Smart Objects: Do You Want A Talking Kleenex Box?

Smart Objects: Do You Want A Talking Kleenex Box?

Are 'smart' objects the future? People certainly like so-called smart phones, and almost every home in America has a computer, and making everything 'smart' might be a future trend, say humanities…
DIY Spirit Lamp

DIY Spirit Lamp

Second-hand stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army, and local mom&pop shops are treasure troves of things to hack or repurpose. When you hack something you’re probably using it in a way in which it…
USB Dead Drop File Sharing

USB Dead Drop File Sharing

When we say "off the grid," we often mean off the power grid. "Off the grid," however, can also mean off of any interconnected network including the Internet. Back in the day before the World Wide…
Are You Smarter Than Your Clothes?

Are You Smarter Than Your Clothes?

Some people just don't know how to put patterns and colors together. Or anything about style. Some of that is cultural, of course. No one really wears corsets any more, for example, and good…
Defending Mendeley

Defending Mendeley

If you're not a researcher, you probably don't use Mendeley a lot, I don't have an account there even though I have written lots of pieces about their stuff.  But it's popular among researchers…
Custom Silicon Solutions Programmable 555 timer

Custom Silicon Solutions Programmable 555 timer

In my previous blog post, How I Solved My 555 Timer IC Frequency and Built a 555 Guituner, even though I tried several different combinations of resistors in series, I was unsuccessful in finding…