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These are scary. It all started one day with this guy, the origional Etherkiller, developed with a few misc parts to warn new users that the IT department is not to be messed with. You too can make one at home, connect the transmit pins of the RJ-45 to HOT on 110VAC and the recieve pins to Common. Modify to suit tase by varying pinout. This led to some general discussion that this particular device really is in a class of devices, now called the “killers”, which need to be made. Link.

SLOOH is a membership based site that allows you to look at universe real time (tricky term I know) through a robot controlled observatory. Through their user interface, you can capture photographs during the mission and save them in your mission log book. During the mission, they have storytellers that will explain the history, mythology, science and beauty of the subject.[via] Link.

A PSP formatted video review magazine, made for the PSP to be played on the PSP. Really great to see this user made content done up in such a pro-way. This edition features three sections reviewing UMD movies, future PSP games, and some must have PSP accessories. Download and pop the 100mnv01 folder on your Memory Stick. Link.

Howto and script for making big Google maps. Don’t you love the quality of Google Maps? Ever wish you could create a (2048×1792), bigger than your screen? They’re great for making posters, or art. You could do it the hard way, by pasting together screen grabs, or you can use this free software! Also some good PSP images too. Link.

Wow, MTV bought Neopets for $160 million dollars- this is a site where kids (generally) make their own virtual pets online. They have 25 million subscribers, 5 billion page views per month and probably are the most successful social software site on the web, go figure. It was founded in 1999 by two British college students. I’m still working on my virtual pets for iPods project. Link.

There are a few “design your own” shoes sites out there- and now there’s the new Converse One design your own “Chuck Taylor Basketball Shoes”. I went through the entire design process and at the end when I wanted to add “makezine com”, it wouldn’t let me- a space and com must trigger some type of filter. Here’s a screenshot
. Ah well, I didn’t plan on ordering- but it’s always neat to see the filters they use on these things so no one will say anything too offensive to be on a shoe. Link.

On Michael Gartenberg’s blog he shares a problem many of us have had with DRM’ed ebooks (Microsoft’s .lit format in this example). Once you buy these there are all sorts of wacky activation issues, limited number of machines you can have supported, and the experience, even for the enthusiast is often the opposite of what you’d want in an ebook experience. He points to a good solution (Amber LIT) that exports the .lit files out as PDFs. [via] Link.