Great how-to on making your own binary clock! John writes “I saw your blog entry that linked to a project to build a binary LED clock. I built my own binary clock a few years ago, and I recently posted a detailed article on how I built it…” The site has many iterations of the 3 clocks John built along with the circuit diagrams. Link.
There’s something appealing to running Linux on a $8000 Korg… MFenkner writes “Knoppix is a CD-based Linux distribution. I figured I’d give it a try to see if the Oasys would boot it, and sure enough it did! It even recognized a USB keyboard, USB mouse, and USB Ethernet adapter! The only problem is it doesn’t recognize the display correctly by default, so it would require some customizing of the Knoppix CD. As it is, the screen is off-center and “blurry” due to the wrong resolution.” [via] Link.
Here’s how to disassemble a DC WMATA’s SmarTrip card and turn it into a keychain-ready size –“The SmartTrip card is composed of three sheets of laminated cardboard (or plastic; it’s tough to tell). The middle one is where the important guts are located. The outer two serve a decorative and protective function. The first order of business is to remove those outer layers. But before you do, resign yourself to destroying the card. You might be able to transplant its brain into a new body, but DCist doesn’t want any angry emails demanding money for replacement cards.” Link.
Nice bike – “What does a propulsion engineer do when he wants to experience the power of a rocket without going to space? He simply bolts one to a bike. How It Works – 1. A toggle switch on the battery pack arms the ignition system. 2. The left-thumb button sends power from the battery pack to an igniter on a model-rocket motor inside the rocket engine, vaporizing the roofing-tar fuel so it can burn. 3. The right-thumb button keeps the nitrous oxide flowing (and the rocket lit) as long as it’s pushed. 4. The left brake lever regulates the flow of nitrous and throttles the rocket.” Link.
Make contributer Cy on creative uses for all that holiday trash – “Christmas, it’s inevitable, things will get discarded, broken, or ignored,” says Cy Tymony, a Torrance resident and author of Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things (the sequel to his Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things). “But why should things just go into a landfill?” In Tymony’s world, if you’ve got boxes, make boomerangs. Got milk? Make plastic.” Link.
We’re testing out an experiment on the MAKEbot (the instant message interface to MAKE Magazine) you can now search MSN and/or Yahoo over instant message with MAKEbot. So, try it out- add the MAKEbot to your buddy list (click here) and type ysearch and what you’re looking for (example: ysearch how to weld) or do the same for msearch (msearch msearch ipod hacking). And as always you can type search and what you’re looking for on MAKE and the magazine at all times using Google (search search cigar box guitar). Handy for phones that have AIM. Also try – photos, bookmarks, instructables, podcast and latest or help. Here are some screenshots of some bot action. Link.
Slashdot and Digg both have links (and interesting discussions) to this story about LCD goggles for the iPod video. We made our own version here on MAKE awhile back and I use LCD goggles for a lot of applications now, I really think one and two LCD viewing of content won’t be bizarre or sci-fi ish in the next few years. It won’t be as common place as the dudes who wear Bluetooth headsets full-time, but it wouldn’t be weird to see someone watching a movie on their iPod with LCD goggles on a plane.
