Category: Mad Science

The Raw Power of 1.5 Tesla

Tesla Damage

Magnets are fantastically wonderful things! Not just because they give us TV, electricity, and cool ways to hold papers to our refrigerators, but when they are built for medical imaging they become downright scary. Magnetic flux is measured in Teslas, the normal rating for a medical device is 1.5 to 4 T. For comparison, the Earth has a flux density of just 20-30 microteslas. A common rare Earth magnet might have a density of 1 Tesla but are quite small so they won’t pull a chair across the room (well, if you get a few hundred of them and then you’ll have something to write about!)
In the picture you can see that a cart of some sort has become wedged in the opening of some imaging device. Imagine what would have happened if there was someone in it… Well that happens sometimes. I remember a few years ago a story of a child that was killed because his oxygen tank became a deadly missile when he was being scanned by a MRI.

[via MedGadget]

Flying Objects!

Circuit Bending Games

circuit bending

If your into making weird noises and also like to mess with a soldering iron maybe you should give circuit bending a try. That’s where you poke and prod around the electronics of a device (like a Speak-n-spell) and cause the output sounds to be changed in weird ways.
I think I did this by accident when I was a very small child, my father had and electronic piano that would pick up radio stations if you touched some components on the back. Me and my friends thought that is was pretty cool at the time, but then again we were about six.

…examples of game cartridges and portable systems that have been circuit bent to create a nice glitch aesthetic & sound…Jumpstart has been bending the Gauntlet game on Sega Master System II here.

MAKE: Blog: Circuit Bending Games

Take the Doctors Advice

Tiki Bar TV

Take the advice of good Doctor Tiki and administer a London Fogcutter as soon as you can.
This has GOT to be the absolute best video podcast on the ‘net. Beats Rocketboom hands down for production value. While Lala is no Amanda, Lala looks a date you would have more fun with. 🙂
With it’s pleasantly retro atmosphere, Tiki Bar TV lives up to its tag, “Forbidden cocktails & swingin babes in swank bachelor pad”. The past episodes give a handy and humorous tutorial on how to mix various drinks like a Trader Woody and the Hulla Balloo. Go sign up for the podcast and get the older episodes and take a trip to the Tiki Bar.

TikiBar TV [ Subscribe to Podcast ]

OS X on x86

Apple

I’ve founds a bunch of links on how to install the Apple OS X opperating system on a regular PC from from the MAKE blog and from Hackaday. I’m sure there are others out there but if your wondering what all the ruckus is about you can all the details there. Pretty much with some files downloaded from the ‘Net you can cajole a PC into running the developer version of Apple’s OS. Sounds pretty cool to me, except that I don’t think I own any hardware that would run it. I have mostly older Intel chips and what I have that is newer are AMD. I’ll have to do some reading and see if any would have a chance. Not that I’ll act on it, I simply don’t have time these days. Still, it is a cool idea. I have an Apple logo on my laptop’s cover and it would be pretty nifty to have the OS on it too.

Mac OSX x86 on PC
Build Your Own Mac for $199
How-to: Install OS X x86 natively on your PC!
OS X PROVEN hacked and running on an ordinary PC

DIY, mod, hack

The Official WiNGs Website v2.0

Wings 2

You just can’t put the Commodore 64 down. years out of date, massively under powered, and has not seen a retail store shelf in decades, you can now get an OS that has features that rival most modern operating systems.

WiNGs is a modern Operating System for the Commodore 64 and 128 Computers… The OS includes an optional Graphical User Interface, multiple shell consoles, and integration with the internet via TCP/IP over PPP.

Now, before you call up your mom back home in South Dakota begging her to crawl into the attic and send your old C-64 to you be warned – you can’t run this on you standard stock Commie.

You will need a C64 or C128 Computer with a SuperCPU and at least one Megabyte of SuperRam. An REU or Ramlink can not be substituted in place of SuperRam. You will also need a DiskDrive of some moderate size. A 1581 is the smallest comfortable size recommended, though a limited distribution could be made to run on a 1571 or even a 1541. A CMD HD or Ramlink is preferred over a disk drive. And finally an IDE64 will give you the best (Astounding) results. If you want to use the Graphical User Interface, a 1351 compatible mouse is required. If you want to use the internet, either a Turbo232, Swiftlink or IDE64 Duart is required to interface to a modem.

Your going to be haunting eBay for a while to collect all these things. So before you do that have a look at a few screenshots.
Pretty neat, eh? Your mission, if you choose to accecpt, is to super charge you old Commodore 64 (or better yet, the new C64DTV) with new parts, install WiNGs and hack it into your car. First person that does that and send me some darn good proof I’ll send them an 8×10 of any photo from my gallery or my Flickr account.

The Official WiNGs Website v2.0

blivit, cool, OS, C64, Commodore

EckBox

Hacker
This is a future project for me. After hearing about Van Eck phreaking in high school (I think it was that far back) I have wanted to give it a try. I don’t have a real reason to do it other than to say that I did. Good enough. I just want to be able to see what my PC is displaying. I’ll have to get Linux up a running on a box first but that shouldn’t be a problem. Oh wait, my work bench is no more, a move to a tiny apartment took care of that for me. Hey, I have an idea, just click on the ‘donate’ button and send the TeamDroid site $5. All of it will go towards a new research center (bigger apartment). Once I have that I’ll have a place to build and review all sorts of cool stuff.
But I bet your still wondering what the hell this ‘Van Eck Phreaking’ thing is aren’t you? Well, think of your computer as a series of radio transmitters. You can pretty much think of all electronic devices as transmitters and receivers in some way or another actually. What a Van Eck rig lets you do is tune into the radio station in your computer that is coming from your video card. I think your seeing the idea here. Once you have all the timing right you should be able to see what is one someone else’s computer screen. Cool, eh? Sounds like a dandy cloak-and-dagger sort of thing that would be happening all over the place don’t it? Well, as will most things, the truth is that it’s hard to get it to work and when it does the results are sometimes not all that good. Van Eck Phreaking is also known my another name, TEMPEST – that was an old code word for a general electronic surveillance project back in the ’50’s and the name stuck.
Things like this are pretty much the reign of the NSA and cyberpunk authors, but if you have the time and will you can play with it yourself and if I get a larger work bench I’ll do the same.

EckBox – an Open Source van Eck Phreaker
AllYouEverWantedToKnowAboutTempest

hack, phreaking, Van Eck, project