Hackaday Links: December 13, 2015

So you’ve been rocking a tin foil hat for years now, and people have finally gotten used to your attire and claims that fluoridated water is a government mind control experiment. This holiday, how about something a little more stylish? Yes, it’s a Kickstarter for the World’s First Signal Proof Headwear. This fashionable beanie or cap protects you from harmful electromagnetic rays. Next time you shoot an eighteen minute long YouTube video of a wheezing rant about chemtrails, look fashionable with Shield – the world’s first stylish signal proof hat.

That last tip came to us from a Crowdfunding marketing agency. That means money was exchanged for the purposes of marketing a modern tin foil hat.

[Mike] has an old IBM 5155, the ‘luggable’ computer with design cues taken from the first Compaq. With an Ethernet adapter and a little inspiration, He was able to get this old computer to load the Hackaday retro edition.

[gyrovague] has a Chromecast that’s a bit janky. When it comes to electronics, strangeness means heat. The solution? A heat sink for the Chromecast. You don’t even need a proper heat sink for this one – just epoxy a big ‘ol transformer to the aluminum plate in the Chromecast.

This year, Keysight gave away a pile of test and measurement gear to the i3Detroit hackerspace. Keysight is doing it again, with a grand prize of around $60,000. Entries close on the 15th. Protip: you, personally, don’t want to win this for tax reasons. A non-profit does.

The Internet recently caught wind of a satellite modem being sold by Sparkfun. It’s $250 for the module, with a $12/month line rental, and each 340 byte message costs $0.18 to receive. Yes, it’s cool, and yes, it’s expensive. If you ever need to send a message from the north pole, there you go.

Need to remove the waterproof coating from LED strips? Don’t use a knife, use a Dremel and a wire brush.

30 thoughts on “Hackaday Links: December 13, 2015

    1. So theoretically, if I wanted to transmit ~1MB of sensor data over the network it would take 20’000 messages @ 50 characters, which is GBP 800?
      But I guess it’s rather made for emergency messaging…

    1. Stupid people will believe anything. These are the same morons that believe that their microwave oven is putting out “dangerous radiation” but don’t take issue with holding a 2.4 GHz cell phone directly to the side of their heads. Someone is going to make a lot of money at the expense of people who aren’t smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.

      1. Ehh… 2.4GHz cellphone.. Wouldn’t that be a cordless phone? I don’t think there’s any cellphones on the 2400 band due to the “unregulated” usage of that band, but Sprint apparently have one at 2500.

          1. Add bluetooth with it. Stupid people doesn’t know either that leaving everything on is sucking all the battery (oh nooooo, my phone can’t stand more than half a day with a full charge)

          2. Sorry but you are meant to use devices, and you can complain if they only work for a reasonable time if you turn them off and put them in a cupboard. Because what the hell is the use of something if you can’t use it?

  1. Awman. That Iridium modem uses the 9602. That thing is bulky. My company uses those on a carrier board developed by an outside party. Not sure if the outside company would sell but i think we pay about 250. The really sweet version is the newer Iridium 9603. That thing is way smaller. Check it out https://www.iridium.com/products/details/iridium-9603.

    Also Iridium is really good for remote areas where cellphones might not work. Think rural boonies where the only thing that is around is a bunch of cows with eartags. We use a very tightly packed binary formula to transmit that data. Works but we cant report as much or as often as we can over Cell network.

  2. the existence of zero point transmissions or some type of quantum entanglement modem renders this satellite modem service obsolete. (it’s tin foil hat time and there is a void that needs to be filled with tinfoily commentary). on the topic of tinfoil hats.. your spine makes a wonderful antenna, especially paired with the entire nervous system that is left unshielded. Truth already mentioned this.

      1. Nope. Feel free to read away. Do not contact me to express any feelings of outrage or offense you may experience due to said reading. $50 to the first person who can read the hidden code in my head and report back to me with it…

  3. If you know where to look, you can get cheaper bare Iridium modules. All of these modules run on the Iridium Short-Burst Data service. As the name implies, this isn’t for sending MBs of data at a time. It’s more of an SMS vibe to it, and if anything I’d almost recommend for most use cases testing a design locally with a GSM module sending SMSes out so you can get a feel for how much data you can push over Iridium in a packet.

    I picked up two NAL Research Shout Nano tracker devices for $75 from eBay – inside each was a bare Iridium 9601. Add my own header to mate to the connector, apply power and an MCU… and boom.

    I *believe* NAL Research will also sell you Iridium SBD service as well for around the same rates (if not better than Rock’s rates).

  4. That signal proof stuff is actually usable, you wear a hat that can block signals, no use normally, but comes a time you need privacy you don’t need to toss your expensive ihone, just take off the hat, put the iphone in it, et voilà,
    Pretty much a must-have

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