Sapere Aude
Tag: hacks
Booting a PC from vinyl for a warmer, richer OS
To pull off the trick, Jozef leverages the rarely used and little known cassette tape interface that PCs had back in the early days. This required building a new bootloader and burning it to ROM to make the PC listen to audio signals with its 8255 programmable peripheral interface chip.
You placed the receiver atop the cradle, and the weight of the receiver pressed the large button in the center. That activated a wind-up music box. This was a super low-tech way to put a caller on “hold” and treat them to a little ditty while you hustled off to find Matsumoto-san or whomever they were calling for.
What does this imply? I’m not sure (and maybe it will imply more if someone manages to make it actually good). It was already weird to see something with no auditory qualia learn passable poetic meter. It’s even weirder to see something with no concept of space learn to play chess. Is any of this meaningful? I still don’t know.
On his bucket list was to buy and a van to cruise around in, and go to Burning Man. His disgusting and/or funny van made local news headlines in Sacramento when he parked it on his way to Burning Man. Apparently the photo was taken by children too young to understand the ‘joke’, and has since gone somewhat viral.
this is great trolling, with people acting predictably dumb.
the solution for ballers who want to drive a ferrari but can’t afford it.
The medical reader hacked out of a clock, a tv remote, a computer mouse and a few simple custom chips near the end is incredible. Hardware hacking as a cultural thing has moved from the west (fixing your own car) to the world (resolder your smartphone) in one generation.
several Chinese language, but overseas based, websites have been blogging on the creation of a ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in China. This has been motivated, of course, by events in MENA, and the timing has been significant because it has coincided with 2 important political conferences in Beijing, but it appears to have no real-world substance whatsoever, to have begun as a hoax at best, and to exist only in cyberspace, and cyberspace outside China at that. But the interesting bit is the real world effect it is having inside China, and the momentum it is generating.
trolling the chinese security apparatus
Artifacial expression is an art and research project that investigates the computer-controlled human face as a medium for kinetic art and develops algorithms for facial choreography. Small precisely controlled electrical currents are employed to stimulate the facial muscles of a live human person into rendering involuntary expressions. As the human face is controlled by a computer instead of the brain, it can be made to perform in unexpected ways, bringing together dance and technology in the most direct way imaginable.
facial hacking with electricity
germany ceding jurisdiction to the us, in 1978. fascinating legal hack.
Gregor J. Rothfuss 