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Here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/APPLE-MAC-MINI-INTEL-CORE-DUO-1-66GHz-1GB-80GB-DVD-RW_W0QQitemZ140397511893QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Desktops?hash=item20b05804d5#ht_502wt_1167

I just saved you $900.

And really complaining that you have to buy a computer to build software is a REALLY whiny position. You have to buy a computer for Android or MS apps as well. It's just not coming out of your pocket directly. But if you did real development, you'd buy yourself a computer regardless of what platform you chose. And if you develop apps worth paying for, the price you pay for a computer probably is not going to affect you.

I've put that on my watch list. I want to see if any of these actually get delivered. In theory it wouldn't be hard to for a Chinese manufacturer to build the hardware and port Android to it. Based on the ebay username (lifengsihai), and the fact that it's shipping out of Hong Kong, this looks like what is happening.

It should be noted that this device ships, supposedly, with Android 1.6. If that's true I wonder if it's possible to upgrade it to 2.1?

I also wonder about it's 3G support. I mean "built-in 3G HDSPA/UMTS/WCDMA modem" seems a touch unrealistic?

It's a neat looking package but I have deep concerns about it. I wouldn't order one without someone else taking the risk first.

Take a peek at what else this seller has on offer: http://shop.ebay.com/lifengsihai/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340 There is some interesting stuff in there.

You can already buy it.

I bought my Tivo used off of Craigslist so it didn't have the IR blaster with it. I found a solution that I think works even better. I purchased a direct link cable from a guy named g-gray on Ebay. It links from the IR blaster port of the Tivo directly into the DTA. Still don't have the second tuner, but the channel change is about as reliable as it can be with a second (worthless) box in the stream. He even has schematics posted, if you would like to simply build your own. It's been a long time since I've messed with soldering electronics, so I just opted to buy a complete cable. Schematics here: http://grayeng.net/TiVotoComcast.htm

There is still a rather active market for CB radios as well. I went to eBay to put my Uniden PC78LTW up for sale, and I couldn't believe how many CB radios there were available on there. I know truckers still use them, but I was certainly not expecting the industry to still have THAT many buyers out there...not anymore, but when I first put that auction up, there were thirty two active auctions for that one model alone!

http://search.reviews.ebay.com/fake-USB-flash-drive

How long before we see 8-core AMD Opterons on eBay that turn out to have only 4?

If that IP is blocked, you won't get through even if you use this method.

True, but if you block by IP, you risk blocking other sites on the same host. For example, a medium-sized business may think they're blocking access to http://ebay.com/, but suddenly discover they're also blocking the revenue source http://paypal.com/.

Technically, multiple sites shouldn't be on the same page, but...

Yes, a lot of new laptops have neither a microphone nor line-level audio input jack. Most people will never use it.

One easy solution is just to get a USB line in adapter for around $40, rather than having to keep an entire dinosaur computer around for just one function.

I don't know how well it works, but here's a $10 adapter on Ebay that does video too. There are other similar products around.

What are you - a sponsored link on Google?

If this bridge or that Florida of which you speak is not listed on eBay, then I'm not taken in by your scam!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Acre-of-land-on-the-Moon-the-perfect-gift-say-the-BBC_W0QQitemZ230443051912QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_WeirdStuff_RL?hash=item35a779eb88#ht_4253wt_1080

Here's the Semi Auto Pistol Hand Gun Adapter for Wii Remote. It's not even a controller; it's just a case that fits over the standard controller. From some angles it looks very real.

Once you see the detailed photos, it's clear how a kid might point at himself, looking for the Wii controls. On the gun/controller, there are the usual Wii buttons visible on top. On the real gun, of course, there's just the slide.

Try to get a copy-stand[ebay] (possibly also named as copy stand).

Trivially easy to find. Took me all of five seconds to find this item, and it's by a good quality company like Nikon!

Anyone can get a shrink wrap machine

I always figured a good slight-of-hand magician could get away with all kinds of "at the cash register" mischief. No shrink wrap machine required...

"Hey! You just saw me open it, and there was nothing in the box but this rabbit!"

it's probable you would have gotten just as much trouble with the Levitons. And you can't just throw a rug over that like you usually can with a cable, the couplers are a major weak spot. "multiple failure points" and all that too. And then you have antisocials unplugging things. Just the time and duct tape you spend trying to shore up the Levitons will break you even on cost while still dropping your reliability.

Getting a pisspile of 250's would have been a very good idea. Don't buy from anything anywhere near retail, the markup on cables is absolutely outrageous. (350% at the minimum) Once you find a reasonable source for cables, any (pre-molded) solution besides having a big box full of 250's becomes more expensive.

Technically, the most cost effective way to go is buy bulk cat, a good cable tester, (volunteers,) and precut your cables yourself. Get several boxes of 2gal ziplocs and precut cables in 50, 100, 150, 200, 300 ft lengths. (one cable per bag in case you were asking) Mark the bags for length with a marker on masking tape. Get your cable arsenal precut and pretested. Have one or two absurdly long cables (500) because sometimes they come in really handy. Ideally you should never need to crimp a cable once onsite. Anything 10ft or less is always a waste to DIY, for those go premolded only. Besides, they're the more likely to get abused anyway, particularly the 6/10ft'ers, so you really don't want a hand-crimp on them.

providing "real" ARM 1ghz dual-core CPUs in a "cloud" where you can fit 2 to an SO-DIMM back-to-back with the actual memory, 1gb each, 20 of which will fit into a 1U rack-mount and still only consume 40 watts of power each, where you can fit 16 1U into a rack, and thus get 1280ghz of CPU power in a single rack - and that's a _low_ estimate.

the performance per watt and the performance per cubic metre figures are just through the _roof_ compared to x86 processors, and the only thing that's really stopping this from happening right now is because people don't believe that an ARM processor could ever be "good enough".

Sounds a little like this SiCortex box I found on Ebay the other day, too bad they only ship within the US:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150418027555

The silly thing is that people don't generally run Windows on a supercomputing cluster, but they still use lots of closed applications, which is why x86-64 rules. So if the scientific computing crowd can't let go of the x86 legacy, how do you think the masses are going to do it?

Here's the solution. It's up to you if Linux is worth 11 bucks or not.

In fact, Microprose released a very similar concept for the 3DO way back in 1994. Granted technology has moved on, as has the ability to reproduce instruments with much higher fidelity.

However if you actually listen to the music, it's nothing special. In fact it's the sort of painful music you could imagine "nouveau riche" 30 year olds would listen to in order to pretend to be sophisticated, over glasses of california "wine", of course. For all the little ticks this program employs, reproducing patterns of melody and harmony according to some algorithms, it will never ever give us "The 4 Seasons", or something like this (Vanessa Mae BWV 1006).

The easiest way is to get some Ethernet to coax bridges: eBay, Google.

If you elect to replace the coax with Cat5 or Cat6, DO NOT try to pull it yourself. If you fuck it up, you'll end up paying someone else a lot more than if you just had an electrician do it in the first place.

If your just looking for longer run time, you can take a look
into larger battery packs.

If your into doing things cheap, use a surplus APC 3000 chassis in the
manner as i've done at home. 4x 120ah 12v batteries, or for longer run times
8 6v golf cart batteries. Each setup is good to run 15 amps for a while.

So for less than 1k installed , NEXT to the machine room, not in it
(unless you want to pay for cooling things that are fine at 80 deg f)
you have lots of low cost power, just replace the battery every few years.

Test by running the system down to %80, then kicking in a gen set and
charging to %100, then switch over to "normal" power. Monthly.

If you include a 30 amp (continuous) rated gen set per UPS you should be
able to extend your run time. Your gen set should put out the maximum that
your UPS can, and what it takes to charge your batteries, plus about
%35 for overhead, safety and longevity.

A good way to size the UPS is to use the name plate amperage to limit the
machines that connect to it. Its an easy way to convince nontechnical people,
to give you the headroom you want.

Or you can do what I recommend large data centers do, buy used gen sets in bulk,
and have 2N for what you think you should have...

I like going to the ship breakers and getting the 60hz sets (or 50hz
convertible to 60) from them. Depending on the stock levels, you
can get quite a nice price on a few in bulk, then have them refurbished
to Lloyd of London specs (or better), and shipped.

At 2N, who cares if you drop a few a year, you can power your
whole campus during an outage, or peak shave and reduce your
power bill. It might even be cost effective to get more, than to rebuild.

Be careful what you order, and how its done, you could end up with a
bunch of miss matched parts, (no common spares) or the wrong thing,
or to big of a gen set... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D24EMlA8Bzc
when you wanted this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYKoaS7bEuI&feature=related

oohh look, my fav , and its ebay... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180459158144&rvr_id=&crlp=1_263602_263622&UA=WVF%3F&GUID=022207c11230a040b1c48554ffdfcdaf&itemid=180459158144&ff4=263602_263622

look its a 6 pack of used gen sets... air start, and natural gas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQwaVwj8I7w&feature=related

or if you can find one of these, (or kludge something like this together)
http://www.pickuptrucks.com/html/news/ram_contractor.html
you can drive your gen set to work.

I agree -- it's not practical. Just look around: there's no other products that manage to shrink an antenna down in size, and still operate at 2.4GHz, are there?

Given the severe lack of anyone doing stuff like this, it must be impossible to use an antenna shorter than a quarter-wavelength for anything, ever. I mean, it's obvious, isn't it?

My company uses iMac G5's for the people that kicked and screamed for a Mac. We've recently had one of those Macs ethernet port die. We had to replace the whole damned thing. Another one was complaining that he had too many dead pixels

1. The most that would have had to be replaced on the iMac G5 would have been a motherboard. Ebay has tons of them. $40 will get ya one. There is even a flat $249 repair service listed.

Considering that nearly ALL PEE-SEE mobos have INTEGRATED ETHERNET on them, do you REALLY think it would be significantly cheaper to fix that problem if it was a PEE-SEE?

And UNlike that PEE-SEE, the iMac could have connected up via WiFi THAT WAS ALREADY IN THE IMAC, and you could have had the guy back up and running in about 1 minute flat. Methinks you are an EE-DEE-OTT.

2. HOW many "dead pixels"? This guy sounds like a chronic complainer. First he wants a Mac, then he bitches about dead pixels. Now he wants a PC (again?). Some people are never happy.

3. The G5 iMac hasn't even been SOLD since 2006. and COULD be as old as from 2004. So those systems are a minimum of four years old, and as many as SIX. You described TWO "failures" (and one wasn't even a real FAILURE!) in HOW many systems, in FOUR YEARS?!?

And yet you complain...

The $150 Livescribe Smartpen already exceeds the price of a tablet pc. Not only that, but the Smartpen requires $5 notebooks to work

The Livescribe Smartpen would probably make a good alternative if you're in a class that forbids laptops or don't have access to a power outlet since this review claims it'll last over a week between charges, but I can't see spending $150 on a pen when you can buy a fully functional Tablet PC for about the same price.

"But what does iPad have to do with this? "

I agree: Why was the iPad even mentioned? It's not a tablet PC, there is no stylus to write on the screen with. The closest equivalent to the iPad is the iPod Touch and I can't imagine anyone taking notes with an iPod touch.

Why were Tablet PCs left out? Here's a great video review of how to take notes with graphs on a tablet PC. Here's another example

Tablets are not expensive either, you can get a nice Pentium M 1.6ghz for under $300, some even sell for $150. I know everyone thinks they need a 3ghz quad core, but the Pentium M is plenty to run office and watch youtube videos.

Using laptops in class is so 2000. Tablet PCs are the only way to go for taking notes.

"But what does iPad have to do with this? "

I agree: Why was the iPad even mentioned? It's not a tablet PC, there is no stylus to write on the screen with. The closest equivalent to the iPad is the iPod Touch and I can't imagine anyone taking notes with an iPod touch.

Why were Tablet PCs left out? Here's a great video review of how to take notes with graphs on a tablet PC. Here's another example

Tablets are not expensive either, you can get a nice Pentium M 1.6ghz for under $300, some even sell for $150. I know everyone thinks they need a 3ghz quad core, but the Pentium M is plenty to run office and watch youtube videos.

Using laptops in class is so 2000. Tablet PCs are the only way to go for taking notes.

No technology is cheap when it's first mass produced. I came across a Computer Shopper from 1990 awhile back, 286 systems for $2000!

Indeed, these days you can get a 286 system for almost 50% less!

IR office networks were popular around 15 years ago. HP used to have a "NetBeame" IR access point product line. (There's one on eBay for $49.) There's Linux support for IRNet. The Infrared Data Association is already promoting gigabit IrDA.

The concept of diffuse IR networking works fine, but it never really caught on. You can usually get a signal with one bounce, typically off the ceiling, but more than one bounce and it tends not to work. You don't get any useful diffraction around obstacles at IR frequencies, so shadows are a problem. If you populate the ceiling with little IR domes, it works fine, and I've seen that done, but it's obsolete technology now.

I've seen them at Buy.com (2), at Amazon.com, at Kmart.com and plenty other places for even cheaper.

The point of this video is to show that Android and the much faster Android web browser can make all these cheap laptops much more usable when it comes to browsing the web. The Android browser is 100x better than the one in Windows CE or the previous Mozilla-based one they would integrate in those $100 Laptops. More usable means more people will want to buy it, which means even cheaper prices.

Here we go ...

IDP Multimedia Notebook

Cheaper enough for you? Plus this one is built to last :)

"just hope these don't turn out to be vaporware"

Hivision's last laptop turned out to be vapoware so I don't expect to see this one either.

The $98 Hivision Mini Note never materialized, despite tons of press. It's been almost 18 months since the supposed release date and they still don't even exist on ebay.

prop images, I particularly like some of the lighting they created and the close ups on the ebay pages will make it a lot easier to replicate. Certain pieces like this are truly interesting

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VISuperSize&item=150407632551

"My Acer Aspire [amazon.com] cost less than any tablet I've seen "

here you go (or here). Granted it's used, but offers core 2 duo processor vs your Aspire's 1.3ghz celeron.

I'll concede a tablet's extra functionality isn't immediately obvious, but if you've ever had to desire to write on the screen it's usefulness is clear. The two types of groups I see buying tablets are students who need to take notes, draw graphs, write equations, etc, or professionals who need to sign documents. For couch surfing it's overkill, but if you have ~$400 to spend on a laptop or tablet why limit yourself to the laptop?

I've owned several tablets and that's the future. Like laptops where people use to have to decide between a PC for speed and gaming or a laptop for portability, tablets are quickly becoming fast and cheap enough to replace laptops.

"My Acer Aspire [amazon.com] cost less than any tablet I've seen "

here you go (or here). Granted it's used, but offers core 2 duo processor vs your Aspire's 1.3ghz celeron.

I'll concede a tablet's extra functionality isn't immediately obvious, but if you've ever had to desire to write on the screen it's usefulness is clear. The two types of groups I see buying tablets are students who need to take notes, draw graphs, write equations, etc, or professionals who need to sign documents. For couch surfing it's overkill, but if you have ~$400 to spend on a laptop or tablet why limit yourself to the laptop?

I've owned several tablets and that's the future. Like laptops where people use to have to decide between a PC for speed and gaming or a laptop for portability, tablets are quickly becoming fast and cheap enough to replace laptops.

Many of these biology experiments require very expensive machines, such as microarray machines, as mentioned by the article. I don't know if purchasing refurbished machines is a wise choice since we don't want data quality to be compromised.

A microarray is pretty expensive yes, but a lot of DIY biology could be done with just a computer and or a secondhand PCR machine. Used PCR machines apperantly can be had for under a grand. Even less if you can service a broken one yourself, which many of these DIYers seem capable of. Probably won't have all the fancy options of a higher priced one either, but our academic lab has an expensive cycler with many options that we never use.

Data quality with many of these things is less tempermental than a microarray too. The secondhand PCR machine in this case might not be good for sequencing, but it would be a great tool if you were, say, making a plasmid to make glowing bacteria, using it to identify species of plants, making in-situ hybridization primers. There are a lot of things you can do with a basic cheap PCR machine.

As far as microarray data goes, an affymetrix premade microarray chip goes for about a thousand dollars. Obviously it's not feasible for most people to do many of these out of their own pocket, but not everyone does. Say you want to find out what genes are expressed more in dog breed A than dog breed B. If you were wanting to publish that data in a peer-reviewed journal, you'd probably need 6 chips, it seems like most people I know who do microarray do triplicates. If you were just wanting to find out for yourself, like to find canidates for which genes produced trait X that was in breed A, you could do just two, one for each, and hope it wasn't wildly innacurate. You could then focus your search based on that, taking it with a grain of salt until you confirmed it through other, less expensive means.

If you were going to be doing many microarrays, this website appears to be a guide for making your own microarrayer. The price tag for building it exactly as that lab says to would be about $24k. Again though, many DIYers are mechanically inclined and could cut corners for their own purposes.

Another issue is gathering the samples. If you're collecting yeast, that would be simple. Arabidopsis, other small plants, mice, or other small animals, you probably need quite some space.

I don't see that. Our lab studies chicken embryos. An egg incubator is pretty small. C elegans can be grown wherever you've got space. Arabidopsis can grow in the yard, you don't need acres. A research-grade mouse colony would be expensive yes (maintaining a genetically pure mouse colony in a sterile environment free of variation is harder just obtaining mice from the street). If you need other model organisms, there are farms. It can be a limiting factor, yes, but when is that not true? You can't exactly use elephants as a model organism in really any lab in the world.

Humans? That won't be simple at all. You have to clear privacy issues, getting the research review board to sign papers, etc.

Which research review board? If I'm comparing gene expression in human blood samples in my garage, without using public grant money, the "review board" is whatever poor saps I sucker into giving me their blood.

You can always resort to publicly available data. But chances are that you won't be able to impress scientists much for going that route. Also, most of the important discoveries are already done on this data.

I reject both of those claims. Real scientists recognize valid results independant of the professional nature of the researcher or his lab. Hell, most of us "p

On the Auction site (here), the "Terms of Sale" were written by a lawyer in NYC (U.S.), and the seller/artist is a US Citizen. The agreement even states that it is governed by the laws of the State of New York. This may have been reported by a UK news source, but it's an US work. However, I think it is also ridiculous- Here is the Artist's response about First Sale Doctrine (on the eBay link): Q: Doesn't the first sale doctrine prevent you from collecting further payment past the initial sale of the item? A: In order to be recognized as a work of art the contract must be adhered to, and regards of who owns it and who buys it the contract remains between the artist and the purchaser, not between buyer and seller. So, if you don't want to follow the agreement, apparently it is no longer "art".

Q: How does the artwork determine the reserve price for the auction? A: There is no reserve, but the initial bid is set at the last sale price.
So it is guaranteed to retain it's value, or the purchaser keeps it until it does. Basically if you paid enough for it, you would keep it. You will only lose the 15%+ shipping costs at the most. Or be stuck with it.
I assume it will quickly price it's self out of the market for long periods of time.

Confederate cash is rare and a century and a half old. It's worth a fortune.

In some cases, yes, but its current market value is not in any way proportional to its face value:

$500

$5

Confederate cash is rare and a century and a half old. It's worth a fortune.

In some cases, yes, but its current market value is not in any way proportional to its face value:

$500

$5

Fujitsu's cheapest new tablet PC may be $1,149. Why would he use a brand-new machine?

Here's something much closer to his price, and ought to be more than capable of viewing PDFs.

Why would a 15" laptop try to drive itself at 1600x1200?

Uhh.. because that's its native resolution? You know, like these:

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-ThinkPad-T42P-1-8GHz-1GB-15-1-UXGA-DVDRW-WIFI-XP_W0QQitemZ230407956950QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05

Please down vote parent, encryption up to 128 bits is allowed it's what's higher that's illegal (but not really enforced).

Please ignore cowardly comment above, GP was talking about the past, where (as per link) it was formerly, even fairly recently illegal to use any kind of encryption whatsoever. French SWAT teams wear opaque masks (where a clear one performs approximately as well) so that they cannot be recognized in court. France has a poor record on privacy and personal rights. Not that the USA doesn't mind you, but the comment is at least slightly relevant — and entirely true.

A sub-100USD ARM-based portable computer with extremely long battery life, and the ability to browse the web? Okay: here you go.

The 1990's calling all /.ers...

I don't know about you but I'm considering making a purchase.

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=smartq+v7&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Pay with PayPal and your purchase is protected! ;)

Many reissues are on awesome 180 Gram vinyl, and may be better pressings than the original.

There are hacked cartridges that evade this chicanery. http://cgi.ebay.com/Continuous-Ink-System-For-Epson-R260-R380-RX580-Printer_W0QQitemZ370299562964QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Toner?hash=item563792ebd4

Our good friends the Chinese have devised all sorts of bypasses.

However, the problem is getting the printer to run when it thinks it's out of ink: some I've used refuse to do anything until they have a filled cartridge, which is why I'm building mine out of a vintage plotter rather than a printer.

Pony up $56 for plenty of ink.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Continuous-Ink-System-For-Epson-R260-R380-RX580-Printer_W0QQitemZ370299562964QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Toner?hash=item563792ebd4

I'll take the printer off your hands if you don't want it. I'll give you $10 plus shipping.

Huh. I see the top case with the keyboard in one of your pictures. So for less than $200 shipped (and a lot less work) you could've bought the bottom case and a replacement screen and built a laptop.

Of course then you wouldn't be on slashdot.

Huh. I see the top case with the keyboard in one of your pictures. So for less than $200 shipped (and a lot less work) you could've bought the bottom case and a replacement screen and built a laptop.

Of course then you wouldn't be on slashdot.

A CFL costs maybe $5 each (if you buy a pack with more than one)

Actually brand-name CFL's delivered to your door are a little over $1 each.

"If all he was providing was "vision" and bloviation and hype via his blog, with maybe a seriously minority share of the capital, then he should STFU."

As much as I hate Arrington and the "CrunchPad" because better $300 Tablet PCs already exist, I would have to disagree with you on this. Manufacturing a device and getting it to market is one thing, but advertising it is the other side of the coin. Hell look at the pet rock, anyone could literally make a "pet" rock at home for free, yet the idea made the creator a millionaire within 6 months, all through advertising and hype.

I think Arrington was doing his fair share just blogging and creating hype over the product, he even managed to get it on slashdot 5 times. Announcing that the product is vaporware likely killed his credibility with blogs and fans worldwide, he will never be trusted again when he announces a new product.