DIY Wiretap Kit For Kids

Elenco Electronics’s “Telephone Bug Kit” (soldering required) gives your kids everything they need to build a dime-sized wiretapping device that lets them listen in on your phone conversations. Educational and creepy!

Hallowe’en Jack-O-Lantern DVD

Unless you’re the type who leaves it to the last minute, odds are if you haven’t carved a pumpkin yet, it’s not going to happen this year. But don’t worry, while you won’t be able to enjoy any home-baked pumpkin seeds (which my girlfriend attempted to make me try last night while we were carving [...]

Pumpkin Skull Templates

For your elaborate carving pleasure, these pumpkin skull templates to print and slice.
Related Articles:
Alternative Pumpkin-carving PDF Patterns
HowTo: Flashing Mario Bros Mushroom Pumpkin

HowTo: Make A Killer Werewolf Costume

MissMonster has been creating incredible monster costumes for years. This year she’s made a really intense werewolf costume all by hand. She’s posted an in-depth tutorial on Instructables.

Papercraft Skull with Moving Jaw

Back in August, the Skull-a-Day blog (a new skull, every day!) ran this papercraft skull with moving jaw — including a downloadable PDF so you can print and assemble your own. Timely!

Halloween Mugshot Mask: U.S. Senator Larry Craig

Make your very own U.S. Senator Larry Craig Paper Bag Mask this Halloween, and scare the bejeebus out of all those you encounter in the men’s room. “For the back of the mask there’s an official U.S. Senate Seal to let others know who you are, and that you are here to stay.”
Downloadable paper bag [...]

Weekend DIY Project - Digital Newsstand

Using an old newspaper vending rack, a 17″ LG Flatron LCD monitor, a Mac mini and a bit of free time assistant newspaper editor Scott Walker created this brilliant digital newsstand. Now instead of having to walk to the driveway to fetch the newspaper the day’s headlines are automatically downloaded and displayed in his living [...]

Apple To Go

Mac addicts: have you been itching to get your mobile Mac Mini going with EV-DO, but despise the look of an external USB modem? Well, with a little bit of tinkering you can swap out your Airport card with an Expidite PCI Express Mini EV-DO Card.
Surprisingly, this is a pretty simple mod - especially when [...]

Run WM6 Office on Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphones

From the “why didn’t Microsoft just go and do this themselves” file: Hackers have liberated the Mobile Office features of Windows Mobile 6 and wrapped them up into a nice installer that runs just fine on Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphones.
Since Microsoft decided that Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphone users didn’t need word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations, [...]

Hack the Zune Software To Support More Audio/Video Formats

Although Microsoft’s Zune software was built on Windows Media Player 11, it works with only a fraction of that program’s supported file formats. A new mod bridges the gap, enabling you to convert a wealth of additional file types for Zune viewing.
Specifically, this pair of registry tweaks enables the Zune software to recognize additional audio [...]

Amazing DIY Pot Plant Cultivation System

Here’s an oldie-but-goodie from the US Drug Enforcement Administration… Chad Robert Latham was sentenced last year to 15 years in prison for designing, building, and operating this ingenious kinetic system to cultivate marijuana.
From the DEA: “LATHAM designed eight machines out of aluminum that looked like ferris wheels. Each machine held 24 rows of plants with eight [...]

DIY coffee roasting

Self-proclaimed coffee fanatic wurdgurl tells you how to save money and enjoy kick-ass coffee by roasting your own beans.
Tired of paying twelve bucks a pound for organic, fair-trade, shade-grown joe? Me, too. So pay $5 a pound and roast it yourself. You’ll bask in DIY satisfaction AND you’ll save a bloomin’ bunch. As for the [...]

How To Pick A Lock

Web site Locksport has put together a simple, step-by-step beginner’s guide to lockpicking.
Available online or via PDF, the comic book-style guide looks like a nice way to learn the art of lockpicking. Naturally, when learning to pick locks, keep in mind the lock pickers credo: “You may only pick locks that you own, or those [...]

Roll your own maki sushi

The Sushi Day web site photo-documents exactly how to roll your own maki sushi.
As a sushi-lover who’s never made it myself, the whole process seemed so very mysterious - but these photos and detailed steps make it really easy. If you’re down with the sushi, check out the site’s other “non-traditional” DIY sushi recipes, [...]

Make Your Own Motivational Poster

If you live in North America, there’s a good chance you’ve come across motivational posters, with trite little sayings that are supposed to inspire you to greater heights of productivity and achievement. They were all the rage some time ago, and even though you could have always made your own, you would have had to [...]