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Toys

The Hack Furby Two-Fifty Challenge 122

Posted by Hemos from the make-it-silent dept.
vees writes "Have you ever wanted to reprogram your Furby toy to do and say vile and obscene things, but just needed a good excuse? How's two-hundred and fifty dollars sound? Peter van der Linden is offering $250 to the first person who modifies a Furby so it can be reprogrammed. If you can read a schematic and wield a soldering iron without causing permanent personal cosmetic damage, be sure to visit his challenge page for more information on how to win."
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The Hack Furby Two-Fifty Challenge More

The Hack Furby Two-Fifty Challenge

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  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @10:10AM (#675897)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Using the infrared that they use (I think)I can program furbys to start yepping FP!!! as soon as more than one congregate somewhere. Of course, the first furby to say FP will begin mocking all the others for their non-l33tness until they are separated and donated to the furby autopsy project.

    Of course... if I really wanted a laugh I would reprogram the furbys to let out different screams and moans while it was being cut up in the autopsy : )

  • I hacked my furby (Score:4)

    by Siqnal 11 ( 210012 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @10:14AM (#675899) Homepage
    with a machete.

    --

  • 500 Server Error
    The hard transfer limit for this user has been reached

    Ladies and gentlemen, the slashdot effect.

  • You've reminded me of another really funny computer book, The Fortran Coloring Book [amazon.com] by Kaufman. It's a real textbook, totally hand-written. Out of print now, but it's a pretty funny book.

    Q: Why is '*' called the Nathan Hale operator?

    A: Because he only had his asterisk.


    --

  • $250 just isn't enough...I need about tree-fiddy.

    I said what do you want from me furby? And do you know what he said? Tree fiddy! I said damnit furby, get off my lawn, I ain't giving you no tree fiddy!

  • Electronics Boutique (and others?) sell a Gizmo that is 100% Furby compatable. Looks like someone beat you to the idea.

    Not that Furby is that far off from a Magui to begin with...

  • Well, go figure.

    "The hard transfer limit for this user has been reached"

    Check your cache people!
  • And when you cook burgers your teaching them it is ok to cook humans too, right?

    Studies have shown that most psychopaths go through a period of committing animal abuse long before they turn to committing violence against humans. Eating animals is not only itself a violent act; it does teach people disregard (or at least selective disregard) for animal life, which as I've said, desensitizes them to violence against human life. You've already answered your own question.
  • Hmmm...I'm more than a little sceptical about that - I would have thought I'd have found at least one previous reference to it somewhere on the 'net. If it is true, someone should add it to http://www.eeggs.com/.

    I'll be able to verify this when I:

    1) Dump the speech data ROM and work out its organisation.

    2) Get hold of the relevent verion of Speak & Spell - there are at least 3 generations, electronically, plus I've only got UK ones at the moment, and they actually have a different accent and vocabulary to the US (and French and Spanish) ones - most obvious is that it says 'zed' instead of 'zee'.

    [Happosai]
  • When you teach children that it's ok to electrocute talking fuzzy toys (remainder of rant omitted)

    1. Who said anything about teaching children anything? Or is Slashdot a popular site with the kids now?

    2. Lighten up.

  • Let's hope they this competition is over before Cybercrime Treaty goes into affect. Otherwise the winner may not only get $250 (barely enough to cover bail) they will also go to prison!
  • Fatbrain, which I believe was recently purchased by Barnes and Noble, which many of us are also boycotting, in order to support independant bookstores.

    Now where do we buy?

    --
    "Don't trolls get tired?"

  • The United States has over %600 more murders per year, than that England. England abolished the death penality in 1973.

    These maybe un-related stats.

    Having a death penality doesn't STOP someone from murder, it only stops them from committing murder more than once.

    The question is, then; why are they communitting murder in the first place?


  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @11:21AM (#675911)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Im imagining a des-cracking furby, or whats the betting the first furby to run seti@home finds life......
    --
    Lauren Child, lauren@laurenchild.net [mailto]
  • Careful: you are legally responsible for everything your barney does.

    "Barney has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down."

    --------
    Life is a race condition: your success or failure depends on whether you get the work done on time.
  • http://www.bookpool.com

    41% off O'Reilly Texts.
    40% off Oracle Texts.
    Very fast shipping.

    ... just a customer that used to use Amazon (years ago) then Fatbrain (well, Computer Literacy) then BookPool.
  • Dammit woman! You gave that furby a dollar? No wonder he's always comin' around here.
  • There's no other way our society can survive.

    Somebody is taking Slashdot a bit too seriously.

    And, in this case, it's not Jon Katz (is it?).

    Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers

  • I know those websites say it cant be vulgar, but fun with a remote from a TV would cause it to be a drunk - *BURP* Fuck you!, then go into a singing fit. -Rob
  • Try Bookpool [bookpool.com] for discount technical books. I never understood people's attraction to Fatbrain. Bookpool's service is first rate and their discounts are almost always better than Fatbrain's.

  • Thanks! (Score:1)

    by mosch ( 204 )
    Bookpool looks great. As for the attraction to fatbrain, for me it was the fact that they were there, I knew about them, and I never had any reason to complain about them.

    Now I've got a new technical bookstore!

    --
    "Don't trolls get tired?"
  • You needed Anne Marie to convince you of that?
  • That doesn't mean the violence they committed against animals drove them to commit violence against humans. It just means that people who are violent toward humans are likely also violent toward animals. In other words, it means nothing.
  • Or if they had held him in prison for life.
  • Java is the language of choice for this challenge because Peter van der Linden works for Sun and has written a couple of books about Java, including the excellent "Just Java" and he wrote and maintained the FAQ for comp.lang.java.programmer. He happened to suggest a programmable microprocessor, and because of his work he happened to suggest a PicoJava processor, which makes Java an obvious choice.

    (BTW: Before he got into Java, he also wrote an excellent book about C called "Deep C Secrets", also known as "The butt-ugly fish book" in honour of the Coelecanth on the cover.)
  • hahahaha!!! Very good humor, if I do say so myself! I would mod you up, but you are already +5, and I am not a moderator. hmmm
  • I cut out the guts and put in a 16f84 with a serial eeprom. You can make it do what you want, but it doesn't use java (thank GOD!) but uses that in-efficent C language with Assembly.

    I probably should document the thing, but I'll bet he wont accept it because it doesn't use the beloved java. (hell the pic is java hostile!)

    oh well.
  • er..there's always at least one prime number between n and 2n. Nonetheless, cool idea :)
  • At least a year ago, if it's not the same, the problem revolved around another one of those fine epoxy blobbed CPUs. Solve which CPU it's running and you've for the $250.


    --
  • "meeee huungrry... meee, gonna EAT YOU..." ~The motion picture, Bride of Chucky II
  • "Once Furby has been hacked, my goal is to give it a Java API allowing the device to become a general Java engine."

    You know what's coming next...

    1. Furby Webserver

    2. Furby Home based mail server
    (see earlier story)

    3. Furby Quake engine

    4. Furby running Linux

    ...and finally
    5. The BeoFurby Custer

    AAHHHHH!
  • I would see java as having to much over head, even C++. You would think something this small would have to be in ASM for whatever small little proc the fuby has in it.

    You could also "rip" the guts out of the fuby, and try and cram a handyboard in there (real easy to program, Interactive C) and paste the fur back on to it (maybe have a steroform "shell" so that it takes on the right shape).

    I don't know the size of a fuby, but why not take a board/cpu that is readily avaiable (with documenation) and try and replace whatever board/cpu in there if you can't get proper docs on it.

    I think Java is just the authors own prefences and don't see any techinal reason for doing it (I am not a real programmer by the way). If I was putting up my $250 for the project, I would request that perl be runnable on it ;)

    use Toys::Fuby();
    my $germlin = Toys::Fuby->new();

    $germlin->eyes("wink");
    $germlin->say("/home/bud/sounds/lickme.wav");

    $germlin->mock("all");
    $germlin->punch("Microsoft's Barney");
    $germlin->stab("Microsoft's Barney");
    $germlin->mock("all");

    HOLY CRAP!

    You know if this thing is hacked, you know how easy it would be to build a TUX costume for it!!! Holy crap! that would be so cool, seriously. I am thinking about this now :)


  • 500 Server Error
    The hard transfer limit for this user has been reached

    The wonderous power of Slashdot!
    That's a beautiful sight.

    _______

  • Umm, this has already been posted... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://slashdot.org/articles/99/01/03/1950227.shtm l
  • I say that it'd be in the best interest of the makers of the Furbys to release the needed info to reprogram them, it would surly boost sales to tech geeks like us, I personally would buy a couple if it were possible to reprogram them.
  • if we hack into the furby, do ya think we can make an AI cluster out of them?
    Ya know a Beowolf cluster?

    or better yet load linux into one....




    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  • Enough with the goddamn soapbox already. It's someone having fun with an annoying toy. Everyone's too uptight and easily offended these days.
    If you wanna hug a tree and save the whales, fine. Go hug a tree and save a whale and quit bitching about a toy being destroyed

    _______
  • need moderation point: "+/- 0 Atrocious Pun"

  • The above post sounds like a troll, but what the hell, I'm feeling my oats right now, so here goes.

    Make fun of Furbies, ok. Furbies are just a stupid plastic piece of American consumerism, and when you ridicule them, you're correctly ridiculing the worst parts of our society. I'm fine with that.

    Furbies represent the worst parts of American society, therefore it is ok to ridicule them. I won't comment yet, but let's keep this in mind for a moment.

    But when you satirize capital punishment, you're going too far. Capital punishment exists; it's very real in the sense that it actually kills people. It's a disgrace that any modern "civilized" society could commit such an abomination (just as it's a disgrace that we commit racial profiling or other offenses against human liberties), and by using it solely as a premise for laughter, you're demeaning its impact on the innocent lives it takes.

    Actually, I agree with you. I don't like capital punishment. I'm not sure what you mean by demeaning its impact on the innocent lives it takes. The only thing I can think of that would be relevant is the emotional impact of capital punishment in the minds of others. I can tell you that jokes about capital punishment have not diminished the horror in my mind. Judging by your post, it hasn't diminished the impact in your mind either. That's two data points against your argument. Please remember also, that the humor is dependent on the emotional impact of capital punishment. The people who find it funniest are likely to be the people who agree with you about how horrible it is.

    By the way, remember where you said that Furbies represented the worst parts of American society? Are you saying that they are worse than capital punishment? In your first paragraph, you say it is ok to ridicule something because of how bad it is and in the next you say that ridiculing something that is bad demeans its impact. I think perhaps you should make up your mind.

    When you teach children that it's ok to electrocute talking fuzzy toys, you may not realize it, but you're teaching them a lot more. At best, you're teaching them that it's ok to destroy property wantonly. At worse, you're setting them up to think it's ok to electrocute pets and animals, and eventually, people. Children who are taught violence grow up to become adults who commit violence, and we all suffer for it. We have to start by reaching them when they're young and teaching them otherwise. There's no other way our society can survive.

    You may not have figured this out yet, but it is ok to destroy your own property. As for the rest, was the humor directed at children? Furbies are inanimate objects. How does electrocuting one imply that it is all right to electrocute pets, animals, and people? If this is the case, then how does ridiculing one (see your first paragraph) not imply that it is alright to ridicule pets, animals, and people? As far as societies survival, don't forget that the vast majority of children grow up to be responsible adults even though every parent has different, contradictory ideas about how to raise children.

    I think perhaps you should consider getting that broomstick removed. You will find sitting down to be so much easier.

  • I told her not to give him the "two fity"



    any die hard southpark fan will know what am talking about.
  • Whoa there. Chill a bit.

    Personally, I am strongly against capital punishment. Also, working in emergency medicine as I do, I see up close and personal the consequences of others having a cavilier attitude towards human life.

    But, as has been said before, if you can't laugh at death, what can you laugh at? Joe Martin, creator of the comic strip Mr. Boffo, has created a number of comics showing a man in an electric chair to hilarious effect. One has him holding slices of bread, another has him smiling and the warden asking if it is his first time, etc.

    This type of humor doesn't necessarily breed contempt for human life, though. It mitigates the horror of the situation, allowing the viewer to consider the situation rationally instead of emotionally. Satire can also shock viewers into reconsidering their point of view. A classic example of this sort of satire is Jonathan Swift's suggestion of eating Irish childern to ease a famine.

    Violence to Furbies is a cartoonish sort of violence that even the most naive kid will not likely apply to humans. Roadrunner cartoons are of a similiar nature and I have yet to see real-life violence that can be traced back to watching Loony Tunes.
  • Have you forgotten the sound Furby makes when you "pet" it?

  • Furby as a Embedded Linux butler (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm thinking of hacking a Furby by putting a Linux distro on it, hooking it up to my network with a PCMCIA wireless NIC, and then having the critter bring me a beer...

    Connected to furby.home.net
    login: furby
    Password:
    Last login: Wed Oct 25 14:53:26 from hermit
    [furby@furby office]$ cd /home/hallway
    [furby@furby hallway]$ cd /home/kitchen
    [furby@furby kitchen]$ ftp fridge.home.net
    Connected to fridge.home.net.
    220 fridge.home.net ready.
    Name (fridge.home.net:ftpusers): furby
    331 User furby okay, need password.
    Password:
    230-You are user #1 of 6 simultaneous users allowed.
    230-
    230 Restricted user logged in.
    Remote system type is UNIX.
    Using binary mode to transfer files.
    ftp> ls
    200 PORT command successful.
    150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
    -rw-r--r-- 1 ftpuser ftpusers 47458 Sep 24 16:56 lettuce.old
    -rw-r--r-- 1 ftpuser ftpusers 10811 Oct 25 04:23 beer.can
    -rw-r--r-- 1 ftpuser ftpusers 112848 Oct 25 04:25 chips.bag
    226 Listing completed.
    ftp> get beer.can
    local: beer.can remote: beer.can
    200 PORT command successful.
    150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for beer.can (10811 bytes).
    226 Transfer completed.
    10811 bytes received in 1.64 secs (12 Kbytes/sec)
    ftp> close
    221 Goodbye.
    ftp> quit
    [furby@furby kitchen]$ cd /home/hallway
    [furby@furby hallway]$ cd /home/office
    [furby@furby office] $ cp /home/kitchen/beer.can /home/office/beer.can

    hermit
    www.thegrinder.org
    "Trying to make the 'Net a better place, one Linux box at a time..."
  • heh wow i wish i was cooler with hardware ive been fuddling with furbys for awhile and wrote a few apps http://devilfish.dhs.org/gfurby hells yea ;)
  • Is just about what my daughter's Furby would say to this,

    if the batteries hadn't worn down.

    Too bad AA batteries are so hard to find, otherwise we could power up that annoying piece of electronic garbage.

  • This is news? (Score:3)

    by ptomblin ( 1378 ) <ptomblin@xcski.com> on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @09:57AM (#675944) Homepage Journal
    From the site itself:
    The Hack Furby Two-Fifty Challenge was issued in January 1999

    Talk about timely coverage of contemporary issues!

  • Extra! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @09:55AM (#675945)
    An extra 500 dollars if you can make the Furby pour hot grits down its pants, and run around screaming "Petrified Natalie Pr0tman!"
  • Hey, watch what you're doin' there!!!

    If you're not a registered Hackologist with the Federal Unit of Computer Knowledge, then you could land yourself in jail for illegal hacking!

    Sheesh! Don't you know you can't talk about such things? You're gonna get us all in trouble!

    -S

  • . . . and wield a soldering iron without causing permanent personal cosmetic damage. . .

    I know enough to use a soldering iron without hurting myself. I want to use it to cause permanent Furby damage.
  • Yeah, great, but in the process of doing this one could easily spend a lot of money as well....a $250 prize isn't all that great then...
  • Furbies are SOOO 1998! I'm suprised there is still any interest in them. After all, the site does say, "The Hack Furby Two-Fifty Challenge was issued in January 1999, and you can look for results at http://www.afu.com" While there are no results at the page referenced (maybe no one entered?), could it be possible that the contest is long over?
  • Let's say that the US bans Capital Punishment. What would you propose to do with the serial killers and other social deviants that would have been put to death under the old system? Specifically address the socio-economic impact of your plan.

  • Progress... (Score:5)

    by Electric Angst ( 138229 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @09:57AM (#675951)
    I am trying to encourage graduate students and others who have time and talent. This is a prize to encourage progress, of the kind that was often staked in the early days of aviation.

    You people don't quite realize how important this is. Why, here in the year 2074, the Cursing Toy industry is one of the great indicators of our economy. It has aided human life in ways unimaginable, and honestly, no one can really imagine what life would be like without it.
    --
  • You heard me, Furby already cusses! Start yours up and keep on massaging it until it says "HUG ME". Listen to that carefully. It actually sounds much more like "FUCK ME"!!

  • This was issued in Jan. 1999. I think I'd be looking for winners around this time, not more entrants.

    Must not have been that successful.
    --
  • Ahhh,what a joy it would be to see my 7yo sister come home to find her furby, skinned and decapitaed with a soldering iron stuck into it, as she walked in the door... MWAHAHahahahahhahahhahahahha

  • Done (Score:3)

    by clinko ( 232501 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @09:58AM (#675955) Journal
    Here [homestead.com] is a page that is all about hacking furby.

    I swear mine says obscene things anyway
  • I want to modify a furby so that if fed after midnight all its fur falls of and it turns green.
    An additional feature to this model would be the automatic replication of Furby's when placed into contact with water.

    From what I understand of studying my schematics so far however, the Furby would be extremly adverse to light. For some reason that I cannot explain it seems that water-based asexual reproduction in a Furby results in a structure that is degraded by photons. Curious.

    ("The next time those little buggers come in here I'm gonna turn the fire hoses on them!")
  • What aRe you talking about? 20 InstaGibs? N0thing happens.. right? Quakee nicotime
  • That would get someone's attention.

  • would program it to say offensive things like

    Math is hard

    Elmo can lick mah ballz

    CmdrTaco is an Asshole

    Windows 0wnz joo.

    You know, offensive things.

    --

  • ...and finally
    5. The BeoFurby Custer

    And this resembles the famous "The Trouble With Tribbles" Episode of Star Trek.
  • FIRST POST! FIRST POST! At least they'd have something in common with the trolls!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'm actually working (verrrrry sloooooowly) on doing something similar with that quintessential speaking toy from the late 70s - the Texas Instruments Speak & Spell. I hope to reprogram it to utter obscenities (childish, I know, but who hasn't ever tried to get their Speak & Spell to say rude things??? ;)

    I wish I had such things as schematics to make the task easier and prize money to get me more motivated. The 'net is strangely lacking in useful information about the range of Texas Instruments speaking toys (yes, there were others - Speak & Math, Speak & Read, Speak & Music, Speak & Write, etc.) - something I hope to rectify sometime in the near future.

    Anyone interested in knowing more, or with any helpful information should feel free to contact me.

    [Happosai]
  • Maybe we should Hack Barbie.... No wait what would be the point
  • 41% off O'Reilly Texts. 40% off Oracle Texts. Very fast shipping.

    Even better. half.com. Usually can get books for at least 50% off. Shipping depends on the sending, but every book I've bought (I've already bought about 6 O'Reilly books from there) have come in a timely manner.

  • If I had more time to work on this, the first thing I'd do would be to take the guts of a Gameboy Color and use them to replace the furby's internal systems. You get an ehnanced Z-80 processor (which we ALL learned how to program in our first year or two of college, right?), audio output, 8 control inputs (plus the analog? volume control) (connect these to the front/back button, upside-down detector and the "noise" sensor) and a boatload of interface options for your control system (i.e. the gameboy proto-firewire connector).

    It would be loads of fun... especially making a Furby that shouts "Pikaaachuuuu!" but I just don't have the time. :)

    -Chris
  • Furby IS THE DEVIL Bobby Boucher. I'm up for a good hack but it won't be on a Furby. I had a furby that sat on a shelf for about 2 months unused then one day just freaked out making all weird noises then went into a full possessed state, eyes rolled back chanting one high pitch sound. After initially startling me I unscrewed the battery compartment and put it back on the shelf waiting for a future autopsy. About 2 months later, without going anywhere near if in just as long a time, the furby with its battery door slightly open suddenly came back to life talking in tongues. I immediately began my autopsy, after some begging by my fiance I terminated the operation. While disposing of the carcass I also threw out a cellular phone in the same garbage bag, which previously mentioned fiance made me remove for fear of it calling in reinforcements. Hack Furby - Don't do it!!! ME-LA-KILL-YOU
  • I bet you had a problem with the guy who took a 12-gauge to his PC case, too.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And if you buy that pile of fetid donkey scrapings, I have a bridge I want to sell you.

    Seriously, though, I'm 17, well-adjusted, very against the death penalty, and even I found that video amusing. Lighten up, not everything is a lesson.

    Besides, who'd show their kid that? :)

    The Acrimonous BS.
  • >cp /home/kitchen/beer.can /home/office/beer.can

    Are you sure it is such a good idea for you and furby to drink together? In the office no less?

    Or did you mean:

    mv /home/kitchen/beer.can /home/office/beer.can

    ;-)
  • FurbyLinux will allow a Furby network nicely with other Furbys

    Oh man, could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these things?

  • Yes, I can never get FP! ;)
  • "Well, it was roght about dat time ah realized dat dis Furby hackuh was a 40 foot crustation from the paleolithic era! Dat's roght, it was dat Loch Ness Monstuh! An' I said, 'God dammit Monstuh! I'm tryin' to make a livin' wit' my Open Source initiative heaough! Git out an git yoself a job or sum'in!'"
  • You pasted this as I was writing mine! GRRRR! :) Good humor mod goes to MINE though. heheheh.
  • Speaking of demeaning subjects (see your original rant), I would have to say you are demeaning all the topics you're inanely soapboxing about (captial punishment, murder, animal abuse, etc.) by placing them in a discussion about an article entitled "The Hack Furby Two-Fifty Challenge."

    Sheesh, isn't there another site you can waste bandwidth at?

  • Studies have shown that most psychopaths go through a period of committing animal abuse long before they turn to committing violence against humans.

    Got any references? What is the statistical significance of those 'studies'?

    From my personal anecdotal experience, most psychopats live in New York City, where the only non-human animals available for abusing are cockroaches. Since non-psychopats also perform animal abuse against roaches, I find it doubtful whether one can conclude anything from that.

    OTOH, I must congratulate you -- few trolls get as many responses as you did. I like the funny trolls. Keep up with the good work.

    And, yes, I'm for the death penalty, too, like you. Nothing pushes a point as effectively as reductio ad absurdum by wild exaggeration. Thanks.

  • from: http://www.netexpress.net/~parallax/serial_killers .html

    Arthur Shawcross

    Repeatedly threw a kitten into a lake until the kitten drowned from exhaustion.

    Killed a young girl. Then, after serving 15 and 1/2 years in prison, killed 11 more women

    11 women would have lived if they had fried his butt in the chair for the first murder
  • Both are products of the same human nature in both cases. I'm not saying that destruction of Furbies is laudable. I'm just saying it per se doesn't rank among crimes against humanities in the same way that capital punishment does.
    Hmm. Crimes against humanities (sic)? When I see a dirty, filthy, disgusting cockroach, I step on it. How would you explain your bleeding-heart stance to parents who lose a son or daughter to a rapist/torturer/butcher/murderer who was let out of prison for the same previous crime? (Forgetting, for the moment, that he or she was probably let out due to the overcrowding caused by the IWOD [Insane War On Drugs]...)


  • Eating animals is not only itself a violent act; it does teach people disregard (or at least selective disregard) for animal life, which as I've said, desensitizes them to violence against human life. You've already answered your own question.
    So now all non-vegetarians are potential psychopaths? You're really a piece of work. And quite a hoot, I might add.


  • ...for "FUCK HARBY". I wonder who Harby is and what he has to say about all this.

  • FurbyLinux (Score:5)

    by techmuse ( 160085 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @10:02AM (#675983)
    Soon, we will probably see an announcement of FurbyLinux, the first version of the open source OS to compile on a Furby. FurbyLinux will feature a special tactile "fur" interface. Eyelids will droop lower to indicate high load average. X will run (Xeyes will be the included demo program). FurbyLinux will allow a Furby network nicely with other Furbys, however plush toys such as Microsoft Barney will implement non-standard protocols, allowing them to only transmit the words "innovate", "upgrade" and "assimilate".
  • Any die hard SP fan will know it's
    $3.50 or 'tree fitty'

    But I forgive you your oversight. Any fan of SP is alright in my book :)

    TIMMAY!!

  • Let's say that the US bans Capital Punishment. What would you propose to do with the serial killers and other social deviants that would have been put to death under the old system?

    Personally, I would vote for sending them to Canada. I don't know what Canada does with their criminals, but, it seems that the Canadians are a little *TOO* law abiding. There's something suspicious going on up there.

  • wassamatta Roscoe, jealous of the trolls?

  • Furbies are just a stupid plastic piece of American consumerism,

    Yes, we must stamp out all childhood fun! Good God, there might be children who actually become attached to this small, cute, colorful, furry doll! Whoever invented such an abomination?

    I'll never understand the geek need to destroy anything that might be cute and fun.

    Here's a hint to others who feel this way (and this includes Barney, etc): It's not designed for you! It's designed for small children! Get over it!


    --

  • C'mon, it's cool! It's interesting....

  • Eating animals is not only itself a violent act...

    Er, last I checked, humans are omnivores. We are supposed to eat animals. It's called the food chain.

    Is it immoral when a lion kills an antelope?


    --

  • "And this resembles the famous "The Trouble With Tribbles" Episode of Star Trek."

    Thanks for reminding me... I forgot one.

    6. Furby MUD server

  • Figuring out "which CPU" by looking at the hex was easy on NES (dump Mario Bros.'s program and see 0xA9 (lda) everywhere). It'll be a lot harder on Furby because the ROM can't be dumped; it's in the same black blob.
  • Are we going to receive Cease and Desist letters ordering us to stop using the Furby in ways it wasn't intended ? How about implanting a wavelan rig inside the furby to have it transmit a serial number to Digital Convergence =)

  • Re:Slashdotted (Score:3)

    by whizzard ( 177251 ) on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @12:19PM (#676008) Homepage
    You can see the google [google.com]-cached copy here [google.com] .
  • Okay, the Hack Furby challenge is totally brilliant, but I have to mention that this isn't just any Peter van der Linden, but the Peter van der Linden, who wrote

    Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets

    Which is one of the best and funniest books on C that I have ever read. I mean, it actually made me laugh out loud many times.

    "If I were stranded on a desert island and could only take one data structure with me, it would be the hash table."

    I couldn't recommend it more highly.

    Keep your Amazon-boycott-conscience clear and consider buying it at Fatbrain [fatbrain.com].

    -Dan

  • Re:Done (Score:3)

    by G-funk ( 22712 ) <josh@gfunk007.com> on Wednesday October 25, 2000 @02:45PM (#676013) Homepage Journal
    "Ah, here's the thing. Somebody set this doll to 'evil'".

    Gfunk
  • Check out this Furby riding the lightning [bla-bla.com].

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