Don't park here

The janitor at the MuMaLab is a real nice guy. He's helping us all the time. So when he asked me for two shields to put in front of his parking lot, I put some effort into it.

It's lasered into yellow acrylic and mounted with some spacers over an aluminium plate. The acrylic glows when illuminated by UV light, looks awesome in sunshine. At night the aluminium reflects the headlights.

More space

After thinking about it for three years, we finally got around to install a wall mounted shelf in the living room. It's a Vitsœ 606 and I love how configurable and easy to install it is.

I configured it myself, but the interior designer at the Vitsœ shop had lot of helpful suggestions. I suggest to everyone not to take their offer to set up the shelf for you, because you will miss out on the joy of experiencing good design firsthand. It was really fun building this.

Star lamp

I found an old box full of brass stars in the trash. Found out, super glue really works well with them...

Thanks to LeaderBrat for the nice, antique stand.

Wooden staircase.

If that seems familiar, then have a look at the last post on this blog. ;-)

We got the laser cutter in the Munich Maker Lab to work and I tried large scale engraving for the first time.

Its MDF, about 45x30cm and took 80 minutes to engrave and cut.

Staircase.

Kodak Tmax 100 in Olypmus 35 SP

Triplet ceiling lamp

A lamp made out of three Hella fog lamps ('Hella 1NL 008 090-821' to be exact).

The lamps are mounted upside down and are adjusted to light the ceiling but not the wall. They are nearly parallel to the ground but still only light the upper part. So you can see the exit point of the light but it doesn't dazzle.

The 12V transformator is contained in an Ikea Blanda Blank metal bowl - perfect fit.

A learning: Do not use speaker cable for anything that gets hot! I had this mounted 3 month ago, but the isolation of the speaker cabling melted and shorted. Thankfully I was in the room and could switch it of before everything went to hell.

Downsides: Gets horribly hot, draws just under 300W, really expensive (around 150€ in parts)

My 31c3 watch list

I went to the 31c3 and watched a lot of awesome talks. Here is my list of good stuff (still expanding):

Security

Too Many Cooks - Exploiting the Internet-of-TR-069-Things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFP5YcvQsKM

SS7: Locate. Track. Manipulate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ0I5tl0YLY

Mobile self-defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeCkO0fWWqc

Gefahren von Kameras für (biometrische) Authentifizierungsverfahren
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIY6k4gvQsY

Vor Windows 8 wird gewarnt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVFHLVsk44

The Perl Jam: Exploiting a 20 Year-old Vulnerability
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gweDBQ-9LuQ


NSA

NSA: Tell no-one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh9txt1TGt8

Inside Field Station Berlin Teufelsberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l4B7C5MNMQ


Society

What Ever Happened to Nuclear Weapons?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKxj-Jh9pmY

Mit Kunst die Gesellschaft hacken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=colBviXfHKA

The Cloud Conspiracy 2008-2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijr0E6Lw4Nk


Culture

The Only Thing We Know About Cyberspace Is That Its 640x480
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucMDGKc00DA

Up-cycling headphones

I needed new bluetooth headphones as my old Nokias started to fall apart. 

Seeing old analog wireless headphones in the free-for-all bin in the Munich Maker Lab I looked around for a easy solution to enable them with bluetooth. 

I found the OVC3860 module (5$) which integrates an bluetooth module with HiFi and headset profiles, an headphone amp, lipo loader and even has some pins for easily attachable buttons. 

I've put the module in one side and an old 370mAh lipo with an separate charger in the other. 

Features added: 

- 3 buttons on the side to control Play/Pause, Next, Previous

- NFC sticker to setup up the bluetooth connection 

- Audio port usable as a line out (with volume turn low) or speaker in (with audio module off)

Total cost of the project: around 10€

New insights in my mobile

I have a Sony Xperia Z which I was very happy with until recently.

First, an Firmware update destroyed the battery runtime, then another one fixed this, but the phone was laggy as hell THEN the lens permanently fogged up from the inside with dust (this phone is waterproof, how did that happen??).

I was close to buy the new MotoX, but decided to follow the Self-Repair Manifesto and 'own' this phone. First I installed Cyanogen Mod to make it fast and stable again, then I fixed the lens fogging. I had concerns about that as everything is glued together but it was really easy. You only need a hot air gun and a suction cup.

Anyway, I tried how easy it is to remove the black coating of the back glass... you see the result below. =)


The mainboard was covered by the NFC antenna, so I moved that over the battery.

I'm in a wall....

... unbelievable!

Sorry for the lack of posts, lots to do (like this). But two projects are done and I hope I can put them up soon.