What To Do With 78 USB Drives Next Christmas? 381
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."
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.
Re:Send them to me. (Score:5, Informative)
You make some sense. Christmas letters are obnoxious.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not at all, I have plenty of actual friends from whom I don't get letters because I see them every week. This is from people I was at uni with eight years ago, we're all busy workers with families and kids and, apart from an occasional IM chat, we don't see each other or get to spend proper lengths of time talking about the kids etc. Doesn't mean I no longer regard these people as friends, they are just distant these days but I'm interested in hearing how their lives are going.
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
Re:The world's best christmas cards? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then it sounds to me like what he's doing is a GREAT way to discourage some members of his family from hanging out with him; those which might don't have, for him, many qualities worthy of hanging around with anyway, for example. (kinda like I almost encourage gossips about me - they are a GREAT tool, thanks to which, often, people I wouldn't really like hanging around with select themselves out of my sphere of friends/etc. ...meaning I don't have to do that work)
Why, exactly, do we have to like/hang out with most of family in a manner that you think is appriopriate? Just because they share relatively large portion of our DNA? Might have been a factor in times when staying alife was difficult without every bit of effort and cooperation possible (and our DNA-relatives were best for that because of highest chance of reciprocity).
Furthermore lines determining with what portion of DNA-relatives we're willing/have to hang out change with times, cultures and...individuals (and you DO draw them; we all have quite recent common ancestors, not even getting into Y-Adam or mitochondrial Eve). And he actually seems to dedicate a bit of memory and effort for his relatives, which seems a lot more worthy than cultivation of old models, which today are mostly for show, mostly for hanging out for the sake of hanging out.
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.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
push them all up your ass. Take a movie of yourself pulling them out, and put the movie on the sticks and give them out as christmass presents.
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: (Score:2, Funny)
Since when are 2 GB Flash drives considered small enough to shoot at? Mine is still 512MBs
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
I used to hit womprats in my T-16, and they aren't much bigger than 512MB!
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
I hit womprats in my TI-99/4A, which had only 32K.
Those were wumpus, not womprats.
Re:Targets! (Score:4, Funny)
Whatever. They were good practice for hitting Gungans later.
Re:Targets! (Score:5, Funny)
Meesa think yousa have muy more funsa shootinin da oosa bee drives.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I hit womprats in my TI-36 SOLAR which had only 1 memory and 2 operand registers...But I could only hit womprats during the day...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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[insert 640k joke here]
Re:Targets! (Score:4, Funny)
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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.
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.
Album, eh (Score:3, Interesting)
You paid for the rights to those songs, right? Using the relevant authority for licensing in question?
re: the USB dealies:
Trade them up until you get a house (like the craigslist guy a while back), then write a regular letter with cryptic clues (but not too cryptic) to find the place, the first person who reaches it gets the deed.
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.
Put a (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Put a (Score:5, Funny)
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)
Re: (Score:2)
You can always pull a best buy on them. Especially great when you have freaks as friends.
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)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't put a "Property of:" sticker on them then.
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.
Original and Useful (Score:2)
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."
mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
That's an awesome suggestion.
Add to that the fact that the guy made me think about Xmas in May.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Install your favorite minimalist distro.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Puppy? Tinyme would probably be easier..
Why the hell would you give a linux distribution a name that could easily be confused with Windows ME!
Just reading that name gives me horrific flashbacks of the worst operating system ever created.
(Of course, if you hate your friends/relatives, I've just given you a deviously evil plan. Create an elaborate autorun.inf script that replaces their operating system with WinME)
Unetbootin (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, I guess I am kind of boring that way. Hooray for utility over aesthetics!
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Remastersys (Score:3, Interesting)
Along those lines, let me add these tips:
1. Take an unused PC (or virtual machine) and install Ubuntu on it just the way you want to send it out.
2. You must decide if your distribution will include any home directories, or otherwise will be a 'proper distribution'. You need to know this to continue your setup. If you include a home directory, you can setup themes, firefox extensions, everything in-advance really.
3. Install and use Remastersys, which will create a large .iso file for the next step. : http:// [geekconnection.org]
Re:Remastersys (Score:5, Insightful)
Christmas flash game + pendrivelinux Distro (Score:2)
It fits a christmas theme, but i'm not sure how ya could fit it into the post-apocalyptic fallout3 story. Maybe santa became disgruntled and delivered a tiny thermonuclear device in everyone's stocking?
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Puppy Linux (Score:2)
I reckon you should install them with Puppy Linux [distrowatch.com], perhaps modified with a Christmas-themed desktop and a short Christmas message and introduction to GNU / Linux that is displayed at login time.
I mean, when was the last time you received a gift of a better operating system for Christmas? :-)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
What, real viruses and trojans are called things like DontRunMe.exe?
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 ...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I had a girlfriend who did that to me.
Dude, when your girlfriend tells you "do not touch that" she really means "NO".
-dZ.
Put a calendar in them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Two Words: (Score:3, Informative)
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
RAID (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That would be kind of hard since 78*2=156!=158, but if you figure out a way to do it, let me know.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A movie? (Score:2)
Be useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Do something actually useful. Donate'em to an inner city middle school.
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Be useful. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Spread holiday cheer (Score:5, Funny)
Fill all of them with porn and the recipe for free beer [freebeer.org].
One word: keylogger (Score:3, Funny)
And wait for the $$$ to roll in.
I jest, of course (but it would work a treat).
Hmm. (Score:2)
This would probably be fairly tricky to do, but I would wire the drives so that they "burn up" when they are plugged in -- so that they emit red and green smoke. Bonus points if they still work after they emit the smoke.
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
Re: (Score:2)
The question is the answer (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Send them to people you hate... (Score:2, Funny)
...filled with pirated movies and music, then place 78 anonymous calls to the RIAA and MPAA.
Make a huge USB RAID! (Score:2)
Collect and link up a wide array of USB hubs and plug all the drives in. Then string them together using your favorite form of RAID or JBOD.
A Family Treasure Chest (Score:3, Interesting)
One possibility would be to create a family "treasure chest" of sorts. Well in advance of the holiday season, ask everyone in the family to contribute something (according to a theme). Then, you collect all the submissions and put them (along with your letter) on each USB drive.
As a concrete example of a theme, one year an aunt of mine asked everyone in the family to contribute their favourite recipe. Then, she typed all of them up and sent everyone a collected-effort recipe book. It was such a simple thing, but everyone in the family loved it.
You could do this with any number of themes: recipes, old photographs, favourite stories from the past, etc. Then, put your Christmas letter along with this treasure chest on the USB drives.
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.
Regarding your original idea... (Score:2)
All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again... [napster.com]
(Some content to stick on your USB key.)
Video of the Family - Together (Score:2)
If anything, I think the best idea is to have - as gifts for family members - a video or videos of the family celebrating together. I have vague recollections and pictures as a kid. They always bring back great memories (even if I was acting silly). My family mostly has developed Kodak and polaroids photos. I only wish we had a video cam in the early 80's.
For friends - keep them all to yourself. After all, what are friends for?
And if you have a wife, no family or friends and you want to use these drives all
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
In the same spirit ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Botnet (Score:2)
Idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't link your blog on Slashdot, then make it invitation only to read. Stupidest thing I ever saw.
Next time (Score:3, Insightful)
Next time you post a story, put links that actually work without a fucking password, mmmkay?
ArfBrookwood? More like Arfwit.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
And a Merry Christmas to you too!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a project that already does most of that:
http://sam.zoy.org/lmos/ [zoy.org]
although be sure to change the default included placeholder media.
Re: (Score:2)
Virus to teach them not to trust strange* USB devices.
* How is it a strange drive when it's sent to you by someone you trust?
Then teach them not to trust any portable media. That's the real lesson that needs taught, since most people infect themselves with their own USB drives.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Oh GOD, the horror!
And send them to a police department too (one that specialises in tech), that will sure give them a reason to scratch their heads.
OH WHAT COULD IT BE?! But you should genuinely put some really hard file in it, so that after 10 years or so trying to crack it, make it one thing and one thing only: the extremely over-used Rick-roll, which by then will have become a cult.
Praise be to Rick.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm also wondering if "dd if=/dev/zero of=(usb sticks)" could be trusted...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)