Alternative Uses For an Old Satellite Dish? 552
ya really writes "My family has one of those BUDs (Big Ugly Dishes) sitting in their back yard still. The other day they asked me if I would take it apart for them. Aside from simply recycling it, I was wondering if there are any alternatives for its use. It was one of the last made before DirectTV and Dish took over satellite broadcasting, and even has a digital receiver. I'd say it was made around 1996."
Tin Foil Hat Accessory. (Score:5, Funny)
2. Read other people's minds.
3. ???
4. Profit!
I dunno. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe you could use it to create some sort of device that would beam correct spellings into /. submissions?
Re:Use as... well... (Score:5, Funny)
Well. . . (Score:4, Funny)
Flamboastin (Score:5, Funny)
XKCD has the answer (Score:5, Funny)
Loud sex [xkcd.org].
One question? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes there 'r'. :)
DeathStar? (Score:5, Funny)
Either grow a massive hedge in an orb shape and stick this dish in the top section just like the DeathStar from StarWars or just do the same thing (sans hedge) with paper mache.
what to do with BUDs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sled (Score:4, Funny)
Kick flip (Score:2, Funny)
sculpture (Score:5, Funny)
Re:XKCD has the answer (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here...
Re:Tin Foil Hat Accessory. (Score:5, Funny)
convergence (Score:4, Funny)
I say combine two ideas: bird bath and solar death ray.
Yum, BBQ!
Re:Tin Foil Hat Accessory. (Score:2, Funny)
Wifry in reverse! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Solar oven (Score:5, Funny)
Wifi (Score:4, Funny)
Set up a WiFi link to the moon.
Reflecting! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, Mythbusters! (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, the infamous VSRSSBBOOVSD.
Re:Point-to-Point wifi, etc (Score:4, Funny)
Mind Play (Score:5, Funny)
Lower the dish so its pointing directly at your neighbours house.
When they enquire about it; Tell them you can now read their email.
Refuse to elaborate.
My shrink's neighbour has a dish pointed at the shrinks office. He says the paranoid delusionals love it. I love it too. Total coincidence.
Re:XKCD has the answer (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Females?
This guy posted on ./
Why don't you just ask him to build you a working warp core while your at it :)
Re:No, Mythbusters! (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, the infamous VSRSSBBOOVSD.
...of death.
Re:DeathStar? (Score:5, Funny)
Dream (Score:5, Funny)
You could fall asleep in it and broadcast your dreams all over the world.
Re:Reflecting! (Score:2, Funny)
That just gets funnier every time I read it.
It's a good thing I don't live in an apartment, and I don't have a big dish. :)
Or a girlfriend...
</Obligatory slashdot retort>
Learn to make Paella (Score:5, Funny)
It's not hard.
Wok (Score:3, Funny)
The one in my neighbor's back yard is made of solid sheet steel, weighs a ton and is about 8 feet in diameter. You could stir-fry enough Chinese food in it to feed the whole neighborhood. Hmmm, might be a good way to get rid of all those pesky feral cats [asianjoke.com] roaming the neighborhood too.
Re:No, Mythbusters! (Score:5, Funny)
As long as all your enemies are less than three feet away, it makes a damn fine death ray. Now you know where the "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer" proverb comes from.
Re:Well. . . (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No, Mythbusters! (Score:5, Funny)
Being a true villain, I always feel the need to strap my enemies to a bench within a metre of my death ray so this should work perfectly!
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
LMAO! Yeah.... I know.
The Joke {----------------
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The HUGE space in between
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Your Head {---------------
Re:Remote DOS (Score:5, Funny)
Satellite dishes make excellent directional 802.11 antennas.
Just remove the existing LNB from the dish and replace it with a homemade antenna, like a biquad, tuned for your band-of-interest (i.e. 2.4GHz ISM for wi-fi). Make sure you get a powerful (high RX sensitivity & high TX power) wireless card with an external antenna jack
Me looking at access log and seeing wireless hack attempts... Looks at old C band dish and old microwave oven.. Hmm let's scan for the intruder and see if that laptop likes a KW of focused power in the WiFi band!
Re:No, Mythbusters! (Score:5, Funny)
A solar oven...
OF DEATH!
Re:thermal collector (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No, Mythbusters! (Score:4, Funny)
fun/dangerous
Are you suggesting that the two can be mutually exclusive? Will the wonders never cease!
Re:Use as... well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Ooo that's a big version of... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:DeathStar? (Score:1, Funny)
DirectTV reflector (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe you'll be able to watch tv during rainstorms.
Such uninspired responses... (Score:3, Funny)
Load it onto the back of a truck, head into the mountains, and recreate the shield-sled scene from Willow.
Evil Overlord (Score:3, Funny)
Coat it with aluminum, polish it, and attach a powerful lamp in place of the reciever.
aim it at your neighbors and fire it up.
Re:Sled (Score:2, Funny)
Heh - my pacifist, critter loving Mom was complaining the other day about the rabbits eating her vegetable garden. I told her "Shoot 'em - it's not like we don't have enough guns around the house". She pooh-poohed the suggestion, saying that she doesn't know how to operate one, and she was too old. I pointed out that her father was blowing away groundhogs out of the back window with his double barreled shotgun well into his 70's, and they are very simple to operate, and it just so happens we have that VERY SAME shotgun in the safe.
I'm thinking the rabbit population is going to get quite a bit smaller around the R1.0 household shortly.
PS - she asked my brother to blow away a couple of rabbits, but by the time he grabbed a gun they were...occupied. He put down the gun, stating that he just couldn't kill a male while so engaged - it just seemed wrong.
ACCOUSTIC death ray, or listen to the neighbors (Score:4, Funny)
Put a speaker or microphone in the focus, hang a bed sheet over it so no one can see what it is. Then whisper instructions to the crazy people down on the street. Play music only they can hear.
Or point it at the neighbors house and listen in.
Re:ACCOUSTIC death ray, or listen to the neighbors (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sled (Score:3, Funny)
That's why if the truck needs to stop abruptly, the driver does so by turning sharply and launching the dish riders out into the snow.
Water melon garden (Score:2, Funny)
Re:A green use... (Score:3, Funny)
For radio uses- add one high powered tesla coil and, well go figure :).
You think this would actually work? Cool. One more thing to have my friends bail me out of jail for.
Re:A green use... (Score:5, Funny)
We actually did this in college - pointed it at the paranoid administrators who thought we had nothing better to do than listen in on their conversations.
In retrospect, it probably didn't help that we drew attention by having a flickering red light, wore headphones and pointed at them and laughed. One time, they closed the curtains (like THAT would help).
Every time we'd stick it out the window, they'd send security guards - but, we'd take it down before they arrived.