ArfBrookwood writes "Every year, I write a Christmas Letter and send it to about 50 people, and every year, it's different. One year it was just the word blah blah blah over and over with keywords, one year I made papercraft wallets with full color cards and money in them, another year I created a Christmas Letter writing contest that instructed the recipients to create our Christmas Letter for us and we awarded prizes to winners, last year, I took a fake retro photo of my family, Inkscaped/GIMPed in a chemistry set and some wall art, printed it onto CD covers, and burned retro Christmas songs onto digital vinyl and sent everyone in the family what looked like a miniature Christmas album. Last week, I came into the possession of 78 2GB USB drives. I have already taken the time to wipe them clean and reflash the memory so they are blank slates." Now, Arf's looking for suggestions for how to best use all these drives; read on for more.
"My first inclination was to remove the USB drives from their careful packaging and plastic enclosures, dump them into a slurry of glue and rock dust, sandpaper the USB port to make it look ancient, and then make some videos or include some oddly formatted numbered/whatever text files to make them look like they cam from some dystopian wasteland fallout-3 type future and then package them in envelopes that looked like they were from some central futuristic government post office. The idea would be that in the future, incidents that happened this year would have had a profound affect on the future. I never tell anyone what the Christmas Letter will look like, and I have only one rule — I have to outdo whatever I did the last year."
I see. Strangely enough, I like getting Christmas letters from my friends who I don't often see, just to let me know a bit about what's been happening in their lives. Sure, it's a bit impersonal and we should probably make an effort to stay in better contact through the year, but when you have a busy work life and kids, sometimes it's difficult to find the time.
I guess I'm just strange, enjoying hearing from friends.
No kidding, this guy sounds like a douche bag. I also sense some condescension in this one. Perhaps he's feeling inadequate, like all that outlandish shit in the past has earned him a unanimous silent treatment and everyone thinks he's off his fucking rocker so he comes here to reffirm his efforts and brag shamelessly. In fact, I have seen this very same style of gloating and request shit on MMORPG forums.
And people that gain satisfaction from anonymously judging people on the Internet and saying the "sense some condescension" fall into which category?:D
For extra points, do a "12 days of Christmas" thing with 6 people (or get 6 more and do it to 7 people). Send them variants on rickroll every day themed to the song. Each day after the first, the card should swear it's not a rickroll. But, of course, it is.
"...on the 11th day of christmas, this crazy guy gave to me, 11 pipers piping NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP!..."
Can you imagine a Rickroll on bagpipes? That would be one awesome 11th day of Christmas. And then, for the grand finale, a 20-minute rickroll drum solo on the 12th day.
1 - I would put a personalized "virtual advent calendar" (ha! the hard part is answering what that means) on them. and 2 - I would decorate them as a Christmas ornament (if not put them inside an actual glass ornament with only the plug exposed) so they have a use beyond the first year.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday May 30 2009, @07:57PM (#28154367)
Virtual advent calendar: Pictures of your family for Christmas, home movies, etc, each encrypted with a different key you send to your recipients on each day in December leading to Christmas Day.
Pictures of your family for Christmas, home movies, etc, each encrypted with a different key you send to your recipients on each day in December [...]
I would use password-based cryptography, instead of sending them actual cryptographic keys by e-mail. Not only is it easier for the recipients, but you could choose fairly weak, Christmas-themed passwords (e.g., "snowflake," "cookie," "Santa," etc.). That way, the "peekers" in the family could try to guess the passwords in advance!
And I agree whole-heartily with the GP: make the USB drives into some sort of ornament. You could even use coloured pipe cleaners and those goofy stick-on eyes to make the USB keys look like reindeer. That way, the drives don't go to waste.
Send out something like a video where you're recording your family and make like a UFO or monster attack. Since you have no problem with copyright, steal scenes from a cloverfield or war of the worlds dvd. Melt the cases a little and put in a manila envelope along with a letter from a fake law firm "In case of death".
At the end of the video, show your dead bodies, laying in christmas sweaters on the ground with bits of fire all around and superimpose the text "Merry Christmas 2009!"
At-the-end of death mail outs don't usually contain the actual scene of the death, unless it was the actual lawyer who did it. And even they are smart enough not to send out incriminating evidence.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday May 30 2009, @07:35PM (#28154195)
Do the USB drives have usage lights?
1.Remove them from their casing, exposing their green PCB organs. 2.Buy a stack of USB hubs, and chain them together. Plug your usb drives into the hubs. 3.Arrange the usb drives in the form of a chrismas tree. 4.Set up a program to access the flash drives at random, causing their usage lights to flash.
This year, add an autorun file that uploads everything on their harddrive to your FTP server and then formats their filesystem. Next year, send them USB drives containing everything that was deleted, or since you won't be on speaking terms with anyone after that you not bother and save a lot of time making cards. Win-win situation really.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday May 30 2009, @07:41PM (#28154251)
Put the USB drives in an industrial shredder then eat them all. Die from heavy metal poisoning and internal hemmoraging. Then have someone send pictures of the experience to all these people who you send Christmas cards to, saying "Sorry for being such a gigantic, insecure shitlord and sending you gimmicky Christmas shit every year for no damn reason. As a token of the sincerity of my apology, here are pictures of me killing myself by ingesting metal scraps. It was extremely painful. I hope you will remember me in death as the attention-whoring sycophant I am, and tell your children about the dangers of mercury poisoning. God bless."
On the link to the blog talking about the Christmas album, it says the cover was "Photoshopped". Here on Slashdot, to appease the FOSS freaks this slang gets changed to "GIMPed". That's real classy.
I'd label each one "Do Not Use This Drive." I'd put a program on it labelled, "Do Not Open This Program." Create the program so that it causes their mail client to email you from their email account. See how many emails you get. This would be a good opportunity to teach them how they can protect themselves from data theft, trojans, etc.
Stripe a 158GB drive across all 78, then distribute them such that drive can only be read when all 78 are assembled together.
Of course, the contents would be a rickroll or similar.
We'll take them.
Elementary school with 80% free/reduced lunch. We tried to buy flash drives for all our fifth graders so they could work on their state reports at home and the public library. We found a vendor selling 1gig drives for $3.00 each, ordered 75 of them, and were told that they only had 3 available at that price.
Anyway, if you send them to us, I'll have the kids write your christmas cards for you. How's that?
You have no right to waste the time of your students by getting them to produce this guy's latest Christmas Card Project.
Let's see. Fifth graders. Recieving an educational tool at no cost, and learning the value of writing "thank you" notes.. something that is all too often lost on us. It's a school. They're learning something valuable.
I don't see the waste here.
I never tell anyone what the Christmas Letter will look like, and I have only one rule â" I have to outdo whatever I did the last year.
I fear I've fallen into that trap too, last year I made some edge lit christmas cards [evilmadscientist.com] but instead of using coin batteries I included twisted white wire with a soldered USB plug so the card will never run out of power (unless you switch your PC off). Just about everyone who received one loved it.
This year I'm planning on doing another edge lit card but with several layers, powered by a SMD PICAXE chip embedded into the card for animation, flashing, sequencing or whatever I decide.
The year after next I may do yet another USB powered edge lit card but include a flash drive for a christmas video or something *shrug* hopefully I'll get some good ideas from this topic:)
Fill the USB drives with DOSBox and some DOS Shareware games so they can remember what gaming was like in the 1980's when PC clones running MS-DOS were all the craze.
Put in some family videos in AVI files on the USB drives, make them Christmas themed or if you recorded prior Christmas days of kids opening up presents you can use those videos.
Fill it full of PNG and JPEG Christmas photos.
That CD you made, convert the songs to MP3 format and put them on the USB drive so they can load them onto their iPods, Zunes, iPhones, Blackberries, etc.
Don't listen to the people telling you to put viruses and email programs on the USB drives, that is not what Christmas is all about.
Create a puzzle that will require the cooperation of all the recipients to complete. The contents of each drive should be tailored to the individual. Computer-savvy people could have an encrypted document or image on their drive; computer dunces could have a simple text file that says "Call Joe at 870-555-1234 and tell him to give the password on his drive to Mark at 901-555-4567." Put hints on some drives, and images, and text files, and passwords, and instructions that, if all are followed, will result in the final unveiling of something cool.
The "something cool"? I don't know. If you have some money laying around, it could result in uncovering a bunch of $10 iTunes gift certificate codes on some web site somewhere. (But it'd have to be done in such a way that each person involved can claim exactly one certificate.)
Ideally, build some redundancy into the puzzle so that even if 10 or 20 people don't participate, the remainder can still get something cool in the end.
If you choose to do this (and I must say I think my idea is pretty awesome), keep me posted on what you do. My contact info is on my/. profile.
We would be happy to have USB drives as a donation. We use them to send out digital talking books to the blind and print disabled. Please feel free to contact me.
Gregory Kearney Manager - Accessible Media Association for the Blind of Western Australia 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101 Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
Yeah, what grandma really wants for Xmas is an pre-loaded Linux thumb drive. I'm a dork and I don't even want that. It's Christmas. Give a gift that means something, not your ideology about FOSS.
Send them to me. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Send them to me. (Score:5, Funny)
the ???? stands for porn. Which makes me wonder why anyone bothers with the first two items, but that's another topic.
Parent
Re:Send them to me. (Score:5, Informative)
You make some sense. Christmas letters are obnoxious.
Parent
Re:Send them to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
I see. Strangely enough, I like getting Christmas letters from my friends who I don't often see, just to let me know a bit about what's been happening in their lives. Sure, it's a bit impersonal and we should probably make an effort to stay in better contact through the year, but when you have a busy work life and kids, sometimes it's difficult to find the time.
I guess I'm just strange, enjoying hearing from friends.
Parent
The world's best christmas cards? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The world's best christmas cards? (Score:5, Insightful)
And people that gain satisfaction from anonymously judging people on the Internet and saying the "sense some condescension" fall into which category? :D
Parent
Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Rick Roll on every one.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Rick Roll on every one.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
For extra points, do a "12 days of Christmas" thing with 6 people (or get 6 more and do it to 7 people). Send them variants on rickroll every day themed to the song. Each day after the first, the card should swear it's not a rickroll. But, of course, it is.
"...on the 11th day of christmas, this crazy guy gave to me, 11 pipers piping NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP!..."
Can you imagine a Rickroll on bagpipes? That would be one awesome 11th day of Christmas. And then, for the grand finale, a 20-minute rickroll drum solo on the 12th day.
You might have no friends left, but damn. Funny.
Parent
Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
They are just the right size to make excellent 200-yard rifle targets.
Or you could build an array out of them or something productive.
Shooting at them with a .308 would be more fun though.
Re:Targets! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
I used to hit womprats in my T-16, and they aren't much bigger than 512MB!
Parent
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
I hit womprats in my TI-99/4A, which had only 32K.
Those were wumpus, not womprats.
Parent
Re:Targets! (Score:4, Funny)
Whatever. They were good practice for hitting Gungans later.
Parent
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
Meesa think yousa have muy more funsa shootinin da oosa bee drives.
Parent
Give away the secret (Score:5, Insightful)
Two things. (Score:5, Interesting)
1 - I would put a personalized "virtual advent calendar" (ha! the hard part is answering what that means) on them.
and
2 - I would decorate them as a Christmas ornament (if not put them inside an actual glass ornament with only the plug exposed) so they have a use beyond the first year.
Re:Two things. (Score:5, Interesting)
Virtual advent calendar: Pictures of your family for Christmas, home movies, etc, each encrypted with a different key you send to your recipients on each day in December leading to Christmas Day.
Parent
Re:Two things. (Score:5, Interesting)
I would use password-based cryptography, instead of sending them actual cryptographic keys by e-mail. Not only is it easier for the recipients, but you could choose fairly weak, Christmas-themed passwords (e.g., "snowflake," "cookie," "Santa," etc.). That way, the "peekers" in the family could try to guess the passwords in advance!
And I agree whole-heartily with the GP: make the USB drives into some sort of ornament. You could even use coloured pipe cleaners and those goofy stick-on eyes to make the USB keys look like reindeer. That way, the drives don't go to waste.
Parent
If you're looking for something useful ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing Drive Tricks [lifehacker.com]
Give-away Drives [lifehacker.com]
cloverfield style christmas video. (Score:5, Funny)
At the end of the video, show your dead bodies, laying in christmas sweaters on the ground with bits of fire all around and superimpose the text "Merry Christmas 2009!"
Re:cloverfield style christmas video. (Score:4, Funny)
At-the-end of death mail outs don't usually contain the actual scene of the death, unless it was the actual lawyer who did it. And even they are smart enough not to send out incriminating evidence.
Great idea though.
Parent
Put a (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Put a (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
USB Christmas Tree! (Score:5, Interesting)
Do the USB drives have usage lights?
1.Remove them from their casing, exposing their green PCB organs.
2.Buy a stack of USB hubs, and chain them together. Plug your usb drives into the hubs.
3.Arrange the usb drives in the form of a chrismas tree.
4.Set up a program to access the flash drives at random, causing their usage lights to flash.
Et Voila, flashing usb christmas tree!
Planning in advance (Score:5, Funny)
Viruses! (Score:5, Funny)
Teach them all a lesson about attaching strange USB drives to their machines: fill the drives with viruses!
Christmas. Bah humbug.
Re:Viruses! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Books (Score:5, Interesting)
I checked, Dickens' A Christmas Carol is on there
I'm sure they'd appreciate a donation if you do. They do a great job.
Kill yourself (Score:5, Funny)
Put the USB drives in an industrial shredder then eat them all. Die from heavy metal poisoning and internal hemmoraging. Then have someone send pictures of the experience to all these people who you send Christmas cards to, saying "Sorry for being such a gigantic, insecure shitlord and sending you gimmicky Christmas shit every year for no damn reason. As a token of the sincerity of my apology, here are pictures of me killing myself by ingesting metal scraps. It was extremely painful. I hope you will remember me in death as the attention-whoring sycophant I am, and tell your children about the dangers of mercury poisoning. God bless."
Altered for the Slashdot audience (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Altered for the Slashdot audience (Score:5, Insightful)
Photoshop, like Google, is well on its way to becoming a common verb. One should be able to photoshop with any competent raster image editing program.
Parent
Use some Social Engineering (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd label each one "Do Not Use This Drive." I'd put a program on it labelled, "Do Not Open This Program." Create the program so that it causes their mail client to email you from their email account. See how many emails you get. This would be a good opportunity to teach them how they can protect themselves from data theft, trojans, etc.
How would you feel ? (Score:4, Informative)
How would you feel with x-mas to be lectured about security ? ...
The post was about a X-MAS PRESENT, not a X-MAS bomb ...
Parent
RAID (Score:5, Funny)
Be useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do something actually useful. Donate'em to an inner city middle school.
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have no right to waste the time of your students by getting them to produce this guy's latest Christmas Card Project.
Let's see. Fifth graders. Recieving an educational tool at no cost, and learning the value of writing "thank you" notes.. something that is all too often lost on us. It's a school. They're learning something valuable. I don't see the waste here.
Parent
Spread holiday cheer (Score:5, Funny)
Fill all of them with porn and the recipe for free beer [freebeer.org].
Unusual Christmas Cards (Score:5, Interesting)
I never tell anyone what the Christmas Letter will look like, and I have only one rule â" I have to outdo whatever I did the last year.
I fear I've fallen into that trap too, last year I made some edge lit christmas cards [evilmadscientist.com] but instead of using coin batteries I included twisted white wire with a soldered USB plug so the card will never run out of power (unless you switch your PC off). Just about everyone who received one loved it.
:)
This year I'm planning on doing another edge lit card but with several layers, powered by a SMD PICAXE chip embedded into the card for animation, flashing, sequencing or whatever I decide.
The year after next I may do yet another USB powered edge lit card but include a flash drive for a christmas video or something *shrug* hopefully I'll get some good ideas from this topic
Some ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
Fill the USB drives with DOSBox and some DOS Shareware games so they can remember what gaming was like in the 1980's when PC clones running MS-DOS were all the craze.
Put in some family videos in AVI files on the USB drives, make them Christmas themed or if you recorded prior Christmas days of kids opening up presents you can use those videos.
Fill it full of PNG and JPEG Christmas photos.
That CD you made, convert the songs to MP3 format and put them on the USB drive so they can load them onto their iPods, Zunes, iPhones, Blackberries, etc.
Don't listen to the people telling you to put viruses and email programs on the USB drives, that is not what Christmas is all about.
Mystery (Score:5, Interesting)
Create a puzzle that will require the cooperation of all the recipients to complete. The contents of each drive should be tailored to the individual. Computer-savvy people could have an encrypted document or image on their drive; computer dunces could have a simple text file that says "Call Joe at 870-555-1234 and tell him to give the password on his drive to Mark at 901-555-4567." Put hints on some drives, and images, and text files, and passwords, and instructions that, if all are followed, will result in the final unveiling of something cool.
The "something cool"? I don't know. If you have some money laying around, it could result in uncovering a bunch of $10 iTunes gift certificate codes on some web site somewhere. (But it'd have to be done in such a way that each person involved can claim exactly one certificate.)
Ideally, build some redundancy into the puzzle so that even if 10 or 20 people don't participate, the remainder can still get something cool in the end.
If you choose to do this (and I must say I think my idea is pretty awesome), keep me posted on what you do. My contact info is on my /. profile.
goatse (Score:5, Funny)
We have a use for them (Score:4, Interesting)
Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
Telephone: +1 (307) 224 4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney@gmail.com
Idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't link your blog on Slashdot, then make it invitation only to read. Stupidest thing I ever saw.
Re:Remastersys (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Two Words: (Score:5, Funny)
"Last Christmas" by Wham
Last christmas
you rooted my box
and the very next day
't was spamming away
This year
I give you a stick
A botnet for someone special
Parent