DIYs & Mods

Well, it’s Sunday night and the Last HOPE Conference has concluded. It’s hard for me to reflect back, seeing as I never attended HOPE before. I noticed the place was dead today as vendors packed up and groups gathered to finish activities and chat. It really makes me think that the hacking of yesteryear is dead and that a new ...

On Sunday, nearly all the LEGOs were gone. Needless to say, we were heartbroken, but then we came upon this redeeming build. A construct of White Castle slider boxes. What do you think it is? We have no idea. One thing is for certain, we’re getting a Crave Case for dinner tonight.

The Netherlands-based locksporting group Toool held a panel at HOPE discussing new and advanced opening techniques for high security locks. We sat in on this two hour discussion with Barry Wels and Han Fey commenting on some unorthodox approaches to key copying. The speakers mentioned how easy it is to copy even the most exclusive of key profiles, which in ...

What was I doing during the conference? Drinking Club-Mate and playing a Galaga rip-off. Hit the jump to see my look of disappointment:

PacketWars had its own project going on the expo floor. Complete with a referee who was ready to smack any hacker who steps out of the line with any shenanigans that violate the terms of service. It’s competitive network combat, no holds barred. Bring your own laptop, plug in and defend your territory. .

A sign for screen printing was posted in the “Hackerspace Village” when we arrived Saturday. As we stood there watching them make imprints in shirts, they asked us for help (hackers are so friendly!) and well, this helped us get a closer look into how they were making these sweet Darth Vader designs on t-shirts. The Hacktory was showing off ...

Needless to say a hacker conference can take a lot out of a geek. That’s why this chill spot was put in. It makes watching the conferences upstairs relaxing, while hanging around in a hammock. If you had a computer you could partake in the humorous messages that would appear at the bottom of the screen displaying the speeches. The ...

We came across an interesting display of posters and t-shirts from artist and designer Ray Lam at Iteetoo.com. Ray is inspired by electronic devices and creation and has started reflecting it in some fascinating art he’s designed himself. He has even taken bits and pieces from his abstract art posters and made some clever t-shirt decals for geeks and hackers ...

Quality car stereos are always getting stolen so a poster on Instructibles who goes by the name of sfgabe came up with an easy way to fool thieves into thinking that your sound system has already been jacked. Gabe, who says he lives in a “sketchy section [of] Oakland” where his car gets broken into on a “weekly basis” came ...

Who doesn’t love free stuff? Guitar picks, pins, stickers, and all kinds of shit for the taking! There’s much more stuff you can pick up if you have the cash, including back issues of 2600, HOW TO books from the EFF and MAKE, t-shirts with original designs, CDs, lockpicking sets, microcontrollers and pretty much anything else you can think of.