Crushing Experience

sp00 writes "The Tsunamii.Net Crush Server is currently online live from the Millbank Gallery in London! Watch as the webserver counts itself down before it activates the industrial crusher attached to it, bearing 150-tonnes of brute force onto itself and terminating its existence. Check out the details on the Tsunamii.Net website or visit the webserver directly at http://195.195.81.5."

art? Hardly.

[azephrahel]

I'm sorry. Somone probably thought this was a great deep and meaningfull peice of modern art...but blahh. Big deal. The problem with art nowadays is that artists think they are great philosophers, thinks and movers and shakers of the modern world. See in classic times, when they made real art, artists knew what they were. Entertainers.
Sure crushing a PC is entertaining...but I don't think thats what this guy is going for.

Blahh.

why?

[Kargan]

The website offers no insights into why they are doing this, I'm a little confused.

Also, this is in the News category?

Re:art? Hardly.

[Richard_at_work]

Sod art, this is jsut cool :) ever dropped a tv out of a second story window for the hell of it? ever destroyed something cause its fun? thats what hes aiming for :)

Oh dear...

[garf]

Is this want it has come to? Some conception of unclever modern art making the grade on /.

I come here for fun not to be swayed by the 'Arty' types..

Oh dear..

Re:If it were a Windows machine...

[InadequateCamel]

Who cares whether it is Windows or Linux. They are ruining equipment that some school or non-profit organization could really benfit from, and why? Just so a handful of \.ers could make crappy jokes and so this person could become "famous" for a couple of seconds.

Just because art doesn't speak to you...

[fm6]

...doesn't mean it's not art. Most people get more out of Disney than Michaelangelo. Does that mean that Fantasia [aol.com] is greater art than the Pieta [christusrex.org]?

That being said, I have to admit that I don't "get" most "post-modern" art either, and suspect that most of it is pretensious crap. But I understand enough to know I'm too ignorant of the ideas involved to really have a useful opinion.

Re:If it were a Windows machine...

[dillon_rinker]

Right...and every time you buy a CD or go to a movie, you are spending money that school or non-profit could really benefit from. And every time you eat at a restaurant, you are spending money that some hungry person could really benefit from. And every time you take a vacation, you are spending time that could have donated to a local charity. And...

Entertainment is nonproductive. Deal with it.

How about just donating it

[Master Switch]

To someone that needs a computer, or a school perhaps. Seems like a waste

Re:If it were a Windows machine...

[ramzak2k]

you missed out "Spending time on slashdot could be better spent with poor people outside - they need love & your time!"

Re:If it were a Windows machine...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former exclusive user of Apple products, things like this annoy me to no end.

Apple berates M$ for using nonstandard scroll bars. But it's OK for them to do the same.

What Apple is doing is akin to a man with a 3 inch penis trying to convince women that big fat penises are no good because of the pain that they can cause. Even though 90% of women may prefer big penises, or 90% of the world may prefer something about the Wintel platform Apple is attempting to tell them that they really don't.

Apple, your future looks dim for a reason. (most) People don't want to buy what you're selling.

MacOS may have many technical advantages over Windows, just as the devices that run WinCE have advantages over the machines that run Palm OS. But both of the loses trail for other reasons. #1 Price. I can buy a refurbed Visor Deluxe for under $100. I can get a decent PC for less than the cost of an eMac. #2 Availability of software. I can get so much more software for a Palm OS or Windows machine so, in the great platform Jyhad. I choose the side based upon my computing needs. Not on my need to feel or think "different"ly.

Re:If it were a Windows machine...

[Anderlan]

Actually, every time you eat at a restaurant, you are paying people's salaries and wages. Ditto vacation, etc. So, wasting time and stuff: bad. Wasting money: ? Well, there are whole industries that benefit from people doing that. See also Velbein.

Re:If it were a Windows machine...

[elizard2k]

That's true, you have a point.
However every time you buy a CD, or go to a movie, or eat at a restaurant you feed a hungry person too. Maybe not someone who is starving, but you are using services that some people make money. From the rich bastards who made the movie/CD, to the big companies distributing those services (recording companies, big restaurant chains, independent restaurant owners), to the poor people working to provide those services to you. You are feeding someone, it just may not be the people you think of first when you consider the "starving children".

Anyway, just my $0.02

Re:How about just donating it

[Anonymous Coward]

To someone that needs a computer, or a school perhaps. Seems like a waste

What if it's just an old Pentium with just 8 megs of ram? What kind of school wants something like that? It can't even run Windows98 decently much less WindowsXP. Oh yes, run Linux on it right? Why bother? There are hundreds of millions of useless PCs in existence.. crushing a few isn't going to cause any harm.

Sour stomach

[Powercntrl]

This is the same hideous gut wrenching feeling I get watching a car crash test commercial on TV.

At least destroying a brand new automobile helps provide information that may save lives. This is just a sad waste of computer equipment. Karma be damned, I just think the people running this "experiment" need to grow up.

We have a finite amount of resources on this planet and this just sends a message to the entire Internet that they're willing to webcast their own wastefulness.

What you like

[fm6]

Hey, do write code? Do you enjoy doing it? Many people do, because it can be an esthetic experience -- good code is beautiful. Do you get pissed off when somebody who doesn't understand what you're doing criticizes your work? Bet you do.

Actually, that goes for anything you might do for a living -- putting up buildings, selling cars, whatever. If you enjoy your work, you probably take pleasure in doing it well. You might accept criticism, but you'd think that ignorant criticism is stupid. And you'd be right.

Or music. What kind do you like? Do you enjoy dancing to it? How do you feel when somebody with two left feet criticizes your favorite music as "noise"?

If you think this self-smashing computer is stupid and pointless, you're entitled to think so. I might even agree with you. (In this case I probably would!) But unless you make a serious study of what's going on, you're not entitled to make authoritative statements about it, and insult the people doing it.

Unless, of course, your name is Rush Limbaugh. But he's special!

Re:What you like

[G-funk]

Yes I am. I'm entitled to say whatever I feel about this "art" project, to anybody who wants to listen. I'm allowed to think it's crap, and I'm allowed to say I think it's crap. Same goes for the kinds of people who like this sort of crap. I'm allowed to think they're idiots, and I'm allowed to say I think they're idiots.

The honeypot factor?

[bergeron76]

This sure sounds like a tempting box to hack. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it turns out to be a honeypot. I guess we'll have to see on Wednesday.

You're Entitled!

[fm6]

Well, yeah, you have a right to express any opinion on any subject whatsover. Even when you're opinions are totally ignorant. Doesn't make you less ignorant.

No, don't donate it to schools

[amemily]

Too many people see public schools as a dumping ground for old computers for tax writoffs and it is very annoying to get a lot of old 286 computers that cannot be used because they won't run the apps we are using or are broken and are not worth repairing. The myth that school districts always need new computers and are too poor to get them is in the past thanks to e-rate (that means a school district pays 17 cents on the dollar for equipment - thats how my employer afforded a PBX and some really nice Proliant servers) and educational discounts (for example with Microsoft's contract with Washington State school districts, SQL Server Standard/1 Processor costs $1800 as compared to around $10,000 for a company to purchase a license) and grants given by the government and companies. So please instead of donating them to your local school district, give them to charities who fix them up and give them to communities overseas who can really use them

Save your breath and don't suggest installing Linux on them, I do not have the time to train a bunch of teachers to use it nor will it run the apps we use - unless of course somehow a decent gradebook program, Dreamweaver, AutoCAD 2000, Adobe Photoshop and a bunch of other programs all of a sudden magically decided to run on linux overnight.

Re:How about just donating it

[enki_se]

This can be said about a lot of things. Try to convince people not to waste money on fireworks on forth of July, but to give them to charity instead. People always spend money on things they find amusing even if it's something other people find meaningless. This will never change, and it's probably just a matter of taste what you think is a waste of money.