This isn’t our usual faire, it’s a really cool documentary on a hacker. [JJ Dasher] is a tinkerer from Taylorsville, Utah — and this is his story.
Like many mechanical hackers, he got his start taking apart engines with his dad who owned a motorcycle repair shop at the time. The cover photo above is of his micro-bike project, which can get him going quite fast! He’s also built quite a few tesla coils, and loves picking up things from thrift stores to hack. He’s got a kid now which takes up a lot of his time, but he jokes that his son is just his next big project waiting to be finished.
We’ve actually featured [JJ’s] projects quite a few times before. He brought us the Doombox (handheld Doom-only computer), the awesome brute force GPS PIN cracker, and in the spirit of halloween one of our favorites: a tesla coil that delivers shocking candy!
Stick around after the break to watch the well-filmed documentary — don’t worry, it’s only 8 minutes long!
That micro-bike is insane. Also, do you know where that mine is in Utah?
Its a calcite mine near Pelican Point, west side of Utah lake.
Thanks HAD for featuring this! I might as well shamelessly plug the starving artists that created this video: http://www.halfcuttea.com. Matt Glass is a good friend of mine. Super talented guy.
…and my own YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/redruM0381
Great guy. As he said in his video “things are to easy these days” … I say that ALL THE TIME…thank you for agreeing!
if things are too easy, you must not be doing the right things..
I totally agree, Arjan. Seems to me there is no shortage of challenges for those who seek them out.
I do understand what JJ means, though. If you’re not motivated to explore and try new things you might be able to avoid it almost completely.
A thinker and a doer – Loads of people think about things that they COULD do, but rarely do.
Yeap, that’s very true! Sometimes it is plain laziness, sometimes it is a financial issue.
Had the opportunity to work with JJ once only which I got to know more if the guy! Congrats JJ well deserved.
You go JJ!
As someone who has one year old (my first child!) I completely get the ‘takes up a lot of time, but is also a really cool project’ thing. I sometimes miss having the time to work on my personal projects, but wouldn’t change a thing. That kid’s got an awesome dad, and I bet he turns out to be another successful project. Just don’t sell it on eBay after cleaning it up.
This was so fascinating to watch and this man so reminded me of my father. I grew up watching Dad tinker and build the strangest things out of ordinary stuff!
Thanks for sharing!