January 2006

Air Powered Engines
Complex Hacks

22

Air powered engines are not new, but they sure are interesting. Take a look at this French engine. Mike Smyth has made a number of interesting small air engines. On his site he even has detailed instructions to build your own. This is what Mike says about his radial cylinder air engine “The radial cylinder configuration has the advantage that at least one cylinder is on a power stroke at

Hack: Cell phone + wireless router = Mobile hotspot
Computer Hacks

6

This guy got his wireless router to use his cell phone for Internet, so he has a cheap Internet hot spot everywhere! Total cost $40 for the phone, $30 for the router, and $9 for the data cable. This would be great for nerds driving in a pack. Best part is most people already have phones and routers capable of this. read more

Levitating Light Bulb
Complex Hacks

1

A sculpture by a MIT PhD student that uses a special wirelessly powered bulb. “Lightbulb explores two phenomena I find interesting, the stabilization of unstable systems using feedback, and wireless power transmission. Feedback systems often levitate objects, stabilize inverted pendulums, and the like. Wireless power transmission has been around since Tesla’s invention a century ago, although it is still not widely utilized. I wanted to explore these effects together.” read

Cool Old Computer Info
Other

2

Check out some of 1000Bit‘s 1764 documented systems. The Ampere WS-1 is such a styling laptop I wonder why I didn’t notice it before, got to love the placement of the tape drive… Great timeline of computers from 1971 – 1989 at The Obsolete Technology Website. Dave from Daves Old Computers has been working in the computer industry since the 70’s he has a large collection of systems on his

Crazy Big Monitors
Insane Equipment

5

What is it? A surfboard maybe… Piece of modern art… Nope, this is the new monitor by Liebermann. This is exactly what I need for those wide spreadsheets! “Marvel. Because there is nothing quite like it. With 5 widescreen UltraSpeedâ„¢ LCD Panels featuring resolutions of up to a mammoth 19200 x 2400 Pixels, the new Athens Display Series brings desktop views and resolutions to unheard of new heights. Featuring ‘s

Elmo Asks 'Who Wants to Die?'
Complex Hacks

2

Some evil genius bought a bunch of Elmo talking books, reprogrammed them to say some “evil” (cool) things and then returned them to the store. “Reprogrammed Elmo books sold to unsuspecting parents to teach kids to use the potty.” Click play to listen to the new audio! [audio:elmo.mp3] read more | digg story