Server In A Fly

Tablespork writes "These guys have implanted the world's smallest webserver-on-a-chip into a dead fly! From the site: "Fly, grants us the ability to virtually possess the body of a dead, preserved fly via web-based technology." There is a webcam monitoring the fly, so you can watch as you blink the LEDs." And don't worry if something goes wrong with it -- "Several pre-programmed and wired flies will be on hand in case of technical malfunction."

Hmm, an idea...

[yjanse]

Cool, this might spice up someone geeks sex-life, if they manage to get it into spanish-fly as well!

(and yes I know it's a beverage...)

Re:Hmm, an idea...

[Diabolical]

Just a quote i found somewhere on the web:

"Spanish Fly (pulverized blister-beetles) contains cantharides, which can cause physical arousal of a sort, by irritating the urinary tract when ingested and excreted. But dig this: it was used in the mid-19th century to treat pleurisy. Applied to the skin, it created blisters 12 by 6 inches in size, which (it was erroneously thought) beneficially drew liquid away from the lungs. You want that *inside* your ureter?

In Victorian England there were several cases of manslaughter or malicious poisoning by means of Spanish Fly. In one, Regina v. Hennah, 1877, in which the victim didn't die, the defendant was acquitted because no intent to harm was proved.

In more recent times, and more legitimately, the active ingredient in Spanish Fly was used medicinally to dissolve external warts.

Sources: (1) P.V.Taberner, "Aphrodisiacs: the science and the myth" (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). We don't need no stinkin' ISBNumber; look it up in your library catalog or Books in Print. (2) Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., source of last resort, s.vv. "aphrodisiac" and "blister beetle". "

Hope you didn't drink it as a normal beverage by the way, even if you believe in this shit you better had it mixed with something else otherwise you are one lonely geek... even your left and right hand would have nothing to do... :-)

Waiter!

[valentyn]

Waiter! There's a server in my fly!

(sorry, couldn't resist)

Re:Waiter!

[tsa]

There's a computer program in my bug!

Re:Waiter!

[valentyn]

There's a server in my soup! ;-)

Re:Waiter!

[drsquare]

...tumbleweed quietly rolls past...

This just in ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Zombie processes running on several University and DoD computers have initiated a Denial of Service attack against the Fly's webserver. Experts are confused whether using RAID would have prevented this.

Re:Waiter!

[$$$exy Gwen Araujo]

There's a web-server in the bug -- makes a nice change from Microsoft :)

Re:Waiter!

[Jondor]

Nah.. Waiter.. My bug is buggy..

You knew this one was coming!

[Mark (ph'x)]

IN SOVIET RUSSIA....

bugs have your webserver!

Re:Waiter!

[infront314]

Normally, flies get caught in webs, but these guys put the web in a fly! Weird.

Re:Waiter!

[iworm]

Waiter! There's a bug in my bug! (For those keen on recursion...)

Re:Waiter!

[buzzdecafe]

Hmmm. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "Your fly is down."

This fly is down, anyway -- Slashswatted!

[Interrobang]

The page you get now when you try to access the site says, "Slashdotters: Please bookmark this site and come back next week..." (What?! Is he a glutton for punishment or something?)

Looks like we swatted that fly. :)

Evil

[e8johan]

Ahh... First we kill a fly to embedd a webserver in its corpse, then we put it on slashdot and watch the webserver die... My evil plan has been fulfilled!

hehee :)

[carlmenezes]

Put the chip in a virgin fly and HTTP 403 takes on new meaning! :)

I guess we have to update the song...

[TheConfusedOne]

There was an old geek who swatted a fly.
He wriggled and jiggled and put a web server inside.

He posted the fly, a URL for our eye.

(wait for it...)

I don't know why, we slashdotted the fly. :-}

Technically pointless

[esanbock]

That's nice. Besides the fact that the chip is small, I see no point in sticking it in a dead fly. In fact, that seems quite pointless and the main focus of the article should be on the tiny chip, not the fact that it happens to be inside a dead fly. That's not impressive whatsever.

Elegant nevertheless

[commodoresloat]

The impressive part is that they killed the fly by catching it in the air with chopsticks.

Re:Technically pointless

[Max Romantschuk]

In fact, that seems quite pointless and the main focus of the article should be on the tiny chip

That has already been done [d116.com].

Re:Technically pointless

[questamor]

It's a lot more elegant than my attempts at dead-web-servers. The smallest I've been able to manage before this was a small dog.

I did have experiments in the mid 90s with webservers inside dead bodies, but they only led to dismal failures

(RIP Trevor, my flatmate 1992-1995)

Re:Technically pointless

[evilviper]

Clearly you've never seen the movie "The Fifth Element", nor the remote-controlled bug which appears in it.

On the subject, I find it hilarious (as in stupid) that several hundred years in the future, with such advanced technology, nobody thinks to spring for a $5 attenuation control.

here:

[vena]

http://people.howstuffworks.com/art.htm [howstuffworks.com]

Re:Technically pointless

[Guppy06]

"Besides the fact that the chip is small, I see no point in sticking it in a dead fly."

Putting it on a dead fly is a guaranteed way to find out if the server can handle /.ing. Duh!

woops

[Max von H.]

"Hey Bob, I finally slammed that big fly that's been buzzing on-and-off my sandwich all day!"

"Why do I get a 404 on the project's page? Bob?"

Re:woops

[TwP]

403
Buzz Off!
FlyServe 1.01

Slashdot... the giant flyswatter

[TheMidget]

(n/t)

Re:woops

[AndroidCat]

Perhaps someone should send him an email: "Excuse me, your fly is down"? Or should we just be polite and not say anything?

hehe

[muyuubyou]

Talk about serving web pages "on the fly" :-)
Sorry, couldn't resist

In Soviet Russia, our bugs have programs

Sorry again

Seeking cheap karma...

[shivianzealot]

Imagine a beowulf swarm of those!

Hehee.....

[carlmenezes]

Yeh, and add a little 802.11b to the mix and you have a Wi-Fi-Fly-Fest :)

Re:Seeking cheap karma...

[Pharmboy]

<em>Imagine a beowulf swarm of those!</em>

They are dead. They don't swarm anymore.

<tongue in cheek>Besides, it makes sense to use a dead fly, but putting a server in a live fly, why, thats just plain silly.</tongue in cheek>

This raises an interesting possibility!

[whoisvaibhav]

It will be impossible to trace a bug in that webserver... because the bug is outside the webserver. Ha Ha Ha.

Slashdotted?

[krmt]

The site linked is up fine right now, but the IP they give at the top as being the actual server on the fly isn't responding. Is it slashdotted? I'm picturing a smoking fly in the middle of the plastic cube. I'm just glad I don't have to smell it.

Fly Server Admin: Damn you slashdot! Damn you! You killed my baby!

Re:Slashdotted?

[Vendekkai]

Doesn't ANYONE read the article? It clearly says at the top
"Installation Date: June 1 to September 3rd, 2001"
That means that this art exhibit was displayed between the above dates. It was taken down more than a year ago. So the IP displayed will not respond.

Re:Slashdotted?

[Lshmael]

Well, their new experiment (involving an earthworm [soilmedia.org]) is a bit more disturbing, but just as interesting. Supposedly, there is a webcam up here [24.72.34.115], but I only get darkness...

Re:Slashdotted?

[constantnormal]

and I thought we had Slashswatted the flyserver...

Re:Slashdotted?

[VEGx]

Doesn't ANYONE read the article?

This must be your first post. Welcome! It looks like you are new to ./ :)

Re:Slashdotted?

[Pharmboy]

Doesn't ANYONE read the article?

I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. This IS Slashdot after all. We don't need to read an article to have an opinion on it :)

Re:Slashdotted?

[AndroidCat]

Ah well, it would have interesting to see that site. Did anyone use a fly-cacher?

PETA

[phunhippy]

Damn.. Peta is'nt gonna be happy about this..

1. Killing poor flies..
2. Implanting Chips in dead flies..

Re:PETA

[Stuart Gibson]

3. Profit?

Re:PETA

[eclectro]

The first thing that came to my mind is that "PETA is going to be all over this" or they should.

When you think about it, it does seem abusive to the poor creature.

But I forgot, maybe the fly wasn't killed for the purposes of implanting the webserver and was found already dead someplace. Yeah, that's better.

Somehow though this is not on the same level as "killing a cow" and implanting a webserver.

Heh, I think I just invented the leather encased computer.

I think there would be alot more objection if it was a butterfly though.

Re:PETA

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you like flies with that?

I've got no good jokes for this story...

[heldlikesound]

I'm a pretty funny guy, no I take that back, a REALLY funny guy, but other than the obvious "waiter there's a server in my fly," I just can't think of any good ones.

Of course it is 5:30 in the morning and I haven't slept in two days.

Re:I've got no good jokes for this story...

[fucksl4shd0t]

I'm a pretty funny guy, no I take that back, a REALLY funny guy, but other than the obvious "waiter there's a server in my fly," I just can't think of any good ones.

Wait'll you find out where Mozilla's Bugzilla is hosted...

Re:I've got no good jokes for this story...

[xA40D]

I just can't think of any good ones.

Best I could come up with was...

Now with 802.11a - WiFly.

I suppose

[Timesprout]

I suppose it gives a new meaning to building pages on the fly...

How to slash(dot) a dead fly

[lhuiz]

Imagine this: you are flying around, minding your own business, maybe having a nice sip of that fresh little rotting piece of meat on the counter, when suddenly you die. You are barely dead, when someone sticks a webserver up your ass, which kinda hurts, and then installs some LEDs on your back, drilling right through your well maintained exoskeleton.
Then, when you have been online for just a few days, some hord comes down to slashdot your fine new webserver, and the lights go out.

If I were that fly, I'd be pissed.

Which reminds me of superfly. Know him? Check him out somewhere on www.shockwave.com.

Gotta love art-speak...

[Elledan]

In short, what the page is trying to make clear is that these guys put a tiny IC, capable of functioning as a webserver, together with a LED in a dead fly (with some more, identical cyberflies as backup).

The webserver (1K of space) shows a simple page, and the visitor of the page can turn the LED on/off.

Further, the 'surgery' on the fly had to be carried out within 24 hours after its death, or it would have become too brittle, though the author noted that it's possible to rejoin broken off legs &c. with some glue. Provided you can find the bodypart in question :)

The reason for this project? It's art, you insensitive clod!

Re:Gotta love art-bullcrap...

[AndroidCat]

I really wonder just what he meant by a "web server". Take a look at the microcontroller [fairchildsemi.com] and tell me how likely it is that this supports to slightest sub-set of HTTP. There's 1k of EEPROM code space, 64 bytes of ram, and 64 bytes of data EEPROM. Note also that's there's no hardware networking or serial port. (No biggie in software if you use the timer, but it still eats part of the code space.) Also, think about the 64 bytes of ram and your line buffer as the HTTP command comes in. Hmmm. Now, don't get me wrong, you can do a lot in 1k of code, but I smell something that flies are usually found near.

Could it be that they've got a midget in the pedestal playing the chess moves, err, another computer doing the web page and using the Fairchild chip as an LED controller?

Re:Gotta love art-bullcrap...

[AndroidCat]

I eat my words! As you can see here [d116.com] there is a package for the chip that supports a SLIP connection with a limited TCP/IP stack. Wow! Impressive! Granted it doesn't do a lot, but for the sort of applications it would be used for, it doesn't need to.

Wow

[archeopterix]

... and I thought that "Adapting applications on the fly" was an article about hot-swappable modules!

Hello? RTFA?

[SlashChick]

Did anyone (including the person who posted this story) actually read the article?

If you read the article, the first thing that jumps out is the date: June 1 to September 3, 2001. In fact, if you'll notice, the IP address they refer to (http://139.142.46.159) is long gone.

Reading further, it is revealed that this was a museum exhibit at the Mendel Art Gallery in Canada in 2001. The link cited shows the proposal they sent to the museum, which is why it reads rather oddly ("This will ideally allow for gallery staff to replace the fly.") The museum accepted the proposal, as can be seen here [mendel.ca], at the museum's website.

Please, editors, do your homework before posting these stories. It's an interesting story, but quite dated.

Re:Hello? RTFA?

[Zayin]

Did anyone (including the person who posted this story) actually read the article?

Hi, you must be new here. Hope you find this site interesting.

But does it...

[FullCircle]

run a time server?

I'll make my computer watch time fly ;-)

damn

[bjpirt]

some people will casemod anything.

Followed shortly by...

[ChangeOnInstall]

The first slashdotting of a fly:

139.142.46.159 [139.142.46.159]

/. death

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the fly die before or after beind slashdotted?

Re:/. death

[dpilot]

In this case, don't you mean "Slashswatted" instead of "Slashdotted"?

Shhh! I think I hear it saying something...

[slashdot_commentator]

help meeeee... heellp meeeee...

Multitasking on the fly

[palindromic]

Isn't that what it says during the Windows 98 install? Press any key to continue...

Re:Multitasking on the fly

[CoolVibe]

Nah, it's:

(wait for it...)

Hit any fly to continue

A first ..

[SirFlakey]

There's a Server in your Bug ...

How about implementing it in a life fly...

[TheMidget]

... and make the thing into an excellent spy tool!

Isn't it Fruit flies that live a day ?

[SirFlakey]

think of the irony considering what happened to that server after it's been posted here ...

Yeah but.....

[echucker]

.... what if an old lady swallows it?

Re:Yeah but.....

[fucksl4shd0t]

what if an old lady swallows it?

Obviously she'd have to go down on slashdot, so it'll catch the webserver, er, fly.

Whats next

[captainclever]

Next, I want to see a webserver inserted into a live fly, connected via bluetooth.

The fly has to then be seen buzzing around in that glass box, not stuck on a stick :P

real purposes?

[lingqi]

okay, sorry to ruin all the fun here, but if they have chips *that* small that will serve pages, why not put one in one of those stomache-camera-pills, along with an RFID type low-power broadcaster, so you can webcam your interior?

sorry I find no other reason why you'd do this kind of things.

Embedded ID chips

[GeckoFood]

For years, we have heard of the coming possibility of chips embedded into our own skins, to allow easier identification, better retention of personal data, and all that jazz... I have not heard about such in a few months, but is this, perhaps, a first step towards that? Agreed, this goes *way* beyond a simple ID chip, but then again, we're talking dead insects, not live people...

Wouldn't it be cool

[eclectro]

if they could find a way to keep the fly alive and attach a wireless webcam to it. It would give a hole new meaning to "bug."

About Garnet Hertz

[BitwizeGHC]

From here [garnethertz.com]:

Garnet Hertz is a lecturer at the University of Regina Department of Media Production & Studies, and is artist-in-residence at Soil Digital Media Suite, Regina, Canada. Hertz's current work involves the development of embedded webservers on miniature pill-sized microprocessors, and analysis of these objects in the framework of physical computing and the history of human-created semi-living beings: the golem, robot, cyborg, genetically modified organisms and the Romantic-Era experiments of Luigi Galvani. These computers - implanted into the preserved bodies of animal specimens - produce physically reactive cybernetic beings caught in a state of attempted re-animation.

This is what happens when you read too much Gibson. The idea that a fly corpse with a Webserver chip and two LED's stuck in it is a "cybernetic being in a state of attempted reanimation" is ludicrous, since the system would behave exactly the same without the fly corpse. It ain't exactly Deadly Friend [imdb.com].

It's worth noting that among this artist's other works are screenshots of his cluttered Mac desktop [conceptlab.com], used as a "visual medium" for artistic expression.

But how...

[GrouchoMarx]

Just how am I supposed to debug this thing when it crashes (into a windshield)?

Re:But how...

[MyHair]

Just how am I supposed to debug this thing when it crashes (into a windshield)?

It depends on the vendor.

IBM and Sun are starting a new service that will send a tech out to remove and fix the bug and clean your windshield. They are training the urban young for this project I think.

Microsoft is selling a branded accessory kit with a wet wipe to clean the windshield but you have to buy a new OS which was incompatible with the old fly, anyway, so you have to buy a new fly, too.

Dell just says "the fly is dead".

FreeBSD says "Netcraft confirms it...".

Debian has a HOWTO for how to scrape the guts off the windshield and rebuild the fly with no new parts. But it will be better and faster even though it reuses busted old parts.

An Apple fly looks good and works no matter where it is or what it looks like, so you can just leave it on the windshield and it will still work fine and your friends will be impressed but still buy Dells.

HP offers almost all of the above because they can't figure out what direction they're going. They consider buying a car manufacturer, and although Alpha is dead they may revive it to control the fuel injectors; no, wait, they changed their mind. But they hope you buy an HP printer (which by the way will work with any fly, any camera and any car).

So are they saying

[popeyethesailor]

It's a bug and its a feature ;)

Imagine...

[jarran]

... a beowulf cluster of those!! -1, cliched

Future IBM Commercial:

[Craig Maloney]

The Heist, Part II

Man hurredly runs with two policemen in tow:
Man: "I can't believe it, they stole everything!"
Cop1: Everything?
Man: "Everything!"

(Man and cops head into empty server room)

Man: "They were right here. Ned! The servers! they stole all the servers!"
Ned: "No, they didn't. I embedded them on a dead fly on the window sill. It'll save us a bundle."

Announcer: "IBM dead fly servers! It'll save you a bundle"

Cop2 (hunched over the window sill): Um, I think that carpenter ant is dragging your server away

you may think it's funny now

[Xpilot]

But wait till this fly returns from the dead with the help of his cybernetic implants to seek revenge! Revenge Of The Cyborg Fly! Don't say I didn't warn you.

Actually it was supposed to be a live fly

[stienman]

It was supposed to be a live fly, but couldn't withstand the soldering iron.

It's probably a good thing though, live flies tend to keep dropping their 'tokens', which would not only offend patrons, but upset network admins.

What I'd give to be a fly on the wall for that exhibit.

-Adam

Instead of worrying about Slammer...

[Bvardi]

They'll be worrying about Swatter!

Replacing the fly...

[heytal]

Can one replace the fly on the fly ?

What happens when ...

[cushty]

... a web spider comes along?

Are we sure it's not a hoax?

[nut]

Google turned up the following page for the chip that is meant ot be the webserver.

http://www.chipdocs.com/pndecoder/datasheets/FAIR/ ACE1101VMT8.html [chipdocs.com]

It describes the chip as an arithmetic controller engine, but the datasheet requires paid registration. Could this chip actually serve web pages?
I confess I don't know enough to judge.

Actually not too impressive

[worst_name_ever]

Here, yet again, is another "WORLD'S SMALLEST WEBSERVER!!!1!!11" which is uses a SLIP connection to get to the outside world. Having actually implemented something like this myself, I can tell you that there's really nothing that challenging about such an undertaking anymore these days - the technique is well known and there are even books [amazon.com] published on the subject which reveal some of the tricks, such as the use of precomputed TCP headers and the creation of a semi-crippled "stateless" stack which saves you a lot of code space and memory usage. I consider the SLIP connection a giant cheat, since you're leveraging the power of the (presumably) Linux box that's attached to the other end of the SLIP line and offloading onto it the difficulties of the actual "connecting to the Internet" part. The embedded webservers which really impress me are the ones that have a modem or RJ45 connection and can exist as network nodes in their own right; these are much more technically interesting and useful as actual real-world devices.

So, to me, this particular instance of the same thing from 1999 [slashdot.org] is basically a neat soldering job but nothing technically innovative in terms of embedded connectivity. But as art, it's pretty cool. ;)

It uses the ACE1101

[rtos]

Here's some information on the ACE1101 Arithmetic Controller Engine (ACEx) for Low Power Applications:

Arithmetic Controller The ACE1101 (Arithmetic Controller Engine) family of microcontrollers is a dedicated programmable monolithic inte-grated circuit for applications requiring high performance, low power, and small size. It is a fully static part fabricated using CMOS technology. The ACE1101 product family has an 8-bit microcontroller core, 64 bytes of RAM, 64 bytes of data EEPROM and 1K bytes of code EEPROM. Its on-chip peripherals include a multi-function 16-bit timer, watchdog/idle timer, and programmable under-voltage detection circuitry. On-chip clock and reset functions reduce the number of required external components. The ACE1101 product family is available in 8-pin TSSOP, 8-pin DIP and 14-pin DIP packages.

• Fairchild Semi product page [fairchildsemi.com]
• PDF Datasheet [fairchildsemi.com]
• Newark product page [newark.com] ($2.47 each)
• Great page on the WebACE server [d116.com] and WebACE II [d116.com]
• Ace resources [eeglossary.com]

For once...

[ndogg]

I don't actually want to imagine a beowulf of these things.

The point?

[AppyPappy]

The point? What is the point?

"Look I embedded a server into a fly"
Boss: "DON'T YOU HAVE WORK TO DO?"

"Look I embedded a server into a fly"
Mother: "What's wrong with a date now and then? I'll trade the dead fly for a grandchild"

"Look I embedded a server into a fly"
Dad: "Is it a job? A dead fly server is nice but you can't eat with it."

There was an old woman who swallowed a ..

[SolemnDragon]

Gods help me, i can't do it.
Well, i'll give it a try:

There was an old woman who swallowed a server

It didn't deserve her, but there went the server

and i don't know why /she swallowed the fly/
But we can light up her eyes...

i think this one has to end with...

i know an old woman who took windows source

she's dead, of course! oke, i think it's out of my system now. Apologies for the temporary insanity...

I knew a woman who installed IIS on a horse

[Big_Monkey_Bird]

It died of course.

Cashdot Effect

[nick_davison]

I just got the message:

"Thank You Slashdot!
(you just made me $0.05 richer)
RCTOYS.COM
Close Window
4423 x $0.05 = my money"

Rather than bitch about being slashdotted, the guy has style and, put up a banner to a cool geek toy site and let us pay for slashdotting him. That's so much cooler than complaining about it. Kudos.

Look before you step!!!!

[macshune]

Dude, you just stepped on my webserver.
Oh shit, sorry...

Hey, the music stopped?
Oh shit, sorry...

Re:Not very user friendly

[Night0wl]

Because I can't stand up ;)

Re:funny...

[Afrosheen]

It's not science, it's a fusion of science and art. You've got to actually read the site prior to the typical /. knee-jerk-reaction-for-funny-karma to actually get it.

That said, from an art standpoint it's interesting. From a science/tech standpoint it's a yawn.

Re:funny...

[VEGx]

Oh, so now the trend in ./ is to move away from tech and towards the ART! Has this something to do with the rumour that the editors of /. finally got some Macs?

Re:wtf?

[Max von H.]

You don't know any better. There aren't any plan9 users left. Thank gods.

Re:had to do it

[fucksl4shd0t]

In Soviet Russia, fly embeds chip in YOU.

Re:Wait

[fucksl4shd0t]

The world has been waiting for innovations like these... too bad there's animal cruelty involved

In the grand scheme of things, dead flies are actually considered "spices", and not potential food. Therefore, there's no animal cruelty involved.

Now, if it were embedded in a live mouse...what would it taste like?

Re:wonder if it will catch fire?

[Andy_R]

That sounds like Stelarc to me... http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

Re:Argh!

[Tackhead]

> This is sick! Someone call the fly rights movement! How would you like a webserver shoved up your ass?

Paging Alan Ralsky, Mr. Ralsky, your new colocation provider is waiting to meet you...