Mac Mini and pals, enclosed by Power Mac G4 Cube case

Apple's Power Mac G4 Cube was an illustrious failure, beautiful but dysfunctionally-designed and overpriced. Fans and a vigorous resale market built a legend around it, but the smaller, better Mac Mini put its predecessor into perspective.

Rich Willis weds the two tiny machines together, by using the former's attractive transparent casing as an enclosure for the latter, with a bunch of extras.

Having happily found that my new Airport Extreme had the same footprint as the Mac Mini and its accessory HDD case, I naturally wanted to enclose it in an old Macintosh Cube acrylic shell I happened to have lying around

Experiments indicate that a jigsaw at a slow speed is the only way to go: the clear acrylic cracks and melts easily. The result is gorgeous, though I wish Apple would standardize the dimensions it uses for small machines like Time Capsules, Apple TVs and Mac Minis: 7.7" or 6.5", chaps. Pick one.

Mac Mini Cube [via NoWhereElse and Engadget]