[tye]
Okay, so it’s more like two weeks in reverse, but we’ll see how far we get. Read on for more wallpaper, selected comments and other interesting bits.
Staff Of Doom
Yeah, I nearly labeled it “Staff of doomed social life”. John, a Penn state undergrad, whipped together this glowing walking stick. Okay “whipped’ is an understatement; he bothered to model it in Rhino before assembly. So, if you’re bored with building lightsabers or you’re just tired of the balrogs in your basement this is the project for you. Keep up the good work John and for your sake I hope I don’t see “gandalfkid.wmv” in my inbox anytime soon.
[thanks Deepomega]
Hackaday Links
ahh, smell that? no not west philly, these links I have here! I’m back from the market with a fresh batch just for you guys along with a bunch of rants and raves!
If you haven’t seen batman begins, you gotta. violence is pretty tight.
Use your mac mini to make
Master Lock “picking”
Here’s any easy method for backing out the combination of a Master Lock. In a perfect world there would be 64,000 possible lock combinations (403). The construction of the lock prevents this from happening: sloppiness in the dial and the numbers are not mathematically independent. First step is to determine the last number in the sequence. You can then use that number to determine the other possible numbers in the combination. You will end up with about 100 combinations to try, but that’s far better than having to throw the lock out which I’m sure would happen if you had to try 64,000.
UPDATE: x04d sent in a video demo (DivX) (dead link) of how to open a lock in 2 sec. using a padlock shim.
UPDATE: The linked video above has long been dead. Check out our more recent Master lock post for an embedded shimming video
Hackaday Meetups
get ready to meetup this week hackers! we’re meeting up all of june and then starting in july, bi-weekly.
Philadelphia, PA, USA: (vince)
where: drexel field at 34th and Chestnut sts. just look for me with gizmos and hacking stuff.
when: friday, june 24th – 7:30pm EST. don’t be tardy
what to expect: we’ll be talking about hackaday and defcon and coverage there. it’s coming up so we wanna talk about it. we’ll see how progress is going with the CVS camcorder and we’ll also be discussing about wi-fi, the sony AIBO and how you can program it, applications, and social engineering. it should be a great time. bring your laptops and digital cameras and/or video cameras. it’ll be inside so it should be cool, crisp, and full of fun. esp. with wi-fi. brandon, feel free to bring your linksys router.
rules: not many except i expect all of you who show up to be polite, kind, friendly, and to introduce yourselves. i will not tolerate any kind of rudeness/offensiveness/hate. we’ll tie you down and make you become the next goatse.
who to contact: vince via e-mail
Lincoln, NE, USA: (eliot)
where: The Coffeehouse.
when: thursday next week, 30th.
what to expect: Eliot says, “I’m pushing this back hoping to get a better response. If you didn’t make it last time make sure you contact me to let me know when a good day/time to meet would be. We’re a smaller group so we can be pretty flexible. Be prepared to discuss some projects you’d like to see.”
who to contact: eliot via e-mail
Roanoke, VA, USA:
where: the coffee shop “De Espresso”located at the corner of jefferson and church street in downtown roanoke. Here is the google map link.
when: friday, june 24th – 3:30pm EST
what to expect: plan to discuss projects past and present (hopefully
the cvs camcorder hack). Also, since most of the people i have talked to
are case modders, i have two old dells that i plan to donate to some sort
of hack like the PVR in an old VCR
Hackaday Announcement
hello hello people. i’ve got a quick announcement before i release the HOWTO for today. i realized that this thursday i have to go to Gameriot at the TLA in Philadelphia. I also want to try something new this week. I want to have the meeting for Philadelphia on Friday. This way you cant use an excuse like class or whatever! Look for official meetings posted on Wednesdays from now on in along with lazy afternoons.
Take care! Hackaday is getting very busy!
UPDATE: Get your meeting information in to me!!! Tonight preferably. I’m sitting here setting up the meeting list and what not. Please include the following info and dont use the comments for posting info, send it to me and a post will be made about it!
Let me know:
Where it’s at, What time, What day, What date, What you guys are talking about and discussing, What city, What country, What state, and Who to contact about the meeting (gimme an e-mail and name)
Cheap GPS Receiver
Here’s a short guide for converting a Palm III GPS sled into a normal serial GPS receiver. The Palm III is old tech so its accessories can be picked up cheap and modified for other purposes. The GPS receiver needs to be separated from the Palm specific board and a few components need to be transfered between the two. Once that’s done you should have a standard serial GPS receiver. Here’s a cache in case the “Read” link fails.
[thanks nevamore, who has done this hack with success]
