I’m Still Out Of Town Extra


I received some good stuff via the tips line while I’ve been making an extra stop after Shmoocon. I spent the day helping my less project endowed family run some new wiring (and made some awesome sparks in the process.)

[Damian] sent in his customized version of the classic Atari 2600 adventure game.
[iraqiGeek] sent in his efforts to use the six-axis controller. He used lib-usb and PPJoy to create his own app.

[HP Friedrichs] sent in this interesting post on building military style power supplies. Good stuff if you’re into building your own gear and like interesting chassis designs.

[John] sent in his version of the new KITT’s light bar. (You know you watched it.)

Got something good to share? Use the tips line.

Do Math To Turn Off Your Alarm Clock


[nickjohnson] sent in what might just be the most incredibly evil alarm clock ever. It’s a fairly simple pic project with a PIC, LCD and input buttons. When the alarm goes off, you have to solve math problems before it will shut off. If you answer correctly, you make it stop. In my case, I’d probably add a mute button that can be held down while you do the math. Source, schematics and pcb layout are provided.

The 2008 Shmooball Gun


I caught up with [Larry] from pauldotcom.com and got a quick walk-through of his Shmooball gun. After several less successful attempts, this one worked pretty damn well and featured a distinctive sound that caused a notable glimmer of fear in the eyes of the speakers. *cough*[renderman]*cough*. Read on for the secrets of the Shmooball gun.

Continue reading “The 2008 Shmooball Gun”

Scrying EM Fields


I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one. The idea behind scrying is to reveal hidden data – i.e. electromagnetic fields within a structure. (Like those created by a metal building/computers/etc) It does have other uses besides artistic – it can be used to analyse the 2.4ghz spectrum among other things. It looks like an interesting project, despite the odd description. (Lets just say that it’s an eccentric bit of reading)

Window Unit Turned PC Water Cooler


I almost passed this one up because it was shotgunned across a few blogs, but it would be a shame to pass up on a good hack. [Mike] decided to use a standard window AC unit to cool the CPU in his rig. The A/C unit was modified to place the evaporation coil inside a fish tank filled with glycol/water antifreeze coolant. To cool the CPU, he used a normal water block, but insulated the coolant lines between the cooling unit and the machine. That should give you the idea. For more details, have fun deciphering his project in pictures. [via]

Bonus: [Johnny] sent in the NASA workmenship guide. It’s pretty interesting to see what the space boys require for their electronics work.