Category: Clothing

Recently, a Japanese coder on the DCEmu Forums released Windows motorists for DualShock 3 controllers. While the motorists only support utilizing the controllers over USB as well as not bluetooth, they do include force comments as well as Sixaxis support. included with the motorists is a configuration tool, as well as though it appears to be in Japanese there is some explanation of exactly how to utilize it included in the forum post. We have not checked these personally, however you can try out the motorists for yourself  by downloading them from the forum here.

[photo: William Hook]

We might have to add a category of “stuff made to twitter”. the latest installment is an office chair that twitters whenever it gets farted on. The author has a smart sounding description as to why he decided to make this, and he has a pretty good point about twittering interrupting the things you’re twittering about, but it all boils down to the fact that he wants to twitter his farts. We can’t say that we didn’t expect something along these lines. He has mounted a natural gas sensor in his chair, along with a squidbee wireless transceiver. You can download all the code as well as see the construction in the instructable. You can also follow his flatulent adventures on the twitter account of the office chair.

A pentesting dropbox is used to allow a pentester to remotely access and audit a network. The device is dropped onto a network, and then sets up a connection which allows remote access. As a final project, [Kalen] built the Rogue Pi, a pentesting dropbox based on the Raspberry Pi.

The Rogue Pi has a few features that make it valuable for pentesting. first off, it has a power on test that verifies that the installation onto the target network was successful. since the install of a dropbox needs to be inconspicuous, this helps with getting the device setup without being detected. A LCD allows the user to see if the installation was successful without an additional computer or external display.

Once powered on, the device creates a reverse SSH tunnel, which provides remote access to the device. using a reverse tunnel allows the device to get around the network’s firewall. Aircrack-ng has been included on the device to allow for wireless attacks, and a hidden SSID allows for wireless access if the wired network has issues. There is a long list of pentesting tools that have been built to run on the Pi.

Check out a video demonstration of the dropbox after the break.

Stirling engines are truly great machines, created by Reverend Dr. Robert Stirling in 1816 to rival the heavy steam engine, they are one of the most effective engines ever conceived.  Building one is a extremely gratifying experience, however it has a specific level of difficulty. However, [Attila Blade]’s version of a free-piston type Stirling engine is easy sufficient to be developed in a matter of minutes.

To develop the engine you only requirement a test tube, steel wool, a latex glove, an O sound as well as some wire. The building is simple as you can see in the video. The whole engine rocks on the cable frame which likewise makes it different to many other Stirling engines that you can view on the net. The totally free piston is just one type of a number of possible configurations for a Stirling. the most typical one, is the beta type, typically made with soda cans, however it is much much more challenging to develop than [Attila Blade]’s engine.

This is certainly a fun job that you may want to try, as well as is likewise a excellent method to discover  thermodynamics concepts. even if you don’t develop this specific version, there are numerous other possibilities utilizing primarily home items, or you can likewise inspect the extremely fascinating history behind the Stirling engine.

[Dominic] chose to take control of his cloud storage by switching to OwnCloud. Unlike many cloud storage solutions, this isn’t a company providing you totally free space. It’s an open source software package which your run on your own machine. [Dom] didn’t want to leave his box running 24/7 as it would be unused the majority of the time. So he hacked this router to switch on the computer whenever he tries to access the storage.

Obviously this is a Wake-On-Lan type of situation, but the hardware he has chosen to use doesn’t include those features. because he already had this TP-Link 703n on hand he chose to use it as a controller for the computer. His method is quite clever. The router is running a script that monitors the computer and the bandwidth it’s using. When traffic from the network stops, the router will issue a shutdown command within just a few minutes. It then assigns itself the computer’s IP address so that it can listen for incoming requests and use the relay on that breadboard to turn the box back on. certainly running the embedded system is much much more efficient than having an entire computer turned on all the time, and it’s WiFi capabilities mean no cords to run to the home network.

[Karl] liked his mbed – a small bit ARM-powered microcontroller platform – however he desired an interactive programming environment. fundamental just wasn’t cutting it, so he chose to bring eLua to his mbed.

When selecting an interactive advancement atmosphere for microcontrollers, you typically have two choices: old or huge. Sure, there is a middle ground with Python on an ARM, however why not utilize something explicitly developed for microcontrollers?

To get eLua running on his mbed, [Karl] downloaded the most recent version as well as plopped it on his mbed. The present version, 0.9, doesn’t have support for an SD card, seriously limiting its usefulness. [Karl] got around this by wiring up an SD card to the mbed, providing him gigabytes of area for all his advancement work.

While the AVRs as well as PICs of the world are stuck with languages like C or worse, the new ARM boards offered are much more than capable of running a total eLua advancement environment, with whatever available with a terminal. [Karl] even composed his own editor for the mbed as well as he’ll soon be working on a few lots embedded jobs he has in mind.

Not every cool hack needs to involve microcontrollers, LEDs or other bling. We were initially drawn to the Bloxes display simply because we love a good multipurpose construction set, whether it be Lego, 80/20 aluminum, or in this case, a system of interlocking cubes formed from six identical pieces of corrugated cardboard, cut and scored in such a manner as to form a surprisingly sturdy little building block. They can become simple furniture, groovy Logan’s Run-style room decor, or the all-important kids’ forts…then later dismantled and made into something else.

A elegant concept executed in the humblest of materials…we were already infatuated. We were blown away then to learn of Bloxes’ background: they’re a 1970s brainchild of computer pioneer [Jef Raskin], perhaps best known as the “Father of the Macintosh.” [Raskin]’s son and daughter [Aza] and [Aviva] revived the Bloxes concept in 2008 and now sell kits through their web site. Even if you’re not at the Faire, they welcomed readers to use the discount code MAKERFAIRE2011 (good through June 12th 2011, limit one per person), which will net you a kit of five Bloxes (30 pieces, some assembly required) for $12.63 vs. the normal $15.59.

[Will] submitted his ski goggle mod. He has mounted an Oregon scientific ATC3K digicam in his goggles. This must make recording ski trips a lot easier. a lot of of the electronics fit just fine in the mask, though he did need to use an IDE cord to extend parts of it to the custom-made pack mounted on the strap. We’re also curious how much wind noise he’s going to get on that microphone.

stop whatever you’re doing and get this book. I’ve just finished reading it and I have to say that [Wendy] and [Mikey] could easily be the poster children for modern day hacking, and this book could be the manual for a life built on hacking.

When I went to [Wendy] and [Mikey] last year I was blown away.  Their little homestead was a veritable smorgasbord of hacks. all over I looked, things were cobbled together, modified, repaired, and improved. There wasn’t a single piece of their lives that wasn’t somehow improved by their efforts to play an active role in their own living.

That sounds a bit cheesy I know. we all play an active role in our lives right? Sure. but what they have done is created a hacker’s homestead. My projects tend to live on my workbench, occasionally poking into my daily life, but they went were there was practically nothing and hacked together everything they found they needed.  Their life is their workbench.

If there was a need, something would be made to satisfy that need. The buildings they built were constructed from scrap and paper, the power they use was harvested from their own cobbled together solar system and battery array, the food they eat was cultivated from the desert using intelligent planning. It was not only an outstanding display of hacker ingenuity, but also inspiring.

The book essentially comes in two parts.

Part 1. the Story:

[Wendy] and [Mikey] were hackers in new York. You might remember [Mikey] from some articles he wrote for hackaday ages ago, as well as his projects that appear on our pages. [Wendy] started swap-o-rama, which you may have also seen. This part of the book is an interesting view of hackers struggling to live two different ways at the same time (DIY/Hacking vs get a job and be normal). Ultimately, they chose they would relocation to the middle of new Mexico and just make what they need.  They’ve been documenting this whole process on their blog, holy Scrap, as well.

I wasn’t too interested in a “hackers falling in love” story, and I was pleasantly amazed to find that this is much more of a first hand account of some of the amazing stuff they were doing in new york. There are stories of things like when [Wendy] orchestrated a large event involving decorative burn barrels on the streets of new York, or that time when [Mikey] built a bunch of vibrating underwear with remote controls to pass out to strangers at burning man.

Part 2. the Lab.

After spending so much time doing what they do, they’ve compiled chapter upon chapter of projects to survive on. ranging from electronics projects like harvesting and repairing automobile batteries to growing and harvesting your own medicinal plants, creating entire buildings from old phone books to converting cars to run on grease. I think this section ought to be handed out in high schools as part of the curriculum.

In case you couldn’t tell, I loved this book. It practically seemed like a peek into an imaginary place that belonged in a [Niel Stephenson] book (I could think of passing through this area in the diamond Age). I ought to also mention that even though I did check out them last year, I don’t really know them. I knew they were in my path for that trip and shot them an email. They were wonderful hosts who fed us, amused us, and took us swimming in the Rio Grande.

[Chris] had made a durable mount in his car for his iPAQ. He uses the iPAQ for directions and playing mp3s. After nearly ripping apart his line-in cable each time he took the iPAQ out of its cradle he chose to create a wireless solution. He chopped up a pair of HP FA303A Bluetooth headphones to extract the receiver portion. The headphone’s band is prone to breaking so it might be possible to find a damaged pair for cheap. The receiver was placed into an old mouse. once the buttons were hooked up to the mouse buttons and a voltage regulator added the unit was ready to start streaming audio directly to the stereo.

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