some hackers at cmu decided to make the better pogo stick. instead of a coil spring, it stores energy in a fiber composite bow.
the bow spring stores 2-5 times as much energy per unit mass, and precludes the sliding friction that results when long coil springs buckle sideways.
there’s a page with photos and movies of people flying on these things. thank deep blue shift for the link.
take a look at these bow spring shoes.
i am pretty sure i need a pair of these.
there’s a movie of a guy literally flipping over a car.
uc berkeley also tried to make the better pogo stick.
‘un-drming’ a senseo coffee maker by making your own pods.
boingboing found a link to a commercial refillable pad.
we need more coffee hacks. it just makes the world a better place.
digital rebel ‘upgrade’ hack
free tech support. what a neat idea.
if you’re set on pringles cans, you can build the deep dish from one as well
there are pictures of other people’s dish reflectors here
homemade omni-directional antenna howto
chinese parabolic cookware antenna
the traditional cantenna
hacker pranksters attack burger king wireless intercom and perform valuable public health service
you may have already seen this on slashdot, but it’s really quite a nice hack:
pc controlled popcorn popper to coffee roaster hack
people really love the usb battery and have been sending me their own creations:
this one on ebay is cool. an on/off switch and led have been added.
altoids tin 9 volt phone charger
i cant believe how popular those altoids tin cases are.
snorkelson macburp sent us a link to some cool diy science toys and also won the prize for wierdest handle ever.
here’s a guide for making an antenna for your access point that beats the pringles can on a number of fronts. it’s easier to assemble, requires no pigtail and no modification to your ap, and it is claimed to have better perfrmance characteristics.
the reflector design was originally intended to increase privacy, but the nice side effect is that it dramatically increases gain in the direction it is facing:
power normally transmitted in that direction is “bounced” forward. Therefore you have more control of where your signal is going when using this reflector. That feature of this antenna can be used to enhance the privacy of your wireless network and that was my reason for designing it in the first place, the rest is just gravy but it is very real and rather tasty gravy. :) Please also note that antenna gain is preferable to amplifier gain because it adds to both transmitted and received power.
the best part is that you can make one basically for free. grab some aluminum foil, cardboard, and a scissors and get to work.
i always get a kick out of companies using proprietary crypto in their products. hackaday reader b-rad writes,
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and RSA Laboratories have demonstrated how too crack the encryption of a Texas Instrument RFID transponder used in many “immobilizer-equipped” car keys and ExxonMobile SpeedPass e-payment fobs.
the team was able to reverse engineer the protocol and come up with a system for brute forcing the key recovery process in a matter of hours. they also created a proof-of-concept radio device that could be used to mimic a speedpass fob to purchase gasoline.
their cracking device utilizes 16 fpgas and is able to do in a couple hours what 10 general purpose pcs would do in 2 weeks, all for the price of about $3500. this reminds me of the bombes used by british cryptanalysts to crack enigma cyphers in world war 2. pretty cool stuff.
sure you can do it with linux on a powerbook, with an xp machine, or with a little mini-itx setup, but i figured an ancient 7mhz machine wouldn’t be nearly fast enough to be suitable for an auto mp3 player.
i figured wrong.
here’s a nice retro hack that brings together an amiga 600 and an opel astra. for extra style points, there is a video of the project’s creator playing lotus 3 while driving down the street. those amiga fans can do just about anything.
another amiga auto mp3 player
see other hackaday transportation hacks
hurricade upgrade: modern use of joysticks that never worked right in the first place
microsoft wrote a nice little article titled “a parent’s primer to computer slang.”
Leet (a vernacular form of “elite”) is a specific type of computer slang where a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically–creating the digital equivalent of pig Latin with a twist of hieroglyphics.
the “did you find this information useful” questionaire at the bottom cracks me up. parents everywhere can finally connect with their teenagers. w00t!
(thanks for the link joe)
too bad you missed this one, all the macgyver utility kits are sold out.
worlds first phone glove. clever.
interactive realtime 3d satellite tracking utlity
an idea for using a cellphone and voip service to route calls and get free long distance minutes
and while we are on the topic of making phone calls
