Author: Navarre Bartz

329 Articles

A red silicone cupcake pan sits on a black glass inductive stove cooktop. The word induction is written in white text on the glass of the stove.

Silicone Bakeware Might Be Bad For Your Liver

January 19, 2026 by 38 Comments

Silicone bakeware has become a staple in many kitchens due to its flexible, yet temperature-tolerant nature. New research from Canada shows it could be causing trouble for your liver and lungs, however.

The siloxanes that make up silicone bakeware can target “the liver through oral exposure, as well as the liver and lungs through inhalation exposure.” The fat content of the food being baked is also a factor as these compounds are lipophilic, so higher fat foods will absorb more siloxanes than lower fat foods.

Don’t throw out all your silicone yet, though. The researchers say, “the results showed a consistent decreasing trend in migration levels across consecutive weekly baking sessions, with no increase after the seven-month interval.” So, that dingy looking silicone mat you’ve used a hundred times is safer than a brand new, brightly-colored one.

This seems like an example of how glass and (non-heavy) metal are usually the best way to go when handling food. While we’re talking about ovens, do they really need to run a connectivity check? They certainly could be improved with a DIY thermometer or by making a more practical solar-powered example.

A computer monitor which was formerly an iMac G4 with a hemispherical white base sits on a table. The table and wall are likely white, but pink light is washing the scene making them and the monitor base appear pink. An iPhone sits above a piece of rounded plastic jutting out from the monitor base.

G4 IMac Becomes A Monitor With A MagSafe Secret

December 9, 2025 by 5 Comments

The G4 iMac is one of the more popular computers in the restomodding scene given its charm and unparalleled ergonomics. Most modern machines that people squeeze in don’t have a disc drive anymore though, so [EasternBloc Engineering] has fitted a retractable MagSafe charger into the drive bay of the machine.

In this example, the iMac has become simply a monitor, instead of an entire all-in-one computer, and the original 15″ display has been replaced with a lightweight 22″ monitor on a 3D printed VESA mount. The narrow confines of the iMac neck meant [EasternBloc Engineering] had to sever the connectors from the HDMI and power cable before reconnecting them once they were fed through.

The really novel part of this restomod is the engineering of the retractable MagSafe charger mount that pops out of the drive bay. [EasternBloc Engineering] started by looking at repurposing an original disc drive, but quickly turned to a bespoke 3D printed solution. Using a LEGO motor and gears for the drive, the system can stick its tongue out at you in a more modern way. A straight in-and-out mechanism like on an original disc drive would’ve been easier to implement, but we appreciate the extra time for angling the phone that respects the ergonomics of the machine. We hope the files will become available soon for this part of the mod since electromechanical components are more interesting than the VESA mount.

We’ve taken a look at how to implement MagSafe (or Qi2) into your own projects and also a few different G4 iMac restomods whether you prefer Apple Silicon or a PC-based approach.

Continue reading “G4 IMac Becomes A Monitor With A MagSafe Secret” →

Handling Human Waste In The Sky

November 21, 2025 by 25 Comments

Have you ever wondered what goes into making it possible to use the restroom at 30,000 feet (10,000 m)? [Jason Torchinsky] at the Autopian recently gave us an interesting look at the history of the loftiest of loos.

The first airline toilets were little more than buckets behind a curtain, but eventually the joys of indoor plumbing took to the skies. Several interim solutions like relief tubes that sent waste out into the wild blue yonder or simple chemical toilets that held waste like a flying porta-potty predated actual flush toilets, however. Then, in the 1980s, commercial aircraft started getting vacuum-driven toilets that reduce the amount of water needed, and thus the weight of the system.

These vacuum-assisted aircraft toilets have PTFE-lined bowls that are rinsed with blue cleaning fluid that helps everything flow down the drain when you flush. The waste and fluid goes into a central waste tank that is emptied into a “honey truck” while at the airport. While “blue ice” falling from the sky happens on occasion, it is rare that the waste tanks leak and drop frozen excrement from the sky, which is a lot better than when the lavatory was a funnel and tube.

The longest ever flight used a much simpler toilet, and given the aerospace industry’s love of 3D printing, maybe a 3D printed toilet is what’s coming to an airplane lavatory near you?

A baby blue hatchback with red accents drives down a road with blurry trees and a blue sky in the background.

Hyundai Paywalls Brake Pad Changes

November 15, 2025 by 93 Comments

Changing the pads on your car’s brakes is a pretty straightforward and inexpensive process on most vehicles. However, many modern vehicles having electronic parking brakes giving manufacturers a new avenue to paywall simple DIY repairs.

Most EVs will rarely, if ever, need to replace their mechanical brake pads as in most driving situations the car will be predominantly relying on regenerative braking to slow down. A hot hatch like the Ioniq 5N, however, might go through brakes a lot faster if it spends a lot of time at the track, which is what happened with Reddit user [SoultronicPear].

Much to their chagrin, despite buying the required $60/wk subscription to the National Automotive Service Task Force (NASTF) and the $2,000 interface tool, [SoultronicPear]’s account was suspended because it was not intended for use for anyone but “service professionals.” Not exactly a Right-to-Repair friendly move on Hyundai’s part. After trying a number of different third party tools, they finally found a Harbor Freight T7 bidirectional scan tool was able to issue the parking brake retract command to perform the pad swap, albeit not without throwing some error codes in the process.

Electrification of vehicles should simplify repairs, but manufacturers are using it to do the opposite. Perhaps they should read our Minimal Motoring Manifesto? There is a glimmer of hope in the promises of Slate and Telo, but we’ll have to see if they make it to production first.

A forest green kei truck sits in an actual forest. In its bed is a dark grey box with a small window, wood trim, and a solar panel tilted on its roof. The headlights are on, hinting at the onset of twilight. You have a sudden urge to go glamping now.

Kei Truck Becomes Tiny RV

October 2, 2025 by 16 Comments

Tent camping lets you explore places on foot you could never reach another way, but sometimes you want to camp with a bit more luxury. [Levi Kelly] decided to see how small you could make an RV. [via Autopian]

While we won’t argue one way or another on his claim to world’s smallest, as that likely depends on your definition of an RV, starting with a kei truck certainly puts you in a more compact format than something built on a bus chassis. With four wheel drive and a small footprint, this could be better for overlanding than the Rivian bed camper we featured recently.

The 21 sq. ft. (1.95 m2) camper portion itself is framed in 2 x 2s (38 x 38 mm) to save weight and uses foam board insulation. A working faucet uses a pump to draw drinking water from a 5 gallon (19L) refillable jug and empties into a 7 gallon (26L) grey water tank. A solar panel on the roof charges the battery that drives the pump, ventilation fan, and can also be used to run other devices like a hot plate for cooking.

A teeny tiny wood stove can be used for heat, although [Kelly] is using a different fuel source to reduce unpredictability from a wood fire in such a small space. A faucet-mounted sprayer can be routed to the outside of the camper to create a makeshift shower and is run from the sink water system. There’s even a small cabinet above the foot area of the bed to house a portable toilet and a bubble window to observe your surroundings while you do your business.

We’ve seen some even smaller campers, like this vintage-inspired bike camper, or this more streamlined version. If you want the most efficient RV ever then check out this solar-powered one.

Continue reading “Kei Truck Becomes Tiny RV” →

A suitcase made of two rectangular plastic crates latched together sits prone on a concrete floor. The top shell is a beige-ish grey with a navy check and the word "JerseyMaid" on it updside down. The navy bottom crate is navy with the letters "lsen" in large cursive font ant the letters "ORATION" in smaller print below it. Much of the text is covered by a large latch and a power tool battery mount. Bright pink tape affixes a blue tarp skirt to the bottom of the hover suitcase.

Hovercraft Suitcase Gives Your Luggage A Smooth Ride

September 25, 2025 by 8 Comments

The wheels on roller suitcases are one of their primary failure points. After the destruction of the wheel mount on her DIY suitcase, [Laura Kampf] wondered if it would be better to dispense with wheels altogether.

To give her suitcase a lift, [Kampf] decided to turn it into a hovercraft so it couldn’t be stopped by pavement or puddles. The first task was finding an appropriate fan, and a compact leaf blower donated it’s body to makerdom for the project. After reducing the blower to it’s constituent components and finding a secret turbo switch, work began on the momentum curtain.

“Nose-holing” the arrangement and size of the holes to pipe air through the stapled tarp and tape skirt seemed to be the bulk of the trial-and-error in this one. Based on other hovercraft designs [Kampf] found, keeping the holes near the center of the inflated portion gave better lift. In the end, the carry-on is able to lift a decent amount even on its lowest setting, resulting in a suitcase that is “not embarrassing” for travel. No word yet on what TSA thinks.

If you’re looking for another unexpected lift off, how about a full-sized flying Delorean replica? We’ve also covered some of the reasons why we don’t see more of these all terrain wonders.

Continue reading “Hovercraft Suitcase Gives Your Luggage A Smooth Ride” →

A man holds a license plate in front of a black pickup (F-150 Lightning) tailgate. It is a novelty Georgia plate with the designation P00-5000. There are specks of black superimposed over the plate with a transparent sticker, giving it the appearance of digital mud in black.

A Deep Dive On Creepy Cameras

September 18, 2025 by 36 Comments

George Orwell might’ve predicted the surveillance state, but it’s still surprising how many entities took 1984 as a how-to manual instead of a cautionary tale. [Benn Jordan] decided to take a closer look at the creepy cameras invading our public spaces and how to circumvent them.

[Jordan] starts us off with an overview of how machine learning “AI” is used Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras and some of the history behind their usage in the United States. Basically, when you drive by one of these cameras, an ” image segmentation model or something similar” detects the license plate and then runs optical character recognition (OCR) on the plate contents. It will also catalog any bumper stickers with the make and model of the car for a pretty good guess of it being your vehicle, even if the OCR isn’t 100% on the exact plate sequence.

Where the video gets really interesting is when [Jordan] starts disassembling, building, and designing countermeasures to these systems. We get a teardown of a Motorola ALPR for in-vehicle use that is better at being closed hardware than it is at reading license plates, and [Jordan] uses a Raspberry Pi 5, a Halo AI board, and You Only Look Once (YOLO) recognition software to build a “computer vision system that’s much more accurate than anything on the market for law enforcement” for $250.

[Jordan] was able to develop a transparent sticker that renders a license plate unreadable to the ALPR but still plainly visible to a human observer. What’s interesting is that depending on the pattern, the system could read it as either an incorrect alphanumeric sequence or miss detecting the license plate entirely. It turns out, filtering all the rectangles in the world to find just license plates is a tricky problem if you’re a computer. You can find the code on his Github, if you want to take a gander.

You’ve probably heard about using IR LEDs to confuse security cameras, but what about yarn? If you’re looking for more artistic uses for AI image processing, how about this camera that only takes nudes or this one that generates a picture based on geographic data?

Continue reading “A Deep Dive On Creepy Cameras” →