What I Learned From Fixing my Laptop's Motherboard
A month ago I managed to break my laptop, by reversing the polarity of a universal power supply. The repair shop diagnosed the problem as a failed motherboard, and asked for €659 to replace it. I found the price preposterous and the notion of throwing away a motherboard for a single failed component ecologically…
Using an LCD’s poor viewing angle to your advantage
When viewing LCD monitors from an oblique angle, it is not uncommon to witness a dramatic color shift. Occasionally, this can appear as a total color inversion. This is primarily caused by a polarization asymmetry, where light rays passing through the pixel matrix at oblique angles are influenced by the relative…
Neutrinos Faster Than Light, or FPGA artifacts?
I spent my week-end reading comments from theoretical physicists,geodesists, and other scientists, speculating on the news of the OPERA experiment that appe...
Gray code at the pediatrician's office
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
The Problem with the iPhone's Home Button
When I posted the link to Andrew Durdin 's visual guide to the iPhone's home button , a number of people sent me messages that basically said "I don't see the problem".
Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><a href="http://brahmsyellowdots.blogspot.com/2008/10/it-begins.html">About This Blog</a>
MacBook Air is enough for a work machine
Reader Brendon Cromwell (among many others) writes in to ask about my MacBook Air: >How is it holding up for you in your daily routine? What’s your feel for how long you think it will hold…
A human review of the Kindle Fire
I expected the Kindle Fire to be good for books, great for magazines and newspapers, great for video, and good for apps and games.
Kindle Touch jail broken via ID3 Tag
Update Kindle 5.0.3 has fixed the hole to allow for jailbreak. Upgrading an already jailbroken Kindle Touch is fine as the update does not remove the custom key to allow custom packages. If you on 5.0.3 and have not already installed the key, there is a new jailbreak.
Making a Ponyo boat
If you've seen the film Ponyo (or if you grew up in Asia) you may have seen a sort of toy boat powered by a very simple steam engine. This...
Projects: hijack (Hijacking the iPhone earphone jack)
Hijacking power and bandwidth from the mobile phone's audio interface. Creating a cubic-inch peripheral sensor ecosystem for the mobile phone.
Floppy Disks: It’s Too Late
Someone has to break it to you, and that person is me. It’s over. You waited too long. You procrastinated or made excuses or otherwise didn’t think about it or care. You didn’t do…
The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped
In an essay titled "The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped" , Jon Bell writes:
How The FCC Plans To Destroy GPS – A Simple Explanation
Exploring the world of free tools for GIS, GPS, Google Earth, neogeography, and more.
1TB Hard Drive Prices up 180% in a Month
The Newegg price charts on Camelegg sum this up illustratively:
Meet the IOIO - USB breakout board for android w/48 digital+analog IO pins
I'm very excited to announce the launch of a new product I've been working on for the past months! IOIO (pronounced: yo-yo ) is a produc...
HP plans to release first memristor, alternative to flash and SSDs in 18 months
HP intends to have an alternative technology to flash on the market in eighteen months, an alternative to DRAM in three to four years and, following DRAM, a replacement for SRAM, Stan Williams, Senior Fellow at HP, told the IEF2011 meeting in Seville this morning.
Hacking Christmas lights
I went to Costco the other day with my wife to pick up some Christmas lights. While there, I found the most awesome christmas lights ever: the GE Color Effects G-35 .