Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Door + Computers = Table



I ran in to a problem the other day: we needed a comfortable place to sit, talk, and do research at the office that wasn't in a conference room. Where do people like to have conversations? Around coffee tables, of course! Yes, we could buy a table, or go to a coffee shop, but why not just use what we already have around us that we're not using?

Fortunately for me, I happened to have access to two old MacPro machines. They are probably about 5 or 6 years old and were just sitting in a corner collecting dust (actually, since they are so heavy, one of them was being used as an anchor to secure a laptop to with a security cable). Also, being friendly with the higher-ups in charge of infrastructure of the Stata Center at MIT, I was able to get a free piece of glass. As you can see from the picture below, these pieces are normally used in the doors.


So, yes, we have a (geeky) coffee table that is both great looking (in my humble opinion), and functional (you can sit by it, and because the top is glass, we can use dry-erase markers to take notes on the table while talking). Of course, the amusing thing about this is that each of these computers were about $4,000 new... meaning we essentially have one of the most expensive coffee tables... Oh how technology becomes obsolete so quickly!