is, while not the most important consideration, at least worth a thought for a tool I'm going to work with every day for a couple of hours... And the fact that I can show off my individualism and 1337 electronics skillz with adding the odd LCD or LED-fader doesn't hurt
To return to the topic, IMHO a computer I like to work with is a better computer than one that hurts my eyes when I look at it.
A Possibility (Score:3, Insightful)
I would imagine it could have some bells in whistles, like synchronizing the clock to a time server, forecast the weather, or something else to that effect...
Re:A Possibility (Score:1)
you mean like a radio clock [buzzard.org.uk]?
Wait a minute... I saw this on H*R! (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, hey Strong Bad. I think I'm almost finished. It took me a little while to figure out what I was gonna do. Then I duct taped an alarm clock to your VCR!"
"Duct taped an alarm clock to the VCR. See, I never woulda thought of that. Ok, there's some hairs that are seemed to be stuck in the duct tape here. Was that on purpose?"
"Oh. No. That's just left over from my first idea, which was to duct tape The Cheat to your VCR. He wasn't into that."
"Oh, I coulda told you that, man. Well anyways, thanks for your help, Bubs... and thank you, Cory Dewey-Smith. Sooo... join us next week when we'll be duct taping clocks to all kinds of different stuff."
(courtesy of Strong Bad's Email [homestarrunner.com])
erm ugly (Score:1)
epoxy + clock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:epoxy + clock (Score:3, Insightful)
That's essentially all he did. It still needs to be plugged into an independant power source (he just snaked the alarm clocks wire out the back of the case). How this is news, I do not know.
On second thought, he did manage to cut a hole in a piece of plastic - I suppose that does deserve some attention. pfft.
Re:epoxy + clock (Score:1)
Re:epoxy + clock (Score:1)
What time is it? (Score:4, Informative)
Google cache can be found: here [google.com]
Re:What time is it? (Score:1)
Only for weak-minded (Score:2)
[S]lashdot_ORG (Score:3, Informative)
Just so long as I don't start seeing [S]lashdot, I'll be happy.
No offense meant to Kyle and [H]ard_OCP. =D
dumb (Score:1)
The guy took apart an alarm clock and shoved it into an even larger casing. This is news?
Re:dumb (Score:1)
I suspect theres been a long term performance problem with LCDs, probbly lost a whole 0.05 FPS so this mod indirectly increases cpu speed slightly?
Re:dumb (Score:2)
I thought the display was going to be driven by the computer -- there are a number of people that have written software (often for Linux) to control attached LCD panels, which can be mounted in a drive bay to display time/load/temp, etc. The worst, though, was the fact that it had another power cable running through the back. Ugh.
This story might be interesting... (Score:2, Funny)
If you want this... (Score:1)
who cares! (Score:1)
Ok... this isn't funny anymore!!!! (Score:1, Troll)
# 2002-09-12 21:22:32 800-1000MHz handheld (articles,hp) (rejected)
-- Is not news that handhelds are reaching 1GHz?
# 2002-09-13 06:55:11 Outdoor Quake (articles,tech) (rejected)
-- Now this was really interesting news (IMHO). Some University dudes rigged Quake so they could run around outside with wearable computers and frag each other. (They did this with Quake+GPS+HUDs+custom map of campus)
Slashdot.org is going to the dogs...
News for kiddies, stuff that blows chunks!
J.
Re:Ok... this isn't funny anymore!!!! (Score:1)
Gotta love pimping your own site... (Score:2)
I, for one, don't care about this stuff. I prefer to create my content using the computer as a tool...not as an integral part of my "art." If you get your rocks off cutting holes in computers and putting in neon lights, you need to get out of the house more. It was bad enough that people were doing this shit to cars [ricecop.com], but now computers too? Pathetic.
Yes, I know I'm an asshole.
Re:Gotta love pimping your own site... (Score:1, Informative)
This isn't even a good mod (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This isn't even a good mod (Score:1)
You're right, there're tonnes of ways of making this mod better.
Re:This isn't even a good mod (Score:1)
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters. (Score:2)
And the wonder why their stock is in the toilet. They spend all of their credibility appeasing the script-kiddie-gamer crowd...
BART: But I have 52 million shares! What's 52 million times zero?
They had better get their act together before the repo man comes for their soul patches.
Terminology (Score:3, Informative)
Important? Hardly. Important to me? Oh, yes!
Re:Terminology (Score:1)
Don't get any hits on FFT - are you thinking of TFT-LCD's?
Re:Terminology (Score:1)
Re:Terminology (Score:1)
Connectors for S-Video come in various flavours. The common circular 4-pin plug is universal. More european is the SCART, which can carry S-Video, RGB, Composite, sound, + control signals. No TV's are sold in northern Europe without this connector. More info here:
http://www.daveladd.demon.co.uk/pscart/scartpin
or here
http://www.btinternet.com/~krazy.keith/elec
Obligatory Simpsons Quote + some ranting. (Score:2)
-- Homer, on the baby translator, "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?"
I'm of the opinion that case mods in general are just plain dumb, in the same way that "Type R" stickers and outrageously large fins are on cars-- but this takes the cake as the stupidest case mod I have ever seen. Dude, buy a fucking wristwatch and save some time and effort.
I don't know what's worse, that someone saw this as a worthwhile project, or that an blurb about it was submitted and accepted on Slashdot.
~Philly
Why such a large clock? (Score:1)
What a hack!!!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
What a hack... it looks like he hacked it with an axe.
C'mon... if you are going to drill a hole clean through the power supply, can't you just solder the power plug to the back of the 120v jack? -it would be safer.
What about that printed circuit board shoved into a conductive metal box... that board has 120v AC in it too! FIRE FIRE FIRE
This hack job is unsafe and should not be recommended to anyone.PLUS IT'S UGLY!
pendulum (Score:1)
Of course carrying it to LAN parties is another matter
Watches (Score:1)
Yawn (Score:2)
By the way, Indiglo is not meant to be 'always on' - it becomes a dim, dull greyish color after a couple months.
I'd have been somewhat impressed if someone had made a breadboard LED clock with big bold BOMB numerals and put that behind the ubiquitous "windows" that me-too modders carve in their PCs.
But these days glowing red LED clock numerals probably leads to incidents with frightened maintenance workers calling the FBI. At least in the U.S.
Casemods for the artistically declined. (Score:1)
You know what would be even cooler? (Score:1)
Re:You know what would be even cooler? (Score:1)
Shitty hack (Score:1)
There's an excellent article on vinyl dyes on that site though, you should all check it out if you're into modding... Supposedly it works much better than paint on plastic. I'll be getting some blue dye and doing my monitors, keyboard and mouse soon. Check it out: http://www.gideontech.com/guides/vinyldye/ [gideontech.com]
This may well be the lamest /. story ever (Score:2)
It's hard to imagine anything that's less worthy of appreciation as a hack than this tripe. It's a kludge, and a bad one at that: an off-the shelf clock radio, not even integrated into the power system, but with the original clock radio cord dangling out the back of the case, and a few holes hacked into a blank bezel. If this qualifies as a "mod", then I suppose I need to post all the computers and automotive trim I've sprayed with Krylon semi-flat black over the years...
If the clock was one of those WWV self-setting jobs and there was software to turn the box into a stratum 2 or 3 timeserver there might be some news here, but this is just a joke, and gets my vote for 1) the lamest Slashdot story in the entire history of the site, and 2) the strongest indication yet that Slashdot is completely irrelevant to those that actually *do* know how to do hardware hacks. (Yes I'm one of those "radicals" like James Dyson that thinks that innovative and superior function should determine form (but is not at all averse to attractive and innovative forms), not the other way around...)
Last Post! (Score:1)
tradition that what we can see and measure in the world is merely the
superficial and imperfect representation of an underlying reality.
-- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"
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