The "Spider Case"

Kadagan AU submitted linkage to one of the more impressive case mods I've seen in awhil, The Spidercase. It's not really an option if you don't have much desk space to spare, but it sure is cool.

Prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy who made this case will get laid exactly once in his life -- into his coffin.

Re:Prediction

[RCAMVideogames]

Ouch... Come on, lets be honest, maybe twice.

Re:Prediction

[NonSequor]

Technically that wouldn't really be during his life.

That poor

[smurphette]

kitty cat.

Mini-ITX??

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats is an abuse to the term Mini.

The case is huge, and then they use a ity bity motherboard.

I guess when the itsy bitsy spider craweled up the water spout it got bigger.

Re:Mini-ITX??

[mrtroy]

ya i dont know why this mini-itx case was chosen. sure it looks great, but it doesnt represent mini-itx's.

My personal favorite is still the nintendo mini itx computer, running a nintendo emulator to play mario 3.

And no, I will not provide a link to the mini-itx page which is about 100 feet under.

Squished.

[cybermace5]

That spider...has spun its last web.

Pun intended.

I think it's perfect...

[WIAKywbfatw]

...for browsing the web!

Re:I think it's perfect...

[nomadic]

You get slapped a lot in real life, don't you?

Re:Squished.

[sharkey]

The itsy-bitsy spider
Crawled up the network pipe.
Down came Slashdot
And made the spider yipe.

Re:Squished.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he perhaps he does and you don't.

Pun - the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound

web - a network of silken thread spun especially by the larvae of various insects (as a tent caterpillar) and usually serving as a nest or shelter.

Web - a part of the Internet designed to allow easier navigation of the network through the use of graphical user interfaces and hypertext links between different addresses

Seem

Your definition is obviously bogus...

[Microsift]

...as puns are seldom, not usually, humorous.

Having said that, I guess I'll have to rescind my remark as even dictionary.com disagrees with me.

Re:Squished.

[cybermace5]

Eh?

punn. A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words.

There's enough for both of us, I'll take the first part and you can have the second.

That has to be

[lobsterGun]

One of the least practical and coolest looking case mods I've seen.

Re:That has to be

[Xaoswolf]

It reminds me of an old He-Man toy I used to have.

It was the big batterypowered spider walker thing that Skeletor rode in.

Re:That has to be

[Afrosheen]

Yeah, I had one of those too, a nice simple piece of engineering.

The only drawback was that it'd get about 20 feet before a. you lost patience and just rammed it into Castle Grayskull or b. the batteries had to be replaced. Greedy 1980's electronics...I swear Duracell was in on it.

image cached

[ih8apple]

Since the site is already very slow for images, I cached the large version of the final image here [208.176.108.155]. Enjoy!

Re:image cached

[cehbab]

thanks for that.. nice case.

Minor suggestion:

[Stephen Samuel]

If he plugs the upper middle hole, it should look more like the 'spider' has two eye groups. Like this [telus.net] (GIMP edited image).

Re:Minor suggestion:

[cnoocy]

That would actually (imho) make it look less like a spider, since they usually have 8 eyes.
Spider eyes [amonline.net.au]

Re:Minor suggestion:

[CaseyB]

The page you listed shows some excellent examples of spiders that have two very obvious "primary" eyes, surrounded by groups of much smaller eyes. Was that supposed to be a counterexample to your argument?

Re:Minor suggestion:

[Stephen Samuel]

You're confusing quantity with quality.

Re:image cached

[Rufus211]

surprisingly it is the actual picture

it's /.'d but...

[OctaneZ]

A couple pictures are over at [H]ardocp [hardocp.com]
Lights on [hardocp.com]
Lights Off [hardocp.com]

Re:More Pics

[jat850]

Mods on crack, apparently. These pics aren't offtopic, but here's a proper link: Case Pics [genmay.net]

Re:More Pics

[LostSinner]

even when i'm right with you
i'm so far away

I could use this

[SirLantos]

I have this one user who destroys a computer everytime he walks within 10 feet of it. He also hates spiders....maybe I can keep him away from the computers if they all look like that.

extra bonus!

[holzp]

Its great for debugging!

Re:extra bonus!

[hesiod]

> It's great for *not* debugging,

Most spiders, actually, are great debuggers. Do you think they make webs because they look cool?

Techtv case mod contest

[I am Kobayashi]

Techtv [techtv.com] Just had a case mod contest. This article is about a mod that was too heavy to qualify for the contest, at the bottom of the page under "related stories" are links to the 4 contest finalists. Some pretty unbelievable cases IMHO.

You came in that thing?

[WIAKywbfatw]

That Matrix-inspired case isn't that hot but the Millennium Falcon mod looks great. Imagine turning up to a LAN party with that baby - you'd be the envy of every geek with a pulse.

I wonder what kind of sound scheme he's running? A bunch of well-placed MF-related quotes and sounds for system startup and shutdown, critical alerts, etc would just be the icing on the cake.

Re:You came in that thing?

[ZaMoose]

All the other TTV casemods pale in comparison to the ammo box [techtv.com] mod (the eventual winner of the contest). The guy rewired all the peripherals so that they could use the military-grade connections and the oscilloscope on the front is just wicked cool.

Cation Strongly Urged

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

New Users are strongly cationed not to sneak up on Spider Case, as it seems to sense danger moments before an incident. Accordingly, powering off the machine and taking back the CD's you placed in its drive are particularly difficult.

Also, please cover all media and other damagable items as the Spider Case occasionally squirts a very sticky weblike substance that has the strength of a steel cable 10 times its diameter. Not to worry, this will disolve within several hours.

Also, if you walk into your o

Re:Cation Strongly Urged

[PopCulture]

Spider Case Mod!
-only $14.95-


Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Spider Case Mod.

Caution: Spider Case Mod may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.

Spider Case Mod Contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.

Do not use Spider Case Mod on concrete.

Discontinue use of Spider Case Mod if any of the following occurs:

• Itching
• Vertigo
• Dizziness
• Tingling in extremities
• Loss of bal

I don't believe it....

[mblase]

"You spent all this money building a mod like this, and you didn't even install a web browser?"

The spider case ?

[dnaumov]

Does their webserver run on a fly too ? Looks like it to me.

Re:The spider case ?

[michrech]

Just like a fly, it didn't last very long -- Thanks to all those who mirrored some of the images! =]

Mirror of HardOCP forum thread

[Rufus211]

I remembered seeing this a couple of days ago on HardOCP [hardocp.com]'s boards. I mirrored the thread about it (as /.'ing a bboard is not too nice) which has quite a few pictures and some talk:

http://andrew.cmu.edu/~pnelson/big.html [cmu.edu]

(and yes, I did just download the 4 individual pages and cat them together =P)

Not interesting

[ajs]

Making art out of a computer is all well and good, but this case is uninteresting for anything other than artistic reasons. He had to sacrifice quite a bit of performance and flexibility to get this the shape he wanted.

What's more it's not very workable footprint wise.

As far as I'm concerned the ultimate case-mod would be getting a sufficiently cooled, shoebox-sized system that had room for at least 1 AGP and 3 PCI cards. Then I'd be happy. If you want to paint flames on the side, more power to you, but I don't care what color my GHz are, I just want a lot of 'em ;-)

you're a jackass.

[Anonymous Coward]

god forbid anybody have fun. this guy here from the performance police will come rough you up if you wield a dremel with impunity.

Re:Not interesting

[drinkypoo]

This ain't about you. This is about him. You want a boring box, he wants a work of art. More power to him.

Re:Not interesting

[ajs]

This isn't about him, it's about Slashdot. If you read the blurb that showed up on the front page, it certianly made this sound like a functional case-mod, not a piece of art that slows down a machine. I find elegance in combining form and function, and when someone sacrifices function for form, I have to ask... why? Were they just unable to figure out a way to combine the two?

Architects and engineers learn this lesson early on. Apple's computers are a wonderful example. They tend to have lovely cases (if

Re:Not interesting

[drinkypoo]

It just doesn't need to be functional beyond a certain point. If you can connect whatever kind of media you need to connect to it, and whatever kind of connections you want to connect to it, and it makes you happy, then what's the problem? Sounds functional to me.

Perhaps what's functional to you is a small box which barely contains the basic functions of a computer. To me, it's a large box, because I want to contain more functions - my workstation is enclosed in a 4U aluminum rack case with nothing spec

Re:Not interesting

[ajs]

You've taken that one sentence about footprint (which I will grant should have been the clue) out of context.

I think I would have respected this as art more if he'd just taken the guts of the computer out, and made a spider out of non-functional computer parts. But, to make a case out of computer parts that doesn't even do what you wanted it to (he's not getting the CD performace he wanted, for example) seems like a failure to be brushed aside and tried again....

As for the Slashdot article, it included th

I'm neither contradicting myself nor trolling

[ajs]

How so? I said: "Making art out of a computer is all well and good"

I think that's a fair statement. Then I said:

"but this case is uninteresting for anything other than artistic reasons"

And that too is true. It's not that I begrudge the guy making art, but making art out of a computer (or a home, or anything which starts off functional) is generally judged on the basis of its form AND its function. In terms of form, I'm not terribly impressed with this, but perhaps some are, and that's cool.

In terms of f

Re:I'm neither contradicting myself nor trolling

[fucksl4shd0t]

If, on the other hand, you painted a picture on a canvas sail, and that made the boat go slower, I'd say you failed to manage your medium and balance form with function.

I got a tattoo of a big dick on my dick, and my dick got bigger. My wife says it's a work of art.

Seriously, dude, you've taken a lot of shit from the artsy-fartsy crowd, but I happen to think you're right. I also think the spidercase mod sucks, but that's just what I think. :)

New Spokesperson

[VEGETA_GT]

I think we have our new spokesperson for to_Much_Time.com

Still a sweet idea tho

With great mods...

[Navius Eurisko]

comes great responsibility.

now, really, what's with the arms?

[Knights who say 'INT]

Isn't a case mod supposed to be a new, creative way of arranging a computer? With the lights out, the arms look like connections for stuff lying out. How cool would it be to plug in harddrivers or cdburners in those arms?

I was really disappointed to find out they were just plastic arms. There's no new concept there, just cool-ish design. I'll stay with the computer in a several stories bookcase in the movie "Pi". Its waay cooler as a concept, primitive as it is.

Re:now, really, what's with the arms?

[stratjakt]

It should be easy enough to put a firewire hub in the main case, and run a cable down each arm, or SATA cables, get a raid array going with a drive at each foot.

Too bad it uses one of those mini-itx boards, since you end up using your one pci slot for a real graphics card or something.

With a case mod so friggin huge, why not put a real computer in there (flexatx with a honkin athlon or p4)

I've said many time's I'm not altogether impressed technically with miniitx mods. It's too easy, heat and size probl

Re:now, really, what's with the arms?

[Knights who say 'INT]

I know this is supposed to be a geek place and you prolly have all seen this [catb.org] already. But it's still an interesting spin on the case mod cooling thread. Be sure to read the whole saga from that point on.

Only 7 eyes!

[littleghoti]

The red lights on the front count 7. A spider has eight eyes. I'd have thought he could have managed to get that right

Re:Only 7 eyes!

[Senjaz]

A lot of spiders have 8 eyes but some have less - they are normally in pairs though ;)

Typically they have different types of eyes for different functions - spotting wide angle movement, tracking prey, low-light detection

Only 8 legs!

[gringo_l_amigo]

Sorry, seem like I can't count to 8 yet ;-) After seeing it with the lights on, I saw the very truth

external case mods are cool, but...

[192939495969798999]

I think the "case shaped like x" or "case made of y" are always neat, but what I'd really like to see is some custom hardware -- a multi-chip multi-board PC, or something like that. You used to see more people experimenting with the hardware. Still, if anyone can build a working computer that runs in a bucket full of cooked oatmeal (preferably Quaker instant brown sugar oatmeal), that would be sweet. Computers submerged in stuff are always cool.

Slashdot cliche case...?

[No Such Agency]

working computer that runs in a bucket full of cooked oatmeal

You could make it in the shape of a petrified Natalie Portman, and run it in a bucket of hot grits... Grits are sort of like oatmeal.

Time Commitment

[danielems]

"It's not really an option if you don't have much desk space"

... or if you don't have a "month of 12 hour work days" to spend on a case mod.

That's not cool... THIS IS COOL:

[Picass0]

The Imperiator Star Destroyer computer case:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~bluesmurf/ [overclockers.com.au]

What were you thinking?

[johnwyles]

When you read the title of this topic "The Spider Case" were you thinking of the case study on spiders and caffeine?

Find it here: http://www.missblackwidow.com/drugs.html [missblackwidow.com].

One, two, three, four...

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

Spidercase, Spidercase
It's proactive and in your face
Crawls the web, really quick
It kinda looks like a bloated tick
Look out, here comes the Spidercase.

Re:One, two, three, four...

[DG]

Beams of light, shoot out of its eyes,
If it scares your wife, I can't say I'm suprised...

DG

Re:One, two, three, four...

[bubbazanetti]

OMG ROTFL >like a bloated tick

Re:One, two, three, four...

[Our Man In Redmond]

Somehow I don't think you're quite decaffeinated enough yet.

(OK, how long does this need to be to escape the "too short" filter?)

Alt text

[WTFmonkey]

Did you guys see the alt text on the images? "Magnification feature will return once onslaught subsides." Pretty funny. It's like /. is a giant can of RAID.

Put it near Ant Farm case mod

[antdude]

It doesn't need electrcity. Just put it near an Ant Farm [techtv.com] case mod with ants roaming loose and the spider case mod will be happy.:

alt title

[urbazewski]

Shelob meets the Borg.

Features

[LittleGuy]

* Boots up to 'SpiderMan, SpiderMan, Does Whatever A Spider Can'
* Warns user, 'With great power comes great responsibility'
* Comes with only with 56k Dialup
* Can detect virii, worms, and other malware very well, but constantly blamed by media for whatever virus-du-jour
* Can only log in as Anonymous Coward to protect anonymity

Re:Features

[sahala]

Saying "virii" is sort of like saying "boxen".

It needs to walk!

[alchemist68]

Now it would be REALLY cool if the guy could build-in some robotics and have it walk around a little.

wall art

[confused one]

I want my next PC to be a piece of wall art. That way It's not on or under my desk...

Requires zero desk space...

[Medievalist]

...if you hang it from the ceiling, or stick it on a wall.

Seriously, who the hell would put a case like this on their desk? It's room art, there's a certain compromise of normal function required by abnormal form.

Best case mod I've ever seen.

[pherris]

A server case mounted on a scaled down electric go-cart (which can do burnouts and tops out at 20mph). It's chromed out inside and has an analog tachometer that shows cpu load.

For the impatient:
Front view with the "hood" shut [techtv.com]
Side view [techtv.com]
Under the hood [techtv.com]
Back end [techtv.com]

The story: Ultimate Hot-Rod Mod [techtv.com]

Now that's a case mod. IMO the guy who built this is pretty creative.

Re:Best case mod I've ever seen.

[Morologous]

Slashdot: A mix between a peer review journal and "bum fights".

The most honest assessment of Slashdot ever made.

Desk space?

[FroBugg]

Who needs desk space with a thing like this? If you're going to make a spider case, especially one that looks as cool as this one, doesn't it sort of have to be mounted on the wall?

Come on, guys. Really.

So now we can...

[Roadkills-R-Us]

...ping shelob and survive?

Wearing Gloves

[lefticus]

As someone who has a decent amount of woodworking experience, I can say DO NOT follow this guys advice of wearing gloves when working with table saws, routers, etc. If the glove gets caught in a machine (and proceeds to pull your hand in) you are going to be in a whole lot more pain than a little one stitch nick with a table saw.

#1 Rule: Always were safety glasses
#2 Rule: NEVER wear things that can get caught in the machine, neck ties, necklaces, GLOVES. Some people even take off thier wedding rings.

Re:Wearing Gloves

[Kris_J]

Chainmail. You should wear gloves that bounce off the sawblade. Checkout what butchers wear when using the big electric meat saw.

a month?

[MikeHunt69]

It took this guy a month of 12 hour days to build this? It's not bad, but I could see myself knocking up something similar in less than a week of evening work. Although it dosen't contain a computer, one of my friends [hermit.com.au] built a "chair" in the form of a spider thats over 2m tall made of stainless steel. Im fairly sure it took less than a month of 12 hour days.

Theme song

[ChicagoFan]

Spider case, spider case
Way more geeky than "All Your Base".
Tell the web? Not too wise!
Posted here, server dies.
Look out! Mirror the spider case.

Re:Theme song

[aardwolf204]

I cant stop laughing! I want to print this out and tack it to my wall, but it doesnt make any sense out of context. If I could i would mod you up.

Ok I can buy your already at +5 and they're Mine for another 2 days DAMNIT!

Ignore his advice on gloves

[butane_bob2003]

I stuck my middle fingertip into a table saw and found out first hand why people wear gloves.
Wearing gloves while operating power equipment is dangerous and will not keep you from getting your fingers chopped off. If you are dealing with powertools like table saws or band saws, there is a good chance you will lose a digit or two. It's almost inevitable. You will learn to deal with it. If you want to lose more digits or your whole hand, wear gloves like the article suggests, and long sleeves while your're at it. Might as well get your whole arm sucked in.

Two words:

[zaren]

grid bugs.

Re:Two words:

[zaren]

Yeah, but you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about, don't'cha? :)

AHH!!!

[CGP314]

I have arachnophobia you insensitive clod!

Stupid Microsoft

[almightyjustin]

HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected

Internet Information Services

400 series errors are supposed to be permanent! There's a perfectly good 503 error for "service unavailable". Grrr.

Re:Stupid Microsoft

[griffjon]

Hm. So the IIS version of .htaccess is a bit entabgled.

But obviously from the site, his robots.txt allows spidering.

Re:Stupid Microsoft

[Hieronymus Howard]

400 series errors are supposed to be permanent! There's a perfectly good 503 error for "service unavailable". Grrr.

Since we slashdotted this site just 5 days ago [slashdot.org] perhaps "Too many users are connected" is a permanent error on mini-itx.com

HH
---

Mini-ITX cases - AARGH!

[Animats]

I've been trying to get a Pentium 4 (or something that's at least > 1 GHz) in a small form factor. Here's what I need:

• 1 IEEE-1394 port
• 2 serial ports
• 1 100baseT Ethernet port
• CD-ROM.
• Hard drive.
• Temperature range to 60C inlet air.
• No slots.
• Ruggedized. Watchdog timer.
• Case height below 4".

Two small motherboards are available that can do the job, one from Commell (mini-itx form factor) and one from Nova (5.25" biscuit form factor). But neither one is available with a case that has a CD-ROM

Re:Mini-ITX cases - AARGH!

[Animats]

Those are cute, but not industrial temperature range. They only go to 50C. They went for quiet, rather than robust.

Re:Already /.'ed

[bastiaannaber]

Probably running apache, I know all about it, installed tinnyhttpd and it did not happen again

Re:That

[Stephen Samuel]

I don't think I've ever seen an "awhil" for that matter.

I think that th problm is that his '' ky isn't working proprly (th ky btwn 'w' and 'r').

Re:Too much free time...

[zippity8]

When you say "some people have too much time on their hands", are you talking about the guy that made the case mod, or the guy that spent 10 minutes waiting for pictures of a case mod? ;)

Re:Too much free time...

[BrokenHalo]

When you say "some people have too much time on their hands", are you talking about the guy that made the case mod, or the guy that spent 10 minutes waiting for pictures of a case mod? ;)

One could argue a case for both.

My preference for a case is one that sits happily under my desk and is both well-ventilated and quiet.

Re:Christ...Slashdotted already!

[the unbeliever]

Asking that question is similar to "what is the fascination with ricing out Honda Civics?"

They look good, and if you have the money to burn, it's not that big of a deal. Some mods look cool, others are silly, but they're all personal.

Re:Gloves + table saw = bad.

[confused one]

Damn fool. Even with Kevlar, a table saw or router will mangle the finger and possibly rip it off...

Re:Gloves + table saw = bad.

[bartlog]

Yeah - though I suspect he was actually talking about a band saw (for his first accident) since as far as I can tell a table saw would not have been useful for cutting those legs. I think if he'd actually managed to cut himself on a table saw he would have needed more than one stitch. Anyway he sounds like an accident-prone guy - but perhaps he will learn.

Boris (who once drilled a hole through his finger)

Re:Gloves + table saw = bad.

[Dun Malg]

Damn fool. Even with Kevlar, a table saw or router will mangle the finger and possibly rip it off...

Reminds me of a picture I once saw of an engineer for the space program in the 1960's. It was captioned something like "the schedule was so tight the engineers were working on the hardware in the machine shop". It showed him standing over a milling machine, hands on the controls, full eye protection, with his tie hanging down into the work area. I figure it had to be either a posed picture with a guy who n

Re:Slashdot effect again

[o'reor]

Man, it looks like someone managed to port IIS on Kontiki OS !

Re:TechTV

[Stephen Samuel]

you can see it here http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/supergeek/story /0,24330,3536290,00.html

sigh... Please enclose links in appropriate HTML glue [techtv.com] (not that it matters, given that the techtv sitemay be already slashdotted)

Re:People who don't know the inside mod the outsid

[Valdrax]

People who have never modded "the outside" extensively don't really know how much trouble there is in getting the inside to work too. There's no Big Daddy Dell to hold your little hand through getting the hardware stuffed inside with proper power and cooling.

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't even teach, criticize.