Remember reactable? (Or the iphone interface) As I recall, there were some comments noting build difficulties. [Gil]let me know about a nice how-to on building your own multitouch display. It’s not a reactable, but it’ll probably easier to re-create on your own. It looks like it was probably written by the tinkerit guy(s).
Misc Hacks4137 Articles
Vacuum Bike Pump
[drcrash] sent in this thorough how-to on converting a cheap bike pump to pull a vacuum. Apparently it’s just the thing for small vacuum bagging projects. I’m thinking that this could be combined with a low rpm motor and a pivot. Just picture an old steam locomotive wheel drive, and you should get my idea. (A windshield wiper motor would probably be perfect.)
DIY SCUBA: Death On A Stick
Sorry guys, I’ve got to comment on this one.
[tylin] sent in this “DIY SCUBA” youtube video. These guys used a home shop air compressor with a particle filter so they could “SCUBA dive”. This kid is lucky he didn’t die.
I guarantee there were impurities in the compressed air. A major concern here is carbon monoxide, among others. That filter they used is designed to reduce particles, not scrub out CO, CO2, etc. Hemoglobin loves CO even more than dear old O2, so he could have asphixiated or suffered from convulsions despite having an air supply.
He’s lucky he didn’t blow his lungs out. The second he took a remotely full breath off that hose, he started to float up. If he happened to hold his breath it would have ruptured his lungs and caused all sorts of nasty problems.
He wasn’t wearing a weight belt – furthering the risk of floating up when he took a breath. (in my experience about 90% of people are positively buoyant)
4)Nobody was in the water watching his back. If he’d suffered any complications, no-one was there to make sure he didn’t drown. (Think convulsions, black out, etc)
Sorry for the rant – but this is just effing stupid. Don’t try this crap, ever. I’m an advanced open water diver myself – get training and real equipment.
Update: The video was removed after reading my response to it. I went ahead and puled the youtube link since it’s useless.
IPhone Eve’ Extra
The guys at I-hacked put up a how-to on giving your windows mobile phone some iPhone skinned powers, but later in the day they decided to make it login required. Thanks to [Katrina] for the tip. (requiring logins for contributed content just doesn’t sit well with me.)
[chris] sent in his own round up of his personal projects.
[Chris Coleman] let me know about hacktherazr. They’ve got some decent guides on customizing just about everything on the things.
[Ben Heck] got sick of emails, so he’s offering to build one more xbox 360 laptop, if you give him a pile of money.
Staring sunday, I’ll be ripping the hell out of my new house (and re-doing most of the upstairs). Do me a favor and keep the tips line brimming over.
[David] has some interesting ideas involving wireless AP antennas and wireless keyboards. How about a cantenna…
Reubens Tube: Fire Sound Visualization
[vbrtrmn] sent in the most fun I’ve seen with fire lately. It’s really just a geeky physics demonstration, but it’s awesome. That’s a foil lined pvc pipe with holes every half inch. Propane is feeding from one side and there’s a 2″ speaker on the opposite end. You can visit the link for the video, or just see it after the break.
Remember: PVC won’t handle that sort of heat for long, and it’ll emit some nasty fumes. In fact, don’t try to make your own unless you can draw the propane molecule without using google.
Automatic Cable Modem Power Cycling
If you’ve got a cable modem, you know the drill when it goes offline. Unplug it, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in, reset your dhcp request. I’m pretty sure that [brian] mentioned this in a comment a while back, but now he’s written it up. He’s using a cron job on his linux box to check the internet connection, and if the test fails, power cycle the hardware with some X10 hardware and a little scripting. (Just don’t tell your friends or they’ll be outside trying to guess the code.)
Dammit We Missed A Day Extra
I finally ponied up for an ev-do card to make sure that I have no excuse for missing a post short of being trapped in a hole by bizzaro superman.
Check out this short video how-to on making your own glow in the dark inkjet ink. via [boing boing]. Probably the best inkjet mod since the diy cd printer.
If you remember the diy ups, you might like the attach a giant battery to a stock ups version. I did this myself years ago. It works well, but use a maintenance free battery to minimize hydrogen off-gassing. In fact, I’d suggest some proper ventilation for the battery pack. Miata batteries have a vent tube if you want to keep the parts count to a minimum. (but they are a bit pricy)
Something a little oldschool – [Alexandre] added a serial port to his newton message pad 2000.(Not in english, but easy enough to understand.)
After seeing the superglue fingerprinting post, [Anton] sent in this fingerprint falsification how-to from the ccc.
