BlogCadre - hack

Celebrate Earth Day!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:04:07 -0500

Today is Earth Day! Over at Hackszine.com, Jason has opened the comments up to any and all Earth Day hacks, links and activities. He has also listed a number of Earth-friendly things that we can do on a daily basis to be kind to our Mother Earth. Link.

Go out and enjoy the outdoors today!

Etch A Sketch Clock

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:00:23 -0500

Built on the Arduino platform, this Etch A Sketch clock draws out the time and then erases itself every minute. Link to video. Angela Yuan's website.

The hackers in your neighborhood

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:55:18 -0600

View Larger Map

Hackers of the world unite!

Check out the projects that hackers are working on around the world. This is a collaborative, full-access, wiki-style map, so you can add yourself or any programming clubs and robotics groups by signing into Google maps and clicking the edit button.

Link.

Puppy Linux running in OS X

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:50:48 -0500

I posted a fun little howto to hackszine today that you fellow geeks might enjoy. Using the Q virtual machine for OS X (it's a Cocoa port of QEMU), I was able to get Puppy Linux to run nicely on my Mac. If you haven't heard of it before, Puppy is a tiny desktop Linux distribution that's meant to run off of a bootable CD. It normally stores all of your files and save data to a file on a flash drive.

What's cool, though, is that you can virtualize the boot CD as well as a small virtual disk image. This lets you put the emulator application, the boot CD image, the virtual machine config, and the entire save state all on a single flash drive.

You can toss the QEMU Linux and Windows binaries on there as well, and have a private Linux box that fits in your pocket and will run on just about any desktop machine. Slick, no?

Running Puppy Linux inside OS X - Link

FU Money: Investment Spreadsheet 2.0

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:37:11 -0500

Jason wrote up a great follow-up article, Investment Spreadhsheet 2.0, to his original post, The FU Money Spreadsheet, over at Hackszine. Some added features to the FU Money Calculator 2.0 are fields for accounting for your 401k contributions and a home loan.
Jason describes 3 scenarios in which normal people like you and I can become "wealthy be being excessive in our frugality."

Previously:
The FU Money Spreadsheet (post on Blogcadre)

The FU Money Spreadsheet

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:10:58 -0500

Update: Jason has made improvements to the spreadsheet, Investment Spreadsheet 2.0. It now includes fields for home loans and 401(k) contributions.

Jason over @ Hackszine writes:

If you're a Cryptonomicon fan, you might recall uber-hacker Randy Waterouse's business partner, Avi, who had a spreadsheet which tracked a particularly interesting value.

The subject heading of Avi's first message is: ``Guideline 1.''
We look for places where the math is right. Meaning what? Meaning that pop. is about to explode---we can predict that just by looking at age histogram---and per capita income is about to take off the way it did in Nippon, Taiwan, Singapore. Multiply those two things together and you get the kind of exponential growth that should get us all into fuck-you money before we turn forty.

Battery conversion hacks

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:19:26 -0500

Jason over @ Hackszine writes:

Have you ever needed a D battery in a pinch, but could only find Cs? Since AAA, AA, C, and D batteries are all 1.5 volt cells, they are electronically interchangeable. They differ only in physical size and energy storage capacity. So, if you're in a pinch, you can cobble together an adapter with a few quarters or other suitable conductive material.

Even a 9-volt battery is made up of 6 1.5 volt cells, which are a bit smaller than a AAA (they are actually called AAAAs!). This could come in handy if all you can find is a 9 volt and you really need a AAA for your TV remote... You'll just have to spend some time cracking open the 9 volt case with a pair of pliers to get at the little cells inside.

Quick hack: The $1 C-to-D adapter -Link
9 volt to AAA conversion - Link

Chill your soda in 2 minutes

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:51:49 -0500

Here is a nifty trick on cooling down room temperature soda pop within 2 minutes. All you need is a large bowl, ice, water and a hand full of salt. Place the soda cans into the bowl full of ingredients and let sit for 2 minutes. Your soda will instantly be 40 degrees cooler.

Increasing your car remote's range with your head

Thu, 24 May 2007 20:32:34 -0500

Jason over at Hackszine writes:

According to the completely authoritative sources of youtube and metacafe, you can extend the range of your car remote by holding the remote to your head. It's easy enough to test, and if it works it could come in handy for finding your car in the parking lot. So far, I've found two videos demonstrating the hack, and both use a slightly different method.

In one method you simply touch the remote to your noggin - Link.

In the other video, a more sophisticated open mouth, below the chin technique is used - Link.

I'm guessing that your head is acting as a crude directional antenna, but if you know more about how this works, let us know in the comments.

Maker Faire: The Hacker is in

Sun, 20 May 2007 14:33:13 -0500

Jason is working at the Hackszine booth this weekend promoting Hackszine.com. Other Hackers showing off their hacking expertise are the authors of the O'Reilly Hacks series.

[Pictured: Jason Striegel and Chris Kohler, author of Retro Gaming Hacks]

Previously:
Electric Giraffe
Tim Hunkin, homemade arcade machines and simulators
We're heading to Maker Faire, San Francisco

Maker Faire: Tim Hunkin, homemade arcade machines and simulators

Sun, 20 May 2007 13:43:01 -0500

Tim Hunkin put together an entertaining presentation yesterday about his arcade full of simulators and other hilarious coin-operated machines that he modded from old arcade machines and exercise equipment.

Hunkin highlighted these simulators:
Microbreak - "Simply sit on the chair and the carpet tips and rocks as you watch a TV animation of your flight and coach transfer, ending up on a tropical beach. At this point the TV lamp swings up, shining a heat lamp in your face. After soaking in the heat, you’re whisked home again, the whole experience lasting less than 3 minutes."

Quickfit - "Simply watch the animation of Jane Fonda’s aerobics workout video while the couch does the exercises for you - moving every part of your body in time with Jane and her celebrity team. This educational simulator shows the dangers of exercise, with everyone, including Osama Bin Laden and Madonna, disintegrating through over-exertion in the finale."

Rent-a-Dog - "Simply stand on the treadmill, hold the dog’s lead, and go for a walk, watching the route on the TV in front of you. The dog has his own TV and obviously has his own perspective of the walk."

Mobility Masterclass - Choose your expert level -- 80, 90 or 100 years old -- and try to cross the various lanes of traffic with your walker.

All of the simulators were amazingly creative and inventive, but my personal favorites were the Rent-a-Dog and Microbreak because the video footage viewed on the simulator are of models Hunkin created from photos he had of buildings and people around London.

Here is a short video of Tim Hunkin showing us how arcade machines work. [via Makezine]

Flying to England to see his beach-side arcade alone would definitely be worth a trip.

Previously:
Electric Giraffe

We're heading to Maker Faire, San Francisco

Tue, 15 May 2007 18:22:27 -0500

Jason and I are heading to San Francisco this weekend, May 19 and 20, for Maker Faire at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. Jason will be representing Hackszine.com over at the O'Reilly Hacks booth for an hour each day so be sure to stop by and say hello if you are going to be at the Faire.

We'll be scoping out the various Makers throughout those two days and posting the highlights, here, on BlogCadre. Be sure to check back over the weekend!

If you're unfamiliar with Maker Faire check out the Faire's main website and see what's happening at this DIY extravaganza. 400 Makers will be there as well as an expected 40,000 attendees.

Related:
Phillip and Bre from Make on Rocketboom [via meshly]

Compubeaver, Nature and technology converge

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:37:57 -0500

Kasey McMahon has combined nature and technology into one with her Compubeaver creation. The Compubeaver is a fully operational computer housed within a beaver. (You can view the behind-the-scenes 'Making of the Compubeaver' here.)

This beats mounting a deer head on the mantle. At least this is functional.

Urban Transportation Bicycle Hack

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:32:51 -0500

Jason @ Hackszine writes:

One thing that discourages people from using a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation is that it's a little undesireable to show up to school or work sweaty. In hilly cities, riders are forced to heavily exert themselves during a typical commute, pretty much guaranteeing perspiration and discouraging bicycle use.

Jarle Wanvik, an avid bicyclist in Trondheim Norway, was able to solve this problem with his bicycle lift invention, a cable driven stepping-pad that pushes bicyclists up a steep hill that lies between Trondheim's city center and the University. Though this prototype hasn't been duplicated anywhere else, it's an awfully clever hack that addresses the very real problem of encouraging human-powered urban transportation.

The Bicycle Life: Sustainable Urban Transport - Link.

MySpace is a bug haven says two hackers

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:21:15 -0500

Two hackers, Mondo Armando and Mustaschio, are claiming April 2007 as the Month of MySpace Bugs. On their blog, they are claiming that MySpace is full of security vulnerabilities and will reveal each bug one at a time. Saying that they could easily hit sites such as Google and Yahoo, MySpace would be more fun:

“The purpose of the exercise is not so much to expose Myspace as a hive of spam and villainy (since everyone knows that already), but to highlight the monoculture-style danger of extremely popular websites populated by users of various levels of sophistication. We could have just as easily gone after Google or Yahoo or MSN or ZDNet or whatever. Myspace is just more fun, and is becoming notoriously dickish about responding to security issues.”

Actually, the reasons for going after MySpace are more: the News Corp-owned domain is the biggest social site in the world, thus bringing a lot of profits to its owners. There have also been many scandals in the past concerning MySpace’s security against phishing attacks and against sexual predators.