I've built a MythTV home media PC, attempting to keep the costs down. It's already cost $539, which is more than a Tivo HD ($299), and very close to a Tivo Series 3 ($575). The advantages over buying a TVIO include:
DVD / CD playback and archiving to HD.
Cheaper subscription costs (Free over the air, or [...]
At our wedding, my wife and I provided blank guest-book pages at each table, along with a glass of colored markers. The guests really enjoyed filling in the open-ended blanks. After the wedding, we sorted the pages and then had them bound to make a personalized keepsake.
At the bottom of [...]
Bokashi is a Japanese name referring to intensive composting. This Bokashi bucket was made from a Target brand generic cat litter container, a $5 Coleman igloo spout, and some laser cut 1/8 inch acrylic left over from a picture frame. Similar units sell for over $60, and since we were going to buy the cat [...]
Ok, I'll admit it. Ever since I saw Hackers I've wanted a painted laptop. I finally got around to finding a good graphic and painting it onto my IBM x31 Thinkpad. The hardest part was cutting the stencil out. I then lightly coated it with mineral oil to keep the paint from sticking to the [...]
The Li-Ion battery in my IBM Thinkpad X31 laptop has been getting a bit long in the tooth. Rated at a 4.4 AH capacity new, /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info told me that it was only holding 1.8 AH now that it was a few years old. (This is normal for Li-Ion batteries, which degrade over time, even without [...]
While exploring alternate energy sources, I decided to try generating electricity by using the latent heat (or lack thereof) in Dry Ice, or solid CO2. The most direct (and solid state) way to generate electricity from a temperature differential is a peltier junction, which a 12V car cooler/heater unit happens to have. The pre-built cooler [...]
Tinfoiling an entire office
My adviser received a promotion to full professor, so my group tinfoiled his office. It took 12 of us six hours, and almost 3000 square feet of aluminum foil. We individually wrapped books, computer cables, ceiling tiles, etc. The effect is best seen via this Quicktime VR panorama. I really recommend you take a [...]