Mental Hygiene » fun stuff

USB Floppy redux – now with howto video!

option8 — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:29:39 +0000

[update] welcome, Makezine readers!

USB Floppy hack

option8 — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 20:58:39 +0000

see the rest here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/charles_mangin/sets/72157625250155063/

Benjamin likes to bounce.

option8 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:18:11 +0000

In which we discover that a “squirrel proof” feeder is not, in fact, “raccoon proof”

option8 — Sun, 23 May 2010 20:59:04 +0000

this morning, we awoke to discover that our squirrel proof bird feeder was lying on the porch, on its side, empty.

this feeder: http://squirrelproofbirdfeeder.com/products/e100.html – which has, so far, survived the combined efforts of several highly trained suburban assault squirrels. with some difficulty, they are able to extract one seed at a time, with their tongues. eventually, they give up and leave the sunflower seeds to the birds.

when we saw the state of the feeder, we were somewhat perplexed. there had been no strong winds. none of the hardware had failed. and there had been seeds in it as of last night.

then i took a look at the CritterCam footage from the incident.

after examining the footage, we’ve decided this is what happened:

shortly after image 1 was taken, the raccoons were able to lift the feeder off its hook and it dropped onto the porch (see image 2). the drop ejected some of the sunflower seeds.

the raccoons then proceeded for several minutes, according to the subsequent images, to roll the feeder around the porch between them, freeing the remaining seeds.

Apple’s new iCrotchshot

option8 — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:14:09 +0000

Apple has done it again. Not only have they come up with a really nice looking glass rectangle that does pretty much what all the other big glass rectangles out there do, only… you know… better…

…they’ve also created a whole new way to get strangers to stare at your crotch.

why my birdseed bill is so high

option8 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:09:44 +0000

captured with my new motion-detecting “critter cam”

Conficker probably not a threat to Apple II users

option8 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:06:17 +0000

from A2Central.com:

Conficker probably not a threat to Apple II users. this from their call to Symantec:

“you are probably safe though I really don�t know what an Apple II is.”

hey! i’m on Engadget!

option8 — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:00:38 +0000

my Disk II Mac mod made it to Engadget. sweet.

[update] and gizmodo!

your kid sucks at piano.

option8 — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:22:10 +0000

my latest hardware project

option8 — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:20:22 +0000

in the same vein as the G4 Mac Plus, i recently finished up a quick little hack that combines a Mac Mini and a Disk II floppy drive, ca. 1978.

view the Flickr set here.