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DIY CRT is fun, slightly dangerous, won't lead to a home-made TV
Looking for a DIY project with a bit more danger than an Arduino-powered TV muter, but don't have the resources to start building a fusion reactor in your garage? Well, challenge yourself with this electron accelerator project that requires little more than a wine bottle, a vacuum pump, a neon sign transformer and a diode from a microwave oven. OK, so that's not exactly a list of components you're likely to have laying around, but they're not terribly difficult to come by and at the end of the day you'll have your very own, home-made cathode ray tube. That's right, just like the one inside that TV you finally junked last week. You won't be able to create your own old-school display with it, but you will be able to observe interesting effects like sputtering (a ring of metal ion deposits) and magnetic deflection. Check out the instructions at the source and the video after the break.
WiFi-detector T-shirt turned into a bumper sticker for the roadfaring nerd
We're not sure if an illuminated WiFi-detector window decal is more or less nerdy than the illuminated WiFi-detector T-shirt, but it's certainly cooler. The shirt costs about $20 now, and the mod to take the electroluminescent WiFi signal detector panel, add the necessary power converter and mount it all to the back your car of seems easy enough if you're the type to tinker. Now -- who's going to do this, set up a MiFi, and start charging fellow commuters for access? Video after the break. [Thanks, Jonathan]
Thinkpad MagSafe Hack
I've long been of the opinion that Thinkpads are the PowerBooks of the PC world, and if not for the fact that they don't run OS X, I'd be very tempted to consider one when it came time to buy my next computer. Make points us to an enterprising Thinkpad owner who was having some trouble with a flaky DC-in port on his notebook, and decided to take matters into his own hands when it came to fixing the problem. Instead of simply replacing the connector (which is a total pain to do, I know this from personal experience) he decided to one-up every other PC notebook owner out there by constructing his very own magnetic power connector. While this may not, in the strictest sense of the term, be "Mac news," it shows once again that the innovations Apple introduces into its products are not only handy to those of us who actually use Macs, but stimulate the greater computer market to further innovate and build on the ideas of Apple's design team. Check out the instructable to learn how to make a ThinkSafe adapter of your own.
