Leandro Pereira

s1mone:

If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today…

Life: sometimes you roll the shit, sometimes the shit rolls you.

Join [Fran] as she dons the hat of an electronics archaeologist when looking at this vintage circuit board from the space race. As part of her personal collection she somehow acquired a Launch Vehicle Digital Computer board for a Saturn V rocket. This particular unit was never used. But it would have been had the Apollo program continued.

[Fran] is enamored with this particular board because she believes it is the forerunner of modern digital circuit design and layout. Since routing circuit boards is part of what she does for a living you can see why this is important to her. Also, who isn’t excited by actual hardware from the space program? We’ve embedded two of her videos after the break. In the first she shows off the component to the camera and speaks briefly about it. But the second video has her heading to the dentist’s office for X-rays. The image above is a rotating X-ray machine, but it looks like the best imagery comes when a handheld gun is used. They get some great images of the traces, as well as the TTL components on the board itself.

A look at the board itself

Analysis of the LVDC using an X-ray machine

a fucking cruise ship tour

Thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

too much flour

irony

[JJ] picked up a Garmin Nuvi 780 GPS from an auction recently. One of the more frustrating features [JJ] ran into is it’s PIN code; this GPS can’t be unlocked unless a four-digit code is entered, or it’s taken to a ‘safe location’. Not wanting to let his auction windfall go to waste, [JJ] rigged up an automated brute force cracking robot to unlock this GPS.

The robot is built around an old HP scanner and a DVD drive sled to move the GPS in the X and Y axes. A clever little device made out of an eraser tip and a servo taps out every code from 0000 to 9999 and waits a bit to see if the device unlocks. It takes around 8 seconds for [JJ]‘s robot to enter a single code, so entering all 10,000 PINs will take about a day and a half.

Fortunately, the people who enter these codes don’t care too much about the security of their GPS devices. The code used to unlock [JJ]‘s GPS was 0248. It only took a couple of hours for the robot to enter the right code; we’d call that time well spent.

You can check out the brute force robot in action after the break.

Deliciously Geeky… | OhGizmo!

Several times a day, a NOAA weather satellite passes over your head, beaming down pictures of weather systems and cloud formations. These transmissions aren’t encrypted, and given the requisite hardware it’s possible for you to download these images from space as [Lovro] shows us in a tutorial video.

To get these near real-time satellite pictures, [Lovro] used one of those USB TV tuners we’ve grown so fond of. A somewhat specialized antenna is required to receive the right hand polarized transmissions from NOAA weather satellites, but with a few bits of wood and wire, [Lovro] made a helical antenna to listen in on the weather satellites transmitting around 137 MHz. After gathering a whole bunch of data from the satellites with SDRsharp, [Lovro] used an image decoder to turn an audio file into a picture taken from space just hours ago.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen images from a NOAA weather satellite downloaded with a software defined radio; last year [hpux735] did just that with a somewhat inexpensive Softrock SDR. [Lovro]‘s use of a USB TV tuner to receive the transmission from NOAA satellites is a lot easier on the pocketbook, though, with the largest expense being an investment in time to build a helical antenna.

Thermal imaging cameras, cameras able to measure the temperature of an object while taking a picture, are amazingly expensive. For the price of a new car, you can pick up one of these infrared cameras and check out where the drafts are in your house. [Max Justicz] thought he could do better than even professional-level thermal imaging cameras and came up with an absurdly clever DIY infrared camera.

While thermal imaging cameras – even inexpensive homebrew ones - have an infrared sensor that works a lot like a camera CCD, there is a cheaper alternative. Non-contact infrared thermometers can be had for $20, the only downside being they measure a single point and not multiple areas like their more expensive brethren. [Max] had the idea of using one of these thermometers along with a few RGB LEDs to paint different colors of light around a scene in response to the temperature detected by an infrared thermometer sensor.

To turn his idea into a usable tool, [Max] picked up an LED flashlight and saved the existing LED array for another day. After stuffing the guts of the flashlight with a few RGB LEDs, he added the infrared thermometer sensor and an Arduino to change the color of the LED in response to the temperature given by the sensor.

After that, it’s a simple matter of light painting. [Max] took a camera, left the shutter open, and used his RGB thermometer flashlight to paint a scene with multicolor LEDs representing the temperature sensed by the infrared thermometer. It’s an amazingly clever hack, and an implementation so simple we’re surprised we haven’t seen before.

sofapizza:

run, shadowfax. show us the meaning of haste.

woooaa mind blown

(Retail | Aurora, CO, USA)

(It is a pretty mild day, and most everyone is buzzing about the new Ikea that has opened up the month prior. I am chatting with a particularly effervescent woman with a full cart to scan. She has asked about my studies.)

Me: “I’m just going to school downtown. I’m studying Spanish and German.”

Customer: “Wow! That’s impressive! Pretty and smart!”

Me: “Oh, well thank you! I actually pick up languages easily. I’ve also studied Chinese and French, and for the past year my best friend has been teaching me Swedish.”

Customer: *scoffs* “Swedish? Ha! Like you could speak Swedish!”

Me: “Yes, actually I can. He actually was born and raised in Stockholm… he’s still living there, actually. He’s Swedish, teaching me Swedish, so I can go to Sweden.”

Customer: “Well, I know people who work at Ikea, and they know Swedish. So, tell me, what’s ‘Hello,’ then?”

Me: “‘Hej,’ or ‘Hallo.’ That can be followed up with ‘Hur mår du’ and other various phrases.”

Customer: “Ha! I knew you didn’t speak Swedish. That’s not how you say ‘Hello!’”

Me: “Yes, it is, actually.”

Customer: “No, it’s not! My friends work at Ikea! They would know! You’re not speaking Swedish. That’s not Swedish!”

Me: “Okay, then apparently my Swedish friend doesn’t know how to speak his native tongue. How do you say, ‘Hello’, in Swedish?”

(The customer looks proud in her win and straightens herself.)

Customer: “It’s f*******e.”

(My jaw drops. The translation of this is roughly ‘c***face’.)

Me: “Yes… yes sweetie, that’s exactly how you say that. You’re right. Have a nice day.”

(She left looking incredibly satisfied. The moment I got off of work, I texted my friend. He and I still laugh about this over a year later.)

7750baaa.jpg

Wiggling-USB-Tentacle.gif

Preserved Megalapteryx foot. - Imgur

思わず三度見する画像パート7 | ロケットニュース24

To put on a live pyrotechnic show at a music festival, [Chris] built the FireHero 3. The result is remotely controlled flames shooting up to 100 feet in the air.

The system is controlled by a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino. A server runs on the Pi and allows a remote computer to control the system. The Pi sends commands over serial to the Arduino, which switches solid state relays that actuate the valves.

There’s also some built in safety features: the system won’t boot unless you have the right key and RFID tag, and there are pressure transducers and temperature sensors to ensure the system is operating safely. A CO2 actuated valve can quickly stop fuel flow in an emergency.

Vaporized propane creates the fireballs. The vapor is created by heating the supply tank in a hot water bath. An accumulation tank stores the vapor and custom built manifolds distribute it to the various flame cannons. At each cannon, a silicon nitride hot surface igniter (HSI) is used to ignite the flames once the valve is opened.

After the break, watch a video the the FireHero making some flames.

Submitted by: monkeyknucklexx

mindfuck

[video version]

working hard