Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Domains

Domain: fbrtech.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to fbrtech.com.

Comments · 12

  1. Re:Hmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on ISS-Above Tells You When the International Space Station is Overhead (Video)

    When I first heard about this (or a similar project), I hoped it would be something like this: iridium flare tracker, i.e. that it would point to the object of interest with a nice green laser pointer, nut just quietly blink in a corner. Nowadays, a RasPi, a GPS module and two servo motors should be enough to implement this, and it should be within the 150$ budget. Add a few $ for a display and possibley buttons / joysticks to pick anything heavens above deems interesting, or identify things.

  2. Re:real time tracking data on USA-193 by StarfishOne · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Space Spotters Track Secret Satellites
    Heavens Above is also wonderful for predicting so-called Iridium flares. These are bright flashes of light caused by the satellite in question reflecting the light of the Sun. These can reach a magnitude of -8 and -9... can be very spectatular to see. A bit like a small lighthouse in the sky. :)


    If you're really enthusiastic, you can build your own laser to point to the correct spot in the sky! ;)


    And if you want to be up to date all the time, why not download the OSX Iridium Flare Dashboard widget? :D


    Happy flare spotting!

  3. Re: Track Your GPS Vehicle Live by Ted+Holmes · · Score: 1 · on Google Maps Graduates

    Sorry, left out the link for that one: Track your GPS enabled vehicle live with this innovative Google Maps hack. For a few hundred dollars in parts and an onboard webcam, you can zoom right down to street level from Google Maps and look out of the vehicle. See this picture for how cool this is.

  4. Re: Track Your GPS Vehicle Live by Ted+Holmes · · Score: 1 · on Google Maps Graduates

    Sorry, left out the link for that one: Track your GPS enabled vehicle live with this innovative Google Maps hack. For a few hundred dollars in parts and an onboard webcam, you can zoom right down to street level from Google Maps and look out of the vehicle. See this picture for how cool this is.

  5. Cheaper alternative: StompBox by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Informative · on Build Your Own Solar Powered Hotspot

    You can build your own EV-DO/Wi-Fi router for much less than the cost of a Junxion box.

  6. Also check out CLIVE by Tugrik · · Score: 4, Interesting · on Homemade EVDO/WiFi Mobile Access Point

    Thanks for all the comments and email so far; I'm glad folks seem to like the project.

    While you're there, be sure to check out our other hardware hack from last year, stored on the same server: CLIVE. It's an Iridium Flare Tracker we built out of a Gameboy Advance and a DPSS laser.

    I've moved all the images from both projects to the same high-bandwidth server so they shouldn't stall out any more. Being slashdotted is rather fun to watch. :)

  7. Re:Slashdotted ... or? by houghi · · Score: 1 · on Homemade EVDO/WiFi Mobile Access Point

    It is mainly the pictures that are slow and they are behind a php script. So I asume the PHP script or the database is slow. Just try http://images.fbrtech.com/view_photo.php?set_album Name=EVDOrouter&id=soekris

  8. And yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Build Your Own Electric Etch-A-Sketch

    ... articles about nifty microcontroller projects like the laser-based Iridium flare tracker get rejected. Go figure.

  9. Human Pac-Man? They've done this at Burning Man by Vulpine · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Human Pac Man
    Although it was nowhere near as high-tech, a human immersive pac-man has been brought to Burning Man at least one or two years. They set up a huge maze with pink PVC piping. The players would don head pieces that represented the characters in the game -- pac-man, the ghosts, or even the bonus fruit. Pac-Man ran around in the maze popping balloons which represented the dots. A DJ at an elevated station synchronized the sounds of the actual video game with actions in the maze. It was great! I camped down the block from them at Livejournal camp in 2002.

    Unfortunately I have been unable to find pictures of the actual game maze or a game in progress on the web. However, you can see a photo of the giant Ms. Pac-Man dome the theme camp creators lived inside here and here.

  10. Human Pac-Man? They've done this at Burning Man by Vulpine · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Human Pac Man
    Although it was nowhere near as high-tech, a human immersive pac-man has been brought to Burning Man at least one or two years. They set up a huge maze with pink PVC piping. The players would don head pieces that represented the characters in the game -- pac-man, the ghosts, or even the bonus fruit. Pac-Man ran around in the maze popping balloons which represented the dots. A DJ at an elevated station synchronized the sounds of the actual video game with actions in the maze. It was great! I camped down the block from them at Livejournal camp in 2002.

    Unfortunately I have been unable to find pictures of the actual game maze or a game in progress on the web. However, you can see a photo of the giant Ms. Pac-Man dome the theme camp creators lived inside here and here.

  11. Re:More good Pics.. by umrgregg · · Score: 1 · on Pinhole Viewer for the Partial Solar Eclipse

    Doh!

    Forgot to mention that said pictures on the above are of the monocular method, where indeed a sunspot is visible in one of the photographs.

    Here's the Link again.

  12. A few pics from San Jose by Tugrik · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Partial Solar Eclipse Tonight

    For any who're curious to see: I pulled out the binocs, a white sheet of paper and the camera to snap off a few frames of the eclipse as seen from the southern part of San Jose, CA.

    The pictures can be found here.