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As you seem to turn your kids into geeks anyway, you could build a cheap Theremin with them and teach them to play the Startrek theme song.

http://www.instructables.com/i...
http://www.thereminworld.com/s...

Don't know, do you make phone calls with your phone or with your PC?

I make calls with my Arduino, you insensitive clod!

You can buy or make your own power-only cables. Doesn't address the aforementioned power spec issue, of course.

This is how my emergency phone travels with me.

If you're looking for a project, what we use at my university library to scan some of the rarest and most delicate books on the planet, is definitely achievable at home. It's simply a table with interchangeable wedge shaped foam pieces, and a rack above with two cameras pointing down. Since the book is on a v cradle, the pages lay flat. You can change the angle and position of the cameras to point squarely at the pages. There's a pedal that will snap a picture with both cameras at once, so once you've got it set up, all you need to do is flip the pages and hit the pedal. You might need to readjust if the book is particularly thick, but that's all pretty intuitive once you're used to the setup.

Probably an Atiz BookDrive. Yes, it is possible to homebrew one; Instructables has directions but it's a lot of work.

The OP's best bet, really, is to Google for "non-destructive book scanning service" and find one to do it for him professionally.

Two of the pins (+5V and any GND) on the 40-pin connector can be used to supply power instead of going through the USB port. That's what I did with my beer-fridge controller: power for the whole system comes through the barrel connector on the 1-Wire/I2C interface board in the middle of the stack.

Guess I shoulda looked at the pinout before leaving that comment. What do you need for I2C? Is it more than some resistors? Hmm, I looked and it seems you just connect up the pins. Internal pullups? on-board? Leaves it to external? I am way too lazy to hunt through the docs to find out. Did you put in some fuses or something? My experience with I2C is so far limited to connecting Arduinos to IMUs and so on. Also did the SPI sdcard thing there with the sdfat lib. Hooray for electronic tinkertoys.

Why the heck don't these devices have a "Reset to factory settings" button?

Because that would just re-install the eDellRoot CA certificate and Lenovo Service Engine.

Seriously, the only safe way anymore is to just build your own crystal radio and leave it at that.

Same here it's the easiest and cheapest way by far

http://www.instructables.com/i...

so simple children can do it.

I have seen this kind products for years (lamp-style scanner) all from China (or produced there) with different brands or no name. Now, I know where they copy from.
Don't care much until I saw this appears in Slashdot with title likely about an innovation, I expected a scanner, like which was introduced in Slashdot before:

Japanese Researchers Develop World's Fastest Book Scanner
or
Google's Book Scanning Technology Revealed

or a DIY scanner, with two old point-n-shoot cameras:
DIY High-Speed Book Scanner from Trash and Cheap Cameras
All steps in one page

I have seen this kind products for years (lamp-style scanner) all from China (or produced there) with different brands or no name. Now, I know where they copy from.
Don't care much until I saw this appears in Slashdot with title likely about an innovation, I expected a scanner, like which was introduced in Slashdot before:

Japanese Researchers Develop World's Fastest Book Scanner
or
Google's Book Scanning Technology Revealed

or a DIY scanner, with two old point-n-shoot cameras:
DIY High-Speed Book Scanner from Trash and Cheap Cameras
All steps in one page

> I bought a half dozen of the RPi kits when they came out and I've only unboxed one. I played with it and did exactly nothing of value with it. I keep meaning to pick it up and learn more but I can't actually think of anything I'd want to do with it or with the rest of them.

--There are *lots* of things you can do with a PI that are pretty neat. If you already know Linux, you can just leave the board up and running 24/7 with minimal power expense.

--I chose to implement my Squid server on a Cubieboard instead, but you can do basically the same with a PI.

--Some links to get you started:

https://communities.vmware.com...
^^ This is a complete drop-in Squid Vmware appliance that I created. Once you get a Linux distribution installed on the PI, you can install the Squid package on it as well and copy the config files over.

http://www.squid-cache.org/

http://www.instructables.com/i...

http://www.pcworld.com/article...

http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/c...

--Your local LUG (Linux User Group) should be able to help you get started and maybe give you some ideas on what to do with the board(s). HTH

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

--I recommend you designate a Saturday (or whatever day is $convenient) and resolve to do something with at least one Pi board. Feel free to email me with progress reports ;-)

Arduino phone....

http://www.instructables.com/i...

If you control the source.... you control the spice....

Yes. It works great.

http://www.instructables.com/i...

http://www.instructables.com/i... :)

I don't make my own PCBs. I do surface mount stuff and I like going for small sized. Lots of tiny vias, tiny component pitches, double sided, and of course a solder mask.

I know people who do make PCBs and they of course use it for big fat coarse things. You can do coarse pitch surface mount without a solder mask. That removes the need for holes, too and if you're size is large you can get away with single sided + a few jumpers too.

- Drilling the holes dead center

Etch a dot out of the middle of the pad. The drills self-align.

- No plated through holes.

Use rivets, or chemical plating:
http://www.instructables.com/i...
or electroplating:
http://www.thinktink.com/stack...

- No solder mask.

There's spray, but apparently film is easier to use:

http://www.instructables.com/i...

Here's what a home made PCB can look like if you take it to the max:

http://kavionic.com/blog/Makin...

So it's actually amazing what you can do at home, and the top-end PCB home brewers can actually produce some pretty professional PCBs. No way I'm investing the time and money into that proess though.

I don't make my own PCBs. I do surface mount stuff and I like going for small sized. Lots of tiny vias, tiny component pitches, double sided, and of course a solder mask.

I know people who do make PCBs and they of course use it for big fat coarse things. You can do coarse pitch surface mount without a solder mask. That removes the need for holes, too and if you're size is large you can get away with single sided + a few jumpers too.

- Drilling the holes dead center

Etch a dot out of the middle of the pad. The drills self-align.

- No plated through holes.

Use rivets, or chemical plating:
http://www.instructables.com/i...
or electroplating:
http://www.thinktink.com/stack...

- No solder mask.

There's spray, but apparently film is easier to use:

http://www.instructables.com/i...

Here's what a home made PCB can look like if you take it to the max:

http://kavionic.com/blog/Makin...

So it's actually amazing what you can do at home, and the top-end PCB home brewers can actually produce some pretty professional PCBs. No way I'm investing the time and money into that proess though.

Here ya go :)

Sixty dollar do it yourself printer
http://www.instructables.com/i...

Free open source software to make it work
http://3dprintingforbeginners....

How much more democratic does it have to be ?

Especially considering how easy it is to have a discrete device to create on-demand red flag.

I believe this is the device you are describing.

Not legal, but clearly non-lethal: RF Jammer.

AKA "Billie Jean" lights. People kept telling me The King of Pop was ahead of his time, but I didn't believe them.

Perhaps you'd like to share or recommend a list how to identify different materials without advanced machinery? like http://www.instructables.com/i...

I use it to support my other activities- right now I'm working on a large volume chocolate printer (3.5 l) that contains parts that I made on my 3D printer. I have also started trying to print prosthetic hands for E-nable. I have designed and printed adapters to mount a web cam and cell phone on two microscopes and a telescope. You can see some of my designs here: https://www.youmagine.com/user... and here: http://www.thingiverse.com/the...
If you're into electronics, a 3D printer is great for printing custom enclosures.

You can see my printer here: http://www.instructables.com/i...

I'm no fan of the $300 printer kits that have become so common. They are junk and will cause you to give up on 3D printing. Don't buy one of those. Like everything else in life, as the price goes down, the quality goes down with it. And no, it doesn't make sense as a "starter" printer. Junk is junk.

It's been several years since I bought an opener...and even then I can't remember seeing a major brand that wasn't a paired-system remote.

Argh, damn you Slashdot, get out of my Amazon purchase history!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...

I guess 1993 was about when the garage door companies standardized on the the rolling-code thingy that has to be paired to each remote.

Though now I'm kicking myself for not just building my own https garage door opener using
http://www.instructables.com/i... so I can let the kids in remotely when they forget their keys.

A Kohler San Tropez Bidet.

Because I'm worth it.

http://www.us.kohler.com/us/ca...

Why would you go for that when the Toshiba SCS-T160 is far cheaper and can be installed in a US home for $30 in parts (excluding the electrical outlet)?

I rarely use the water spray, but the heated seat and no-slam lid are very nice.

Don't forget a good recording device so you can pick up the audio from a distance too.

Oh come now folks, just look it up.

It's practically on Recipes.com.

Because the PIV rating of LEDS will not withstand anything even close to full mains voltage. They are not constructed as rectifiers, even though they are technically diodes. This datasheet shows the max PIV for a high performance white LED to be a mere 5V! A typical 1N4007 rectifier diode is rated for 1000V PIV DC.

This. Or This.

These guys made their own, with a projector, a screen, an infrared pen, a Wiimote, and the Wiimote Whiteboard program. Pretty cool results. Seems like a great market opportunity for someone to package it up in a self-contained plug-and-play unit (although you have the "big videoconference touchscreens" as an upper limit on your price point): http://www.instructables.com/i... http://www.instructables.com/i...

These guys made their own, with a projector, a screen, an infrared pen, a Wiimote, and the Wiimote Whiteboard program. Pretty cool results. Seems like a great market opportunity for someone to package it up in a self-contained plug-and-play unit (although you have the "big videoconference touchscreens" as an upper limit on your price point): http://www.instructables.com/i... http://www.instructables.com/i...

True. And a few other things.

People keep mentioning. "Why don't you have the kid run next door to the neighbor and get them to get help?" Last time I checked, if they're smart (and independent) enough to go next door for help, they're more than capable of hitting a panic button. Secondly, hitting a panic button, dad checking the cameras, and dad reacting, is all probably going to happen a lot faster than kid running next door, kid ringing door bell, talking to neighbor, neighbor coming over, neighbor deciding what to do.

On the same token, the panic button ->dad ->calls neighbour chain would likely get the nearest adult to the scene a lot faster than having the kid heading outside. Safer, too. Much better to have the kid inside with an epileptic than outside running around in a panic. What if the nearest "friendly" house is their friend's house across the street? In a panic the kid's not going to be looking both ways.

From the sounds of things, his wife is perfectly capable of taking care of things 95% of the time. If she was having daily seizures, he probably wouldn't be leaving the house. You don't need live-in care for something that may well only happen once a week or less. Instead of viewing this as an attempt at delegating all caretaking responsibility to the kid, think of it as establishing multiple fail-safes.

We know he's got bunch of cameras that he watches on a regular basis (but not continuous). Given that he's technically inclined, and that, from what I gather, many people with epileptic seizures can recognize onset symptoms, (not all sufferers, definitely not all the time, but at least sometimes) there's probably decent chances that they've rigged up something that the mother could use herself. Maybe just a speed dial, but possibly other things. If not, then the various ideas of using exercise bands and accelerometers might make a very good layer of redundancy there, too.

Personally, the idea of having a sensor-rigged cupboard with a big stuffed animal in it, and telling the kid to take mom the stuffed animal when she's in trouble sounds like a great idea too. Great padding to have between an epileptic and any potentially hard surfaces, although unlikely a kid would be placing it optimally.

Frankly, giving one's kid a panic button that sends a message to Dad seems like a really good thing to have, no matter what the situation at home is. Honestly, it isn't exactly that rare of an occurrence for the sole responsible adult at home to have some kind of accident where it would be *very* useful for the kid to have some way of summoning a responsible 3rd party, whether it be a neighbour or relative or whatever.

Lastly, just because he hasn't laid out every last precaution and detail of his family's life is no reason to assume that they're being negligent, that she's having daily severe seizures, or that they're pinning all their hopes of safety on the kid. We don't need to know all that. He simply asked for advice on a single, specific solution to a specific element of his situation. Let's help him out on that, shall we?

Some quick links that a google search turned up:

First one is an instructables video, the last two are commercial options, one for phone software, the second for an actual device.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Desk-Panic-Button/

http://www.blacklinesafety.com/solutions/loner-mobile/

https://www.alarmgrid.com/products/honeywell-5802wxt

Yes, it was an overreaction because it was not a threat, but I don't see a note there..

NOTE: This long, heavy, red, ticking thing is not a bomb. Really, it's not!

BTW, if a RoadRunner happens to stand by you, please push the button on the side to take a picture.

Thanks. -WEC.

No, never.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
http://www.instructables.com/i...

Oh.

... of innocent law-abiding civilians.
Because the criminals will have these www.instructables.com/id/Radio-Jammer/

Nothing to see here... move along, SNAFU.

Only if they're ignorant morons. Running a jammer would get the FCC tracking down the signal and breaking down their door almost immediately and it's a *federal* offense to boot.

... of innocent law-abiding civilians.
Because the criminals will have these www.instructables.com/id/Radio-Jammer/

Nothing to see here... move along, SNAFU.

For a security sensitive place, like the US govt, I think lack of networking, and using floppy disks to transfer files is a good thing. It is harder to sneak out large amounts of data undetected. Doesn't the Kremlin use typewriters now?

...

Unlike printers, every typewriter has its own individual pattern of type so it is possible to link every document to a machine used to type it.

That's not entirely true. Printers will output small dots intended to be invisible to the naked eye (they're tiny and yellow). This is called printer steganography. While not all of them have been decoded (as of whenever that was updated), the assumption is that the marking can uniquely identify an individual printer and printout by serial and date/time.

I haven't seen what you want on this site, but then I haven't been looking. There is a HUGE range of different areas there, so spend a bit of time having a look.
http://www.instructables.com/

No connections to the site, just amazed at some of the stuff people come up with. For anyone interested, subscribe to their RSS feed.
Random subjects from today;
Like lava lamps? Got a spare mason jar?
http://www.instructables.com/i...
This sounds delicious;
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Always wanted to know how to make an origami crane?
http://www.instructables.com/i...

You get the idea. There is bound to be something there that will do, or can be adapted.

I haven't seen what you want on this site, but then I haven't been looking. There is a HUGE range of different areas there, so spend a bit of time having a look.
http://www.instructables.com/

No connections to the site, just amazed at some of the stuff people come up with. For anyone interested, subscribe to their RSS feed.
Random subjects from today;
Like lava lamps? Got a spare mason jar?
http://www.instructables.com/i...
This sounds delicious;
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Always wanted to know how to make an origami crane?
http://www.instructables.com/i...

You get the idea. There is bound to be something there that will do, or can be adapted.

I haven't seen what you want on this site, but then I haven't been looking. There is a HUGE range of different areas there, so spend a bit of time having a look.
http://www.instructables.com/

No connections to the site, just amazed at some of the stuff people come up with. For anyone interested, subscribe to their RSS feed.
Random subjects from today;
Like lava lamps? Got a spare mason jar?
http://www.instructables.com/i...
This sounds delicious;
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Always wanted to know how to make an origami crane?
http://www.instructables.com/i...

You get the idea. There is bound to be something there that will do, or can be adapted.

I haven't seen what you want on this site, but then I haven't been looking. There is a HUGE range of different areas there, so spend a bit of time having a look.
http://www.instructables.com/

No connections to the site, just amazed at some of the stuff people come up with. For anyone interested, subscribe to their RSS feed.
Random subjects from today;
Like lava lamps? Got a spare mason jar?
http://www.instructables.com/i...
This sounds delicious;
http://www.instructables.com/i...
Always wanted to know how to make an origami crane?
http://www.instructables.com/i...

You get the idea. There is bound to be something there that will do, or can be adapted.

With 50 euro for a power supply, 100 for a sensor conditioning module (without the sensors!), 300 for a base station and 800 for a complete starter pack, I don't care if it is open source or not, it is way out of budget for the casual hobbyist. There are already enough different alternatives, most of which appear to be vapourware. Home automation seems easy enough that many people who follow the IoT hype start their own project. But we don't need more standards, we need less. The best would be if one of the existing protocols (not necessary that one) would win, so that people could mix and match their own components, which don't have to be more fancy than some arduinos and RPis thrown together.

A person can put a camera on board a traditional RC and there are those that hover, as well.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Solar-PV-tracker/
try $130 diy solar tracker... of course it assumes a lot of free parts and the price may be off a bit so budget $200 also since it is green treated lumber that ups the total ecological impact heavily.

It's not a "drone" with all the sinister connotations. It's a radio-controlled flying toy that you are really after.

The cheapest, best, off-the-shelf one you can buy right now is the DJI series and it's about $1200. And that's more of a mapping and photography tool than a toy.

You can, however, build an RC toy for about the price you mention, and it would be a lot more fun. Forget the camera for now (though you can add a camera later easily enough). Some wood scraps, motors, speed controls, props, battery, radio with receiver, and a HobbyKing KK multirotor controller and you're in business. A tri-copter would be quite fun to build and fly (requires a servo to tilt the one rotor). I think you would get far more long-term fun from a project like that.

http://www.instructables.com/i...

A prebuilt unit that costs $150 will be fun for a day or to for you, and then I suspect it will be crashed and lie broken in a drawer.

People seem to think that RC aircraft are things they can just toss into the air and enjoy for hours. But it will take some serious work and training to learn how to fly them. If you take a bit seriously I guarantee you'll have a lot of fun.

I fly fixed wing and think that's funner than multi-rotor, but to each his own. I do plan to buy a DJI soon, though, although even in Canada the regs for using them in a pseudo-commercial way (say mapping) are murky.

OnStar is easily defeated. Just find the module, open it, unplug the cell radio module from the CPU board, reassemble and reinstall.

like this:
http://www.instructables.com/i...

No reason not to have Gigabit Ethernet in the walls. A 1000 foot spool of CAT 5E is under $90 at Home Depot and a decent quality set of terminating tools is under $60. Gigabit switches are cheap now too. You'll also need something to use to fish the wires thru the walls. Make sure you know how to terminate your cables correctly or you'll slow things down due to errors (or they just won't work at all). You can buy pre-terminated cables but they're more expensive (but might be good if you're in a hurry).

There's an Instructable for that:
http://www.instructables.com/i...

Except CFLs are regulated to have less than 2.5mg of mercury in and some will no doubt have a lot less.

CFLs prevent more mercury from being released into the environment via coal than they release:
How much Mercury is in Compact Fluorescent ( CFL ) bulbs , watch ...

Of course LEDs are better, do you have an argument against those?

Interesting DIY! Do the bulbs you use just put out UV-B and minimize UV-A? Something on the difference regarding vitamin D production vs. skin damage:
General: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
http://articles.mercola.com/si...
http://articles.mercola.com/si...

One point made by Mercola is that it could take 48 hours for the body to absorb vitamin D produced in skin oils from sun exposure, so bathing with soap become problematical if you want maximum Vitamin D? People in other times and cultures both generally got lots more sunlight and did not bathe very often.

Here is a comment suggesting looking into special UV-B enhanced bulbs available for reptile care, but I wonder if they are enhanced enough to be the best choice for humans, given it seems many reptiles need UV-A to see colors correctly?
http://www.dailypaul.com/24584...

Some interesting SAD-and-light-color related comment here:
http://www.instructables.com/i...

My wife found vitamin D supplements are more effective than a blue LED SAD light...

Anyway, I've been learning some new stuff while re-exploring this topic. I usually take a vitamin D supplement. I get some sunshine when I can, but since I take a shower every day, I wonder if the sunlight is really that effective for vitamin D production? Still, as above, like Dr. John Cannell talks about, I wonder if there is still something missing that my skin might produce from real sun exposure.

Still, there remain many unknowns about human health, so would getting only UV-B (which makes vitamin D) and no UV-A (which tans the skin) be health promoting for humans? The human body is adapted to a certain environment which includes exercise in the sunlight. When we change our environment to one that seems better but is less natural, it is hard to know what we may lose out on. The same is true when we eat foods that may seem more enjoyable like with lots of sugar, fat, and salt via refined grains, but may leave us missing out on micronutrients and fiber that we need to stay healthy.
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...