The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the kitchen, garage and backyard from food to furniture to fun & games for your family.
Great interview! “Benjamin Heckendorn (aka Ben Heck) is one of the greatest console hackers the gaming community has ever known. Not only does Ben have the amazing technical knowledge and great design sense, but he is also a riot to converse with. In case you are not familiar with his work, Ben basically takes full game systems (from basically all console generations) and turns them into a custom handheld device.” Thanks Brian! Link.
Fsteele writes in to confirm you can stream purchased video with the new iTunes – “Thanks for the link; it works just fine with store content. That’s actually how I noticed it. I’ve successfully imported content I captured via EyeTV, as well, but it looks like it only works if it was imported via iTunes 6.02. My wife has a couple of videos she bought with 6.01 that aren’t available. What really makes this cool is that there’s now a video streaming server inside every copy of iTunes, so it will be interesting to see what people can do with that.” Link.
Wow, MAKE pal David Weekly will be on this panel – “How do hackers collaborate? How have these patterns changed over time, with shifting cultures and new technologies? What can other disciplines learn from hacker culture? Hacker culture has always been a highly collaborative meritocracy that has extended well beyond organizational and geographic boundaries. This manifests itself in a variety of ways — from face-to-face gatherings, such as the legendary Homebrew Computer Club meetings 30 years ago, to open source projects today. The collaborative tools and processes that have always been pervasive in hacker culture are now beginning to penetrate other fields as well, from grassroots political activism to the arts.” [via] Link.
Here comes an interesting trend – buying real world goods with virtual money – “The first real product, an XFX GeForce graphics card, is selling for L$20,000 or about US$80 (approx. $L250 = US$1). Makes sense, upgrade your system from work within the virtual world you’re running. What next?…How about something simple that generates from the SL itself, like user-created t-shirts a la something like Threadless? What do you think would work? Gosh, virtual currency for virtual things is going to be sooooo passe soon.” Link.
NextBrick.net has a post about some really cool LEGO’s from the 60’s and 70’s from Mario, he writes “Dedicated to those of you LEGOmaniacs who are too young to remember the first years of Lego, or who have never had the opportunity to see some of these relics. During my childhood I spent tons of hours playing with Lego, and a large part of my small week’s pay buying spare parts. It would have been strange not to receive at least one Lego set at or birthday. My sister Elena and my brother Stefano are just one and two years younger than I am. They were very fond of Lego too and we usually played together to build very large cities. Not all of our Lego survived, but we still own a very large bunch of pieces, which I am pleased to share with you in this page.” Link.
Raphael writes “In order to practise at the arcade version of Super Mario Bros, I modified a NES to be able to run arcade ROMs. The result: A dedicated Super Mario Bros VS. console with switches on the front panel to tweak some aspects of the game (A user friendly version of dip switches found on the arcade motherboard).” Link.
Aaron writes “Most of us cannot afford fancy 7.1 surround sound systems or feel that we do not utilize the computer’s audio functions enough to reap the benefit of one. However, most of us have stereos. That and a few cables is all you need to enjoy a nice audio system without damaging your bank account. In this article, I will show you an easy way to use your stereo as computer speakers for a nice sound system at a very low cost.” Thanks Star! Link.
