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Hardware You Might See In A Bar In New York

May 9, 2015 by 5 Comments

Our New York City trip for the TechCrunch hackathon is just about wrapped up, and this weekend we’re hosting a hardware hackathon at the Hackaday Design Lab in Pasadena, but there’s still one more event from NYC left to cover: our drink-up in the city.

Our drink-up took over about 90% of the Antler Beer and Wine Dispensary, with the usual, not electronically enabled patrons sufficiently annoyed.

datarecorderWhile this meetup was really just a meet-and-greet pregame for the TechCrunch hackathon, and not a proper ‘bring a hack’, that didn’t stop a few people from toting out some very cool hardware. [Katie Fortunato] trucked out a flight data recorder (or an airplane’s black box, painted orange for visibility) that is supposedly from a 747.

This flight data recorder keeps relevant data on a loop of mylar tape. We didn’t crack into that part of the black box, but we did manage to dig into the electronics. Very weird stuff in there; the control electronics have a backplane design, where each card has a connector that’s basically 2 rows of 50 or 75 female pin sockets. These cards aren’t keyed in any way, and they must be placed in the backplane in a certain order. The circuits are extremely simple; just a mix of op-amps, 74- and 54-series logic (no, we can’t figure that one out, either), buffers, and inverters. The latest date code was some time in the early 80s, and all the boards had a conformal coating on them. There’s a weird connector on the outside of the black box [Katie] promises to document on her hackaday.io profile.

Also at the event were a few folks from NYC Resistor, a few people from the IoTGotham meetup, some of the crew from littleBits. Somewhere in the pictures below is a Ms. PacMan/Galaga cabinet. Yes, I tested the bee overflow cheat, it works, but the high score was above 500,000.

Continue reading “Hardware You Might See In A Bar In New York” →

Caption CERN Contest Week 11

April 16, 2015 by 16 Comments

Week 10 of the Caption CERN Contest is a wrap folks! Our surprised scientist brewed up a ton of great captions from our great Hackaday.io community. We may never know what exactly is in that keg/carboy, or what the heck is draining into that bucket. Still, it’s probably safe to say that no one has put this much thought into those particular items since this scientist performed his research.

The Funnies:

  • “After many decades of hard work, Dr. Milton and his research was moved down into basement after he complained one too many times about his missing stapler.” – [joe_pumpernickle]
  • “Parker! Get down here! Ever since that radioactive spider bit you, you’ve crawling up the walls!”-[DainBramage]
  • “It rubs the dielectric grease on its relay contacts or else it gets the hose again” -Team effort from [MechaTweak] and [Nick Sayer]

The winner for this week is [airbuckles] with “Meet Dooglas, experimenting with beer brewing, CERN style. Shown here controlling the critical HOP collider.” [airbuckles] won’t need any buckles for his new Robot T-Shirt From The Hackaday Store!

Week 11: A double-header!

cern-11-smWe’ve got something a bit different for week 11: Two images from CERN’s archives! Both of these images feature a lovely PDP-11 from Digital Equipment in Galway, Ireland. They also feature two CERN researchers. The scientist on the left is wearing typical hacker attire – sneakers, jeans, and a comfy shirt. The hacker on the right went for something which we’re guessing was a bit more stylish back in 1982, but hasn’t quite held up to the test of time.

These scientists must have been doing some heavy-duty number crunching to need a PDP-11. Do you know what that strange hand wired rack of equipment is in the center? Do you have any idea where we can find a pair of harem pants like the woman on the left? Write a caption and let us know!

Add your humorous caption as a comment to this project log. Make sure you’re commenting on the project log, not on the project itself. As always, if you actually have information about the image or the people in it, let CERN know on the  original left CERN image, and original right CERN image.

Good Luck!

Caption CERN Contest Week 10

April 9, 2015 by 8 Comments

We had some great entries in the Caption CERN Contest this week. A huge thanks goes out to everyone who entered.  The jury is still out as to whether the gentleman on the left is a CERN staffer, or a Morlock caught on camera. Our eagle-eyed readers picked out some things we didn’t even notice at first blush – like the strange foreshortening of the “pipe smoking dude’s” right leg. (Yes, he is officially known as pipe smoking dude here at Hackaday HQ). We spotted him again in this image, and he’s in almost exactly the same pose!

The Funnies:

  • “Billy looked on as the James, the workplace bully, was about to walk in to Billy’s electrified puddle of water..” – [Leonard]
  • “This is Bob. Bob made a BAD ENGINEERING MISTAKE. Bob is going to spend some time in THE CORNER. Corners are not easy to find in a ring, so this is Bob’s BAD CORNER.?” – [ca5m1th]
  • “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. His name was Boson Baggins and he had a great fondness for pipe weed and protons.” – [shlonkin]

The winner for this week is [Greg Kennedy] with “You call that a moonwalk? Stand back, Edmund, and let me show you how it’s done.”  If [Greg’s] name sounds familiar, that’s because he used some creative web scraping to compile the unofficial stats for the 2014 Hackaday prize. They were pretty interesting, so we featured them right here on the blog. [Greg] will be hacking in style wearing his new Robot T-Shirt From The Hackaday Store!

On to week 10!cern-10-sm

There’s something for everyone in this image from CERN’s achieves. Gas bottles, chemicals, huge concrete blocks, high voltage wires, and a rather surprised looking scientist. What sort of experiment would require this sort of shielding? What is the photographer standing on? Most importantly, is that a keg of beer hiding under the table to the right?

Add your humorous caption as a comment to this project log. Make sure you’re commenting on the project log, not on the project itself.

As always, if you actually have information about the image or the people in it, let CERN know on the original image discussion page.

Good Luck!

Caption CERN Contest Is A GO For Week 9

April 2, 2015 by 10 Comments

Thanks for another week of great entries in the Caption CERN Contest over at Hackaday.io! We still aren’t sure if our CERN staffer is looking at that machine pensively, amorously, or with a bit of confusion, but you all found some great words to go with the image!

The Funnies:

  • “Dr. Breman’s early attempts to create the perfect robot woman had some early success, but was later scrapped do to a tragic input/output error.” – Terry Davis
  • “You were supposed to be intelligent, my dear. What do you mean by segfault?” –elias.alberto
  • “CERN’s pioneering computer dating service didn’t quite work out as expected.” – Nick Johnson

The winner for this week is Stripeytype with the quote seen in the top image of this article. Stripeytype will be sporting a CRT head T-Shirt From The Hackaday Store at their next hackerspace meeting.

cern-9-smWe’re not done searching out they mysteries of CERN’s history. Week 9 of the Caption CERN Contest has just begun! 

Some of CERN’s experiments take place in the miles of tunnels below their labs in and around Meyrin, on the border of France and Switzerland. It looks like this image was taken in one of those tunnels. It’s definitely an interesting shot. CERN’s documentation for the image has been lost to history, so it’s up to you to explain what’s going on here! Add your humorous caption as a comment to the project log. Make sure you’re commenting on the log, not on the project itself. As always, if you actually have information about the image or the people in it, let CERN know on the original image discussion page.

Good Luck!

Caption CERN Contest Enters Week 8

March 26, 2015 by 25 Comments

The Caption CERN Contest has been going great guns thanks to the community of users over on Hackaday.io. The contest just finished up its seventh week of finding funny captions for images which CERN has in their archives. CERN has decades of great photo documentation of their projects. Unfortunately they don’t know which project each image goes with, or who exactly is in the image. We’re helping them out where we can, by letting CERN know any information we can find on their photos. We’re also having some fun along the way, by giving out a T-Shirt for the best caption each week.

Here are some of the best quotes from week 7

The Funnies:

“Are Socks and Sandals acceptable safety equipment for the Demolition Pit? Yes, because these are Kelvar socks and Zylon sandals being testing. Quite uncomfortable, but these feet will survive a close proximity blast.” – [controlmypad]

“Check it out! One tube for each Ninja Turtle” – [OzQube]

“Before the LHC, hunting for the Higgs was much less glamorous.” – [Tachyon]

The winner of course is [Tim] with the featured image at the top of this article.

week6winrarIf [Tachyon] sounds familiar, that’s because he came up with the best caption back in week 6. Runners up for week 6 were:

“Damn Mario Brothers ….. ‘gotta save the princess’ How about watching where you’re going for once. – [Scott Galvin]

“Here at CERN, you don’t get shafted. You get tubed.” – [Rollyn01]

“Thank god the separator caught him. Another 50 meters, and he’d be nothing but quarks.” – [Curtis Carlsen]

Click past the break to check out this week’s image!

Continue reading “Caption CERN Contest Enters Week 8” →

[James] Multiplies His Floor Sander By Four

March 11, 2015 by 19 Comments

Hackaday contributor and new homeowner [James Hobson] had a dilemma on his hands. He had rented a commercial drum sander to begin a floor refinishing project. Like many before him, James was a bit too aggressive with the drum sander in places. The uneven stripes didn’t show up until the sander was returned and the floor was stained. Renting the sander again would be an expensive prospect. There had to be a better answer…

That’s when [James] put on his [Hacksmith] cape and got to work. He built himself a DIY floor sander (YouTube Link) using four Ryobi orbital sanders, some scrap wood, and a bit of ingenuity. [James] screwed the four sanders to a plywood sub plate, then added a top plate with a handle. He even gave the sander its own outlet strip so he wouldn’t be dragging four power cords behind him.

[James] found that synthetic steel wool pads weren’t cutting through the floor very well, so he upgraded to 220 grit sandpaper. That did the trick, and the sander worked great. Now he won’t have to rent a drum sander when it comes time to refinish the first floor of his new house!

Continue reading “[James] Multiplies His Floor Sander By Four” →

Caption CERN Contest Rolls Into Week 6

March 11, 2015 by 23 Comments

The Caption CERN Contest has been rolling along since the first week of February. We’re in our 6th week now, and the users over at Hackaday.io have given us some great captions!

Here are the results from Week 5:

The Funnies:

Guy #1 “Pay close attention: If anything goes wrong, press this BIG RED BUTTON. Then count to ten.”
Guy #2″ What does it do?”
Guy #1 “Absolutely nothing… it just gives you something to do while you’re dying a horrible, painful death.” – [Lorin Briand]
“We’ve miniaturized the mainframe – only 21,480 tubes!.” – [Tim]
“Watch my finger…now, you are getting very sleepy…fund this project…sleeeeepy…” – [Erik Ratcliffe]

The winner this week is [johnowhitaker] with the following caption:

‘Any moment now…’ An elderly visitor waits skeptically for the ‘funny tingling’ experienced by anyone within 3m of the machine as it runs a specific program.

Congrats  [johnowhitaker], you’re getting a free CRT Android T-shirt from The Hackaday Store!

Week 6 just started! Caption the image for your chance to win a T-shirt of your own!

cern-6-smCERN scientists and engineers often find themselves in interesting positions. However, we’re not sure if this CERN staffer ever expected to be quite where he is now!

The only hard information we have to go on is the album this title of the image: “SEPARATEURS ELECTRO STATICS MONTAGE DES ELECTRODES”. Our French isn’t as good as our C++ or x86 assembly, but that sounds like electrostatic separators. Which separators, on which beamline, and in what decade? Your guess is as good as our’s, or CERN’s for that matter.

Add your humorous caption as a comment to this project log. Make sure you’re commenting on the project log, not on the project itself. As always, if you actually have information about the image or the people in it, let the folks at CERN know on the original image discussion page.

If you really want to see what’s happening at CERN, enter The Hackaday Prize! You could win a trip to Geneva, Switzerland to visit CERN yourself (not to mention a trip to space)!

Good Luck!