Print Messages On Your Beer 159
Migraineman writes "I stumbled upon a clever hack by Sprite. He reverse-engineered the pin functions on an HP inkjet cartridge and built a simple driver board that converts the cartridge into a hand-held inkjet printer. The driver board is programmed with a fixed message. Moving the 'print head' is your responsibility. Printing messages on a whiteboard was the original inspiration, but printing messages on the foam head of a Guinness is just inspired."
Nooooo! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:5, Funny)
homeland security? not as important as a pint.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:4, Funny)
An alternative punishment might be forcing those who ruin a good pint of Guinness to drink Bud Light for the rest of their lives (though I think most people would opt to take death).
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That said, what sort do you brew?
Hey now (Score:2)
You are right that some people seem to think that it's the "best" beer or some such nonsense, though.
Thank you... (Score:2)
There is a very vast variety of beers and wines above, and beyond what most will taste in a lifetime. Most will stop when they find something they like... And I have to agree, that a lot of Guinness snobs haven't really tried too many beers, they
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Maudite and a nice slab o' steak is perhaps one of the greatest combinations known to mankind. Unibroue makes me proud to be Canadian
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I have to second Unibroue. Tres Pistoles is very nice. Of course, I can only get it down here at the "World Market". All the regular liquor stores in Dallas all carry the same 20 (or fewer) imports. It takes a pilgrimage and holy quest to get some variety that you can take home. Although for pubs with variety The Flying Saucer and The Bavarian Grill get me through the tough times.
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Let the Holy Wars Begin... (Score:2)
Not a huge fan of de Koninck, and I'm more partial to Quadrupels (and other strong dark Belgian-style ales) myself.
In all seriousness though, I still enjoy a good Tripel
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I would argue otherwise. I say anything can be a beer ingredient as long as it tastes good. The German Reinheitsgebot (purity law) which limits the ingredients in beer has been noted to have stymied beer development in Germany as far as creativity goes. Is this [dogfish.com] a true beer? I don't know, but it's brewed by an extremely respected brewery and I can't wait to try the 750 mL bottle in my fridge.
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I brought a bottle home from a recent trip and took it to a meeting of the local homebrew club [nevadabrew.com] last Friday. It got very favorable comments from everyone who tried it. As long as you don't go in expecting it to taste like anything you've had before, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I even think people who say they don't like beer might like it, but such a pro
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Guinness: the stout of choice for plastic-paddies worldwide!
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although i haven't yet been to ireland myself, i took along a friend of mine who has been to the actual brewery and he grudgingly agreed that it was precisely the same as having it in ireland--wh
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* Okay, technically the white one is called Chimay Triple
Oh, and a word of warning to the uninitiated who read this, Chimay is unfiltered and unpasteurized, so you should either use a special glass to drink it out of, or invest in some Immodium.
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so you should either use a special glass to drink it out of, or invest in some Immodium.
Or don't, and just drink the thin brown stuff that comes out... it'll taste the same as the first time. Chimay seem to be the "choice" for beer snobs that want to look down on Guinness drinkers, but for my money it tastes like a$$. Give me a Spaten, Paulaner, or Ayinger over Chimay any day.
No accounting for taste, though.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:5, Funny)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGQLdnyegA8 [youtube.com]
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Apply directly to the forehead!
Apply directly to the forehead!
Re:Nooooo! (Score:5, Funny)
Apply directly to the beer head.
Apply directly to the beer head.
nooo that's so wrong .. (Score:2)
Apply beer directly into head.
Seeing as people already use beer ... (Score:5, Funny)
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sell the gadget on ebay, drink the guiness, and
Re:Seeing as people already use beer ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Bet you had a lot of guys volunteering to test them :-)
Sounds like tech that was a bit ahead of its time. Nowadays, you could probably find some company that would want to have their ads printed on condoms.
Guinness Wastage! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Guinness Wastage! (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, fuck it, I'm just trying to rationalize bad habits. We drink to be merry, and we don't need a reason why. Bottoms up!
Re:Guinness Wastage! (Score:4, Insightful)
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The quality of Guinness varies in inverse proportion to the distance between St James' Gate and the bar it's served in. For better Guinness, go closer to Dublin. :-)
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Actually I should have added a proviso -- based purely on my own experience, the rule I cited only applies within the British Isles. Certainly the Guinness I can get where I am now, in New Zealand, is incomparably superior to the mouldy warm dishwater they serve as Guinness in pubs in England :-) I can't remember if I've tried Guinness in the USA, but I'd be surprised if they don't at least chill it there!
But English pubs always seem to forget that it's mostly just English beer that should be served at roo
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Sorry.
Re:Guinness Wastage! (Score:5, Interesting)
The culling of brain cells is a necessary part of organizing the brain along certain pathways and not others ...
For a good example, cats lose 2/3 of their brain cells before adulthood.
Humans lose half [earthlink.net]
Think of it as a maze - the culling removes all the dead ends, and keeps the useful highways and roads.
Without this culling, you'd have MORE random posts on /., not fewer :-)
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Beer if proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
-Franklin
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Because it's fun?
Honestly, alcohol isn't that bad for you so long as you treat it with respect. Yeah, it's bad for your liver (if you get drunk every weekend) and it's bad for your brain (if you get drunk every weekend). But the liver regenerates if you give it enough time to recuperate, and the brain is constantly churning and rewiri
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Join the Pen 15 club now! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Join the Pen 15 club now! (Score:5, Funny)
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Terrorism (Score:5, Funny)
Beer??? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Beer??? (Score:4, Informative)
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Actually lagers are popular in America. Budweiser, Miller, etc all make them. I wouldn't consider them (good) beer, so I could agree that Americans don't really drink beer much
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So, Guinness is mass-produced, and not the most amazing stuff in the universe, but I'd say it certainly qualifies as beer. It's even pretty good beer.
What are your beer choices?
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Alcohol abuse! (Score:4, Funny)
And also a waste of a very good beer. Vandalism should not be encouraged!
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Re:Alcohol abuse! (Score:4, Interesting)
Outrage!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Obligatory Keats reference (Score:5, Interesting)
Epitaph of John Keats, [wikipedia.org] 1795-1821, on his tombstone in the Protestant Cemetary in Rome.
Re:Obligatory Keats reference (Score:5, Funny)
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Don't let the sarcasm drip on you on the way out . . .
Against the grain (the hops?) (Score:2)
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Out of interest, the idea comes from much earlier:
... but what a woman says to her lover in the heat of passion
should be written in the wind and on flowing water.
-- Catullus (1st century BCE), poem 70
Keats, or whoever wrote his epitaph, would have known this poem well. (Plato uses the idea as well, but his version is even less flattering to women.)
I don't suppose they've got this inkjet printer working on gaseous media yet, have they? Oh well, I can wait.
right... (Score:1)
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Dammit.
Something like... (Score:3, Informative)
Sprite_tm (Score:1)
Open source beer comes with GPL on top. (Score:1)
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*Edible
Ink Research! (Score:1, Interesting)
Now his next step has to be to find an edible ink. An inkjet just flash-boils ink. It has to be possible to do the same to fruit juice, colored water, beer (though the dissolve gas might be tricky), or even just plain water. You just need to clean the cartridge and get a refill kit.
A nice hack that he could sell to bars would be a water-based sprayer to draw the bar's logo/name on the beer foam.
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I would hope that the naff "your photo on a cake" service at my local supermarket has already cracked this...
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Now his next step has to be to find an edible ink. An inkjet just flash-boils ink. It has to be possible to do the same to fruit juice, colored water, beer (though the dissolve gas might be tricky), or even just plain water. You just need to clean the cartridge and get a refill kit.
A nice hack that he could sell to bars would be a water-based sprayer to draw the bar's logo/name on the beer foam.
Two points.
1) Some if not most inkjets are thermal based. This would include Canon and
Clogged heads (Score:2, Interesting)
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I mean, it tastes nasty, but it's not particularly dangerous...
cyanide (Score:2)
If a head is really clogged, if you are brave you can clear it out by literally sucking out the holes. I have been told that if you spit it out right away and rinse your mouth, there is no harm, as long as you don't mind a colorful mouth and teeth for a day or so. As a disclaimer, though, check with your local friendly poison center first before doing this at home. :
Many inkjet forumulations used to contain cyanide-based compounds. I don't know if they still do, but this would be EXTREMELY stupid regard
Favorite Writing Utensil (Score:2)
Bikes Against Bush (Score:5, Informative)
A dude in New York City, Josh Kinberg, used a similar internet-enabled, dot-matrix printer mounted on a bike.
He used it to spray paint anti-Bush grafitti on New York's streets during the last elections.
Very cool. The cops arrested him and took his stuff but he was let go and won a case against them.
Video [youtube.com] of the printer in action. His site [bikesagainstbush.com].
Spray paint? (Score:3, Informative)
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Been Done Before... (Score:2)
Slownewsday (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly the stuff that belongs on slashdot, the kind of cool geeky hacks that when you do them, normal people go, WTF? With countless idiotic political flamewars, Apple pimping, and anti-MS FUD, it's stories like this that keep slashdot sane. Would you rather have another flamewar where nobody convinces anybody, but still keeps shouting their point of view till they're blue in the face? How about "Guns, good or bad?", I don't think we've had a firearms flamewar here in a while.
I realize that this isn't the first time a HP cartridge was used outside its printer, but it also isn't something most people did, or maybe even knew about.
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it's stories like this that keep slashdot sane
Slashdot sane???
That's an oxymoron which is up there alongside political accountability, military intelligence
A Guinness Story (Score:5, Funny)
Practical uses? Let's start with... (Score:5, Funny)
For those blokes who just don't know when to stop yappin' and drink their pint.
OR...
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an owl in my beer.
OR... better still...
Obviously, his printer was rendered unusable... (Score:5, Funny)
This is a really cool idea, and, as a computer engineer, I see the geek-cred the author earned in creating it...
But, obviously, this was his only printer, as evidenced by the poorly-drawn pencil sketch circuit diagram [spritesmods.com], this must have been his only printer!
All in the name science... or at least, all in the name screwing around with science! ^_^
Inspired? (Score:2, Insightful)
The word you are looking for is blasphemy.
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Reverse engineering??? (Score:3, Informative)
Back then we drank beer. wtf with the geeks of today?
Re:Technically Guinness stout not beer. (Score:4, Interesting)