Crowned Pigmy Kraken USB Live Linux Drive {Finished}

[J. Wilhelm]

Dear Colleagues:

In the last few days, while I paused on my “Timeline Synchroniser”  ( http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,22738.0.html ), and looking at developing a USB Live Linux flash disk for the same project, I got a little sidetracked and manufactured made a discovery of something else along the same lines…

Hereby, I present you with the ground braking discovery of a new species of Air Kraken found in the lowest stratosphere, by yours truly, Captain J. Wilhelm, and with the help of Dr. Livingstone aboard the USAS Orca.  Scientists have classified the new species as Magnetoteuthididae Borealis, so far jocularly nicknamed the “Crowned Pigmy Kraken” for its distinctive brass-colored crown and diminutive size.

The discovery of this species may shed light on the propulsion and levitation organs of the Air Kraken, since upon collection of several specimens, scientists discovered astonishing biological capabilities of these little creatures.  The Magnetoteuthididae Borealis is covered in a highly conductive  skin containing pure copper particles, and next to tentacles below the eyes, scientists found a natural induction coil, exposed above the surface of the skin.  Furthermore, these little creatures have displayed an enormous affinity for galvanic currents.

Scientists discovered a special adaptation of one of the tentacles, essentially an elongated arm with a curious proboscis, believed to a sophisticated organ capable of a rudimentary type of communication.  Upon proximity to electric calculation engines, the Magnetoteuthididae Borealis showed itself capable of hooking up to the USB port of the machines, thereby drawing the low-power galvanic current of the device, presumably for nourishment.

The most astonishing finding occurred when the scientists re-booted the calculation engine while the Magnetoteuthididae was still attached  to the machine, and noticed that the Magnetoteuthididae could take over the electric calculation engine,  essentially acting as a parasite to the machine, by taking control, like an operating system could.  This astonishing finding has scientists all over the world scrambling to find evidence of a primitive intelligence previously exhibited by the Kraken during experiments.





Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Cephalopoda
Subclass: Coleoidea
Superorder: Decapodiformes
Order: Teuthida
Genus: Krakenida Galvanica
Species:  Magnetoteuthididae Borealis
  (Story Copyright  c  2010 John William Dunn)


For the moment, the Crowned Pigmy Kraken, has a  4GB USB “thumb drive” flash disk (the small plastic-tab kind) temporarily attached to a USB plug inside the body cavity of the animal.  The flash disk is loaded with a Live Ubuntu Linux operating system (same as the one used in my Mare Leviathan PC Kiosk, see www.victoriansteam.baroquestone.com).  If the flash disk is attached while booting, the Linux OS will “automagically” take over the computer (works with most computers I know, as long as the motherboard allows booting from USB).  If used while Windows /MacOSX is running the flash unit will work as a regular flash disk (just be careful not to erase the OS inside!!!).

This flash USB adapter could be replaced with any other drive provided it is small enough to fit in a ½” (US) copper pipe diameter an is less than 2 inches long (typically the smaller plastic tab type).  But eventually, I will replace  the thumb drive with an even smaller USB MicroSD flash disk adapter (actually I have one with a 2GB uSD disk, but I need a little more memory for the Linux OS; the latter method  has the obvious advantage of having a replaceable disk of whichever amount of memory is desired by the user.






Dear friends, your comments and help on this project are welcome.  Right now I’m contemplating adding flashing LED lights to the eyes, (a little re-wiring work), but otherwise the Crowned Pigmy Kraken is nearly finished, and I intend to find it a home for someone who would appreciate him (her? How do you tell the sex of Kraken?), as I have become far too attached of my “Timeline Synchroniser,” which I think I will use more like a “catwalk model” for more “copper-strap USB cuffs” in the near future, which I will presumably sell AND NOT GET TOO ATTACHED TO!!!…

Your humble servant,

J. Wilhelm

Edit, March 29, 2010:  My apologies for adding the copyright notices.  We live in a nasty world....

[Major Twangy Rubber]

Ingenious! I love it

[heavyporker]

Ha ha ha ha ha! That is just brilliant. I love it!

[J. Wilhelm]

Ingenious! I love it

Ha ha ha ha ha! That is just brilliant. I love it!

Thank you gentlemen for your comments.  I've had a lot of fun making it (and making up the stories behind the little creature).  I'll keep you posted on the progress.  By the way, Mr. M. W. Bailey suggested an experiment, based on rigorous empirical evidence, of course, to see if Celtic music and heavy drinking could be used as a Kraken repellent method (see this thread: http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,22952.0.html ).  This Saturday, I had a chance to repeat the experiment at my favorite pub, B. D. Riley's in downtown Austin (I attended the South by Southwest Music/Film Festival in Austin Texas), but I regret to inform my colleagues that the creature did not attempt an escape as earlier theorized.  Instead, the music seemed to have set the "mood", and if I'm not mistaken, it may have made an attempt to *ahem* copulate with my iPod device!  The failure of this experiment may have to do with the exact nature of the music.  Electro-Pop rock seems to have the opposite effect of a traditional jig.

[loydb]

I love it, beautifully done!

[J. Wilhelm]

Thank you for your comments.  Tomorrow I'll continue working on the eyes, and maybe I'll look for a USB chord that lookes a little more steamy... I was thinking on the "packaging;" maybe one of those glass bells used for clocks.  The latter are available in the US, new, for $10 + say $5 or $6 for the wooden base at hobby shops.  Or maybe a wooden case, like I use for my "Wilhelm-Finnegan" devices...

[Pike]

Brilliant!  Can't wait to see the eyes lit up.

[J. Wilhelm]

I just finished doing the re-wiring.  I'll post pictures soon. Far too difficult to implement because I didn't buy sub-miniature or surface mount LED's (I have no money really!  With my bankruptcy even $3.00 wasted is too much money wasted!).  Instead I sanded down to size a standard size blinking LED.  It was difficult because the space is so small 1/2" X 2" approx.



The space is so tight that that I had to dismantle the USB jack and take off the outer metal "jacket" (if you look at USB plugs and jacks they both have concentric metal "jackets" and two plastic tabs face to face), such that the "female" plug is now "male" so to speak.  To take advantage of the circular cross section of the pipe, I cast a plastic tab with the LED embedded into epoxy glue.  The tab is actually a piece of cardboard with layers of epoxy holding the LED.  The epoxy tab runs along the pipe and ends right behind the eyes with a cross section that runs from eye to eye inside the pipe.  The USB plug is actually glued right under the brass "crown" with the USB wire running down the pipe.  So if you remove the squid's head a cable connects the body and the head and then goes through the copper caps where the tentacles are attached as shown in previous posts.

It has to be that way because of the way the pipe slides into a the copper cap with the outer brass "iris" washers you see in the picture soldered to the copper cap; you can't glue LED's into the eyes because the wires would get in the way of the pipe sliding into the copper cap.  Next time the 1/2" pipe will be attached to the tentacle area! That will make my life a lot easier!

There's a silver lining to this situation; this epoxy tab also replaces the USB metal "jacket," so there is something extra to hold the male USB plug (the microSD adapter plug doesn't need it at all since one of the two metal jackets still remains and wraps around the black USB tab shown above in the picture).  I've tested it with a plastic-tab type USB flash, and the microSD adapter I wrote about (that's just a perfect fit, with not even a fraction of a millimeter to spare!)  So now its just a matter of choosing the right microSD card (which I imagine is easier to get at stores, rather that trying to find a plastic USB dongle that fits the small space (Sony makes some very small USB thumb drives though).

Last to do, is to add transparent "corneas" to the tiny kraken, and find a suitable box/enclosure for presentation.

Now I ask my fellow Brassgoggles colleagues.  WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE BEST AS A FEATURE IN THE USB FLASH DISK?  ANY IDEAS? memory size is obvious, but I also have already used a 4GB flash with the Live Linux OS shown above; completely free for me to give away, whole bunch of multimedia tools and office apps in just over 2GB!  Amazing. Roughly half the basic installation size of Windows XP with very similar capability and features).  Maybe offer two uSD cards, one with the linux and the other for storage??  (once I had wondered about using that preloaded "internet radio" gizmo- Aluratek AIRJ01F, but it seems kind of hoakey to me.  I fail to see the purpose - absolutely nothing that Winamp or XMMS can't do).

[J. Wilhelm]

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:

I have completed this project.  I deem that outside of the Crowned Pigmy Kraken is finished.  The only remaining work is to buy a Micro SD flash unit "as-is" from the store and insert it.  I have decided not to let the copper and brass tarnish naturally, and instead opted to sand the "body" of the creature, and then use an epoxy resin to cover the metal.




The result is very nice, as the thick resin looks like a "slime" on the Kraken  .  especially around the iris for each eye, made of a tyiny brass washer with a plastic tab and covered with a "lens" of resin.  I also used resin to cover the other side in the perforations on the copper tubing.  When the resin dried, the surface tension in the resin effectively formed a lens (ironically called a "fish eye"), so the eyes actually look like eyes with an iris and a tiny hole that blinks red with the LED light pipe shown above...

I will use the same LinuxOS / microSD combination on my other projects, the Timeline Synchronizer Mk. I and Mk II (http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,22738.0.html,  and  http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,23407.0.html, respectively), but the USB dongle may be decorated as opposed to the one in this Kraken, mostly due to the lack of space in the belly of my creature!  

Brilliant!  Can't wait to see the eyes lit up.

I'm sorry Pike, the red eyes are difficult to photograph, because they blink (I can never push the shutter on time!) and the LED doesn't photograph well!  As soon as I can successfully photograph the blinking red eyes I'll post it!!

Regards,
J. Wilhelm

[Pike]

Brilliant!  Can't wait to see the eyes lit up.

I'm sorry Pike, the red eyes are difficult to photograph, because they blink (I can never push the shutter on time!) and the LED doesn't photograph well!  As soon as I can successfully photograph the blinking red eyes I'll post it!!

Regards,
J. Wilhelm

Ah, no rush!  It looks amazing as is.    Congrats on finishing it!

[Steamworkshop]

Haah, I love it. For some reason I can't wipe the smile off my face.

[aldebaran]

That's great!

[Esme Moore]

Oh, wow, that's adorable! I would love to own one of those!

[J. Wilhelm]

Haah, I love it. For some reason I can't wipe the smile off my face.

That's great!

Thank you all Gentlemen for your comments.  This was one of those "whims" of mine.  I couldn't reconcile the fact that there were so many USB sticks out there, and I wanted to make something really different.

You know, while I was making it, I couldn't wipe the grin off my face either.  And when I researched the taxonomy of squids, and wrote the story, I was laughing out loud!  
 

Oh, wow, that's adorable! I would love to own one of those!

Thank you for your comment Ms. Moore!  I will post it on the trading section as soon as I get that microSD USB adapter, hopefully early this week, and I'll sell through my web site.  This is a fun little project...

[J. Wilhelm]

Brilliant!  Can't wait to see the eyes lit up.

I'm sorry Pike, the red eyes are difficult to photograph, because they blink (I can never push the shutter on time!) and the LED doesn't photograph well!  As soon as I can successfully photograph the blinking red eyes I'll post it!!

Regards,
J. Wilhelm

Ah, no rush!  It looks amazing as is.    Congrats on finishing it!

Weeeee!  Here's blinking at you!  I managed per chance to catch the tiny Kraken blinking!  

[J. Wilhelm]

Dear colleagues:

I have placed this little creation on my web-site.  I will also present it in the trading section.

J. Wilhelm

[J. Wilhelm]

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:

Just unashamedly necromancing my old thread on account I opened an Etsy store front with this guy making a lot of noise in time for Christmas (See Trading section)

J. Wilhelm