|
Mmmmm, Who's Hungry? (4/1/02)
|
 
|
| | |
Here at AtAT we have, on occasion, linked to some particularly horrific-looking PC enclosures over the years, for a few reasons. First of all, we think it's healthy to "cleanse the palate," as it were; Mac users spend their days steeped in excellent industrial design, and after a while it's easy to get a little jaded and forget just how good we have it. Taking a gander at a truly mind-numbingly offensive example of some of the stuff that's out there on the other side of the fence is a nice way to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have St. Ive smiling upon us. Another reason why we do it is because sometimes it's really funny to see what passes for "good-looking" among the Wintel set. But mostly we do it because we enjoy grossing people out. (Hey, c'mon-- we did put together that Flower Power flavor theme over in the Preferences, right?)
Anyway, it's that time again; faithful viewer rjung posted a link over in the Officially Unofficial AtAT Forums that should be treated with extreme caution, because it depicts what may well be the single ugliest PC ever to poison this material plane with its very existence. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have weak constitutions, we beg you-- proceed no further, as the management cannot be held responsible for injury or staining caused by extreme retching. That said, we present to you: the NHP 200NC.
As its creator describes it, the NHP 200NC is "a lightweight caseless PC the world has never seen before"-- and the world probably would have liked to keep it that way. Basically, this guy decided that it'd be really neat to build a computer without an actual case, so he took a whole slew of old parts, plugged them into each other, and then held them all together with that crazy expanding quick-hardening polyurethane foam you occasionally see when you wander down to the shipping department in a major manufacturing center. The result? A fifteen-pound Pentium system with a handle-- one that floats on water and strikes terror and loathing into all who set eyes upon it.
For what it's worth, ugly though it may be, somehow we're not nearly as offended by the NHP 200NC as we are by lots of the nastier "cool" enclosures we've seen polluting the Wintel aisles. After all, the 200 NC doesn't attempt to look nice; it was designed purely as a clever (and successful) experiment to create a cheap, lightweight, functional computer-- looks be damned. It is unrepentantly yeccch; it actually revels in its sheer deformity, and for that we salute it. As the twisted individual who made this thing says, "you gotta love that computer that looks like a hybrid between a sheep and a Meringue." Well, "love" might be too strong a word, but we certainly respect it.
Say, is anyone else craving Marshmallow Fluff right about now?
| |
| |
 |
SceneLink (3661)
|  |
 |
|
And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
| | | |
|
| |
|
 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/1/02 episode: April 1, 2002: Microsoft launches a whole web site devoted to telling businessfolk how they should be running Windows instead of UNIX-- and runs it on a UNIX server. Meanwhile, those wacky Henrico County students just can't seem to keep the porn off of their iBooks, and some mad genius builds a "caseless" PC that would send Jonathan Ive into fatal convulsions...
Other scenes from that episode: 3659: C'mon, This HAS To Be A Joke (4/1/02) You know, if there's one day a year on which you probably shouldn't believe everything you read, this would be it. If you were the especially gullible type and you forgot to tear a page off the calendar this morning, you might have found yourself actually believing that Apple has jumped ship to Intel processors, Inside Mac Games is giving away a real rocket launcher, and Apple is gearing up to ship an iTiVo with an enclosure apparently made out of cardboard... 3660: Missed It By Five Weeks (4/1/02) Remember two months ago, when we told you how every school-supplied iBook in Henrico County, Virginia was being confiscated by school officials to undergo a thorough de-funning process? See, it seems that the high school students had been using their iBooks for such "distracting" extracurricular activities as illegally swapping music and movies, instant messaging and playing games during class, hacking into the teachers' files, and, of course, downloading enough porn to make Larry Flynt blush and consider going into another line of work...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
|
|
