A

Who coined 'coin a phrase'?

This weeks Liquid Generation's 'Who'd You Rather' poll (which has men, women, food etc depending on the week) features comic book women- it's all rather frivolous but Buffy (from Season 8, issue 1) is pitted against Vampirella- and she's losing (at 32%).

Another horrifying 'honour killing,' this time in London, gives us yet another reason to revisit Joss' strong words on the subject, which clearly still need to be heard.

Absolutely no spoilers for the Deathly Hallows.

One of those feel good fan accounts that'll brighten up your weekend.

From today's front page story in the New York Times about Google's $4.6bn wireless bid.In the Internet giant?s view of the future, consumers would buy a wireless phone at a store, but instead of being forced to use a specific...

Inevitably Angel comes up in this audio interview but the premise of Moonlight is intriguing and David's very enthused for his new show.

According to the Hollwood Reporter, "...the rating means that Mad Men's premiere is AMC's highest-rated original series telecast ever."

Filed under: misc hacks

I guess [Michaels Killian] just didn't like to ride facing forward. He's built a few versions of his sideways bike. Both wheels are used for steering - I've got to give him credit for making the chain drive handle that much side to side displacement. via [wired]

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Filed under: playstation hacks

[F00 f00] sent in his latest PSP mod. By combining a voltage amplifier, a PIC controller and a cell phone motor he ended up with force feedback enabled PSP. He's got the PIC set to enable the motor when it detects certain sound frequencies from the speaker via the amp.

The video is after the break.

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Filed under: cellphones hacks, gps hacks

[Alex] sent in some of his latest work. He interfaced some not so cheap components to give an AVR GPS and GSM I/O. For now it can read the GPS position and send text messages. Thanks to the GPS/GSM module, the schematic is pretty simple - anyone with basic soldering skills and a desire to put a dent in their credit card can probably build this. (Programming the AVR is probably the most difficult task)

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Filed under: misc hacks

I've been getting some good looking mods on the tips line, so I thought it was time for a bit of bling on Hack-A-Day.

[f00-F00] sent in his ever so lightly modded iPod. It's a bit similar to his force feedback PSP mod, but in this case, the leds lighting up the clear case are music sensitive.

The not too shabby looking [flooky] sent in her latest use for the SEGA Dreamcast, a guitar. (Hopefully soon to have three more strings.)

[crait] decided to steal 5v to power a Dreamcast VMU from his PS/2 port.

Oh, and if you dig our logo, you might be amused by skulladay.

I've got my travel plans for Defcon 15 set up. [Eliot] will certainly be skulking around vegas, so we'll see you there.

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Filed under: cellphones hacks, misc hacks

Inspired by the knock to open hack, [ashish] put together a fairly simple DTMF decoder to control solenoid door unlocker and connected it to a Nokia 1100 cell phone. Call the phone, input the magic code, and the door unlocks.

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Filed under: misc hacks

[Christoph] sent in [fingers] rather interesting coffee hacking project. (Use the fish to translate it to English.) Using various scrounged parts, he's constructed his own automated french press brewer. A good french press is a bit of an art, so I can understand the desire to automate one. The grind itself isn't too critical, but brewing time can vary with the roast and grind of the bean. Personally, I've found that decent brew temperature is the real key to a good press. [Fingers] machine provides a way to do everything consistently, but the custom aluminum brew chamber might be effecting the brew temperature.

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Filed under: laptops hacks

This little hack was sent in by [andrew], he built it specifically for the long flight from Australia to the US. The idea is simple, but I wouldn't have considered it given the cost of decent D Cells these days. H put together a 20 D-cell power pack, a regulator to keep it at 24v, and an eighth inch plug to power up his old ibook.

Update: I goofed and left out [andrew]'s name.

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Filed under: xbox hacks

[XanTium] sent this in a few days ago, but I thought you guys would dig it. Here are the details straight from his email:

Hackers on the XBH forums managed to change DVD key and Game Region Code in the Xbox 360 'Key Vault' (that stores on flashchip: console certificate(s), per-box private keys, DVD key, however NOT any code-related encryption keys).
However you should know the 'Key Vault' is encrypted with the per-xbox360 'CPU key', so that means this hack is only possible on Hypervisor exploitable Xbox360s (kernel 4532 and 4548) for now. You will of course also have to read/flash the Xbox360 flashchip (by desoldering it and read/flash it with programmer or for example use the versatile Infectus dev chip)

You can read up on some more details here or get a login and check out the actual forum thread. The end result: play EU games on your US 360. (It doesn't sound like the DVD movie region has been successfully changed, but modded DVD players are easy to make.)

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Filed under: misc hacks

We've been waiting with bated breath for our favorite hacker con, ToorCon, to post this year's site. In the mean time, they've posted all of last years videos to Google Video. We had published a few of our own, but now you get to see the whole conference. After the break I've embedded one of my favorite talks from last year: Matt Fisher's Everything About SQL Injection. It covers everything from the basics to some very clever attacks.

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WorldChanging Team: by Warren Karlenzig: Fresno, California sits at the south end of one of the sunniest and hottest valleys in North America, the San Joaquin. The...

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She tells reporters "We typically don't do movies of the week but never say never. But we have not had conversations with Joss Whedon about a Spike movie". And according to MSNBC, she added we "would love to be in business with Joss".

The man who choreographed "Once More With Feeling" directs the big-screen adaptation of the Broadway smash to mostly positive reviews!

Lots of events and ticket info posted also.

Fascinating follow up to yesterday's news about the show getting an Emmy nomination.

A 5 page preview of the hilarious series from IDW and Brian Lynch

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Rack and ruin. Do you need both?

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Facebook continues to impress, buying one of the most interesting Bay Area startups, a company called Parakey that has developed technology for persistent web apps. Persistent web apps are certainly one of the next big things. If the technology works,...

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I've never even heard this term before. Streamripping. I guess it means digitally recording an mp3 stream (ie internet radio) to build up a music library. I am sure it's technically possible, but I've never heard of anyone doing it....

Decemberists Originally uploaded by mediaeater. Is a song about a latin gang war (with west side story overtures). O Valencia - Decemberists - The Crane Wife The Media Eater and I learned that and more last night on a beautiful...

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All right, class. Using CSS, produce a liquid layout that contains a fixed-width, scrolling side panel and a flexible, scrolling main panel. Okay, now do it without JavaScript. By chucking an assumption about how CSS works in browsers, Rob Swan provides the way and means.

 

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Hide Your Shame: The A List Apart Store and T-Shirt Emporium is back. Hot new designs! Old favorites remixed! S, M, L, XL. Come shop with us!

Shout out louds Originally uploaded by concertbuddy. One of the greatest unheard of records in the past several years is Howl Howl Gaff Gaff by the Shout Out Louds. Jessica found the record on MySpace or somewhere like that and...

For your daily WonderCat update: Digit's surgery went great. He woke up very quickly after it, and ate all his dinner last night! They removed several very large bladder stones, and did a quick exploratory look around inside, and didn't...

Take it? I'd need to know what it is first.

Filed under: wii hacks

[F00 f00] sent in his friends lightgun wiimote mod. The IR sensor is carefully de-soldered and relocated to the barrel and the trigger is wired into the fire button. There's a video of game play, but you can hit it over at acidmods.

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Filed under: laptops hacks

I get an email asking for this almost monthly, and [PUNiSH3R]'s take on this covers everything pretty well. He uses some interesting tricks with WINE to get enough performance to play a DVD on the remote display. Yes, the cheapest way is to turn it into a remote desktop display over a network. Personally, I use synergy2 to share my keyboard and mouse, run multiple OS's and keep my sanity.

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Filed under: home entertainment hacks

[Teckjunkie] was inspired by Hack-A-Day to build a bio-interfaced game. He modified a thinkgeek pong kit with an Analog Devices instrumentation amplifier and differential electrodes to create biopong. Flexing either arm actuates the inputs on the pong game. (Now you can just grab some dumbells and get a pong workout.)

Hack-A-Day inspired projects are always welcome to the tips line.

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Filed under: transportation hacks

Not normally our thing, but holy crap this is just awesome. This map is the approximate journey of [Makiko Sugino] - so far. She's been riding a Yamaha 250 all over the world, and she's still going. Check out this thread for some awesome pics and details.

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Filed under: misc hacks

The guys at I-hacked put up a how-to on giving your windows mobile phone some iPhone skinned powers, but later in the day they decided to make it login required. Thanks to [Katrina] for the tip. (requiring logins for contributed content just doesn't sit well with me.)

[chris] sent in his own round up of his personal projects.

[Chris Coleman] let me know about hacktherazr. They've got some decent guides on customizing just about everything on the things.

[Ben Heck] got sick of emails, so he's offering to build one more xbox 360 laptop, if you give him a pile of money.

Staring sunday, I'll be ripping the hell out of my new house (and re-doing most of the upstairs). Do me a favor and keep the tips line brimming over.

[David] has some interesting ideas involving wireless AP antennas and wireless keyboards. How about a cantenna...

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[sprite_tm] sent in this nice little single AA battery micro-controller power hack. He's using the uc to generate a PWM signal for a simple voltage step up circuit - the catch is that the controller has to start working before it can generate the signal. He came up with a nice little solution to this caveat - a push button start that gets things rolling once the coil charges up.

Thanks for the tips guys, keep em comin.

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Filed under: misc hacks

Sorry guys, I've got to comment on this one.

[tylin] sent in this "DIY SCUBA" youtube video. These guys used a home shop air compressor with a particle filter so they could "SCUBA dive". This kid is lucky he didn't die.

I guarantee there were impurities in the compressed air. A major concern here is carbon monoxide, among others. That filter they used is designed to reduce particles, not scrub out CO, CO2, etc. Hemoglobin loves CO even more than dear old O2, so he could have asphixiated or suffered from convulsions despite having an air supply.

He's lucky he didn't blow his lungs out. The second he took a remotely full breath off that hose, he started to float up. If he happened to hold his breath it would have ruptured his lungs and caused all sorts of nasty problems.

He wasn't wearing a weight belt - furthering the risk of floating up when he took a breath. (in my experience about 90% of people are positively buoyant)
4)Nobody was in the water watching his back. If he'd suffered any complications, no-one was there to make sure he didn't drown. (Think convulsions, black out, etc)

Sorry for the rant - but this is just effing stupid. Don't try this crap, ever. I'm an advanced open water diver myself - get training and real equipment.

Update: The video was removed after reading my response to it. I went ahead and puled the youtube link since it's useless.

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Filed under: misc hacks

[drcrash] sent in this thorough how-to on converting a cheap bike pump to pull a vacuum. Apparently it's just the thing for small vacuum bagging projects. I'm thinking that this could be combined with a low rpm motor and a pivot. Just picture an old steam locomotive wheel drive, and you should get my idea. (A windshield wiper motor would probably be perfect.)

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Filed under: misc hacks

Remember reactable? (Or the iphone interface) As I recall, there were some comments noting build difficulties. [Gil]let me know about a nice how-to on building your own multitouch display. It's not a reactable, but it'll probably easier to re-create on your own. It looks like it was probably written by the tinkerit guy(s).

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Filed under: ipod hacks, misc hacks

[Daniel ] sent in this one, from an O'Reilly book, it's older but the results are just stunning. The iPod dock has been done countless times, but the really interesting part is the custom dash molding technique. The cradle was mocked up with clay on the original piece, then a silicon mold was cast from the mock up. After that, the entire piece was re-created inside the mold. After some dremel work and a bit of sanding, it came out beautifully. It looks like a great way to make custom LCD/GPS dash inserts.

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Filed under: misc hacks

Maybe you didn't have a crazy physics teacher, or missed [Mr. Wizard], so you might not have seen the hot dog cooking by electrocution. There is one new idea this time - stick some LEDs in your victim. Thanks[ Matthew]

If that's not geeky enough for you, check out this simple ibook server mod sent in by [Jonas].

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I spent most of my day laying nearly an actual ton of tile in my house. Right now it hurts to just to type. (And thanks to Marsha for the helping hand.)

[ironjungle] sent in his $20 kite cam project. (Same camera as the cat cam)

[Dan] sent along some pics of his and his friends shoverboard builds (leaf blower hover boards)

[fucter] sent along his take on my simple audio mixer how-to.

[B-Rock] sent along a little iphone sim testing performed by our buds over at tuaw.

If you're trying to develop web content for the latest in geek swag, you might dig firebug for the iphone.

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Filed under: home entertainment hacks, ipod hacks

This little how-to was sent in by [Ed]. The sound dock posts get quite a few hits, so I figured I'd share.

There is a solderless way to hack an aux input for the Sounddock.
(1)Go to Wal-mart (or elsewhere) and buy the Griffin Dock Adapter for iPod Shuffle (~$20) and a Belkin Speaker and Headphone splitter (~$4). (The Belkin splitter is needed in order to fit properly over the Shuffle plug on the device, but other cables/adapters might work.)
(2)Remove the existing adapter plate and replace it with the Dock adapter.
(3) Set the switch to speaker. (Very Important!) (4)Plug in one end of the Belkin adapter and you are ready to go! Any input signal automatically activates the Sounddock. Now you have a fully functional female and male stereo headphone input for your Sounddock.

-->Total cost ~$25 and no soldering required.

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Filed under: xbox hacks

Arcade joystick retrofits aren't usually that interesting. This one sent in by [Jock] caught my eye for one reason - using those cheap RadioShack reed switch relays to adapt the joystick output to the 360 controllers Dpad. Personally, I think I would have thrown some opto-isolators at it - but the one's that RS (sometimes) has are pretty crappy.

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Filed under: misc hacks

I happened across this nice simple PWM circuit, and eventually ran across this excellent little tesla coil. The build information is pretty interesting. Between the capacitor brick and the car ignition coils, I'd say it gets pretty creative.

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Filed under: laser hacks

I found this on [hackedgadgets] and checked out the paper describing the project. I'm not sure if it will generate any truly usable graphics any time soon, but the technology is pretty interesting. It combines six video channels and uses acoustic frequencies and tiny but simple looking transducers to vibrate the crystal that channels a laser to generate the hologram. (If I read that paper correctly) Surprisingly, a single nvidia chip generates all six channels for the system. Annoyingly, there's a lack of info on MITs site, but there's a nice group of images under the multimedia link of this article.

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Filed under: portable audio hacks

Every so often, I like to check out the headphone amp scene at [headwize]. The headphone lovers there never seem to stop. This little amp is one of the latest creations. The latest is the mini v3 - it reflects a trend I've been seeing on homebrew hardware: SMD core chips and through hole components for support hardware. A 9 volt supplies power, and a pair of linear regulators. It's a nice simple, solid design - and you've gotta love the thumb screws. (I'm not sure how a more efficient PWM regulated power source would affect the audio output)

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Filed under: misc hacks

[salvo] enjoys searching for 'untitled document' with google. He ran across this crazy little project that just cracked me up. It's a video camera rig that's designed to simulate the video presentation of virtual reality games (everquest, etc.) and it actually does a decent job. It would probably get you arrested if you wore it in Boston...

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Filed under: misc hacks

Every so often I learn a new microwave trick. [skuhl] sent in this .... myspace video. It appears that with a microwave, a jar and a candle to get things going, you can create you r very own plasma in a jar. You'll probably kill your microwave doing this, but damn it looks cool.

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Filed under: handhelds hacks, misc hacks, playstation hacks

[David] thought you guys might like this - and I agree. It's an open gaming platform built around a PSP LCD. It's got all the basics, and it's expandable. They'd like to put together an order for a run of boards, so let em know if you want one. If you're lazy, here's the specs:

• MX21 ARM9 266MHz processor with 64MB SDRAM and 16 MB of FLASH
• TFT LCD from the PSP (our thanks to Nathan at Sparkfun for helping us out with that)
• stereo audio CODEC
• stereo speakers
• headphone jack
• microphone
• couple of joysticks
• loads of buttons
• battery pack
• SD/MMC slot
• expandable (can add GPS, bluetooth, accelerometers and gyros, etc...)
  

Most of the hardware is pretty decent, but the battery pack could use some help. Maybe a good surplus li-ion cell phone battery.

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Regular readers know that I am in love with Marc Andreessen's blog. I read it daily and he has not let me down yet. He has a post up on the 11 things he's learned from blogging in the past...

All right. Here we go. I'm so nervous! I put all you darlings who donated into a spreadsheet. Every ten bucks got you a chance. I'm running a random number sequencer to figure out that..... [drum roll] Scout of Scout's...

Oh, I had the best Fourth of July. It was the first I've ever spent by myself -- because my birthday is the next day, I usually try to make a party out of seeing the fireworks, and there is...

Or did it?

As I was falling asleep, I said to Lala for the eleventy-millionth time, I'm so glad Digit is home. She said, Well, he wouldn't miss your birthday. My birthday is Thursday, and it's still the best present ever. (However, I...