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Data Storage Entertainment Hardware

The Neuron Drive 259

Posted by timothy from the functional-art dept.
billy writes "After two weeks of planning, painting, cutting, and slicing, I have completed my idea for the Neuron Drive, the world's first 80GB canvas. It is a fully functional USB hard-drive. The Neuron Drive contains 2 fans and 1 Maxtor 80GB hard-drive. It is fully functional as a hard-drive and both fans spin."
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The Neuron Drive More

The Neuron Drive

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  • So tell me (Score:4, Funny)

    by TelJanin ( 784836 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:32PM (#12914783)
    How well is it dealing with being on fire?

  • Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)

    by orangesquid ( 79734 ) <orangesquid&yahoo,com> on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:32PM (#12914787) Homepage Journal
    Now I can combine my two dream jobs into one exciting career path: art thief and data pirate!

    Oh man, I can't wait for a high-brow credit card company to install some of these in their art gallery / server room.

  • This is news for nerds? (Score:5, Funny)

    by draziw ( 7737 ) * on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:33PM (#12914792) Journal
    Stuff that matters? That some guy wants to sell some art on Slashdot? On the plus side, when the dupe is posted, it will have some funny comments. (unlike this post)

    • Re:This is news for nerds? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tezkah ( 771144 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:42PM (#12914846)
      I can't wait until the next story on /.:

      Your Rights Online: Nigerian Prince in trouble!
      Posted by timothy on Sunday June 26, @12:30PM
      from the maybe-a-dupe dept.
      An anonymous Nigerian reader writes: PERMIT ME TO INFORM YOU OF MY DESIRE OF GOING INTO BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU. I GOT YOUR NAME AND CONTACT FROM THE TOGOLESE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. I PRAYED OVER IT AND SELECTED YOUR NAME AMONG OTHER NAMES DUE TO IT'S ESTEEMING NATURE AND THE RECOMMENDATIONS GIVEN TO ME AS A REPUTABLE AND TRUST WORTHY PERSON I CAN DO BUSINESS WITH AND BY THEIR RECOMMENDATIONS I MUST NOT HESITATE TO CONFIDE IN YOU FOR THIS SIMPLE AND SINCERE BUSINESS. I just hope he chooses me for this awesome opportunity!

      Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps.Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps.Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps.Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps.Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps.Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
      Reason: Don't use so many caps.
    • Indeed. If you want some really geeky art, check this [utah.edu] out. For the three wild/biological looking images there, the computational background, chemistry and physics behind their creation are fairly impressive. The first two are of retina, while the third is hippocampus.

      Disclaimer: the images are mine.

    • You know it's a slow news day when...

  • It's an ad. He's trying to sell a harddrive. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:33PM (#12914794)
    nothing to see here

  • Neato! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@tr u 7 h . o rg> on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:34PM (#12914800) Homepage
    The fans spin, wow! Sign me up for that, talk about art pushing innovation.

  • Just had to be.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by reality-bytes ( 119275 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:34PM (#12914801) Homepage
    An advert

    The Neuron Drive is for sale. Please send me an e-mail if you are interested.


    To be honest, this might have been worth something if the drive was anything other than a Maxtor.
    • To be honest, this might have been worth something if the drive was anything other than a Maxtor.

      Regardless of brand, it is worth the cost of a used drive, minus the time/expense of pulling the drive off of the contraption.
    • . . .this might have been worth something if the drive was anything other than a Maxtor.

      Well what the hell else is a Maxtor good for? You wouldn't put data on it, would you?

      KFG

      • Re:Just had to be.... (Score:2, Informative)

        by Sir_Real ( 179104 )
        I've had half a dozen die on me in the last 18 months. I kept buying more, thinking, "what are the odds that *FIVE* of these could die in a row?" ... I'm posting this from a machine I spent all day rebuilding because it's Maxtor drive died. That company is pure evil. There will be a class action suit against them like there was against IBM and their deathstars years ago.

        BACK UP YOUR DATA

        • Five in a row? Might there not be something else wrong with your system, that is causing the drives to blow?

        • Re:Just had to be.... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Sivar ( 316343 ) <charlesnburns[@]gmail . c om> on Sunday June 26, 2005 @07:34PM (#12917025)
          Most of the time, a series of drive deaths can be traced to all drives coming from the same supplier, or the same shipment. Most deaths are caused by shipping or otherwise something in-between the manufacturer and the user.
          It is not uncommon to see UPS drop an entire pallet of drives from the truck, and pick them back up and continue on as if it were a shipment of basketballs or something.

          Not that I consider Maxtor the best at this time, but I do not consider it the worst either. Drive companies tend to go through phases of poor reliability and then good reliability every 3-7 years or so.

          (Mods: Yes this is offtopic. If you want to talk about a painting with a hard drive glued on, be my guest)

      • Well what the hell else is a Maxtor good for? You wouldn't put data on it, would you?

        OMG, that's what's in my newest computer. That might explain why you only need to undo one thumbscrew and lift a plastic latch to pop out the hard drive. I fear I'm screwed.

  • eh.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Prophetic_Truth ( 822032 )
    so he mounted a hard disk drive to a picture? i mean, case mods are cool. This is unique i guess, but I'm feeling a bit underwhelmed..

  • Inconsistent Metaphor? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TPIRman ( 142895 ) * on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:37PM (#12914818)
    It's an interesting idea, and kudos for pulling it off, but I do have a little constructive criticism. The hard drive seems minimally integrated into the piece -- there is a large neuron area where you cut the hole for the drive, but the actual aesthetics of the hard drive don't have much to do with the surroundings. It feels like a first draft in this respect.

    Secondly, the fans baffle me. Given their distance from the drive, while they may be function in that they work, they're not functional in that they have no practical purpose. And how do they integrate with the "neuron" metaphor? Fans don't transmit information -- it seems that they were put there for the sake of having more things poke out for the back, but I think it would have more of an impact if the drive itself were more of a focus.

    Again, this is intended as constructive criticism, stuff to think about for the next iteration. Congrats on completing the project. I hope there's more to come.

    • Re:Inconsistent Metaphor? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Council ( 514577 ) <rmunroe&gmail,com> on Sunday June 26, 2005 @01:30PM (#12915083) Homepage
      I just stapled a ziploc bag full of microchips to my cat. Can I get a Slashdot article and some money now?

      Thanks.
      • You goofball!

        EVERYBODY knows that stapling a bag of microchips to a cat won't last!

        You'd have to SOLDER THEM INTO THE CAT to be truly innovative and have durability.

      • Hello Kitty!
        You should have rephrased your question:
        "Can I get a Slashdot article and some money meow?"

    • Secondly, the fans baffle me. Given their distance from the drive, while they may be function in that they work, they're not functional in that they have no practical purpose. And how do they integrate with the "neuron" metaphor?


      You mean your brain can run without noisy external cooling. Lucky you ;-)
    • The colors are well-chosen for the theme. The oil execution really evokes a sense of "brains." I appreciate the theme and the style.

      I think the neurons should each have a drive in them-- maybe a USB thumb drive each. That could eliminate the fans. You could put a USB hub in the back. Neuron Drive owners could RAID their neurons together.
    • This is useful criticism. I'd also recommend genericising the drive so it doesn't look like a product placement and the text doesn't capture the viewers eye so strongly so they can't get away from it. The square fans on the smaller neurons don't work for me, either; at least the drive looks like it could be embedded in the larger neuron rather than being tacked onto it.

      As an artist, /. isn't exactly the first place I'd go for feedback. (In fact, I'm trying hard to think of an online forum that I would

    • I guess the fans are there to move the air (and thus remove the heat from) behind the canvas.

  • in case you don't know what the heck he means.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:38PM (#12914821)
    ..and don't want to click the link..

    some amateur artist has stuck a hard drive onto a painting.

    Personally, it does nothing for me, the painting would be more interesting without that hard drive stuck there (and with a few lighter colors or highlights so it isn't so dark overall).

    Or at least don't show the brand and label of the hard drive, it really sticks out like a sore thumb.

    If I were creating something like this, I"d put the hard drive where you couldn't see it, and just put some LEDs or something on the front. And the fans too, those are okay and would make the viewer "think twice" about what might be behind.

    Keep trying though, it's a cool concept.

  • Mirror at Mirrordot (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:39PM (#12914828)
    http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/522c43281d7bde218 5d2d7a523fdf2cf/index.html [mirrordot.org]

  • well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jt418-93 ( 450715 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:39PM (#12914830)
    that's just stupid.

    not even clever. ooo, i glued a hard drive to a poster.

  • Art?? (Score:5, Informative)

    by djdanlib ( 732853 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:40PM (#12914837) Homepage
    That's just ugly.

    I wouldn't hang it on my wall.

    Seriously, something you painted to fit a "cool someone will buy this" theme plus computer parts does not make an art piece. I don't care how much of a geek you are. Was there ANY thought about composition?

    If you want to be an artist, you need to think about making art, not making something "cool" that someone will want to buy. Don't sell out like that.

    - From an artist to you.
    • The HyperCube custom kit....now that was classy! The guy went to the trouble to remove all stickers and polish all exposed metal surfaces before installing. Beautiful work on the lighting effects. If I were to get slashdotted over a piece of artwork, I would hope that it could compare to the HyperCube instead of an oversized undercapacity USB drive.

      I agree, "does not make an art piece" it's ugly. It took him two weeks? That kind of quality should only take a couple of hours. Art is a case that hides

    • Re:Art?? (Score:4, Funny)

      by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @05:15PM (#12916313) Homepage
      Right. Remember folks, if people like it, it ain't art. Art isn't "cool," which is what makes it so damned "cool." Even though we can't define art, we know it when we see it.. just like obscenity. In fact, we shouldn't have to define art using words, because art is expressing yourself without using words. Except for literature and poetry. And when we understand exactly what you're saying with your art.. when it's not cryptic and open to interpretation, we don't want it. And by we, I mean the people who count -- other artists -- not the misguided public who can't tell a Picasso from a paint-by-numbers (which doesn't say anything about Picasso, of course) even though they're the people who buy your "art" because we don't have any money. Art is something you "feel," unless what you "feel," is "popular," in which case you're not "feeling," it. Don't sell out, maaaannnn.
      • That's very entertaining, but I believe you missed my point.

        "Art" and "Cool" can and often do overlap. See the lighting and color keying in movies like The Bourne Supremacy, for example. You can make art on commission and still be recognized. Things like the Statue of Liberty (gift to USA) or the Mona Lisa (done on commission) is known around the world, and is art.

        If you're going to sell something and call it art, it better BE art, not something without any artistic value that you made on which you plaste
    • If you want to be an artist, you need to think about making art, not making something "cool" that someone will want to buy. Don't sell out like that.
      ROTFL. It's only very recently that art was created other than for sale. The result of the change (over the last century and some) has been an explosion of crap - and the creation on an incestous art 'community' who all agree how on wonderful Art's new clothes are.

  • Maxtor (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HermanAB ( 661181 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:40PM (#12914839)
    A serious work of art with a joke for a disk drive.

    What would the MTBF of this painting be?

  • It's the Idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by czarangelus ( 805501 ) <iapetus@g m a il.com> on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:42PM (#12914847)
    The art itself is decent enough, but I don't think that's necessarily the thrust of this.

    I think what he (the artist) might be asking us to do is to challange our technological paradigms. I mean, why shouldn't our hard drives have ornamental value as well as technological? A lot of computers are still ugly white rectangles that invade a room's space rather than compliment it. How about a hard drive vase? Maybe a webcam inside of a bust? I don't really know where to take it myself; 'course I'm not an artist. But I think it's a good idea for our gadgets to be works of art as well as utilitarian tools.
      • A lot of computers are still ugly white rectangles

        And Apple will fix this how?
    • why shouldn't our hard drives have ornamental value as well as technological? A lot of computers are still ugly white rectangles that invade a room's space rather than compliment it.

      Who says harddrives can't have ornamental value as well as technological? Look at the whole iPod phenomenon. The issue I have with this "artwork" is that he takes a harddrive and sticks it into a painting that has nothing at all to do with the aesthetics of the harddrive. I would be more forgiving if he were to at least pay a
    • Once I figured out how easy it was to inset a laptop into a table there was no stopping me. That table now holds several hard drives on firewire, speakers, a power strip, cupholders, fans, lights, the works.

      It's easy when the table is hollow. They used to call them doors. Now I have a 8'x4'x2" computer. :-)
    • If you want ornamental gadgets, these [elac.com] flat panel speakers/paintings are a hell of a lot better!

      Note: not affiliated in any way; this was just the first relevant link off Google.

  • Art ??? (Score:2, Funny)

    by gazmercer ( 893323 )
    Technically, the hard-drive can be replaced if needed. Hmmm, Would it still be art with a 400GB SATA drive in there. I dunno, seems like a waste of a good picture to me.

  • Such effort (Score:3, Insightful)

    by yack0 ( 2832 ) <keimel@nOspAM.gmail.com> on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:48PM (#12914882) Homepage
    Two whole weeks ?! Wow, what an immense amount of sweat equity. And the planning was included in the two weeks? Wow, um, I'm underwhelmed.

    I guess it shows how much planning went into it.

  • only one thing can explain this post. (Score:5, Funny)

    by binarybum ( 468664 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:48PM (#12914884) Homepage
    did taco have a kid?
  • It is fully functional as a hard-drive and both fans spin.

    ... and the web server spins too!

  • And finally... we've found step 2 (Score:5, Funny)

    by PhoenixK7 ( 244984 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:56PM (#12914924)
    1) Integrate hard drive into painting
    2) POST ON SLASHDOT
    3) Profit!!!
  • I guess in that two weeks of planning, and painting, you neglected to address the fact that submitting your story to Slashdot would bring your web site to a grinding halt.

  • We could have slashbay... (Score:3, Funny)

    by draziw ( 7737 ) * on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:58PM (#12914940) Journal
    Hey - I'll give you 50 cents for the fans if you give me free shipping?

  • I can't believe it! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alewar ( 784204 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @12:59PM (#12914946)
    ...and some of the articles I submitted to /. were rejected!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "One art, please."
    • The motto of Dogbert's Corporate Art Source: "If it's a frame, it will look like art to you."

      The punchline is how much they cost: Six dollars a pound.

      (As an artist myself: it's funny because it hurts.)

  • Thought provoking! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stankatz ( 846709 ) on Sunday June 26, 2005 @01:16PM (#12915023)
    This is a bold attempt at combining different media that challenges the way we think about blah, blah, blah... Just kidding. This sucks.
  • Why stop with wall hangings? Why limit oneself to 80 GB?

    My mom has been taking a bunch of pictures with her old trusty $100 Olympus D-100 digital camera, but the laptop that she keeps in the kitchen was low on space and doesn't have room for another drive. What to do?

    Happily, my mother has a cherished Kitchen Aide mixer - and by welding a bracket onto the mixer, I mounted a 160 GB drive to it. Then I added a USB-to-IDE interface, and now she's baking with tasty gigabytes.

    Yum, wholesome goodness. Who
  • When I was new to slashdot I tried to submit a story about my work (see below), but soon realized that I would only be rejected. After all one person's work isn't a big deal in terms of the whole community. This article has really opened my eyes however. Back to the submissions board.
  • Since it's slashdotted, here's a brief description: it looks like a handful of distorted blue jellyfish with a few PC components dropped on them.

    (Yes, I'm being very snide, but that's because the author tagged the entry as "Genius.")
    • You need to learn to use coral cache:

      http://www.billablog.com.nyud.net:8090/archives/1 8 [nyud.net]

      Tack on ".nyud.net:8090" to the end of any FQDN and get it from coral cache instead of direct from the host.

      And yes, it is fugly and not even close to what I would expect or want from a USB mass storage painting. ;) It's not a bad painting. Not quite my style, but not bad. But tacking a Maxtor 80GB hard drive on the visible side of the painting is ugly.

      You want to make something like that actually useful and somet
  • ...it actually is quite strange. But then again this is a hobbyist, so may dare I say: Nice piece. Nice effort. But it does have room for improvement.
    May I recommend a source of inspiration?
    For building everyday stuff into pictures, I suggest looking at paintings from the man that 'builds pictures' [wikipedia.org] - as he calls it - and is generally considered one of the greates painters of our times.
    One of his goals actually is to inspire people like you and me to do this kind of stuff themselves.
  • Other than a fancy name to conceptualize the piece, the artist missed his mark entirely... sure there's a drive... sure there are two fans... sure it "works"... but the drive is just THERE. It's not actually a piece of the canvas in any conceptual way beyond location and name.

    If the drive itself had been more integral to the piece, and there was some sort of yin/yang between it and the canvas I'd call it art. Personally, I think it's two disassociated items duct-taped together for no apparant reason, the
  • ..sans drive and two fugly fans, is not too bad, actually. In my opinion, what he's done to it is vandalism.

    I find it strange, however, that an advertisement is posted as a story, on slashdot. Well, whatever...
  • I thought it might be Billy Chenowith now that he's flushing his lithium down the toilet again.
  • It would look better with the "bottom" circuit board side facing out, rather than the Maxtor label.

  • Some ideas (Score:2, Interesting)

    by convictus ( 798307 )
    What about flush mounting the drive with a Plexiglas cover (yeah warranty voiding) and do a partial cover with come of the oil paint for a more integrated look.

    I do like the idea of peripherals as art, and with the slew of laptops auto magically turning into wall tops this is an interesting addition to it all, For future art projects a wall top with the interesting hard drive (like the one I described above) displayed in a full height canvas would be a very interesting art meets technology project.

    With th
  • platter...

    Somehow I think my clock is cooler than your nasty purple neuron painting.

    Best part: it doesn't use USB!
  • um... ...

    'nuff said.

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