Rob Beschizza

Write an iPhone disappointment Haiku in the comments, win a Mophie Juice Pack Air

You have an iPhone. You are dismayed by some attribute or experience associated with said iPhone. Accordingly, you will write a Haiku in the comments to this post expressing said dismay. You will as a result win a Mophie Juice Pack Air battery pack, an $80 value described by Joel Johnson as the first case that I've considered keeping on my iPhone for a long time.

Runner-up wins a Moleskine knockoff. Go!

Rob Beschizza

Competition: Write gadget fiction, win swag

Send us your work of flash fiction. The theme for your piece is gadgets, and you can interpret that as widely as you please. Entries will be published, and the winners picked, in two weeks. Post entries directly in the comments, or email them to Rob at boingboing dot net.

First prize: HP MediaSmart Server LX195

HP's LX195 home server has Microsoft Windows HS, a 1.6 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 640GB hard drive and 4 USB ports. It's just 8"x4" in size, and is priced at $400.

Second Prize: Mind Twist

Imagination Entertainment's Mind Twist is a competitive board game that looks like Sentinel and involves luck, bluff and strategy.

Third Prize: Tetris Cube

Also from Imagination Entertainment. This is similar to a Soma cube, but bigger and harder: try and arrange the blocks to form a perfect cube, or whatever else pleases you.

Thank you to HP and Imagination Entertainment for the awesome prizes. Now, send in some awe-inspiring fiction. Beat this.

Note: By posting your work or sending it in to us, you release it under a Creative Commons license unless you specify otherwise. Also, we can't ship prizes outside the U.S. but will clarify with HP.

Rob Beschizza

Show us your wonderful laptop case art, win an arty laptop case

Be.Ez makes simple, svelte laptop cases in a variety of gorgeous designs, cut to fit all sorts of laptops, netbooks and other form factors. They've got one to give away, and all you have to do is post a picture of your customized laptop to the comments, or to our Flickr Pool. Bonus marks go to extraordinary artistry or tastelessness!

The Boing Boing Gadgets Cabal will review entries after a safe interval and pick a winner.

Rob Beschizza

Win a copy of demented RIAA comic "The Case of Internet Piracy"

The Case of Internet Piracy was the first of two comic books named Justice Case Files. Produced by the non-profit National Center for State Courts, its claimed purpose was to educate readers about the workings of the U.S. justice system. In the words of NCSC president Mary Campbell McQueen, it would "remind the public of the important role that courts play in a democratic society."

Given this remit, the story it relates is an odd one: Teen-aged Megan is charged as a criminal after downloading music off the Internet. A heartfelt display of contrition in the courtroom saves her from jail, and the story ends with her explaining to the reader how lucky she was to be caught, and why the recording industry's business model is the correct one.

Questions remain. Why would a guide to the court system portray such a vanishingly unlikely legal scenario? Casual file-sharers are offered expensive settlements to avoid civil lawsuits, not charged with theft by "cyber police."

Why would Megan explain RIAA dogma in front of smashed music instruments piled against a wall on which "DO NOT DOWNLOAD" is scrawled in human blood? As a former court reporter, I must admit to being unfamiliar with these legal procedures.

Thanks to reader Tom, you can read it here today and win a copy of your own! Yay! All you have to do is send in the most hilarious remix of any panel or page therein. (Suggestion: Chick Tract mashup) We'll publish the entries after a fair interval and announce a winner.

The comic follows after the jump.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

The new Apple ads

via 9to5 Mac

Rob Beschizza

Ion, that being a nettop with decent graphics

It's not the sexiest thing you've ever seen, but this prototype of Nvidia's ION nettop platform shows its colors. Bristling with USB ports, audio jacks and eSata adapters, it wants to prove that performance can come in small packages.

How best to illustrate this? Nvidia goes for the only benchmark that matters: gaming!

NVIDIA ION graphics processors will power a new generation of smaller, greener, fully capable PCs. Consumers utilizing ION-based PCs will be able to make full use of some of the world’s most popular applications, such as Spore, Call of Duty 4, Google Earth, Adobe® Photoshop®, Cyberlink PowerDVD, LEGO: Batman, and Battlefield 2. ...

“New affordable and powerful PC hardware like ION is going to change the landscape of PC gaming,” said Ben Cousins, executive producer at DICE, a division of Electronic Arts. “This new mass-market target audience is a perfect match for Battlefield Heroes.”

Nvidia promises "10x faster graphics" on its tiny form-factor systems than "similar systems," by which it means Pico- and Mini-ITX motherboards made by Via, and Intel's relentlessly dismal integrated video chips.

Its aim is perhaps to establish a new tier of popular gaming systems that match game console performance instead of greatly exceeding it. From a practical standpoint, this approach is more likely to facilitate a stable PC gaming market than high-end plug-in video cards that only geeks buy.

World's Leading Software Companies Rally Around NVIDIA ION [Nvidia]

Xeni Jardin

Reminder: BB Video Groove Armada Contest - Download Some MP3s, Win a 16GB iPod Touch

Boing Boing Video is teaming up with big beat techno stars Groove Armada for a contest around the duo's new release -- which they're offering online, using an interesting experiment in digital promotion and distribution. Sign up to participate in that experiment, and you have a chance to win a 16 gig iPod touch. A reminder of the contest details below, and above, one of the tracks from the band's 2008 release, Soundboy Rock.

HOW THE FREE DOWNLOADS WORK
The tracks are DRM-free. The new EP will be delivered through a sharing system called Bacardi B-LIVE Share, and Bacardi is basically serving as the band's record label. When you register at the B-Live site, you receive one track off the new EP for free. To get more, you share a unique link for that first track (which you receive via email) to a number of friends. You can do this via Facebook if you like. While you do have to provide an email address, and you must be of legal drinking age (Bacardi's the sponsor, after all) you can opt in or out of receiving promotional emails from the band. You don't have to provide other personal information. The more times the track you share is downloaded by your friends, and their friends, the more additional tracks you're given access to. And if you sign up via BB, you're automatically entered in... (drum-machine roll, please)...

THE BOING BOING VIDEO CONTEST
The contest ends on February 25. It's simple: register for the Groove Armada free music downloads via this unique link (which traces the fact that you came through us), and winner will be chosen randomly from users who click through from here. That's pretty much it. The prize: a 16GB Apple iPod Touch.

(more after the jump)

READ THE REST

Xeni Jardin

BB Video: Our Networked Report from the 2009 Global Game Jam

Video duration: 6:41. Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. And here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

Today's episode of Boing Boing Video is our mini-documentary of the Global Game Jam 2009, a worldwide, networked gamebuilding marathon in which participants have exactly 48 hours in which to conceptualize, design, and build a web-based electronic game.

Boing Boing Video's Jolon Bankey was the head organizer for GGJ Costa Rica, and team members there sent in video reports as the 48 hour game-in unfolded. I attended the Los Angeles edition with Matty Kirsch. Boing Boing Gadgets editor Rob Beschizza represented us at GGJ Pittsburgh. And Boing Boing friends around the world uploaded video sitreps, shoutouts, and random moments of weirdness with which we've produced this piece. We received video submissions from places as diverse as Australia, Scotland, Israel, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Play some of the games! You can browse winning entries, and all of the others who participated, and play on Mac, PC, or other OSes: Game Entry Browser.

Photos below: At top, Jolon's 7-year-old son Gibson Bankey (clearly destined to be a future gaming titan) passes wrathful judgment on entries at the Costa Rica Game Jam. Below that, the winners of that competition (Team Vara Blanca for the game "Muu") proudly holding their trophy. Image by Laura Pardo, here's her entire (lovely) photoset. Bottom 2 photos are iphone snapshots I took during the BB Video shoot at the LA Game Jam, including our BBV guest host Matty Kirsch. Here's my photoset.

Boing Boing Video wishes to thank Global Game Jam founders Susan Gold, Gorm Lai and Ian Schreiber. Special thanks to the GGJ organizers and participants who contributed footage to Boing Boing Video: Caracas, Venezuela (Ciro Durán); Capetown, South Africa (Patrick Marais); Glasgow, Scotland (Romana Khan); Tel Aviv, Israel (Yuval Sapir); London, England (Fiona French); Los Angeles, PA, USA (Joseph Spradley); Newport, Wales (Mike Reddy); Perth, Australia (Simon Witt); Pittsburgh, PA, USA (Tracy Kobeda Brown); San Jose, Costa Rica (Jolon Bankey, Rene Zuleta, Shirley Monge, Daniela Calderon); Waco, TX, USA (Casey Jones); Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC, USA (Michael Lee).

Previously:
* BB Video: Global Game Jam Preview
* Global Game Jam continues! Here's live video (without kittens)
* Global Game Jam has begun! (live video stream)
* Global Game Jam (48 hour videogame dev marathon) this weekend!

Xeni Jardin

BB Video Groove Armada Contest: Download Some MP3s, Win a 16GB iPod Touch

Boing Boing Video is teaming up with acclaimed big beat techno music stars Groove Armada for a contest around the duo's new release -- which they're offering online, using an interesting experiment in digital promotion and distribution. The tracks are DRM-free. The new EP will be delivered through a sharing system called Bacardi B-LIVE Share, and Bacardi is basically serving as the band's record label.

Groove Armada's Andy Cato explains the thinking:

Sharing music has always gone on -- it's giving music away that's the problem. We wanted to come up with a 21st century version of what we used to do with cassette tapes. When you give music away for free it's disposable. When you share it, it's done with love. The online sharing application will be available until March 2nd, when the EP becomes available via commercial digital release.

HOW THE FREE DOWNLOADS WORK
When you register at the B-Live site, you receive one track off the new EP for free. To get more, you share a unique link for that first track (which you receive via email) to a number of friends. You can do this via Facebook if you like. While you do have to provide an email address, and you must be of legal drinking age (Bacardi's the sponsor, after all) you can opt in or out of receiving promotional emails from the band. You don't have to provide other personal information. The more times the track you share is downloaded by your friends, and their friends, the more additional tracks you're given access to. And if you sign up via BB, you're automatically entered in... (drum-machine roll, please)...

THE BOING BOING VIDEO CONTEST (prize: a 16GB iPod Touch)
The contest begins today, and ends on February 25. It's simple: register for the Groove Armada free music downloads via this unique link (which traces the fact that you came through us), and winner will be chosen randomly from users who click through from here. That's pretty much it. The prize: a 16GB Apple iPod Touch. Use it to store all of these GA tracks you download, with an awful lot of jiggabites left over to store whatever else you want to carry around -- games, photos, more tunes, perchance some Boing Boing Video episodes, hmmmm?

ABOUT THE MUSIC:
Some of Groove Armada's better-known tracks from past releases include "Superstylin," "My Friend," and "Tuning In."

Here's a blurb from the band's website about the new material:

The four track EP sees the band moving into exciting new musical pastures, with some of the material being recorded live with their band for the first time. This is demonstrated on tracks 'Drop the Tough' and 'Go', both songs featuring new vocalist Saint Saviour from electro-pop outfit The RGBs. 'Pull Up (Crank It Up), with much-loved UK-based MC Slarta John, takes the EP up a gear and looks set to become their 'Superstylin' of 2009. 'El Padrino' makes up the 4, an instrumental that showcases the true talent of the live band in Balearic style. Remixes of 'Drop the Tough' come courtesy of Australian Electronic/Rock group Van She and Brazilian dance duo The Twelves.

Rob Beschizza

The gadget tribes of technology

Technology was once about big things, but smallness rules the day: we are the gear that gets us through it. Augmented and assisted by the gizmos we buy, break and make, we're taking tech culture out of the tubes. How to spot a species? Look inside the gadget bag!

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Photoshop Competition: What will this liquidated Circuit City become? (UPDATE: WINNERS!)

The challenge: Would happen to this dead Circuit City following the chain's liquidation? We received a ton of fine entries (past the jump!), but we like these two the most! Winners email rob at boing boing net with your addresses for the loot.

Winner: BJacques' remedy for depression:

Winner: Anonymous builds us a new office:

READ THE REST

Xeni Jardin

Global Game Jam (48 hour videogame dev marathon) this weekend!

From 5:00pm Friday January 30th through 5:00 pm Sunday, February 1, over a thousand college students, faculty and industry members will join together for a 48 hour game building marathon popularly known as a Game Jam. Participants will be given the details of the game design theme, constraints and mechanics allowed when the clock hits 5:00 p.m. in their local time zone. As the time zones change, so will those constraints, to mitigate any advantage global location might give one team over the other. While individual and regional Game Jams have been held wherever gamers congregate in the last few years, never has there been one of such size and scope as the Global Game Jam (GGJ).


[Keynote Speaker] 
Kyle Gabler (...) indie Developer of the popular game “World of Goo,” said, “The next big transformation in gaming won't come from a large game studio with million dollar teams and marketing budgets, it will come from some kid in their bedroom with a few pieces of free software and a never ending supply of caffeine and motivation. I can't wait to see the scraggly, brilliantly hacked together beginnings of some of the next great games crawl out of these 48 hours.”

Here is an overview on how it works. Snip:

The theme and constraints for participants in the Global Game Jam will be announced at 5:00PM on Friday, January 30, 2009 in your time zone. Each local jam is allowed to manage things the way the see fit, but we hope that everyone will follow our recommendations so we share a common experience and everyone is working from a level playing field. Please show up to the jam on time. Below is a typical set-up for a game jam, each jam will vary, please check with each jam to see their schedule. Do not come to the Jam with a team. Everyone will have some time to think and pitch an idea. Collaborate with new friends or peers you admire.

(Thanks, Jolon and Global Game Jam Costa Rica crew!)

Rob Beschizza

Hands-on with the Vaio P

Sorry, Sony. It's definitely a netbook. But that's O.K., because that fact that it's the best netbook is almost absurdly obvious to anyone who sees it. And as stiff as $900 might seem for the category, by your standards, it's a steal.

I had a go: not a long one, just a few minutes. In that time, a few things can be known for sure. Firstly, the keyboard is easy to type on. The track-nipple isn't as troublesome as it could have been. The display is beautiful, even if the pixel density was a little tough on the eyes under those harsh Vegas lights. But most of all, it's the sheer tininess that works: less than 1 1/2 pounds, it's less than an inch thick and slips into a (large) pocket. It is, of course, beautiful.

What's not known: performance. I opened a couple of browser tabs, but you can't get much done with a crowd of baying journalists behind you pushing in to get their own turn. Battery life is also a mystery; Sony claims up to 6 hours with the extended life option, but if anything's vague in laptop marketing, it's the damned battery life. How's the WWAN performance on Verizon Evdo Rev. A? Is there really a point to GPS in a laptop?

And, of course, $900 would buy you a used MacBook or two Eee PCs.

The fact remains, however, that this is easily the hottest item to come out of CES so far. We'll have a review up as soon as one of us has thought "screw it" and impulsively bought one.

.

Rob Beschizza

Mac Mini "leak" causes excitement, ennui

Macenstein receives a pic from an anonymous sauce, and the internet goes OMG. Then someone points out the problem: why would a Mac Mini have a lid? Why would it be made of MacBook?

To my mind, the marketing line is unappealing ("World's smallest potato") and lacks Apple's characteristic wordplay. 9to5mac reader Sverkel does a prettier photoshop using the same source material.

There needs to be a new word for the state of disappointment brought on by image manipulation. I propose photoshopathy.

Is this the new Mac mini? [Macenstein]

Joel Johnson

Greener Gadgets Design Competition 2009 taking submissions

Do you have a notion of a greener way to create or use consumer electronics? Core77 once again hosts the "Greener Gadgets Design Competition", with a grand prize of $3,000 to be voted on by a live panel in NYC.

Greener Gadgets ompetition details [Core77.com]

Rob Beschizza

Eee Box gets Celeron crossgrade

Spotted at Italian Eee fansite EeePC.it, news of a Celeron-equipped desktop adds yet another Eee PC to the dozens already in existence.

Otherwise similar to current Atom-powered models, the Celeron Eee Box will offer similar performance from its older, cheaper, more power-hungry chip. Why the switch? Because Intel can't make Atom CPUs fast enough to keep up with demand where they're needed, in notebooks.

Source (Italian) [Eeepc.it via Lilliputing]

Rob Beschizza

No Fujitsu LifeBook4Life replacement program for U.S.

Yesterday, John covered Fujitsu's clever but vague free laptop plan, wherein you get a like-for-like replacement at the end of the 3-year extended warranty, so long as you buy another 3-year extended warranty.

The offer is sweet for peace-of-mind types who fork out for expensive coverage anyway, but not so hot if you're a performance fiend or compulsive upgrader. Besides, if you live in the U.S., this pony is Not Yours: Fujitsu has no plans to bring it this side of the pond.

Here's Michelle Thatcher at CNET:

We asked our contact at Fujitsu, who replied that LifeBook4Life is U.K.-only at this time, but that they're "gauging the interest in such an offer in the U.S." Translation: if you're interested in buying once and enjoying laptops for life, make your voices heard.

Fujitsu: No U.S. LifeBook4Life program, for now [Crave]

Rob Beschizza

Indamixx: the digital musician's netbook

Indamixx is an unpleasantly-named netbook dedicated to making music—and to keeping a nice sub-$500 price tag. Create Digital Music explains:

...a whole computer, pre-loaded with a bunch of music software. It may not be as powerful as a modern laptop, but it’s also in a cute, smaller form factor you can keep everywhere in case inspiration strikes, or balance on the corner of your Steinway grand

Indamixx Laptop is First Pre-Configured Music Netbook, Running Linux, $499 {CDM]

Rob Beschizza

Papercraft HAL 9000 toy

Hallo.

HAL9000 [Mr. Hal via Dvice]

Rob Beschizza

Great MacBook Air eBay deal turns out to be prototype...

... Or maybe the work of a modder with Cayce Pollardian logo-hatred.

A fellow claims that a stunning $700 deal on an MBA at eBay turned out to be an engineering sample of some kind. This would be possible to fake, and he even suggests that he might have gotten a modded machine. But in a wonderful and convincing detail, the serial number encodes a May 2007 incept date.

Either way, the thought that something like this could escape Apple's secretive innards is a myth-making par excellence.

Let's see what the Genius Bar makes of it!

Fake / Prototype Macbook Air [MacRumors]
Auction Page [eBay]

Rob Beschizza

New Optiplex towers go for Mac Pro look

Frankly, Dell's design strategy is just full of holes.

new Dell Optiplex systems... [Gizmodo]

Rob Beschizza

Sony invites all-comers to "Graphic Splash" contest

Graphic Splash is Sony's lineup of art-slathered notebooks, and it's the company's single coolest project going. It's teaming up with Microsoft to find new designs for the series, and is inviting "consumers" to send in their creations.

Starting today through Aug. 10, 2008, budding designers can submit their proposed designs online at www.sony.com/mygraphicsplash along with a photo of themselves and a brief message revealing their “style.”

That they can't get through their own pitch without putting "style" in scare quotes betrays a certain cynicism, yes, but they'll be selecting three entries to become real-life limited edition laptops. That's money where its mouth is, even if you won't be getting any.

CALLING ALL FASHIONISTAS: SONY AND MICROSOFT LAUNCH “MY GRAPHIC SPLASH” PC CONTEST [Sony]

John Brownlee

Taking all bets: how long will it take Joel to get an iPhone 3G?

Joel has sworn up and down that he's not going to buy an iPhone 3G today. "It can wait. The real hotness is 2.0" and "I'm busy moving this week. Don't have time." A little more than a year ago, he made the same claim about the original iPhone: "I'm pretty happy with my current phone" and "I'm going to wait for 3G."

How long did Joel's reserve of willpower last? All it took was a single instant message from one Ms. Xeni Jardin proclaiming the iPhone "rad" to send him sprinting his flabby blogger's frame down the block as he wildly tried to flag down a taxi, destination: "habbadegeebideeIPHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!"

Frankly, it was an embarrassment, and Joel should feel shame. Now it's a year later. Joel's considerably svelter, more confident. He has come up in the world. He's a bettter, more dynamic man. Surely his resolve won't wane so quickly this time. But in BBG's private channel, we can already see him sliding down that path again. Yesterday, Rob and I spent all day listening to him "review" iPhone 2.0 apps. There wasn't a single one he didn't refer to as "innovative" "amazing" or "game-changing." This included such programs as tip calculators, die-rolling simulations and a virtual abacus.

So how long until Joel's internal thought process goes something like this: "Man, that virtual abacus really is pretty dude. But imagine how much more wanktastic it would be with the power of 3G?"

My guess? If he gets to Saturday without one, he's going to start seeing dead babies crawling on the ceiling.

We're now taking all bets, measured in hours and minutes from the time the iPhone goes on sale this morning in Brooklyn. Soothsay in the comments! No fair guessing, Xeni.

Image: Bizarre first hit for 'Joel Johnson' in Flickr, courtesy of the great spaghetti communist, Camillo Miller

Update: Joel is emphatically denying he ever called either the virtual abacus or iPhone tipping calculator "innovative." Needless to say, if true, this new information might add hours to the time it takes for Joel to crumple into a mess of primal, unthinking consumerist impulses. You should adjust your bets accordingly.

John Brownlee

Winner: The Boing Boing Team Fortress 2 Weekend's Awesomest Player

You came, you saw, you conquered. You backstabbed engineers, uber-ed pyros, farmed medic achievements and beat mesomorphic Austrians clean to death with baseball bats... all while the Boing Boing puppet masters clapped their hands in fey delight at the gladiatorial orgy they had Nero-like decreed.

And now we're ready to declare our awesomest player for last weekend's Boing Boing Team Fortress 2, with the adjective "awesomest" decided entirely by Happy Mutant whim. This player will receive a Neuros OSD video storage device. And by consensus, our winner is... Bunnystew. At over 10 hours logged into our server, Bunnystew was this weekend's most committed Boing Boing Team Fortress 2 player, by far. Congrats, Bunnystew! Drop brownlee at boing boing dot net an email to receive your prize.

For the rest of you guys, don't fear: we've got the server for a little while, and we'll schedule matches every weekend until we give it up. Thanks for playing, guys! See you this weekend.

Rob Beschizza

Winners of the Seagate Billionth Drive 1K Competition

"1 kilobyte. 1 kibibyte. 1 kilobit. 1,000 ASCII characters. Source code, file size, tile size, the number of letters in a short story: you decide."

So was the challenge—the winner to receive a Terabyte hard drive from Seagate, which is celebrating is billionth sale—and so are the many fantastic entries. What better way to celebrate Terabyte-size hard drives than with a competition concerning tiny filesizes?

We hated judging this. So we picked out some extra prizes from the gadget dungeon to reward as many submissions as possible. Congratulations, everyone! Winners past the jump.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

The Boing Boing Gadgets 1K Competition Gallery

"1 kilobyte. 1 kibibyte. 1 kilobit. 1,000 ASCII characters. Source code, file size, tile size, the number of letters in a short story: you decide."

That—making the most of limited resources—was our challenge to you. In return, we received a host of fantastic entries, ranging from short stories to procedural robot generators. Now comes the challenge of picking one to win a terabyte hard drive from Seagate, but not before we collect all the entrants in one place.

The gallery of 1K wonders follows after the jump.

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

Great entries in 1K competition—keep them coming!

BoingBoing Gadgets, in cahoots with Seagate, launched a competition last week challenging you to send us the most ingenious work of art, writing, code or whatever takes your fancy that fits into a kilobyte or less.

We've had some fantastic entries, one of which will win a Terabyte hard drive courtesy of Seagate. Pictured here is Gabriel McGovern's 1k rendering of the Mona Lisa (resized from his original to give a better view).

READ THE REST

Rob Beschizza

1K Competition: Seagate ships billionth drive, and we've got one for you

1 kilobyte. 1 kibibyte. 1 kilobit. 1,000 ASCII characters. Source code, file size, tile size, the number of letters in a short story: you decide. Use your imagination. Give us a thousand of whatever you want. A 1,000 byte JPG, MP3 or textfile. Need a little extra? 1,024 will do, we’re not religious. We’re cool. Just make it 1K of awesome, k?

Thanks to Seagate Technologies, which just shipped its billionth drive, one of you will get enough space to store your work a billion times over: a Terabyte hard drive.

If every drive it ever sold was put together, Seagate says, there'd be enough space to store 79 million terabytes (75 exabytes). It took three decades to do so, but thinks it will double that number in less than 5 years.

Making the most of limited space is the theme of the competition, however. It’s no good giving us 1k of actionscript glued to assets that mock the metric. If you write us a short story, 1,000 letters will trump 1,000 words.

On the other hand, if your 1K of source code ends up as a 3MB executable thanks to unavoidable embedded runtimes, worry not. So long as your rationale is clear, we won’t be sticklers.

The one rule is that whatever you do should be under a license that permits us to use your work at BBG without issue. GPL or Creative Commons licenses are suggested. (This is in lieu of the traditional option, where you submit this sort of stuff to a contest and then lose all rights to it.)

Link to your entry from the comments (or even just post it there!) and fire off an email to beschizza#gmail.com. We'll cycle back in a week and start picking the winners.

(P.S. The Seagate logo up top? Too big. It's 1,025 bytes!)

Update: Gabriel McGovern reminds that you can slim down PNGs very easily. Note that we're OK with using zip files or other "containers" to crunch something down, but will be more impressed by those who use cleverer compression methods like McGovern's