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I actually might pick one of these up in Japan...if only there were an easy way to convert my hard copies!!

If you don't already have it, you should get a subscription to .

The 'public good' is the belief that we are a community and that by pooling assets, ideas, and culture we make ourselves better. You apparently subscribe to the 'every man for himself' which ignores that every bit of technology came from many people working over time for a specific goal. You ignore that your food, medicine, technology, all come from a public source. The idea is that we are all a very large community working towards similar goals through cooperation and competition.

you can get the previous sony e-ink device, on ebey or elsewhere, install an english firmware patch and make your own drm-free ebooks... HOWTO - Sony Librie English GUI Firmware Patch http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/howto _sony_libr.html HOW TO make DRM-free ebooks for the Sony Librie e-ink ebook reader http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/08/how_t o_make_drm_1.html if sony screws up this new reader, i'm sure we'll all hack these up to for the functionality needed.

you can get the previous sony e-ink device, on ebey or elsewhere, install an english firmware patch and make your own drm-free ebooks... HOWTO - Sony Librie English GUI Firmware Patch http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/howto _sony_libr.html HOW TO make DRM-free ebooks for the Sony Librie e-ink ebook reader http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/08/how_t o_make_drm_1.html if sony screws up this new reader, i'm sure we'll all hack these up to for the functionality needed.

Lego Electronic Lab Kit

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/lego_ electronic.html

Imagine the fun when you come through the detector gate at the airport with your bag full of electronified Lego, blinking and moving...

If it's anything like the MAKE:Blog, there will be 30 profiles of people who wrapped their iPods in duct tape, another 30 who crocheted little socks for their iPods, another 30 who stuck USB thumbdrives into Altoids cans, and one who actually pulled off a cool hack.

And 40 of these profiles will be duplicated in another book called "Boingers".

While we're at it, let's pimp the website too. http://www.makezine.com/

Looks like D's already on Make. Read about the geeky lad here & check out those pics.

`... David only did this as a bit of fun - he deserves credit for producing something that's fun, with little profit (if any) for an awful lot of hard work ...`

; Bits in SetDig tell which digit's being set
;
NotSet equ 0 ; not in set mode
H24Set equ 1 ; setting hours
HrsSet equ 2 ; setting hours

What's particularly weak are these 'guest author' articles, which I imagine is this one from Google's brass. The article is near the beginning of the mag, if memory serves me correct, and is written by some different guest author each month and can be about anything, really. It's pretty lame, usually some post-menopausal woman bemoaning her children leaving home, or some high school person talking about preparing for college, or some disaffected 29 year old explaining the challenges his generation fails between sips of a double-tall.

(I'm not much into the printed magazines, but the only ones I'm subscribed to now is Discover and Make. I used to subscribe to Newsweek several years back, but was continually disappointed by the fluff and eventually canceled.)

LEGO Robotics Invention System 2.0
It looks like a big claw/arm
Picture

Back in my day it was called the Armatron
I didn't know that they made a Mobile Armatron

Since battery rechargers were pretty bad back in the day, I killed an excessive number of alkaline D-Cells playing with my Armatron.

"The time is right for a true people's hybrid vehicle. The web is peppered with how-to sites for converting your old car into an electric vehicle, but why not develop SourceForge-style documentation for an open source hybrid?"

http://www.makezine.com/01/car/

Maybe yes, maybe no. Seems like it's up to the Apple technician who does the repair work. There is no blanket policy that third-party etching voids the warranty.

Yeah, so do I. Oh wait: MAKE comes from O'Reilly, the Publisher of Record for geeks and tech enthusiasts everywhere.

Basically all the time. Furthermore, if you subscribe to the MAKE blog and WIRED news you'll find 90% of the interesting techie stuff is covered there before slashdot anyway.

Now that you mention "make", I use this as a small jump ;)

In O'Reilly's Makezine (which is a very nice read I must add), there was an interview regarding this subject:

It was an interview with Ed Storms, who "is leading the effort to take cold fusion off the back burner by moving it into the garage."

Very interesting read:

"The idea that you can have a fusion reactor on your tabletop for, say, $1,000 in materials and equipment, is disorienting. Maybe this explains why so many scientists prefer not to take it seriously." (Overview)

Now that you mention "make", I use this as a small jump ;)

In O'Reilly's Makezine (which is a very nice read I must add), there was an interview regarding this subject:

It was an interview with Ed Storms, who "is leading the effort to take cold fusion off the back burner by moving it into the garage."

Very interesting read:

"The idea that you can have a fusion reactor on your tabletop for, say, $1,000 in materials and equipment, is disorienting. Maybe this explains why so many scientists prefer not to take it seriously." (Overview)

Now that you mention "make", I use this as a small jump ;)

In O'Reilly's Makezine (which is a very nice read I must add), there was an interview regarding this subject:

It was an interview with Ed Storms, who "is leading the effort to take cold fusion off the back burner by moving it into the garage."

Very interesting read:

"The idea that you can have a fusion reactor on your tabletop for, say, $1,000 in materials and equipment, is disorienting. Maybe this explains why so many scientists prefer not to take it seriously." (Overview)

I'd say that's a pretty poor guess. Neuros has a history of "open source" with their media players. A few years ago they released the source code for their Neuros Syncronization Manager NSM. Their first generation player was pretty crappy in terms of hardware (FM transmitter didn't work right, only had a USB 1.1 (ugh!) interface) and the NSM software was kind of bunk; However they've had firm-ware updates for a while that support OGG and it's pretty interesting that a company is actually make a portable media player that they are encouraging (and supporting!) geek to hack (sounds like material for MAKE). I think that's a pretty post-modern (and refreshing) idea in a world where we're constantly assaulted with legal threats, DRM, etc.

Don't be so quick to judge something based on a partial quote from a magazine article. Besides, he's technically right about open-source projects. Taking a look at source-forge there are at least 100 projects that are dead for every one that is active, whether they were started by "kids" or not.

Anyway... Look a little closer at the project; there's some interesting stuff going on there.

Now, I *am* making an assumption here, but...you're American, right?

Quite right. Halloween's a big holiday here-- in most places it's just kids dressing up in costume, going trick-or-treating door to door and getting candy.

But in the fun cities like San Francisco, New Orleans (sigh), the Florida Keys (double sigh) Halloween is a major event. In San Francisco, many people call it the City's "Unofficial Holiday", the Castro District has a party with 100,000 attendees.

It's also a good time to geek out with special effects-- there are all sorts of fun geeky projects for Halloween.

My father once tried to patent a car that had a wind-turbine on top to generate hydrogen for power. I knew that it wouldn't be self-generating but the idea that you could reclaim some of the energy somehow was valid-- and today, we have flywheels and regenerative braking in ugly little bloated flea-looking foreign made cars.

Perhaps the Make: people will challenge Makers for a drive-by-wire electric car-- why in the hell not? The Maker's Bill of Rights says nothing about makers not making Big Things like cars. I've always pondered why are there still recalls in the automotive industry when it's been around for what, over a 100-odd-years? Surely, the industry has accumulated enough patterns to avoid making those mistakes by now.

Reading the DOE primer on lead-acid batteries isn't a bad idea if you think that it would be fun to build an electric car.

Okay, that was wonderfully veering off topic. I'll go away now.

...they had an article devoted to this. They basically built a controller to synchronize lights with music and activate various halloween devices. Worth a look for sure. Also partly available online at the MAKE website.

There will be no video iPod anytime soon. Only Airport AV. The only way the iPod gets to play at this stage is by being a remote for the expected Airport AV.

That's not entirely correct...

[URL]http://ipodlinux.org/Video_Player%5B/URL%5D
[URL]http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/09/ how_to_play_video_on_ipods_wit.html%5B/URL%5D

iPod Linux allows some form of video iPod at least =)

to go online and find plans to make water purifiers http://www.makezine.com/02/makeshift/ and solar ice makers http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/displ ay/microenterprise/display/14. Also, they can use wikipedia to gain extra education over what they currently have, and howstuffworks to gain basic mechanical knowledge. They will have the knowledge resources to overcome their(sic?) situation.

It ain't Linux, but...
USBWiSec
to control it,
AutoHotkey to unlock it and automate authentication.

And you could use the open software some guy wrote to control his music with a laser pointer to do the counting... http://www.raphnet.net/programmation/laserspotcam/ laserspotcam_en.php It got posted to the Make blog a few days ago http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/09/compu ter_control_with_a_laser.html

Look in Make magazine at the first issue. Also here on the website. http://www.makezine.com/01/magstripe/

a lot of folks, including us over at make magazine have been putting videos and pdfs in itunes and the itunes feed for months now. the first one we did that is in our itunes feed is from 7/19 (http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/07/make _on_g4tv_th.html)

the Wall of Sheep and I immediately thought, 1-2-3-4-5? That's amazing! I have the same combination on my LUGGAGE!!

Make Magazine (http://www.makezine.com/) has a short how-to this month on using a Sharp Zaurus as something similar to the device described here. They use a text-only snapshot of wikipedia and convert it into some propietary dictionary format. The database end up only being 300-400 mb, not bad considering how cheap flash media is getting these days.

This is one of the several slashdot stories in the past few months that MAKE had first.

For these kinds of DIY projects, I've been enjoying hackaday and the print version of Make Magazine (although I see they have a fair bit of stuff on the site now.) Being able to buy something doesn't invalidate the many reasons for doing it yourself, or in this case, the entertainment value of seeing that someone else did it.

If I had more time (and didn't live with my girlfriend) I'd probably do lots more of these kinds of things.

Heck, the G5 already looks like it could be substituted out for various engine parts, or at least fit in with most modern "blocks" under the hood.

The nice thing about ham is it's long range with little power and equipment requirements. In the event of a real emergency, it's nice to know that there are some extraordinary geeks with the ability to communicate quickly and clearly. In an emergency, things don't always work correctly. Microphones get lost or broken. Injuries result in a loss of the ability to speak. Who knows what might go wrong? Particularly due to the fact that Morse Code operators beat out the most popular method of handheld text-based communcation (short of e-mail or IM, anyway), I think this skill is highly undervalued. Personally, I like the idea of a bunch of knowledgable nerds out there, who can communicate almost as fast (or faster) with only pulses of noise than most of us could communicate with a microphone.

You're not really getting it on slashdot today either. This is basically horked from the Make Magazine blog. If you really are interested in that kind of attitude, you should read it instead of slashdot.

You're not really getting it on slashdot today either. This is basically horked from the Make Magazine blog. If you really are interested in that kind of attitude, you should read it instead of slashdot.

So where is the link to build my own radio telescope and supercomputer? Or do I have to wait until the next issue of Make comes out?

Ask and you shall receive.

Portable Rotary Phone

and

Spark fun elentronics

http://makezine.com/

we got a few emails and IMs on how to do this, here's the how-to i wrote with pictures and video. good for folks who don't do stuff like this often... link.

The Rio Karma's gapless playback was awesome... but that device was a little hefty and its boxy shape made it unfriendly to the pocket, which is why I got rid of it. Unfortunately, that's the only MP3 player I know of that supports gapless. Still, there are a slew of nifty 1 GB flash players that can be had for $80 - $150. In addition to the iRiver:

iPod Shuffle (I picked up a used 1GB model for $80):
+ smallest and lightest of the bunch, iTunes integration, high build-quality, excellent sound, well-place controls, doubles as USB flash drive, recharges when plugged in
- no screen, non-replaceable battery, can't transfer music through mounted drive

Creative Muvo N200:
+ FM, AAA battery offers flexibility, voice recorder, line-in
- a little larger than iPod Shuffle, must juggle batteries

Creative Muvo V200 (I got a 1GB model on Ebay for $87 shipped):
Same as N200 but slightly larger and heavier, has integrated USB connector, no line-in

iPod Shuffle Knock-offs :
Not as easy to find, but like the shuffle but with more features (but sans iTunes integration). Mixed reviews as far as build quality goes.

JXD No-name Player :
The JXD is just one of many feature-rich no-name players on Ebay. Build and sound quality unknown; YMMV.

And there are several Rio, Samsung, and Sandisk models at Best Buy... and other more exciting ones at dynamism, like the tasty iRiver T10.

Then there's the iPod Mini, which has Apple's awesome clickwheel in a fairly small package. And the Rio Carbon, which is the most pocketable of the hdd players. Too bad neither of those have a built-in USB connector or FM.

I was browsing Make which I followed to del.icio.us which showed this link First mac on intel in the wild?. Can't see any details or links etc.., could be a fake of course, but figured someone of you here might be able to do a good analysis.

Hahaha, I see. But, why everybody shows always the same image?

MakeZine
Engadget
and
Textually

Someone has another archive image? Not better, only different! :)

this is old news... we already have cell phone aps out there...



unrelated: /. editors... please at least TRY and keep up

Make magazine has an audio interview with him about the broadcast flag here:

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/05/make_ audio_show.html

Basically, he explains what's happened so far, and makes the observation that legislation of this type will be difficult to pass because no one wants to be the one to break American's television sets.

Or you could make the magnetic stripe reader found in that magazine and "earn" even more money ;)...

Perhaps you should look at Make magazine. Their first issue had some pretty cool stuff. The aerial kite photography project might be doable for $100, if you've got the tools.

Not to review a review of an instruction, but I think Ars Technica is being a little hard on the Chung. Operating a steadycam is a bit of an artform unto itself.

A steadycam will not turn Shakes the Clown into the next Scorsese, but once you learn the limitations of the axes you'll get results like Mr. Lee posts as samples on his site (see the bottom of the page, under "Using Your Steadycam").

I have a Rio Carbon. I love it.
Before I answer your 5 criteria, I will say that it holds 5 Gigs, which is more than I ever will need (about 1800 songs at 128 kbit). Now:

1. It connects to the PC, and when synced, you can play music off of it through the simpl USB 2.0 connecter. (No bulky base station required) from which you can do anything wirelessly. As to easy access, while it takes about 2 seconds to write a song on USB 1.1, or less than a second with USB 2.0 (I only use 128kb) it takes VERY little time to load a song
2. having a CD player built into the base station would be costly and inefficient. The software that came with my rio allows you, if you wish, to rip music directly from a CD into the player (Unlike the ipod, although someone might tell me if this is possible to do with a mac to an ipod. It is not possible with a PC)
3. They do build car stereos with RCA inputs.
4.I agree with you here, and won't point out the obvious economic solutions...
5. For wireless headset, you can buy http://www.bigfrogmountain.com/soltronixsolarradio .html one for about eighty dollars, or build one found in the premier issue of MAKE http://makezine.com/

Off topic: I also want to say that buying an MP3 player with a built in FM radio seems kind of pointless, unless it has a built in recorder that can upload to my PC. I could then edit out static/advertisements, etc. but I doubt any portable MP3 players on the market are capable of this.

The Infrared camera hack was first reported on Make too.