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wasn't ssl broken a while back with a ps3 cluster

  http://hackaday.com/2008/12/30/25c3-hackers-completely-break-ssl-using-200-ps3s/

I would not be supprised if they had a hack to get through it

Get to a Maker Faire. Several years ago I spent awhile talking with Bre Pettis about his new machine from MakerBot without realizing who he was. Take the kids! Solder your own badge! Learn how to make your own air powered rockets! My kids aren't even into robots think it is a blast. A word of waring... they make you sign a serious waiver for a reason. They expect you to pay attention to your surroundings and not blindly walk into that quadcopter demo. Make sure your kids are not texting as they walk. Look for some of the small booths/tables with guys that brought in their home brewed stuff. They were you not that long ago and would love to talk about hot to get started. The fancy booths are people looking to sell stuff. If your not looking to buy your own laser cutter.... they will let you look and they will be polite but they are looking to sell stuff.
http://makerfaire.com/

If you decide you want to start now and want to learn how things work....

Get this kit for $49:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/193

Follow the tutorials starting here:
http://learn.adafruit.com/lesson-0-getting-started

Soon you will be a master of blinky lights. Think of it as "Hello world" for robotics.

If you think, "HOLY CRAP. I AM MAKING IT REALLY DO THINGS" Then continue. If you went, "HOLY CRAP, I JUST WASTED $50 AND A FEW HOURS OF MY LIFE TO MAKE A STUPID LIGHT BLINK" you might consider some of the more expensive options or re-consider your desire to do this. If you want to continue...

If you have an old printer laying around then rip some motors out of it. In fact anything that has a motor or is older electronics will soon be looked at with, "Hey, that has a nice transformer in it. Those are some nice through hole resisters. Would you look at those hardened steel rods! I wonder why they did it this way?"

Things to consider furthering the addiction:
motor shield with some basic motors
digital multimeter
Soldering iron, do not get one of those nasty Radio Shack $20 pieces of junk. You wouldn't try to build a small deck with a handsaw. This is one of the more expensive pieces you will buy, but it is one of those tools that you will use and will appreciate not having a junk one. This does not mean you need to get a super solder re-work station. Get one with a base station and dial control. Temp controlled would be great.
Go to a nearby electronics place that sells this stuff and buy some general wire, breadboard etc. They will appreciate the business and might be there someday when you really need that one part and don't want to wait for shipping. I was amazed to find one near me. They were rather knowledgeable compared to some certain chains (they had a soldering iron on the counter just in case)
An old computer with the following ports: MIDI(computers used to have a port with real IO, oh my), serial, USB, parallel. You might want to eventually talk to ports and individual pins without the OS in the way. Windows stopped allowing this with XP. A P4 is fast but gets warm and very power hungry. A PIII not so hot or power hungry but not as fast. An old laptop works great for this since it has a small footprint.

Start to follow a few web sites:
http://hackaday.com/
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/?main_page=blog
http://blog.makezine.com/
http://dangerousprototypes.com/
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/
http://diydrones.com/
https://www.sparkfun.com/

Ha, well to be fair to the moderators, I posted rather late. I believe another poster already pointed out there is a solution for "makers" that is about a tenth as costly as my Cintiq. If I had more free time(or better hardware chops) I'd try to make one.

http://hackaday.com/2013/05/31/jeri-spills-the-beans-on-her-ar-glasses/

What she is making sounds cool. And she doesn't make you watch an ad (bastards!). Though the pod cast is like 30+ mins.

If you're comfortable with hardware you could pick up an iPad LCD screen ( around $60 on ebay ) and add a display port connection to it, the only outstanding issue is an enclosure but access to a 3d printer could solve that.
http://hackaday.com/2013/04/22/connect-a-retina-display-to-a-regular-computer/

This story that was on Hackaday a while back, where an audio track was hidden in an image: http://hackaday.com/2012/02/27/this-image-contains-a-hidden-audio-track/ If, for some reason, one were seriously trying to hide data in this way and have it go undetected, would it not be a much better idea to combine this approach with the approach described in the above HaD post?

It would be pretty hillarious to modify a full size Model M to be a bluetooth keyboard for something like a Nexus 7 or iPad mini. Good exercise lugging it around too.

Looks like it's been done: http://hackaday.com/2011/08/09/gods-own-keyboard-now-with-bluetooth/

The Cube 3D. An outrageous price-tag, locked-down functionality, overpriced model store, proprietary cartridges All that’s missing is an Apple logo.

Credit: FutureCyberdyneEngineer

Here's the answer to that: http://www.howmuchsnow.com/cube/

commentary on http://hackaday.com/2013/04/26/cube-3d-printer-hack-lets-you-use-bulk-filament/

Building HERF guns out of old microwaves may become a new hobby.

Or is it more like this? http://hackaday.com/2009/11/03/wozs-watch-makes-air-travelers-nervous/

Slashdot, you're really not hitting the high registers with these videos.

A video of people talking is good, but you need to punch it up a little. Use some powerpoint-style slides with text bullet points, then have the speaker read out the text as the audience follows along.

Here's an example of what *not* to do.

All that action and movement does little to enhance the video, and the scripted text makes it seem somehow terse. Don't do that - the discluencies - "ah", "uhmmm", "you know", and so on - are what make the speech sound normal. Drag the dialogue out a little!

And the cuts! A dozen or more different scenes in the example video doesn't add to the experience - just use one or two as you are currently doing. Showing someone flipping screens on a tablet is good - we need more articles about apps and products that people can purchase.

And be sure to put your video intro at the front every time. That way if the viewer is uninterested in the video, at least they will have spent the time looking at your logo.

Overall though, it's a pretty good video. Keep up the good work! It's hard to find videos of interest to tech people.

Slashdot, you're really not hitting the high registers with these videos.

A video of people talking is good, but you need to punch it up a little. Use some powerpoint-style slides with text bullet points, then have the speaker read out the text as the audience follows along.

Here's an example of what *not* to do.

All that action and movement does little to enhance the video, and the scripted text makes it seem somehow terse. Don't do that - the discluencies - "ah", "uhmmm", "you know", and so on - are what make the speech sound normal. Drag the dialogue out a little!

And the cuts! A dozen or more different scenes in the example video doesn't add to the experience - just use one or two as you are currently doing. Showing someone flipping screens on a tablet is good - we need more articles about apps and products that people can purchase.

And be sure to put your video intro at the front every time. That way if the viewer is uninterested in the video, at least they will have spent the time looking at your logo.

Overall though, it's a pretty good video. Keep up the good work! It's hard to find videos of interest to tech people.

One unfortunate thing is its an inch around. A hair smaller (24 mm?) and it would fit in a "one inch" model rocket tube.

There are lots of little premade avr board designs that will fit in a rocket tube. You won't be doing any crazy guidance with them, but you can datalog or if you're feeling a little silly, try your hand at stabilization.

Here's one (pretty funny) attempt: http://hackaday.com/2010/08/03/diy-guided-missile-err-model-rocket/

What this summary misses is that the blackout sent the dude to the hospital, and not even 3 weeks later he is drinking it up at a party again. Thats a problem blinky ice cubes wont solve

http://hackaday.com/2013/01/09/led-ice-cubes-prevent-alcohol-induced-blackouts/

I'm pretty sure you could hard-wire safety mechanisms that prevented this.

Similar concept here: http://hackaday.com/2012/10/13/open-source-android-thermostat/#more-87901

A post by the creator in his forums:

As a few people have pointed out, there is some risk that your heater may get stuck in the on state or off state if the app or your phone was to lock up. I've added a few safeguards against this already in the code and am going to add a few more, but I'd like to also find an all mechanical solution to this to ensure the thermostat fails safely if it does fail.

The best solution I know of is to use three bimetal switches to:

Break the circuit on the heater to turn it off if the temperature gets above 100F
Connect the circuit to turn on the heater if the temperature gets below 45F
Connect the circuit to turn on the air conditioner if the temperature gets above 100F

The problem is most of the major manufacturers of these switches do not sell directly to the public. You have to place bulk orders. The few I have found such as these ( 1, 2, 3) are large, heavy, overkill and somewhat expensive. It would be hard to fit three of these in the case, and more may be needed when multi-stage support is added.

There are several cheap thermal fuses, but these only appear to be available for higher temperature ranges. The only reasonable solution I have been able to find so far are these switches from Amico. (104F NC, 104F NO). The only problem with these is they are Chinese made and have not been UL certified. I think an uncertified mechanical fail safe is a whole lot better than no mechanical fail safe at all, so unless someone knows of a better option I plan on including these in the next design. I really hope someone can provide a better option though.

http://androidthermostat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5

This simple enough for you?

If your friend is running a successful business, then he's got a particularly useful and uncommon skill.

Some 80% of all first businesses fail, but only 20% of second businesses fail. That's because after the first business, you learn from your mistakes. Your friend has the skills and experience needed to start a new business - and that's what he should do.

So, what's trending on the map right now? What brick-and-mortar establishments are on the rise?

How about setting up a hackerspace? These seem to be popping up everywhere, and unlike McDonalds, there's still room for more.

While running the 'space, keep an eye out for things that might be products. With a hackerspace available it's easy to "test the waters" for a new tech product: you have access to people with skills for design, construction, [website] sales, and so on.

What they don't have is someone who can steer the ship, someone who has experience in things like incorporating, taxes, management, planning, accounting, and so on.

Consider starting a hackerspace. I hear that they can be successful and lots of fun.

Well, since you were asking....
1) 16 bit ALU in Minecraft
2) 3D printing of Minecraft models
3) ...
4) 3D profit

He also sees Slashdot as instrumental in helping start the Maker subculture. Do you agree?

The software side, maybe. Slashdot leaves much to be desired on the hardware side of the necessary skills in engaging in the Maker subculture.

If so, should influencing the future of technology be Slashdot's main mission?

Regardless of my prior answer: yes, please yes, oh for the love all things noodly yes.

Also: If so, how do you suggest we do it?

Well, I know that this is popular in the comments but probably not so popular with the new Dice overlords but I will be frank for the betterment of Slashdot. Slashdot BI is bad. The people that write for it aren't bad but the material they are told to cover is bad. It represents a lot of things that are wrong with technical journalism today: buzzwords, lists, how-tos that tell you how to do nothing, focus pieces on companies and the worst part about it all is that it's largely positive "news." I suggest that you swap this out and you go here and you ask yourself why it doesn't look more like this, this or even this.

Tell me, you have this formatted page for Business Intelligence with subdirectories and paid authors and all sorts of stuff. Where, oh where, is the equivalent for Makers? What, the exposition pieces you do for Amazon's latest cloud launch bring you more revenue than a how-to on hacking USB I/O with the Raspberry Pi? Well, if that's the truth, that's the truth!

Why is it that story submission has special entry fields for book reviews but not for Make projects? You get my book reviews because you have made a space for them. I feel like there is no space for Maker stuff on Slashdot and, most importantly, there is no space for non-news maker stuff. Your commitment so far is to hit the big things and that's very cool but the Maker subculture isn't only about high value targets. It's also about the small projects and replicating projects you find all over the place like here.

Let's face it: if somebody does a learning project and uploads a video to YouTube that shows how to integrate a very specific Arduino board with a very specific LED board and puts up some ugly source code on github, it's not going to make Slashdot's front page. And most of the comments will be "I could do better" and "congratulations, you're doing what I did in fifth grade." However these are some of the resources that get Makers started and drive the community. There's tons of not-news-worthy stuff going on in the background and right now the Slashdot front page isn't the place for this nor does there even exist a subpage for it.

Slashdot is only interested in hunting elephants and bringing one in once every six months while there are Makers trying to learn how to cultivate soy beans. You could try having a subpage like BI where people can grow ideas and share tutorials no matter how inane and besotted with errors they are. But that stuff will probably have to stay off the frontpage.

And more specifically, do you know any other non-famous Slashdot readers (or people in general) we should talk to because they are doing interesting things?

Why not reach out to the other pages I linked? They're doing it right but they lack the readership. You have the readership but lack the Maker diversity. Surely there could be some value shared there?

How abut as digital "now playing" arcade marquees?

Like this: http://hackaday.com/2012/01/19/adding-digital-game-indicators-to-a-neo-geo-arcade-cabinet/

They're programmed to cycle through all 20 NeoGeo arcade game cartridges I own (and a few I -want- to own...), or any other images I feel like putting up there.

You're thinking of Hackaday.com

Here's a fun project, even if it's limited in scope.
http://hackaday.com/2011/06/13/wifi-sniffing-digital-picture-frame/

I have one of the super cheap rtlsdr dongles, and I'm in the process of making a discone antenna. Thus far I've been swapping dipole designs I threw together in the living room.

It's good fun. I'm not a radio guy, but it's a great way to start with something you know very little about on virtually no budget.

Highly recommend it for anyone that wants to tinker, but doesn't want to spend a lot of cash.

http://hackaday.com/2012/05/14/improving-a-software-defined-radio-with-a-few-bits-of-wire/

The point that everyone - manufacturers and users alike - seem to be missing is the toolchain.

The popularity of the original Arduino was entirely due to the free IDE released by Atmel for their chips. Since then many other companies have released micro boards hoping to hop on the bandwagon, mostly with little success.

Micro boards have been available since the 1980s. I've personally used 68HC11 single-board computers ($50 each) in that era for personal projects. They are programmed in assembler, because the C compiler can cost several thousands of dollars - upwards of $10,000 depending on vendor and capabilities.

Look through back-issues of Hackaday to see all the neat, new single-board computers which have been released - none of them rise to the popularity of the Arduino.

Open source enthusiasts may mention that you can use GCC, but that's a compiler not a toolchain. Open-source tools require an investment of learning and trial-and-error to get things working correctly, and most of the time it's a large investment that people don't want to make. The standard practice for open source is to find a tutorial, follow every step, and then google for answers when it doesn't work.

When the [whatever other board you happen to like] comes with a plug-and-play IDE that lets developers concentrate on the code instead of getting the code onto the board, then you'll have something.

I can give the Samsung (or any other party's) lawyers some ammo: prior art. A low-cost data interface using the magnetometer to extract data from a variable magnetic field. The granted patent covers this process almost verbatim, more than one and a half years after its first (published) development.

Do you still carry around perforated sheets of $2 bills? I always loved the double aspect of that prank -- bills on a sheet/pad, and messing with people who don't know that $2s are real.* What other shenanigans and tomfoolery are you up to these days?

* Rats. I read about that years ago, but while searching for a link to people who didn't know about that trick, I see that you're still up to it as of 2 months ago. So never mind the first part and skip to "what else are you up to?"

Also, thanks for, you know, everything. :-)

Also, The AmbioLight I think is also to blame for the rule changes: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bc26/ambiolight-a-one-touch-room-makeover/

People discovered that the two scammers who setup the campaign hadn't innovated anything at all and were just acting as resellers of an existing product from a Chinese manufacturer as they had doctored exiting promotional images by removing the original manufacturers name. Oh and they added on an extortionate markup to the product.

Read: http://hackaday.com/2012/08/27/theres-trouble-brewin-on-the-ol-kickstarter-site/

Cortex-M0 $1.26

Whenever I see "professional" projects like this use legos- I have mixed feelings. Here is another example, a lab using legos for automation

I love to see legos doing advanced things, but for a chassis? I feel like people can be very smart, but sometimes afraid to learn how to build something with their hands. The lab example I posted above is at Cambridge University. Cambridge has a very competent engineering department, why not reach out to them?- It could have made for an excellent project for some engineering students.

I'm reminded of the very cited researcher who reinvented some calculus instead of simply reaching out to someone in another department for help

Whats wrong with using lego? It is a usefull tool to build prototypes and proof of concept things with. It is easy to make changes quickly when building with lego if you make a mistake, unlike if you give competent engineering department some wrong instructions where it may take days to get a fix. Now if you want to make 100's of them take your lego prototype to a competent engineering department.

Whenever I see "professional" projects like this use legos- I have mixed feelings. Here is another example, a lab using legos for automation

I love to see legos doing advanced things, but for a chassis? I feel like people can be very smart, but sometimes afraid to learn how to build something with their hands. The lab example I posted above is at Cambridge University. Cambridge has a very competent engineering department, why not reach out to them?- It could have made for an excellent project for some engineering students.

I'm reminded of the very cited researcher who reinvented some calculus instead of simply reaching out to someone in another department for help

http://hackaday.com/tag/ti-83/
http://www.ticalc.org/basics/calculators/index.html
http://www.ticalc.org/hardware/cables/serial.html
http://education.ti.com/guidebooks/sdk/83p/sdk83pguide.pdf
http://sami.ticalc.org/irlink/e_hard.htm
http://smallrobot.bizland.com/Instructions.pdf
http://www.mathinscience.info/public/mathbots_challenge/mathbot_chall_lesson.htm
http://www.razorrobotics.com/knowledge/?title=TI_Connect
http://www.free-scientific-calculator.com/texas-instruments-graph-link-connectivity-kit/
http://blog.makezine.com/2006/02/19/how-to-connect-a-ti83-to/

http://hackaday.com/2010/12/16/peer-network-using-graphing-calculators/

Come on. Jeri Ellsworth is working for them. I doubt she's writing PC games, duh. There was a hackaday article about that a quarter ago. I don't follow this industry and even I've known about it for a while. Sigh.

Oh. I see. The firmware is different. I only have the Kindle 3, so I don't have experience with the earlier software.

http://hackaday.com/2011/05/04/applecrate-ii-doubles-the-cluster-computing-fun/

Geez, that was fast: http://hackaday.com/2012/06/14/raspberry-pi-finds-itself-inside-a-trs-80-model-100/

The trouble with making filament is not that it’s hard, it’s that it is hard to do consistently. You want filament that’s round and doesn’t vary more then 0.05mm in diameter. - daid303

Hack-a-Day also carries the story ... http://hackaday.com/2012/07/02/printing-organs-with-a-3d-printer/ Jordan Miller is one of the lead researchers at UPenn - and a major contributor to RepRap and other Open Source 3D Printing. The HackaDay post links to the UPenn press release, and embeds the video linked earlier.

Good lord, hack-a-day featured this over 2 1/2 weeks ago. In fact, there's already a bloody iPhone app!

Arduino Grande
Enormous components

Is that really feasible? You'd have to whitelist DNS queries, every single email address (good luck if you need to contact customers), etc.

For example, Google Docs can be pretty useful, right? But allowing it gives an attack a full proxy: http://hackaday.com/2012/01/31/using-google-documents-as-a-web-proxy/

DISCLAIMER: I am the creator of the Industrial Controlled Alarm Clock............ http://endofnet.com/ICACP.html which was written up on hack a day http://hackaday.com/2007/05/02/industrial-alarm-clock/ way back in 2007......... this project was to wake my but up in the morning to control DMX Power, Sound and misc devices. while I was in the doom. It used an LED sign to convey the state of the alarm...... it did not need voice control it had 30mm NEMA buttons that light up :P It did not need IPad and Iphone devices, I could ssh in to a box that was hooked up to it. But this gives me ideas to work on revision 2.0, An Emergency Party Mode would be an cool feature to have with it.

Hackaday is a tech-oriented site which includes videos in many of it's posts.

The soul reason I visit /. is to find information posted by not just /. themselves, but to an even greater extent from the people who post comments, information of which I had no previous knowledge of. Case in point, the hackaday link above.

Some observations that you might consider:

1) The videos are "after the break". I can scan the text description and move on if I'm not interested. No space is wasted on the front page.

2) The text descriptions refer to the videos, usually with the phrase "in the video after the break", which actually draws me in. I like to see things in action, it gives me a better sense of context and how things work together.

3) Sometimes the description has "awesome video after the break" or some such; as in, "The dizzying video was shot using a pair of key chain cameras that he strapped directly to the rockets before launching. It’s pretty entertaining, so be sure to check it out if you have a few minutes to spare."

4) The videos are for action. Look into movie-making and try to avoid common pitfalls - one of which is putting static information in a video medium. Showing a person talking or expressing an opinion, showing text (especially with the narrator reading the text), or static diagrams with numbers is the wrong use of the media. Video is for action.

(In the case of movie making, the rule is "the actors should *show* the plot, not *explain* the plot".)

Yes, many TED talks are of people talking. These are performances which are action-based, so video is the right medium. Most people aren't public speakers, so they don't have a performance. Video is not a good medium for talking unless it's backed by action.

5) On Hackaday, people complain when the videos show static information. (Usually images of the build process, or overly-dramatic artistic buildups.) Keep the videos short, to the point, and focus on the happenings.

Hackaday is a tech-oriented site which includes videos in many of it's posts. In general, their videos are informative and on-point. They make the browsing experience better.

Let's compare and contrast those videos with the ones here, and see if slashdot can keep the good parts and ditch the bad parts.

Hackaday videos are generated by the people making the articles. IOW, when they make some cool gadget, they have a website describing the build and a video of the device in action. Here's the first example that I could find in a quick search. Lots and lots of other examples.

The subject matter of the cited example is rather uninteresting and techy, and it's amateurish, but the video does an excellent job of counterpointing and illustrating the text of the build.

I've seen other examples where the ideas expressed in the text are badly described or difficult to grasp, but the video makes it clear. There are also many examples of things which are just plain cool when shown as video. Lots and lots of examples.

Images are used to illuminate and express the interest and wonder of a concept, and videos should be used in the same way. Not as a medium in and of itself, but as a way to express those aspects which don't come out well in text or images.

Using them for fake advertizements is the wrong approach - there is simply no general interest in seeing advertizements, and making them into videos doesn't make them more palatable. Having a video of a person talking, expressing an opinion, or describing something is completely backwards - the description should be text, the diagrams in images, and the action in video.

If you had videos in the same vein and for the same reasons as Hackaday, it would be roundly appreciated by just about everyone.

It's like what everyone says is the problem with the RIAA and MPAA - change your business model, give the customers what they want.

We're still your customers, right?

Hackaday is a tech-oriented site which includes videos in many of it's posts. In general, their videos are informative and on-point. They make the browsing experience better.

Let's compare and contrast those videos with the ones here, and see if slashdot can keep the good parts and ditch the bad parts.

Hackaday videos are generated by the people making the articles. IOW, when they make some cool gadget, they have a website describing the build and a video of the device in action. Here's the first example that I could find in a quick search. Lots and lots of other examples.

The subject matter of the cited example is rather uninteresting and techy, and it's amateurish, but the video does an excellent job of counterpointing and illustrating the text of the build.

I've seen other examples where the ideas expressed in the text are badly described or difficult to grasp, but the video makes it clear. There are also many examples of things which are just plain cool when shown as video. Lots and lots of examples.

Images are used to illuminate and express the interest and wonder of a concept, and videos should be used in the same way. Not as a medium in and of itself, but as a way to express those aspects which don't come out well in text or images.

Using them for fake advertizements is the wrong approach - there is simply no general interest in seeing advertizements, and making them into videos doesn't make them more palatable. Having a video of a person talking, expressing an opinion, or describing something is completely backwards - the description should be text, the diagrams in images, and the action in video.

If you had videos in the same vein and for the same reasons as Hackaday, it would be roundly appreciated by just about everyone.

It's like what everyone says is the problem with the RIAA and MPAA - change your business model, give the customers what they want.

We're still your customers, right?

WiFi telescope on a mountain top http://hackaday.com/2008/06/10/wifi-telescope/ ?

SpeechJammer interferes with your target's ability to speak by playing back their speech with a ~200ms delay, enough to be really distracting. The hack that's described in that article uses a reasonably directional speaker and mike, so it can use less power and mainly bother the speaker. It's still rude, but less dangerous, and doesn't interfere with people you're not aiming at, like the person making the 911 call or using a headset with a good mike so they don't need to yell.)

(Or you could just yell at the person that you think using a cellphone is rude, if you like that sort of thing.)

Yep.

You might find this interesting/related: Using Mains Wiring as an Antenna

Not sure about the mouse, but this wireless keyboard project looks pretty neat. I love the Model M keyboard.