We’re supposed to be a public credit to hacking in forums like this, not a public shaming of the term hacker ok!

What am “I” doing posting such concepts here? Ah, I’m hacking perceptions!

we can express several of our “perceptions.” Ranging from “Well Done!” appreciation for the impressive work on this remake… Or whinging aboout the uses it’s put to… Or we can perceive the bedrock truth.

that a microminature tv-b-gone is neither inherently good or evil as an intrinsic “fact”

Which “fact” by extension then applies any differently between the micro version or to Mitch’s original device incarnation?

As for the battery life issue of the micro? Simply pot one of these into a 9V battery shell with the emitter where the bottom of the battery had been-think hot melt or candle wax even… Hell, use a “joule thief” to snarf the last few tortured electrons from reclaimed 9v batteries “not dead” enough to harvest for shells&clips… Oh? Tell me that last one’s not a valid hack:>

I want one of these, if anything so I can shut off the TVs at buffalo wild wings while my brothers are trying to watch the packers games, that’ll teach them for not liking the Bears like their chicagoland heritage should.

(1) i use my tv-be-gones to turn off a doz plasmas in our empty tv lounges because that last undergraduate to leave can’t be bothered to turn anything off– gotta save the planet;

(2) and it has enhanced my love life when i give one to a syt– much more effective than dinner and a movie.

hacking can be very sexy and is easily more attractive than spewing crap.

Guys, remotes will be similar to how garage doors work today. Instead of switching DIP switches in your garage door opener to set the code (just like current universal remotes), you ‘sync’ your garage door opener remote with your garage door opener.

It will work exactly the same with with televisions. A similar concept to understand is how the Wii controller and xbox 360 controller work. You have to ‘sync’ the remotes with the systems. This will give the tv remotes a special key that must match the device for operation. It won’t even be a hassle and universal remotes will be that much easier to program.

honestly i think the gizmodo “prank” isn’t really acceptable. let’s just say that i come from a place where pranks are a thing, and that i’ve been part of quite a number of them, and that we’ve got guidelines that remind us that there’s a point when a “prank” becomes vandalism. there might have been a way to do it right, but honestly the way they executed it would have been probably a violation of our honor code applied to pranking.

there are appropriate, amusing ways to use the tv-b-gone. but knowing how most people will handle these situations, most people will probably do something fairly malicious and not amusing to a more general audience. doing pranks right requires quite a bit of discussion and thought.

soon enough I imagine universal remotes will have firmware that can be updated wirelessly or by usb. Encryption can be added that way and it will be no more inconvenient than the half-dozen things you probably already have that use updateable firmware.

You can’t stop us.

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