HOW TO – Build your own Ring flash
“One of the cooler lighting effects that we have left over from the 90’s era fashion photography is the use of Ring Flash as a primary light source. Ring flashes are often used in either fashion photography or in macro photography where the ring of light helps to eliminate shadows. When used in fashion or generally people photography it has the effect of creating a flat but almost iridescent lighting quality with a ‘halo’ effect around the subject. Cool yes, cheap? No. Flashes designed for macro photography generally will set you back about $400, while ring flashes for medium format and intended for fashion photography cost well over $1000!…Well fortunately, building your own ring flash is a fairly easy project with results that can easily rival professional ring flash assemblies for only a fraction of the price.” Link.
A fun instructable from talbotron22 “Here I show how you can very simply modify a megaphone to accept 1/8” line input from an iPod, and mount the megaphone on top of a motorcycle helmet. The resulting “Mega Helmet” delivers the maximal aural stupidity allowed by law…Go play softball wearing the helmet. It is very good for antagonizing the pitcher, and trash-talking in general. The helmet allows both for amplification of your voice, and playback of mp3s from the iPod.” 
Nick writes “Here’s a great collection of homemade musical instruments and instrument mods from Dennis Havlena. Most are cheap and quick, and include sound samples. I particularly dug the simplified hurdy-gurdy.” 
Marc writes “This is a well detailed plan of building “the ultimate gaming table” for role-playing and board games. I appreciate the details like cup holders and dry erase boards as well as the layout of the room itself.” 
NotBobVilla sent this along…“A Sheetrock lift I designed/built on a job site of a 6 story building I renovated. I built 2 of them they worked so well. We also had about 30,000 SQ/FT of ceiling to put up. Typically when someone talks about a sheetrock lift its 2×4’s fashioned into a Tee. With 2 to 3 guys struggling to screw it to the ceiling. This is a one man operation. Material costs $50-60 bucks 4-6 hours build time. We could have bought one but weres the fun in that? It works just as well or better as lifts costing $600+” 
If you have some old CPUs laying around, you can turn them in to great geeky keychains, perfect for holiday gifts. The process is pretty simple, drill a hole, get a keyring and that’s about it. 
“Most barcodes are 12-digit UPC barcodes, with ten digits at the bottom of the code and one small number to each side. Impress your friends by asking them to select a random item from the kitchen with a removable label and cut the numbers off of the UPC barcode; you can then proceed to read the numbers encoded in the lines.” 
