Target to sell retro arcade cabinets w/games
In November Target Stores will offer BigGames Home Video Arcades – real arcade machines for the home that will retail for less than $500. Each unit plays 12 of the original arcade versions of the most popular Midway games including: Defender, Defender II, Robotron, Joust, Bubbles, Splat, Sinistar, Rampage, Rootbeer Tapper, Wizard of Wor, Timber, and Satan’s Hollow. Also – Dicks Sporting Goods will be carrying the tabletop version of the cabinet. I am totally going to get one of these, take it apart and see if I can add more games. Thanks Brian! [via] Link.
The holidays are coming up – Presents to get – or better, make! Not everything has to have a microprocessor in it! Lots of ideas and free plans here. I think I might try and make a harmonograph is a pendulum-based drawing board that produces really neat “curvaceous” drawings. Thanks Rick! 
Roland sent along this great DIY site for building Halloween settings “For Halloween 2004, we added a spooky crypt to our graveyard scene. This project requires a fair amount of work, but with a few helpers (at least one of which has some woodworking skills), you too can have a ghost haunt a crypt for your Halloween celebration.” 
A Maker writes “OK, this has to be the CRAZIEST Lego project ever built. For real. From what the father of the idea said today in the Lugnet Robotics List, it involves +20.000 bricks and 13 RCX units that communicate in 2 communication chambers each with a seperate program. Build time was +300 hours. It runs on NQC software and it’s ALL Lego, except for the ball. Built by Gerrit Bronsveld and Martijn Boogaarts.” [
This kit is designed to be a 72-hour kit. It is designed to be small and portable, but also to be effective in providing for the Survival “Rule of Threes.” The basic kit is enclosed in an Altoids tin, wrapped with 10 feet of 550 parachute cord. Note the 3/32″ diameter hole drilled in the upper right hand corner of the tin. This kit provides for shelter preparation, fire making, water storage and treatment, signaling capability, basic medical needs and food procurement. [
Mark Pilgram of 
A virtual space resort being built in the online role-playing game, Project Entropia, has been snapped up for $100,000 (£56,200). Jon Jacobs, aka Neverdie, won the auction for the as yet unnamed resort in the game, which lets thousands of players interact with each other. Entropia also allows gamers to buy and sell virtual items using real cash. The space station is billed as a “pleasure paradise”. Last year, a gamer bought an island for $26,500 (£13,700). [