Evil Mouse Prank

Evil Mouse Prank
Control your co-worker's cursor!
John Edgar Park | Make Vol. 15- 2008 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Joe Bowers is sneaky, resourceful, and rotten to
the core. Whatever you do, don't get in a prank war
with him.

Returning to my desk from a coffee break. I sat
down, grabbed my mouse. and ... nothing. The
cursor was stuck to the left wall of my monitor.
I shook my mouse wildly. The cursor moved up
and down just fine. But when I jerked my mouse
viciously to the right, the cursor nudged a little,
then slammed back to its new favorite position,
clinging maddeningly to the leftmost pixel.

Blowing on the mouse's nether regions didn't help,
so my officemate, Hide Yosumi, took pity on me. "Do
you hear something?" he asked knowingly. There
was a high-pitched whine coming from behind my
workstation. I looked and saw that a strange mouse
was plugged in. Not just any mouse. A prank mouse.
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Mister Jalopy's Urban Guerrilla Movie House

Mister Jalopy's Urban Guerrilla Movie House
Your own DIY drive-in
Mister Jalopy | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 11 pgs | 3 mb

Rather than lamenting the slow death of
drive-in theaters, I decided to build my
own, mount it on an adult tricycle, and
take the movies anywhere there's an AC
outlet. Vibrant online communities of DIY
projector enthusiasts have ironed out the
kinks and built the focal calculator soft-
ware tools, and they're building homebrew
machines with jaw-dropping results.
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Plush Irradiated Sirloin

Plush Irradiated Sirloin
Microcontroller night light illuminates meaty issues
Rebecca Stern | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 2 pgs | 1 mb

Faced with an assignment to make a plush night
light. I thought, "Why light?" and brainstormed
reasons for a stuffed toy to light up. In a glowworm
toy, for instance, the light mimics nature. I'd been
reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma,
and this got me thinking about the chain of refrig-
eration, labor, and irradiation involved in American
beef production. So I thought. glowing irradiated
meat! I know that irradiated meat doesn't glow, and
neither does toxic waste unless it's in a cartoon, but
plush toys typically represent cartoon characters
anyway, so it made sense: Plush Irradiated Sirloin.
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On Batteries

On Batteries
How to decide which batteries will run your project best
Limor Fried | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 3 pgs | 1 mb

If knowledge is power, then knowledge of batteries
is power squared! Here's what I know about dispos-
able and rechargeable batteries and their tradeoffs.

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Granny's Nightmare Chopper Bike

Granny's Nightmare Chopper Bike
Chop an old ladies' bicycle into something evil
Brad Graham | Make Vol. 11- 2007 | Pdf | 6 pgs | 2 mb

You know what irritates me? I drive out to the dump, pay my five bucks to get in, and the only bikes laying around are those goofy granny bikes from the late 1970s. OK - enough whining - a real chopper artist can chop any bike, even
a crusty old codger cruiser.

Here's how I hacked and welded a granny bike into something evil. Normally, I wouldn't even bother with a bike like this because it has a lugged frame. This means that the head tube and bottom bracket are just press-fit and brazed into place, rather than welded. You can't salvage lugged joints for most projects because they have holes where the tubing fits together, and brazing filler metal interferes with arc welding. But this project was doable as long as I kept most of the frame intact.
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