Unboxing our very own, limited-edition Fallout 4 Pip-Boy

The clear plastic overlay makes it look a bit like the PS4 and ESRB logos are floating.

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Fallout 4 has arrived at the Ars Technica Orbiting HQ ahead of its highly anticipated November 10 release. We're busy putting the game through its paces for an embargoed review that should run just before that release. In the meantime, though, we can tell you a bit about something else that came along with the game disc: the actual, wearable, smart-phone-embeddable Pip-Boy that was included in the limited "Pip-Boy Edition" of the game.

First announced back at Bethesda's E3 press conference, the $120 limited edition is a bit more elaborate than the usual statues and, um, mini-fridges that come in such packages. By placing a smartphone (with an upcoming app) in the unit, players will be able to sync their Pip-Boy with the game and actually see important in-world information on their wrists as they play. The limited edition package was so popular (and so limited) that Bethesda said in July that it's physically incapable of making more, thanks to Chinese factory production schedules.

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Divorce lawyer who thought he could beat NSA in court, couldn’t

This is the man challenging the government's spying programs. (credit: Elliott Schuchardt)

Unsurprisingly, the Pennsylvania lawyer who tried to single-handedly challenge the Obama Administration’s surveillance infrastructure has had his case dismissed. Like similar cases, it was tossed for lack of standing.

While Elliott Schuchardt talked tough, US District Judge Cathy Bissoon found that he could not prove that he himself had been surveilled by the federal government, according to her 11-page opinion handed down in late September 2015.

Just a few weeks ago, the divorce lawyer appealed the decision to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Congo’s Space Program

Deep in the hills of the Democratic Republic of Congo, you’ll find men and women hard at work providing a living for their family. You might find some working in one of the nation’s mines which are rich in natural resources.  Others will be working the farms or participating in one of many diverse cultural customs. If you head two hours via dirt road from the capital city of Kinshasa, however, you’ll find something a bit out of place for the area – an active space program.

On a vast yam farm, [Jean-Patrice Keka] has single-handedly developed several rockets that have flirted with the elusive zero gravity environment. [Mr. Keka’s] ‘Mission Control’ is a corrugated metal shed lined with CRT monitors and dated computers, but don’t let this fool you. His vision and drive are just as great as any space faring nation.

His intellect has made him a small fortune in commodities trading, and allows him the luxury to finance his operation without the need of government help. From time to time, he employs the help of local engineering students to get his rockets off the ground. Their payload has included rats and insects, with one launch reaching 10 miles of altitude and the current project aiming for 120 miles. [Mr. Keka] has become a national hero via the televised broadcasts of the launches, and has gotten the attention of national government officials. They even flew him to the US once to petition funding for his work.

[Mr. Keka] and his story should serve as an inspiration to all inspiring hackers and makers to pursue their dreams.

Thanks to [Cmh62] for the tip.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Wii-Motified Laser Cutter refocuses for Contoured Cutting

Still laser cutting all of your parts in 2D? Not the folks over at [Just Add Sharks]. With a few lines of code and an in-tact Wii-Mote, they’ve managed to rig their laser cutter to dynamically refocus based on the height of the material.

The hack is cleanly executed by placing the Wii-Mote both at a known fixed distance-and-angle and within line-of-sight of the focused beam. Thankfully, the image-processing is already done onboard by the Wii-Mote’s image sensor, which simply returns the (x,y) coordinates of the four brightest IR points in view. As the beam moves over the material, the dot moves up or down in the camera’s field-of-view, triggering a refocus of the laser as it cuts. Given that the z-axis table needs to readjust with the contour, the folks at [Just Add Sharks] have slowed down the cutting speed. Finally, it’s worth noting that the Wii-Mote was designed to detect IR LEDs, not a 10600-nanometer laser beam, but we suspect that the Wii-Mote is receiving colors produced by the fluorescing material itself, not the beam. Nevertheless, the result is exactly the same–a dynamically refocusing laser!

Now that [Glowforge] has released a continuously-refocusing laser cutter implemented with stereoscopic cameras, it’s great to see the community following in their footsteps with a DIY endeavor. See the whole system in action after the break!

Filed under: laser hacks, nintendo wii hacks

Take a Ride On my Magic Carpet

For an awesome Halloween edition of [PrankvsPrank], they decided to make a remote controlled “magic carpet” for [Aladdin]. It’s absolutely fantastic.

[PrankvsPrank] isn’t really known for making stuff we’d feature on Hackaday, so they got some help with the project from the [CaseyNeistat] a New York YouTuber. As you can probably guess, at the heart of this magic carpet is actually an electric skateboard. A Boosted Board to be specific– it was a very successful Kickstarter a few years ago.

They built a lightweight frame out of plastic pipe and wrapped fabric around it to make it look like a proper carpet out of the cartoon. Once they had it all set, they took it for a spin through the streets of NYC, catching people’s reactions along the way.

And of course, they also have a nice video about how they did it as well.

You missed the Halloween boat this year, but maybe next year you can build your own electric skateboard and try something similar?

Filed under: Holiday Hacks, transportation hacks

PIR Jack-o-Lantern Sees Them Coming

Planning to make that carved a pumpkin last past Halloween night? Forget the tealight or LED candle—here’s an easy, no-solder project that will make it extra special. By default, this jack-o-lantern looks like it has a flickering flame, but get close enough to it and it goes crazy with color.

All you need is an LED matrix, a Rainbowduino to drive it, a PIR motion sensor to trigger the random colors, and a power source. [Alpha Charlie] kept the electronics from becoming pumpkin-flavored with some plastic bags. Since he used the PIR as the jack-o-lantern’s nose, there is a bit of plastic behind it to keep moisture from interfering.

[Alpha Charlie]’s build instructions are quite detailed, which makes this project even simpler if you’ve never used a PIR before. There are lots of ways you could build on this project to make it your own, like using trick-or-treater motion to trigger screams or spooky sounds, or add more sensors to make it more interactive. Watch it react after the break.

If you have nothing else at all to do between now and trick-or-treat time, you could bust out the soldering iron and recreate this 70-LED matrix jack-o-lantern. Blinkenlights too safe for your tastes? Fire-breather it is, then.

Filed under: Arduino Hacks, Holiday Hacks

Your Handwriting Is Now Your Font

They say your handwriting is as unique to you as is your fingerprint. Maybe they are right – perhaps every person adds a little bit of his or her personality to their penmanship. Just maybe there are enough ways to vary pressure, speed, stroke, and a dozen other almost imperceptible factors that all 7 billion of us have a slightly different style.

The study of handwriting is called Graphology, and people have been at it for a quite a long time. Most experts agree that a person’s handwriting can reveal their gender, where it starts to get fuzzy is that others claim they can tell much more including age, race, weight, and even mood. Going further down the rabbit hole, some employers have tried to use handwriting analysis to determine if an applicant is a match for a position. That seems a bit of a stretch to us.

Now, if you want to digitize a tiny bit of what makes you, you – then all you have to do it to fill out this (PDF) form and upload it to the interwebs. Out the other end will pop a true type font that you can save for yourself or share with the world. Why would you want to do that? This hack caught our eye as a way of adding annotations to our work in a more informal, yet still personal manner. Or maybe we just wanted to upload it to the cloud in hopes it would live forever. Either way, if you want to see some really amazing style, head on over to the “Penmanship Porn” subreddit where you can find some amazing chicken scratch.

Filed under: lifehacks