[Christoph] sent in [fingers] rather interesting coffee hacking project. (Use the fish to translate it to English.) Using various scrounged parts, he’s constructed his own automated french press brewer. A good french press is a bit of an art, so I can understand the desire to automate one. The grind itself isn’t too critical, but brewing time can vary with the roast and grind of the bean. Personally, I’ve found that decent brew temperature is the real key to a good press. [Fingers] machine provides a way to do everything consistently, but the custom aluminum brew chamber might be effecting the brew temperature.
Misc Hacks4130 Articles
Cell Phone Controlled Door Lock
Inspired by the knock to open hack, [ashish] put together a fairly simple DTMF decoder to control solenoid door unlocker and connected it to a Nokia 1100 cell phone. Call the phone, input the magic code, and the door unlocks.
Hack Some Bling Extra
I’ve been getting some good looking mods on the tips line, so I thought it was time for a bit of bling on Hack-A-Day.
[f00-F00] sent in his ever so lightly modded iPod. It’s a bit similar to his force feedback PSP mod, but in this case, the leds lighting up the clear case are music sensitive.
The not too shabby looking [flooky] sent in her latest use for the SEGA Dreamcast, a guitar. (Hopefully soon to have three more strings.)
[crait] decided to steal 5v to power a Dreamcast VMU from his PS/2 port.
Oh, and if you dig our logo, you might be amused by skulladay.
I’ve got my travel plans for Defcon 15 set up. [Eliot] will certainly be skulking around vegas, so we’ll see you there.
Sideways Bike – Ride Perpendicular
I guess [Michaels Killian] just didn’t like to ride facing forward. He’s built a few versions of his sideways bike. Both wheels are used for steering – I’ve got to give him credit for making the chain drive handle that much side to side displacement. via [wired]
Virtualcogs Open Portable Gaming Platform
[David] thought you guys might like this – and I agree. It’s an open gaming platform built around a PSP LCD. It’s got all the basics, and it’s expandable. They’d like to put together an order for a run of boards, so let em know if you want one. If you’re lazy, here’s the specs:
- MX21 ARM9 266MHz processor with 64MB SDRAM and 16 MB of FLASH
- TFT LCD from the PSP (our thanks to Nathan at Sparkfun for helping us out with that)
- stereo audio CODEC
- stereo speakers
- headphone jack
- microphone
- couple of joysticks
- loads of buttons
- battery pack
- SD/MMC slot
- expandable (can add GPS, bluetooth, accelerometers and gyros, etc…)
Most of the hardware is pretty decent, but the battery pack could use some help. Maybe a good surplus li-ion cell phone battery.
Microwave Plasma
Every so often I learn a new microwave trick. [skuhl] sent in this …. myspace video. It appears that with a microwave, a jar and a candle to get things going, you can create you r very own plasma in a jar. You’ll probably kill your microwave doing this, but damn it looks cool.
Real Life Avatar Style Video Recording
[salvo] enjoys searching for ‘untitled document’ with google. He ran across this crazy little project that just cracked me up. It’s a video camera rig that’s designed to simulate the video presentation of virtual reality games (everquest, etc.) and it actually does a decent job. It would probably get you arrested if you wore it in Boston…
