The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.
Raphael writes “Ah the NES! It’s old but still great. And with a few mods, hacks, and tweaks, it can get even better. This page resumes what I have done to restore my NES games and improve my NES console, such as adding stereo sound outputs, a remote reset button, disabling the lockout chip and cleaning cartridges.” Link.
Kotaku has an overview on watching TV on your PSP using Sony’s LocationFree TV “watch cable TV, DVDs and DVR from your home entertainment center anywhere you can access a broadband connection. The one (major) downside is that you have to fork out about $350 to buy the LocationFree TV base station.” – a commenter on the site also mentions “you can use it to play PSX/PS2 games on the PSP. Granted there is a slight lag, but it does work.” Link.
The latest version of the PSP firmware gets you RSS feeds, specifically podcasts. Sounds good, but there are a few problems. The first is that the PSP doesn’t actually download the podcasts, it “streams” them. So you need to have a Wi-Fi connection at all times. The second downer is you need to use their interface to add each podcast feed. There is some hacking of the file format of the stored feeds, here’s the first pass at cracking it at bit – Link. Ideally, you’d have a desktop OPML to PSP-RSS list creator and also, Sony should consider making the PSP actually download the files so you can take them on the go…I don’t think I’ll update to 2.6 until this is fixed.
Airship reminds us that overheated new gaming systems, like the Xbox 360s aren’t really that new, take a trip down console gaming past…“Early Commomdore 64s had a similar problem with overheating brick power supplies. Commodore ended up beefing up the power supply dramatically. In the meantime, a healthy 3rd party market sprang up for replacement power supplies. Maybe Microsoft is just trying to stimulate the growth of 3rd party support for the Xbox?” Link.
Sony has a new release of the PSP firmware, this one is 2.60 and it actually has some interesting features. This latest update’s main features include WMA support, DRM capabilities, and a RSS Reader. The RSS reader makes the PSP one of the few MP3 players that can get and play podcasts via Wi-Fi without a computer. Review here and the update will hit your PSP via network update or here. On a side note, what is up with this PSP graffiti?
“Early users of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 are coming up with innovative ways to fix some of the first reported glitches plaguing the new videogame console. One of the fixes involves dangling the unit’s power supply in midair with string…Other 360 owners joined in, saying that once they cooled down overheated power units — by using fans or in one case, a half-filled bottle of frozen water — their consoles stopped crashing.” [via] Link.
Great bike hack on Instructables from Maxwell – “How to Build a Tall Bike, one that you can stop safely, and could be construed as street legal in most places. With this method, you’ll be able to stand over the bike, allowing you to hop down easily, have two brakes, a full complement of gears, And have a better riding position than two bikes stacked on top of eachother. You’ll only destroy one bike, The top portion is bolted to the bottom bike, so if it breaks, or you get tired of it, the bottom bike can be reverted to normal. All in all I think this makes for a suprisingly sane tall bike. Not that you’ll look any less the madman riding it through traffic.” Link.
