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Wireless Networking Hardware

Oil-Cooling 802.11 Infrastructure 186

Posted by timothy from the unusual-means-admirable-end dept.
gomoX writes "A group of 802.11b fans in Tordera, Spain, are running a wireless node on the roof of a building, with the idea of a free wireless network for everyone on the neighbourhood. Its a system running linux with a home made can antenna, mounted on a plastic tool box in the roof. To keep it cool under the sun and protect it from rain, wind, they have immersed it into vegetable oil (yes, the whole thing). As oil is non-conductive, everything should run fine. The site is in Spanish, here is the google translation and the google cache."
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Oil-Cooling 802.11 Infrastructure More

Oil-Cooling 802.11 Infrastructure

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  • Interesting.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by nukey56 ( 455639 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:10PM (#5524912)
    .. I've never had deep-fried RAM before.. could be tasty.

  • Hrm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by unterderbrucke ( 628741 ) <unterderbrucke@yahoo.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:13PM (#5524925)
    My experience with vegetable oil is that it fries in heat...how the hell does this work?

  • One Problem... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cjsnell ( 5825 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:13PM (#5524927) Journal

    Wouldn't vegetable oil retain heat longer than the plastic and metal that it was intended to protect? I could see this thing getting very hot on a sunny afternoon.

    • Re:One Problem... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Gordonjcp ( 186804 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:15PM (#5524932) Homepage
      It's not that it retains heat, it conducts heat very well. Diesel would be better, as it's less likely to go "off" and smell, and it has a higher flashpoint.
      • As a petroleum product, though, I'd seriously doubt that it would be as inert.

        There's additives and things in there, too; I could see solvent components getting into bad places. So what exactly is required to dissolve the adhesives holding a layered motherboard together?
        • Diesel is pretty inert. It doesn't really dissolve stuff (it attacks rubber, like most oils, though) and doesn't contain any particularly fierce solvents. It *is* slightly hygroscopic though. You might be better off with LHM instead.
      • Diesel has a flaspoint of 125 F. Vegetable has a flashpoint around 300 F. veggievan [veggievan.org].

        Also I think vegetable oil smells alot better than diesel fuel.

    • Wouldn't vegetable oil retain heat longer than the plastic and metal that it was intended to protect? I could see this thing getting very hot on a sunny afternoon.

      Of course, one ould add a heat-exchanger to cool the thing based on water cooling ;-) or compressed gas (as in refrigeration) etc....
  • This is a really great idea. So far /. has only mentioned these kind of things for Europe and North Africa. I wonder if us North Americans will manage to catch up one day? ;-)

  • Comments overheard on the rooftop (Score:3, Funny)

    by itwerx ( 165526 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:14PM (#5524929) Homepage
    "That should run pretty slick!"

    And a few weeks later...

    "Eww, rancid!"

  • problems with oil cooling (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GlassUser ( 190787 ) <[ten.resussalg] [ta] [todhsals]> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:14PM (#5524930) Homepage Journal
    The biggest problem with immersion based oil cooling is that it tends to soften PCBs. I suppose that, if you never really jiggle the setup, it will pretty much remain where you leave it (especially if you keep the oil cold and viscious), but it could cause problems.
    • Nope, that is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that oil, diesel fuel, etc are so bloody higroscopic. Anyone who have tried to mix ammonal using what is written in the popular books (not the real ones) and had it refuse to explode will tell you that.

      In order to keep oil dry you need a boatload of something like Calcium Stearate and a fully closed system. If it comes with contact with air anywhere it will go to 5-15% water in no time at all and become conductive. And then - boing...
    • When you say PCBs I'm guessing that you mean printed circuit boards, but at least with vegetable oil there won't be PolyChlorinatedBiphenyls.

  • Would that be ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bizitch ( 546406 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:18PM (#5524943) Homepage
    WI-FrIed?

  • ..should be fine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Archon-X ( 264195 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:18PM (#5524944)
    In Australia our major power supplier here does that for all of their high-tension cables that go underground - they're encased in a layer of plastic, but the rest is oil. It not only is cheaper and lighter than other sheathing forms, but it insulates and dissapates heat at the same time
    • Are they still high tension if they are underground? I always thought the "high-tension" was a result of the weight of the cable strung a 1/4 mile between towers stretching the cables.
      • In Australia, that would be 400 odd meters. According to a google search [sirius.on.ca] anyway. Does anyone but America still use those wacky imperial measurements any more?

        He probably meany high voltage anyway.

      • Tension (Score:3, Informative)

        by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 )
        Tension is actually a reference to voltage in this case.
        • Thank you. I never knew that high tension referred to voltage. I always assumed a tensile, as in stretching, meaning.
      • The "tension" comes about when you separate two points electrically, making one positive with respect to the other and the other negative with respect to the one. You separate those two points electrically by connecting them via something that produces that difference in charge, a generator, a battery, etc., so, for instance, inside a battery chemical reactions are trying to push a bunch of electrons to the negative post which leaves the stuff connected to the positive post with more protons than electrons
  • If a bolt of lightning hits the oil-immersed wireless node, will it get fried?
    • With or without the oil the device would be good as dead.

      It's whether you prefer your dead equipment fried or roasted. That assumes it really survives the baking in the sun of course.

      Unrelated info: Lunchtime soon for me :).

  • it'll go rancid (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Within a few weeks, especially up in the sun and even slightly open to contamination from the environment(toolboxes ain't exactly hermetic), the oil is gonna go rancid.

    I wonder what the by-products of the little beasties will do to the components...
  • Beware thermal runaway problems.

  • Actually oil makes it water proof (Score:5, Informative)

    by aduchate ( 656665 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:21PM (#5524954)
    The reason why they used oil is first to avoid the whole thing to get drowned. They reckon that it will avoid condensation water to fry the motherboard... How paradoxal.

  • Calling Dr. Hannibal... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrWa ( 144753 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:22PM (#5524960) Homepage
    It presses in the Pinguino to go to the Forum of TorderaWireless...

    It also rubs the lotion on its' skin, or it gets the hose again...please do not be pressing in the penguin, as that excites the penguin too much.

    Thank you for your support.

  • I don't really think this will work, I am fairly sure they used the wrong oil. :D Just because it has oil in the name, does not mean that it all has the same properties... I mean, no. don't really know where to begin here. I hope it is a bogus setup, a troll or something.
    • What do you mean? I know Vegggie Oil turns nasty when subjected to high heat, and cooled down. That's why using standard veggie oil wont work in cars (somewhat offtopic). And it also spoils due to oil eating batceria. Put out a month... Case mod=>Science experiement.

      Do you think the solvents in the motherboard would dissove and create conductivity? Still, truly I dont think it's a troll.

      What oil would you reccomend?
      • That's why using standard veggie oil wont work in cars
        Actually, Colorado State has a process on corn, soybean, or sunflower oil that allows it handle automotive engines. It was being tested on a fleet of detroit city cars. From what I understand, it is actually handling the high heat and needs a change every 10K miles instead of 3K miles. Apparently cheaper than regular oil. I wonder what is holding it back now.
    • dude do you notise the ram type? you can get a box of those mobos for 10 + good weg oli can hold yeares and yeares as long you dont boil it.

  • Gray Box? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If they just painted the box they put it in white they would probably reflect more heat then oil absorbs. Of course doing both would be better.
  • Wouldn't the oil potentially seep between plugs and physical connectors (non-soldered) and potentially cause a bad contact? Even if it meesed up just one pin, it could be disasterous. And what about the fan in the power supply? I saw it mentioned but the google translation wasn't too good.

    • Re:mechanical connectors (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:40PM (#5525023) Journal
      Fans are usually removed for this sort of thing. I've seen quite a bit of this with extreme overclockers. The idea is to fill a tank, like a styrofoam cooler, with oil. Drop in a fluid pump, like one for a fish tank. Pump the non-conductive oil OUT of the container, letting it spill over the cooling unit of a stripped window air conditioner, flowing back into the cooler. You can also add a filter to the process to help keep the oil clean.

      It takes care of cooling the system -- they can get down to absurd cold temperatures.

      There shouldn't be enough pressure for the oil to push itself under the contacts -- unless you immerse the motherboard down a few meters or so.

      Ideally, if this isn't a web server and just an AP, they don't need a hard drive. They should switch to a 512 Mb compact flash drive or something with no moving parts.
      • The oil pressure will work on 'both sides' of the contacts, effectively cancelling itself, so that the oil won't be forced under the contacts. As a matter of fact, putting PCBs into (hydraulic) oil has been done in sub sea robotics applications and tested down to below 3000 meters. You'll have to change/modify some components (chrystals, capacitors), but most components handle both oil and pressure quite well over time, including non-soldered connectors. Moving parts, like fans and hard disks are a bad idea

  • fried chips (Score:4, Funny)

    by pyrrhos ( 227998 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:30PM (#5524989)
    Those people got the "fried chips" idea all wrong

  • Their word of warning (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:30PM (#5524991) Homepage
    From the article:

    Con el disco duro creíamos no había problema porque dicen que vienen "envasados al vacío" pues ahora podemos decir que no se si todos son igual pero el que usamos en primer lugar NO lo estaba. Lo metimos dentro del aceite y funciono bien, incluso dejamos todo el sistema 2 días enteros funcionando dentro del aceite sin problema alguno, el problema vino al moverlo para colocarlo en el tejado, que fue cuando posiblemente penetro aceite en el interior y una vez en el tejado no arrancaba. Entonces tuvimos que bajarlo todo de nuevo y buscar otro disco duro, instalar todo el linux de nuevo y no meterlo dentro del aceite. O sea que atención: NO hay que meter el disco duro en aceite ya que por algún lado entra dentro si lo meneas un poco

    Basically, they inmersed everything in the oil, including the HDD (they didn't need a CD-ROM or FDD) and they figured the HDD would work even though it had moving parts because they're vacuum-sealed. Not so, their first prototype worked for two days and then the HDD died as oil got into the drive mechanism. They had to look for another disk, reinstall Linux and the rest of the software and then figure out a way to keep the hard disk out of the oil.

    So there you have it folks, never put your hard disks in Mazola - they die.

    • From the looks of a couple of old HDDs I've taken apart, they aren't sealed but actually have air vents. They had a little hole in the case with a serpentine shaped tunnel connecting to the inside. There was a felt-like filter in the tunnel to keep out dust. I would imagine that oil could eventually soak through such a filter. I'm not sure if late model drives have a similar construction, though.

    • harddrives need air. (Score:2, Informative)

      by rebelcool ( 247749 )
      the read/write head of a harddrive is not unlike that of an airplane wing. It floats/flies micrometers above the surface of the platter on a cushion of air as the platters spin. This is necessary because the platters have microscopic hills and trenches as polishing something perfectly smooth isnt quite possible, and to avoid crashing the head into the platters.

      This is why most harddrives on their labels say "DO NOT COVER EXHAUST HOLES"

      Im surprised it worked for 2 days. Maybe thats how long it took for

    • Re:Their word of warning (Score:5, Funny)

      by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @06:20PM (#5525175) Journal
      God, that sounds like some bad tech support joke -

      (in Spanish):
      "Your hard drive failed, sir?"
      "Yes, yes, it was running fine just a few days ago, but now it won't read or write at all."
      "Hmm. Odd. Is the drive plugged in and installed properly?"
      "Yes, I immerssed it in a vat of vegetable oil."
      "..."(sound of head banging against wall)

      I wonder if that broke the warranty...
  • Something like that might come in handy here in FL too, but to avoid deep frying the equipment, it might be a good idea to put some kind of heat exchange unit on the oil.

  • Oil problems (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TerryAtWork ( 598364 ) <research@aceretail.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:40PM (#5525024)
    I hear that in oil immersion based cooling the oil tends to seep in and interrupt any less than perfect soldering connections, causing mysterious errors.

    Any word on this?

    • Thats a scary thought, especially if there is any cold or bad soldering connections... A even worse thought is that the oil seeps into the capacitors *shudders* and screws the whole works...

      A thought just struck me, why not spray the board with a laquer sealant, a process used when one sets up a watercooling rig to prevent any problems when either a leak or condensation
      occurs.

      Or a simple silicon sealer will do the trick as well..

  • World's largest deep dryer (Score:4, Funny)

    by onthefenceman ( 640213 ) <szoepf.hotmail@com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:43PM (#5525032)
    They'd better hope that no one posts a link to their server or the whole town will be able to cook their fries in it too...

  • A better way to do it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eagle5596 ( 575899 ) <slashUser AT 5596 DOT org> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:43PM (#5525033)
    Wow... this is a phenominally bad idea for several reasons... I think they were just doing this for the coolness factor (ha ha ha).

    First off, we're using wires to transmit our signals in the first place,so instead of immersing the whole fixture in oil, you ought to run wires up to the rooftops and have all of the computer equipment in the house, in a nice air conditioned room. That will solve the problem of the HDD and motherboard overheating. Just buy some nice fans, electric cooling units, or if you really are worried, water cool the sucker.

    Second, yes oil makes a great cooling system, but NOT vegetable oil. They ought to have bought a non-biological version so that it won't spoil and grow things. Anaerobic microbes building up on a motherboard is not a good thing. Not to mention the oil will loose consistancy then, and develop pockets of non-oil byproducts of anaerobic respiration. Mineral oil would work much better, and is nearly as cheap. A gallon of the stuff ought only run $10 or so, compared to $5 for vegetable oil. 2x the price, but it would never have to be changed.

    Thirdly, I wonder why they feel the need to use oil for cooling at all, if the attenna is the only thing exposed (as I suggested earlier), heat from the sun won't really effect performance to much, and if it does, build a shade. If it is water proofing you are worried about, that is a slightly different story, but you can easily encase it in transparent plastic (but be careful that it doesn't warp em radition passing through it, this has to be quality stuff.

    The idea in general is cool, but not very practical.
    • The only problem with this is that cable losses at 2.4GHz is enormous. Even with decent quality cable (LMR400) you're looking at 2db for every 10 meters. When you're talking 500mW, that's not a lot to lose...
      • You are assuming we are passing a large cable though, just build a mounting point in the ceiling and drill your hole, and you can get away with about a quarter of a meter (or less) of cable easily.
      • There's no reason to run more than half a meter of cable...

        Use a small external radio, the sort that has three connectors: power, ethernet, antenna.

        Keep the computer, hub, etc indoors and just run cat5 ethernet and some low voltage power cable up the the roof.

        On the roof, mount the antenna and the radio. Put the radio in a small weatherpoof box, or even a reinforced plastic bag. You shouldn't need more than 40cm of cable. Heck, use a small adapter and mount the radio TO the antenna itself without any cab

    • Re:A better way to do it (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      by the looks of things they dont own the building nor space inside it to house a nice serv rack, they are sticking an antenna and machine on a building to spread free wireless. hardly an outfit with a budget ya know.
    • Not too hard I would think to coat the motherboard.

      Its called 'Conformal Coating' [mgchemicals.com], avaliable in silicon or acrylic as a spray-on.

      You could just mask off a few sections of the motherboard (CPU socket, card connectors) and spray the board. Or just assemble it and spray the whole thing...
    • There's a very good reason to put the WiFi equipment on the roof as close to the antenna as possible. Wiring to connect the radio to the antenna incurs massive signal loss, or is very expensive (and still incurs loss). It's generally accepted in the 802.11 community networking community ;-) that the best place to put the AP is in a tupperware or other similar weather resistant container right next to the antenna.

      Your suggestion about mineral oil is smart IMHO.

      simon

    • About wires (Score:2, Informative)

      by Andor666 ( 659649 )
      Knowing something about wireless and microwaves should tell you that we use to put the computers on the roof cos' in that signal we send, in 2'4 Ghz, we can loose it all in only 2 or 3 meters of wiring. So, we put it up.

      Here on spain our limit on signal power is 100mW. Lower than in USA as i know. And PigTails are cheaper in USA ;D

      See ya
  • I've thought about doing something like this off and on for years.

    The reason: I hate CPU fans.

    They're loud. They die with distressing regularity. They're louder *as* they die - the death rattle can last for a year or more.

    Put the motherboard in a bin of vegetable oil, keep the drives and power supply out of it (or even put the power supply into it), and you get convection cooling with heat sinks and no fans at all.

    The only catch is that you're going to have to either filter the oil or change it regularl

    • Re:This looks tempting. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can quiet down that buzzy/rattle-y fan by removing it from the heat sink, pulling off the label from the side next to the heat sink, pulling out the rubber disk if there is one, and dripping a drop or two of sewing machine oil in there. Then clean the plastic surface of the fan, stick the label back down, and reattach to the heat sink. This even works for the bigger fans inside power supplies, but it's more work to open up the p/s
    • "They're loud. They die with distressing regularity. They're louder *as* they die - the death rattle can last for a year or more."

      You need to buy the right fans.

      80mm Panaflo fans, $8 at 1coolpc.

      Lifetime warranty, he'll replace them if they ever get louder or die
  • AFAIK no organisms can use mineral oil as food, and its far less likely to degrade into sludge than any cooking oil. Also it has clear color and relatively no odor.

  • Wrong wrong wrong... (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheHawke ( 237817 ) <rchapin@nOSpam.stx.rr.com> on Sunday March 16, 2003 @05:52PM (#5525070)
    They are using the wrong type of oil for their project! For starts the oil is organic and will spoil, making things messy. Veggie oil is, in the family of fluidic heat conductors, a poor performer.

    What they can use and is readily available at any store that sells Amateur radio gear or wholesale electrical supplies is transformer oil..
    It's actually designed to be used in what the RF techs call dummy loads to conduct the heat away from the resistor banks that absorb the RF energy when they test transmitters. The stuff's most commonly used to wick away heat from electrial transformers, both at substations and the transformers hanging on the poles that supply 240 Volt AC to your home.

    One COULD try to build a oil-cooling system on a custom PC, but the heat removal would not be as good as glycol/alchohol/water cooled system.
    • Old batches of transformer oil can contain PCB, that is, polychlorinated biphenyl. It's an additive that was in common use up until the 70's, because it really improved the oil's thermal behavior. Unfortunately, it's also so hazardous that GE (who made a lot of those "pole pig" power transformers for power distribution) has spent many millions disposing of earth contaminated with the stuff.

      It's unlikely that you'll find any PCB-laden transformer oil in the US these days (but not impossible, considering all
    • Another important consideration on the choice of oil is it's absorption of RF energy. A super simple test for it can be done in your kitchen. Put a cup of water in the microwave oven at home with a cup of the oil to test. Nuke them for a couple minutes. If the oil has become hot, is is converting RF energy to heat. If it remains cold and only the water got hot, then the oil isn't absorbing RF energy in the 2.4 Ghz range. You will not want to use oil that will attenuate the RF signal. Sticking the mot

  • Cool! (Score:1)

    by di0s ( 582680 )
    That guy's computer desk is even messier than mine!

  • Probably not going to survive long... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @06:02PM (#5525105)
    ...as they did not immerse the one component that is most vulnerable to heat: The harddisk. Of course the HDD is also the one thing that cannot survive being immersed.

    In addition I do not see any external cooling or pipes to take the heat away, which means that the only difference is that the componets die a more uniform heat-death. Even though oil is not the best thing for convection. Viscosity is too high.

    As "cool" as it looks, some intelligence and knowledge of physics and electronics is still non-optional for successful computer cooling.

    One thing that could save the design is two long pipes, a pump and a heat-dump in the basement. And some cooling for the HDD.
    • Right, but mineral or transformer oil would have a lower viscosity. If you can get *some* convection going, it should radiate heat from all surfaces, thus turning the whole box into a big heat sink. I don't think they need the pump/heat dump. I suspect a better packaging scheme would involve a flat thin pizza box design to maximize the radiating surface and minimize the distance between the hot parts of the system and the walls. On top of this, I would put a second surface, at least a few inches above,
      • Right, but mineral or transformer oil would have a lower viscosity. If you can get *some* convection going, it should radiate heat from all surfaces, thus turning the whole box into a big heat sink.
        ...

        The HDD is just a bad idea, they should have gone for a solid state disk (CF flash or DiskOnChip).

        I am doubful they can get enough heat radiation going at all. After all

        radiated_heat = temperature_difference * surface_area * surface_dependent_constant

        If the surrounding air is cool enough, they co
        • OK, radiated heat transfer goes as the fourth power of the temperature difference, but the surface dependant constant is pretty darn teeny tiny. But you seem to be talking about convective heat transfer, which (if I remember correctly) is linear with temperature difference.

          In any kind of fluid flow (like, say, an atmosphere) convective heat transfer is going to be orders of magnitude more effective than radiant heat transfer. The best ways to increase convective heat transfer are to increase surface are
          • OK, radiated heat transfer goes as the fourth power of the temperature difference, but the surface dependant constant is pretty darn teeny tiny. But you seem to be talking about convective heat transfer, which (if I remember correctly) is linear with temperature difference.

            You are correct, I did mean convection. The term "radiated heat" im my posting is misleading. Really radiated heat is not a factor at the temperatures we are talking about here. Convection is what happens when heat is exchanged between
  • I can only imagine the look on the face of whoever recieves motherboard back on RMA.. trying to figure out why the pcb has some sort of residue on it, and a smell not unlike that of fast-food french fries.
  • It presses in the Pinguino to go to the Forum of TorderaWireless and to leave your questions or to answer those of others OR IT GETS THE HOSE AGAIN!

    *end silence of the lambs reference*

  • Ooops! Wrong oil!! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kakos ( 610660 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @06:29PM (#5525224)
    People who typically do total immersion cooling use mineral oil. It is a non-organic oil, so it doesn't spoil. Doesn't conduct electricity either.

    Mineral oil is very similar to transformer oil, which is what electricity companies use to keep the transformers cool.

  • on vegetal oil (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gomoX ( 618462 )
    They removed almost every part of water in the oil to avoid problems (yes, a bit can be dissolved into oil)
    They could have used mineral oil wich is less acid and would have worked well.
    The thing about HDs is like this: they *were* vacuum closed in the beginning, but in some really dry and heat condition (texas, etc) they kinda explosed. So they started putting some small valves on them to avoid this: so the oil goes in.

  • I'm surprised they used veg. oil (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Sunday March 16, 2003 @06:59PM (#5525340) Homepage
    A few years ago at a boat show I saw a product at one of the booths which looked like a translucent brown liquid, intended as an electronics waterproofing sealant. It was such a long time ago I don't remember the name of the product, but as a demonstration they had a portable B&W television submerged in the stuff and it was still operating fine.

    One of my friends used to work at KFC and he had told me how nasty the old oil would get while it sat outside awaiting pickup for disposal. I guess the little leftover bits of chicken probably had something to do with it, but I'm assuming vegatable oil is a pretty friendly enviorment for bacteria to thrive in nonetheless.
  • Puts a whole new slant on frying circuitry.
  • the google translation [google.com] actually states that they put it in sunflower oil. Possibly a mistranslation or just incorrect summary from /.?
  • is that food-based oils go rancid, and attract vermin.

    These folks would be better off using petroleum-based oil.

  • And to think that they could have just spray-painted it reflective silver and added a few more fans.

    steve

  • Not the first time! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cronopios ( 313338 ) on Monday March 17, 2003 @07:14AM (#5527976) Homepage Journal
    This is not the first time it's done. Let me tell you the whole history...

    Since three years ago, Iberian hackers hold an annual meeting, called HackMeeting [sindominio.net].

    The first one (code named hmbcn00 [sindominio.net]) took place in Barcelona (Catalonia), in a squat called Les Naus [sindominio.net], in October 2000.

    The second one (code named hmleioa01 [sindominio.net]) took place in Leioa (Basque Country) also in a squatted house, the Udondo Gaztetxe [sindominio.net], in September 2001.

    Finally, last October, it was hold in Madrid the 3rd HackMeeting (code named madhack02 [sindominio.net]).
    As the previous meetings, it took place in a squat (El Laboratorio [sindominio.net]). This time gathered about 600 hackers.

    It's not determined yet where the next HackMeeting will take place. Maybe somewhere in the countryside in Aragón.

    Well, let's come back to the oil-powered PC.

    In every hackmeeting there is a computer room, separated from the talks room. In the 3rd HackMeeting, the local HackLab [hacklabs.org] (called Wau Holland 2001 [sindominio.net]) had assembled a PC, put it in oil and placed in the computer room for public use.

    I've placed a selection of pictures of the computer in oil [sindominio.net] (shot by Maky [slashdot.org] and Fernando Vicente [vicente.cc]) in my personal home page. Hope you like them.

    Greetings,
    Quique [sindominio.net]

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