Polyphasic sleep is a method for increasing the amount of time you spend awake during the day. By sleeping only twenty to thirty minutes every four hours you can stay awake longer. The short time you do spend sleeping the body is in REM sleep, which is the most restful phase. This technique has been used by many famous inventors. I first stumbled across this idea in an article on Kuro5hin. This mode of life can be very difficult to adjust to. In the first few days you probably won’t be asleep when you are trying to. You must strictly follow the sleep schedule. Skipping a nap will probably cause a major crash. With limited sleep a nutritious diet will become very important. Hack-A-Day reader [Nick Busey] is a week into his second attempt at switching to the Uberman cycle and is blogging his progress. If I were to attempt this I would probably get something like the Earlarm to help out. Of course if you’d rather sleep more you’re probably better off with the 28 hour day.

Continue reading “Hacking Sleep” →

The P.E.S.T. is a “centrifugal” launcher using a rotor powered by a DC motor to accelerate plastic BBs. It has a 50 round magazine and 3 fire modes: semi-auto, 3 round burst, and full-auto. Fire is not instantaneous because it takes 0.75 seconds for the rotor to spin up. If you follow this “read” link you’ll find a detailed description of the device. Photos can be found here.

Continue reading “Portable Electromechanical Slug Thrower” →

Woohoo! Columbus Day! A

This page describes one group’s experience setting up a receiving station for NOAA weather satellites. To receive the images you first need to track the satellite you want to receive from. After tuning your receiver to the satellite’s frequency you can record the audible data stream using your sound card. You can decode this data either real-time or later. They went through several system iterations using both free and commercial tools.

Continue reading “Weather Satellite Station” →

I couldn’t think of a better title. Here’s how it goes: [onno] wanted to convert a DECT phone for VOIP use. First he tried using transformers for the audio, but was unhappy with the noise and echo. He describes how to do a direct tap like [Christoffer]’s Skype phone, but includes all of the necessary measures to keep from frying your sound card. The main piece of this project is his hacked “chan_oss” driver for Asterisk. Using the driver, Asterisk is able to ring the DECT phone. It also detects whether the phone is off-hook by comparing the sound input to the known line noise level. The phone can dial using DTMF just like any standard phone.

Continue reading “Connecting DECT Phones Through Sound Cards For Asterisk” →

Following these instructions you can add an LED matrix to almost any piece of clothing. The whole display can be controlled using one output for each vertical and horizontal thread. The first step is to solder crimping beads onto each surface mount LED you will be using. Next sew a grid of conductive thread into your garment keeping the vertical and horizontal threads on opposite sides of the fabric. Each of these threads is terminated at a sewn on microcontroller socket. The LEDs are sewn on at each thread junction. She doesn’t have any code posted yet unfortunately, but there is an example movie of Conway’s Game of Life.

[thanks lobo]

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Doug Nelle uses this super cheap tripod to support his 5″ f/5 refractor telescope. The wooden structures are constructed out of oak. Doug has inserted dowels into the tops of the tubes to keep them from collapsing under load. If you want to build one for yourself [yo_tyler] suggests checking local thrift stores.

Continue reading “Crutch Tripod” →