Ask HN: Fun things to do with old laptops?

They make nice little servers and have a built in "UPS". asterisk, nfs, dns, dhcp, backups etc.

How about a carputer?

what's a carputer?

In short a computer in the car. I had always thought the idea of pulling up my driveway and loading MP3s to my car via wifi would be pretty sweet. You could also throw in GPS, movies, or any other linux based app.

Mobile p2p a la Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe.

Mix wardriving with a way of getting cheap secondhand laptops, and you could have an interesting market.

http://craphound.com/est/?page_id=1574

give them to your underfunded local school.

Run Haiku!