Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Hardware Hacking Toys Build

Boogie Bass Hacked 102

Posted by Hemos from the good-exercise dept.
vonmar writes "A 20-second re-recordable message has been hacked into the "Boogie Bass" talking fish. The audio is stored on an ISD 1420P solid-state chipcorder voice record/playback chip. The head, tail, and mouth movements are also re-recordable, and are stored in EEPROM inside an ATMEL AT89S8252 microcontroller. Read more about it at the creator's site."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Boogie Bass Hacked More

Boogie Bass Hacked

Comments Filter:
  • Just 3 hours ago I sent in a Newly Released hack to convert Iomega ZipCD 12x recorder to a Plextor [roundsparrow.com] to Slashdot. I come here to see if it was posted... and what do I find, a hacked Bass story was posted. I guess Slashdot has their priorities :)

  • Re:Holy shit (Score:3)

    by startled ( 144833 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @04:57PM (#532814)
    Yeah, but didn't he mention that soon he'd have a Beowulf Cluster of them?

  • the term "hacker" (Score:3)

    by British ( 51765 ) <british1500@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @03:15PM (#532815) Homepage Journal
    We have a story of Indian "Hackers" and now there's news of this fish being "hacked".

    So with the word "hacker" being used here, did the Indian "hackers" "Hack" the Boogie Fish? Or was the fish "cracked" or "defaced"?
  • wont be able to sell your modified boogie bass becuase there is very little chance that the company that makes the boogie bass will let you use their copyrighted product, and let you sell the modified one and recieve all the money.

    ( You said that you might consider selling your modified boogie bass at the bottom in the 'coming soon' section )


  • I've wanted that for a while. The first time I saw one of those commercials for one of those stupid things on mute, I wanted a Billy Bass to look straight at a guest and start cussing at them.

    Now, I can. Thank you slashdot submitters for brining new meaning to my borring and miserable life!
  • I hate to break it to you, but the only BLO hack was a social engineering one. No actual Barbies/GI Joes were actually hacked -- the entire thing was a hoax aided and abetted by a willing media who accepted the BLO video press releases without verifying the story.
  • ...he built a new controller for it. The original CPU and audio storage went unused.

    Still it's cool! Kind of like Disney's animatronic Mr. Lincoln, only in fish form!

  • we had one at the place I used to work, and listening to that stupid fish start singing, was a welcome break to the days boredom. (other people would sing allong or dance to it)

  • If I only had some points, I'd mod this post up. And one a few posts below simply for the line:

    > To the moderators : I already have a crappy plastic singing fish. Please don't humiliate me even more by modding me down :)

    But noooooo, I wasn't picked to moderate today. And I bet all of the moderators are busy in the battle royale flamefest a few topics over about how much the USA sucks.

    And seriously, don't mod my post up unless you mod the parent post up first. I'm still embarassed over the last time this happened.

    Geoff
  • Good god, some people seem to have even more fuckin' free time than me! what a fucking waste!

    "Duh... look Earl, I hacked a talkin' bass"

    "Woo-wee Zeke, now that thar is just down-raht keen"

    what a bunch of fucking retards.

    GET A LIFE!

  • Babelfish (Score:3)

    by Digital Mage ( 124845 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @05:21PM (#532823)
    Now all we need to do is give the fish a microphone and and some translation software and you could have a Babelfish to stick in your ear.
  • At work we joked around about hacking these things and putting them in our offices as emergency notifiers. So instead of getting paged, we'd get a nice little song, "The router is down dooby doo down down..." Though I imagine it would get old real quick like.
  • It could SIMPLY have been that the bookstore staff were clueless. I've seen this happen. My wife prevented it from happening in a mall bookstore she was working in, in fact.

    Well, mebbe. It seems awfully unlikely that the publisher would not have had some VERY NOTICEABLE NOTICES on the package to let the vendors know they were not kiddie books. OTOH now they shrink wrap all of them, so maybe there was some confusion.

    Eris must be pleased.

  • kind of like an mp3...
    um.. I done, you can stop reading...
  • Or at least I think it was a couple of years ago. I was with some people in a McDonald's on a school trip. There was an old man who brought one with him and was going around showing it to people. When I first saw it I thought it was pretty dopey, but when he came and showed it to us, though I hate to admit it, it made me laugh a bit. I'm not the type who usually laughs at this kind of thing. Once when required to write a story or essay with the title "Anything Can Happen" I wrote a story in which ended with the protagonist being killed by a falling bullet which was fired at the beginning of the story. From that you should be able to see how far talking fish are from my notion of what is funny. I think this shows that such a gadget can be somewhat amusing if used in moderation.


    "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto"
    (I am a man: nothing human is alien to me)

  • why? to show your friends?

    Friends? What friends?

  • Would be if someone put linux on it! Make it sing a song or say something every time your server got a hit. Have it squirm and scream if someone launces a DOS attack against you.
  • Buy a bunh of them, reprogram them to sing DeCSS, and put them back on the shelves.
  • Nice reverse engineering job. You can go a step further and make the something entirely of your own design: http://www.provide.net/~hettmer/mack.html
  • It's too bad these things can't "learn" from each other the way Furby's can. All you'd have to do is buy one, hack it, return it to the store, and before you know it, every one of them would be saying, "The DMCA sucks," or "Penguin Power," over and over. Since I'd bet that most of the people who'd actually buy one of these things would pay more attention to it than they would to anyone who posts here, this would be the perfect way to educate the masses about what really matters.
  • The quaility of the speaker on this thing is pretty bad, the recording to a chip limits the number of things you can say. Since the motors can be triggered by switching them on, then letting them reset (they have springs that do that), or as the page states:

    "A little investigation with an oscilloscope revealed that the control of the Bass' head/tail/mouth is extremely simple: energize the corresponding motor, and the head turns out, the tail extends, or the mouth opens. De-energize the motor, and the corresponding body part returns (by a spring) to it's "rest" state. We've got binary actuators here folks. And it was clear that we could tie in to the gate inputs of the motor drivers with some simple diode-or circuitry."

    So you can access the motors directly from an outside source via cable leading into the fish.
    Then rig up a conection to a printer port (much easier than serial stuff) for the fish cable.

    Then write a winamp plugin (or something like that) that takes the frequency output (like other plugins do), and use that to send on/off signals to the printer port->cable->fish. You could have loud bass be the trigger on for the tail, loud treble will switch on the mouth motor, etc. Then hook up the soundcard to a stereo. That way, you have good sound and a talking fish that can be used with any audio file. The plugin part could be done in hardware if you are good with electronics, and then used with a radio or other audio source.

    Good Idea, Eh?

  • Just one more person with too much time on their hands.

    I really wonder what would happen if people like this applied themselves to creating something useful, like a really cheap, fully functional computer that doesn't have the bells and whistles but can be used/given to computer-deprived poor children to bridge the digital divide.

  • What I'd really like to see is a version of the talking fish that was controlled by a remote microphone, and with software that controlled the head and mouth automatically whenever a person was speaking into the microphone.

    New from Ronco! It's the Mr. Fish-a-Phone!

    "Hey, good lookin' -- we'll swim back to pick you up later!"

  • Ya buy a bunch of these things and reprogram them to say and do "interesting" things. Then you carefully repackage them, sneak them back into the store, and put them on the shelf. Imagine the fun with Grandma gives one to uncle Fred!!!

    The Barbie Liberation Organization [berkeley.edu] did this a while back by switching the voiceboxes of talking Barbie dolls with those of talking G.I. Joes and then putting them back into toy stores. Lot's of little boys and girls got more than they expected from Santa that year!

  • Comment removed (Score:5)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @03:28PM (#532837)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Re:what a ./ troll would do.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    To give as "gifts" to annoy friends, of course. I think the question is: who thought of this and where do they live?
  • That website is so pork.

    -----

  • Re:the term "hacker" (Score:3)

    by Webmonger ( 24302 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @03:31PM (#532840) Homepage
    They're not mutually exclusive.

    If it was your fake fish and you reprogrammed it cleverly, it was hacked.

    If it was someone else's fake fish, and you reprogrammed it cleverly, it was hacked and cracked.

    If it was someone else's fake fish, and you reprogrammed it stupidly, it was cracked. (And you're a script kiddie.)

    And there's no such thing as defacing junk like a Boogie Bass.
  • Well, since most of the colors are taken I suppose this would be Bass Box then...

  • The company loses the right to tell you what you can do with your boogie bass once they sell it to you. You may be unable to manufacture new boogie basses due to possible copyright, patent, and trademark infringements. However, as long as the modifier of the boogie bass does not claim that it is an unmodified boogie bass, then the company that manufactured it would have no real legal claim to prevent the modified boogie bass's sale.

    Note that it is a little different in the software world because software developers normally do not sell their products, but merely "license" them. This practice is legally questionable, but has been used to prevent selling modified copies of software such as Windows.

    BTW, IANAL, so I suppose I could be wrong on the boogie bass issue.

  • A geeky story, and the fish doesn't even run on Linux!

    Sacrilege!
  • But you don't seem to see the importance of the hacked Bass. This is a major breakthrough in DNA research !!!!

    Just imagine : Today we can manipulate a ...... eh ... plastic? ........ nevermind.

    But on a serious note : my brother seemed to think that this was the ideal gift for me (what was he smoking?). So I'm stuck with one. So from my point of view this story has a higher priority than yours (btw I have a Plexwriter 12/10/32A, so your story does nothing but piss me off)

    I can imagine that the slashdot editors might have similar experiences.

    To the moderators : I already have a crappy plastic singing fish. Please don't humiliate me even more by modding me down :)

  • Bitchin' Hemos,
    Thanks for all the details. When the chip part numbers are mentioned in the front-page summary, by Gods this is truly News for Nerds!
    Proof that sometimes, the Slash editors/moderators really do read us nerds like open books, think like us, etc.

    Thanks, again!

  • Either way, it's still pretty pathetic...I guess some people have way too much time on their hands.

  • Lots of you asking WTF anyone would want with one of these. The simple answer is...
    1. Remember the NetPliance I-Opener (or whatever it was called)


    Mine would say Hey! You fish lipped it! (from cheech & chong) or something stupid besides. "Take me to the river..."

    Where's OSCARFISH [oscarfish.com] when we need some quick anecdotes?

    I see lot's of useless uses for it.

  • lol (Score:1)

    by Zeramid ( 159551 )
    this kind of reminds me of that madtv skit with the boogie bass as a doctor and other things. *couple walks in to the doctors office as a boogie bass is set up on the table* Man: So whats wrong with me doctor? Boogie Bass: You have leprosy. goodbye. (alright thats not exactly how it went but thats as good as i remember it :))

  • Re:the term "hacker" (Score:4)

    by Dannon ( 142147 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @06:04PM (#532849) Journal
    I vote we say it was "poached". Or perhaps "de-scaled".

    ---
  • The proper messages in the proper community would be most entertaining...
    Sounds like a job for the Barbie Liberation Organization [syntac.net].

    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

  • Our cat jumped about 3 feet in the air when it walked in front of the fish and it started talking.

  • I think Billy Bass support was holding up the kernel release. They'll have it RSN. Promise.

  • Not a flame, just my opinion. Mark it down, call me troll, but really, I think people have more important things to think about than trying to get everyone to follow some individual's pet agenda.

    Agreed, however I am one of those people who tend to nit-pick over the difference between the two terms. Three or four years ago, when I was about 16, I wouldn't have cared at all how people used them. That changed for one good reason.

    I like having a "label" for myself. "Geek." Which I proudly proclaim doesn't seem to carry any sort of power with it -- "hacker" does. Even Linus considers himself a "hacker." as do do most good programmers. When I label myself a "hacker" I carry the good connocation along with it. I am not a cracker. If I breech security it's becuase I don't have access to something I should, which I haven't done in years. And that's another subjhet all together.

    I'm seeing more and more that those who nit-pick over the difference between cracker and hacker are those who would like an all-encompasing label for themselves. I am one of them -- "hacker" in it's true sense describes me. I'd like to be able to use this word, but the media has contrused it to mean something that it never really has.

    Justin Buist

  • Trademarks would only be a problem if he claimed that it was an original "Boogie Bass." If it was clearly a modified item, that would not be a problem. Copyright law (as well as patent law possibly) would only be a problem if he started manufacturing new fish instead of buying them, modifying them, and selling the modified versions. Patent law might be a problem if the company has filed a patent on boogie bass that lets you change what they say, but only after the patent has been cleared and the person making these modifications has been notified. In that case, he would need to license the patent in ordert to modify and sell the boogie bass.

    But in any case, this company is likely to act a little more intelligently about people selling modified versions of its product than companies in the entertainment or software industries. This company manufactures a good. Why someone buys it, whether to use "as is" or to modify and resell, does not affect the bottom line. If they get more sales from people buying modified bass who would otherwise not buy a regular bass (I personally would not buy either of them...they're rather tacky and obnoxious), then they are not going to make a big fuss about it.

  • When I first saw the title, I thought it said "Bootie Bass Hacked". Nice way to get my hopes up ;)

    What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
  • WEll then...PORK
    No, not that roommate. Frankly, the whole pork thing is a little bit disturbing.

    --

  • you know.. http://www.killfrog.com/00/dab.html [killfrog.com] is quite amusing.. i guess, you could shove some TNT up the bass' ass to simulate the demonstration on this website :P
  • In case there was any doubt, I saw him build this fish & I have seen it work. It's pretty impressive.

    --

  • I hate to break it to you, but the only BLO hack was a social engineering one. No actual Barbies/GI Joes were actually hacked -- the entire thing was a hoax aided and abetted by a willing media who accepted the BLO video press releases without verifying the story.

    It's too bad you didn't include a link to something verifying this info. A lot of fairly reputible sites contain BLO info and don't say anything about it being a fraud. These include www.syntac.net [syntac.net], www.everything2.com [everything2.com], and ®(TM)ark [paranoia.com] which claims to have funded the operation. (A quick Google search [google.com] will turn up many, many more.)

    Besides a couple of USENET postings, the only info I could find regarding the BLO being a myth was this article [pomona.edu] which says that the only myth is the myth of the incident being a myth.

    Of course this is neither authoritative nor exhaustive and I'm sure we would all be wiser if you would reveal the source of your wisdom.

  • You know, I really must congratulate the guy who hacked this stupid fish. I mean, that's about the tackiest thing in the world; it might at least be fun if it reminds you that you're fat and ugly or makes some other nasty remarks.

    "Hey! Buddy! You think I look stupid? Look in the mirror!"

    Anyway, having said that, I completely understand the creative genius. You see, I have a snowblower.

    Snowblowers seem to be a hot commodity this year, and the recent snowfall here has spurred me into motion on a recent project that I had started in the spring and then had allowed to languish.

    I have a 1973 Ariens 2-stage 24" snowblower. And the engine was cooked. I needed to put on another one.

    I'm cheap, though, so I didn't want to buy one. Especially not since I had one kicking around...

    ...one that had lots of power for the purpose...

    ...one that always started in the insanely cold weather in my hometown of Ottawa...

    ...one that was sitting around in my garage...

    ...and my neighbor got into a pissing contest with me because his snowblower had a bigger engine than mine (new 8hp Craftsman to my 27-year-old solid-as-a-rock 5hp Ariens)...

    And so I did it. I got out the tapemeasure, and I figured out how I could make it fit. Stretch the snowblower chassis 7" between the drive section and the blower section, weld on some angle iron as motor mounts, and I was all set.

    Now, my neighbor concedes defeat. Comfortably.

    I have an electric start, 4-cylinder, water-cooled, overhead cam, 2-barrel carbureted, 1.6L snowblower. Coolant taken from the heater core ports on the water pump is circulated through fine copper tubing in the hand grips (no mittens required!) and the discharge chute, which keeps it clear of snow by forming a slippery coat of ice inside. Horsepower, according to 1980 Chevette sales brochures, is about 90.

    Sure, it weighs over 400lbs with the battery, but that just gives it more traction on the wheels, and allows it to churn into the biggest and nastiest snowbanks, even without tire chains.

    And, unlike the reliable but worn out old Tecumseh Sno-King that it replaced, with just a crack over idle, the snowblower won't bog down when I run through the crap blocking my driveway that the snowplow left behind. It throws slush and ice the same 9 feet or so that it used to throw light powder snow with the old Tecumseh.

    It threw first snow on December 30th.

    Talking bass, my ass. I'm taking photos of the blower tonight, I'll post them somewhere when I can.

    Now, if only I could find some good Grade-8 bolts that will properly fit the shear pin holes on the auger...

  • Drop it in the water. LEAVE IT THERE!

    Jeez, now you could have it do a variant on a Beatles tune, Hey Jude. "Take a bad idea, and make it lamer."

    John

  • Then I guess you would have a really good reason
    to keep all of your equipment nice and stable...
    to avoid activating the damn fish.

    This could revolutionize the IT world.

  • what a ./ troll would do.. (Score:4)

    by X-Dopple ( 213116 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @02:49PM (#532863)
    Wonder what he'll be reprogrammed to say?

    "IMAGINE A BEOWULF CLUSTER OF ME"?
    "HOT NAKED PETRIFIED NATALIE PORTMAN?"
    "GOATS***"

    assuming anyone ever bought one of those things. I mean, the question is: WHY would you want one?

  • <microserf>See, Linux is vapourware! Foul, stinky, slimey vapour-emitting fishy-ware!</microserf>

    --
  • CNN [cnn.com] Says these items are currently all the rage with world leaders. according to the article Queen Elizabeth, Tony Blair, and George W. Bush all own one. Am I the only one that finds this disturbing? There was an article in The Sun last year about how Queen Elizabeth likes to entertain guests by singing duets with hers. I wonder if Her Majesty also enjoys Nascar and pro wrestling.

    ^. .^
    ( @ )

    Soylent Foods, Inc.

  • What would you get if.... (Score:5)

    by L3WKW4RM ( 228924 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @02:51PM (#532866) Homepage
    I think if anyone ever crossed one of these with the hacked furby, it would be **the** most annoying gadget on earth.
  • Notify when new mail arrive. I will record a 'You've got mail' sample on it, and build an interface so it can be activated whenever a new mail arrives.
  • Are we going to have to sign a license agreement to buy one of these now like all of the 'net-only' computers? Or will it be implied that we won't tinker with it like the cuecat?
  • Mass hypnosis really works! Who in their right mind would buy this piece of shit? I guess the same type whos wear "BUM Equipment" clothes...

    Pope

    Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!

  • wha?! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    News For White Trash?
    Stuff That Sucks?
  • How about "fscking trolls!"
  • I just mailed this to a vegan friend who got one of those fish as a graduation present (odd eh?). But after reading it... with all the pork references... I'm begining to wonder if it isn't a somewhat unvegan site, and lets not mention Islam.

    oops. -Daniel

  • Great, now not only will I find these hanging from the walls of people with bad taste, I'll have to put up with it at every geek that I know's dwelling...

    Thanks.... really....
  • d00d, I know this guy who wears all of those PLUS chain mail shirts!
  • Now this definitely *isn't* kosher!
  • ...now when I go over to people's houses, they're stupid fucking fish will be saying stupid fucking things to me that only THEY find funny.

    You mean instead of saying stupid fucking things that NO ONE finds funny... like they do now?

    I gotta admit that hacking those god-awful talking fish trophies is a good idea. Almost as good as hacking the Taco Bell dogs (which are even more annoying than the singing bass IMHO). But buying them pre-made? Where's the fun in that?

  • I want my Singing Rock Lobster to scream out a pornographic soundtrack as it humps its rock. Can I assume it would work the same way?

    Also, Killfrog has the best [killfrog.com] Boogie Bass [killfrog.com] around.

  • That would be funny as hell.
    Hack it, then take it back to say... Kaybee toys.
    Imagine the Chaos that insues,
    "Hey Baby, give it to me."
    "I want you, NOW"
  • ...and the fish doesn't even run on Linux!

    Yet.

    You never know what those talented fish-hackers will come up with next.
  • If you were wearing Members Only in the early 90s, I assume you were laughed at all the time... that was at least 6-7 years out of date by then.

    --

  • It would probably be hard to do on a massive scale, but even so, trademarks or copyrights would probably be the biggest problem...
  • Just trading in a little karma for a silly joke that's not worth the effort.
  • It could SIMPLY have been that the bookstore staff were clueless. I've seen this happen. My wife prevented it from happening in a mall bookstore she was working in, in fact.

  • Re:what a ./ troll would do.. (Score:3)

    by Change ( 101897 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @06:42PM (#532884)
    > assuming anyone ever bought one of those things. I mean, the question is: WHY would you want one?

    To modify and return to the store, of course. The proper messages in the proper community would be most entertaining...

  • Interactive version (Score:3)

    by Venebulon ( 74777 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @06:50PM (#532885)
    What I'd really like to see is a version of the talking fish that was controlled by a remote microphone, and with software that controlled the head and mouth automatically whenever a person was speaking into the microphone. Imagine inviting passers-by to have a conversation with the fish. Pipe the voice through a sound-blaster live first to get some rather fishy voice-effects and we could really have some fun. Hey, I want this as a hands-free telephone!
  • Put a bluetooth webserver-on-a-chip inside one?
  • But crackers call themselves hackers too (I guess it's hax0r5 or something). If both groups call themselves hackers, why should one group insist that they and ONLY they be called hackers?
  • It already has a microphone. That's how you record your new message. (I've done it.)

    And any translation software you could fit in it would be pretty sorry, since it would have to fit in about 1k.

    Yes, I know you're kidding.

    --

  • Eh, to me, Hacker is a term that has nothing to do with "good" and "bad."
    Hacking is a feat of technical prowess, be it finding a way to root Bill Gates's PC or making a fish say pork. Cracking is breaking into something. Either way, the overlap each other for the most part.

  • Heck! (Score:2)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 )
    I knew I shoulda did this long ago!

    I bought one of these when it first became a "hit", I think it was last Christmas (99), or maybe it was later - early last year, anyway.

    I had mounted mine to the wall (none too securely), and it fell off - breaking the mouth actuator in the process.

    Figuring this was as good of time as any to open it up, and see how it worked, I went ahead, pulled it apart, and took the actuator assembly out of the "skin" - kinda freaky looking, but I found the busted part. A little superglue and some struggling with the skin, and it worked like a champ afterward.

    After seeing how simple the thing was, I knew it wouldn't take anything to hook the thing to a computer, and write drivers, etc to control it (I was thinking the parallel port route, or maybe a PIC with a custom serial interface - nothing too fancy) - but at the time, it was just "one of those projects", that I seem to have a million of running in the back of my head. I shelved it, figuring someone would do it sooner or later.

    I guess it has been done, to an extent, at least - pretty cool. Since the Boogie Bass came out, others have been available - I have seen a trout, an alligator, a lobster, a shark, a fish with no skin (just bones - for Halloween), and one with a stocking cap for Xmas.

    Other cool animatronic animals I have seen are a line of moving "creatures" that perform an action when you press a hidden "under-the-skin" button - I have seen them at toys-r-us.

    Never thought when I was a kid that audio-animatronic devices would be sold cheaply. I remember being fascinated by the Chuck E Cheese characters, going to the point of trying to build my own "dancing" robot (I actually got a head working that would "sing" to a radio - built the trigger circuitry for the motor using a Radio Shack 150-in-1 kit!). I loved seeing how they worked, listening to the compressed air pistons, etc.

    Now they can be bought at Walgreens...sigh.

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!

  • A friend [swipnet.se] of mine ordered an mp3-player from toga [toga.com] but recieved this stupid singing fish instead.

    Needless to say, said company hasn't been contactable. No phone. No email. Just a void.

    The package recieved was even marked as to indicate it contained the player. Of course, he paid by CC, so they drew the money for the mp3-player and sent a singing fish. Makes one wonder...

    End of Consumer Information Message

  • Don't be stupid. I'm too smart! I would never fall for such a blatant Troll! Of course it's true, this guy on the Internet told me so! I...

    Doh!

    I'm going to stand in the corner and think about what I have done.
  • yeah, I have no Idea why I posted that. Hmmm.
  • Who in their right mind actually looks at one of those and wonders if they can hack it. Of course if it becomes easy enough to do I'm never going to use pen and paper again. What's that you say? Egghead pissed you off again? Bass 'em!
  • All you l33t hax0rs are so very, very dada [uiowa.edu] .

    You hack little childrens' toys.. why? to show your friends?

    NO! To sneak them back onto the shelves in order to indoctrinate little kids with counter-cultural messages....

    right?

    PLEASE tell me you are spending all this time with the hopes of doing something USEFUL...

    ...please??

  • woo hoo! (Score:3)

    by brad3378 ( 155304 ) on Wednesday January 03, 2001 @02:57PM (#532896)
    .

    I can see it now. Billy Bob holding his bass up to the pay-phone making
    illegal phone calls with pre-recorded phone phreaking tones.
  • Hmm, I wonder where I can get some of that interesting rubber compound stuff. The reprogrammed guts of a Billy Bass could be potentially interesting reincarnated as, say, a singing rubber cowpie [keenspace.com]. (Imagine being able to drive off unwanted relatives with one of those...)
  • At least now everyone who received one for Christmas from a relative that was disturbed enough to actually think it made a good gift, now has a project they can take on with the damn thing. Raises the entertainment level from zero up to the duration of the project (after which, it immediately loses all entertainment value again).

    I can't figure out how sales of this thing could actually have been good enough to create all the knock-offs that exist on the market. Someone's obviously buying the things. Fortuneately, it's not anyone I know (or else I would have to seriously reevaluate my friendship with that person).
  • artificial intelligence? MIT?? EDU?!?! indeed. harumph, already...
  • ... can be summed up by the following expression:

    WHOOP-DEE-FUCKIN-DOO!!!!!

  • http://www.killfrog.com/00/dasb.html
    and:
    http://www.killfrog.com/00/dab.html
  • now we can personalize our annoying fish everyone got us for christmas!
  • How about RMS singing "Share the Software"? :)

    (for those who haven't heard this piece of musical genius, you don't want to, and neither does RMS, I'd imagine).

  • NO! To sneak them back onto the shelves in order to indoctrinate little kids with counter-cultural messages....

    Back in the mid-80's I happened to be walking past the kiddie trade book section at WaldenBooks when something grabbed my attention. I couldn't exactly say why, since all the books were the same size, thickness, and similar color schemes ... but one just wasn't right. I homed in on it ... roses? What's the one with the rose on the spine? It was the first effort of A.N. Roquelaure (known now as Anne Rice), The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, which, in case you haven't heard, is in fact a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale but most certainly isn't the Disney version.

    Naturally I couldn't leave it there where some practical joker had left it in the potential grasp of prepubescent kiddies, so I swallowed hard and did my upright citizenly duty and bought it :-)

  • Just because some people don't use the term 'hacker' in some circumstances, doesn't mean that everyone must follow suit, or even care.

    Most of the media, even computer industry rags, still uses the term 'hacker' for both the good and bad intent. The people who moan about "GNU/"Linux, and "cracker" endlessly really need to find a new hobby.

    Not a flame, just my opinion. Mark it down, call me troll, but really, I think people have more important things to think about than trying to get everyone to follow some individual's pet agenda.

  • I know what I'd program him to say:

    "Hey, bite me, pal! I ain't singin SQUAT for you!"

    And then leaving hanging in my hallway for some poor guest of mine to come over and try to make it sing.

    Or even better...

    "Redrum! RED-RUM!"

    And have it hanging on my front door to scare of Jehovah's Witnesses... ;-)
  • Hmm, I was thinking along the lines of getting it to say 'Your mother sucks cocks in Hell' and donating it to a Jumble Sale/Church Bazaar.
  • User Info for a troll (211772)

    http://deeznutsclan.cjb.net
    deeznutsclan@hotmail.com
    User Bio
    This account has been indefinitely disabled.
    It is /. policy to disable any and all troll accounts. Trolls should be AC, that's what it's for!

    --Rob Malda, aka CmdrTaco
    I'm going to risk a Karma hit here, and say that This Sucks. I have no great love of Trolls, but saying they should post AC is not a good idea. Once a Troll reaches -1 they are can post to their hearts content, and not be annoying anyone who doesn't want to be annoyed (or those on Moderation duty). Disabling them, OTOH, means they go get a new account, and their Trolling ways are back in the face of everyone cruising at +1.

    Of course, they may be a good reason for this policy that hasn't occurred to me, and you are all welcome to point it out to me.

  • I can think of the PERFECT audio clip for
    a hacked talking fish..

    "My name is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce
    'linux' as leenucks"

    Send it to your favorite Linux-hater for
    a holiday gift.
  • I'll save us all a lot of trouble by posting this:

    Wow, it would be really funny to make it say #JOKE. Would really freak out somebody on acid. If its waterproof, you can pretend to catch it and make it say #JOKE2.

    Just doing my part to speed things along.


    My mom is not a Karma whore!

  • Great. Somebody is going to start selling these pre-made, and now when I go over to people's houses, they're stupid fucking fish will be saying stupid fucking things to me that only THEY find funny.

    Just one more reason to never leave my house, I suppose.

Slashdot Top Deals

Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

Close