Hack-A-Day is looking to expand its coverage. We’re hiring fulltime bloggers and freelance how-to contributors. We have an idea of where we should go with the site, but we’d like to know what you, the readers, want to see more of on Hack-A-Day.
hackaday74 Articles
How-To: Scavenge A Mouse For Parts
Chris Kiick posted about swarm robotics earlier in the week and today publishes his first Hack-A-Day How-To.
Old computer mice are being abandoned in droves. They’re tossed out because of dirt, obsolescence, or for being entirely too beige. Anyone who has a computer usually has more than one mouse and you can get them for pennies, if not free just for asking. Fortunately for the discriminating (read: cheap) hacker, these little widgets are chock-full of project parts. Today’s How-To will dissect a computer mouse, extract the useful parts, and give some ideas about how to use them.
Hackers Needed, Los Angeles
Hack-A-Day is looking for fulltime contributors in the the Los Angeles area. The details are in this Craigslist ad.
Our friends at Mahalo are also looking for a Systems Engineer, Los Angeles.
Hack A Day Goes Autonomous
After declaring our independence last fall, complete site autonomy seemed like the next logical step. Using some clever coding we have developed a system that will let Hack a Day run without any intervention. The first layer in this system is topic selection. All tip line submissions are sent through a series of filters. These look for keywords like “firmware”, “POV”, “microcontroller”, “video”, “linux”, “WRT”, “GPS”, “PCB”, “TLA”. Each submission is given a l33tness ranking based on these words and the best tip is immediately thrown away. The second highest link is then passed through our advanced anti-duping engine that confirms the link hasn’t been posted in the last week. The post text is generated using Markov chains in what top scientists suspect is a miracle. The story is then automatically cut and pasted into Digg without credit. To foster discussion the reader comments are automatically seeded with “first post” and “this is not a hack” on every post. This system is implemented using a large quantity of duct tape (code and literal) on our brand new Linksys WRT54G beowulf cluster. We hope this system serves you well. We’ve been working on an “auto-hacking robot” to generate how-tos as well, but on its test run it instinctively disassembled itself.
Related news: Team Hack a Day merges with Team Engadget
[photo credit]
