Most Popular DIY Projects of 2012

2012 has been a great year for DIY. We've seen a ton of awesome DIY projects, hacks, and creations over the last twelve months, but here are the most popular ones, from creating your own kickass media center to building a secret closet door and more.

The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Building a Hackintosh [OS X 10.8.2]

Building a hackintosh-that is, installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware-used to require extremely restricted hardware choices and quite a bit of know-how. More »

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The Best PCs You Can Build for $600 and $1200

Last summer, we took you to night school and walked you through building your own computer. What we didn't do at the time is give you a suggest parts list for that new computer. More »

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Create a Kickass, Seamless, Play-Everything Media Center: The Complete Guide

DVD players are so 1999. In this day and age, a custom media center running XBMC is the only thing you really need hooked up to your TV-whether you're watching movies you've ripped, streaming your favorite TV shows from Netflix and Hulu, listening to podcasts, or even playing video games. More »

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How I Built the Media Center of My Dreams for Under $500

Between the Blu-Ray player, cable box, laptop, and everything else hooked up to your TV, your home theater situation is a mess. Here's how I rolled all those devices into one awesome media center-the media center of my dreams-for under $500. More »

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Turn Paint Chips into a Dry Erase Calendar

An old picture frame + paint chips = an inexpensive, reusable monthly (or weekly) calendar. Taking inspiration from the Pinterest community, The Aesthetic Writer made this decorative dry erase calendar. More »

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Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with Ubuntu

You've heard the word "server" thrown around a lot, but usually in the context of web sites or big companies that have a lot of data to store. In reality, a server can be just as useful in your home. More »

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How to Start Making Your Own Electronics with Arduino and Other People's Code

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is in session, which means thousands of people have descended on Las Vegas to stare at next year's dust-gathering trash. More »

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Upgrade a Wall Outlet to Charge USB Devices

Wouldn't it be nice to just plug your USB device right into the wall and not have to use the power adapter and take up an outlet? Apartment Therapy has a guide for you to do just that or you can use a plug-and-play option. More »

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Build a XBMC Media Center with a $35 Raspberry Pi

At Lifehacker we're big fans of the XBMC video player and home entertainment hub. Combine the awesomeness of XBMC with a Raspberry Pi, the $35 low-power computer board with a built-in SD card reader, USB ports, ethernet port, and HDMI output and we have the makings of a powerful-but-cheap home... More »

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Make Your Own Sinus-Clearing Shower Tablets for Cheap, Effective Allergy and Cold Relief

You may have seen those pricey tablets in your local drugstore or pharmacy that you're supposed to put in the bottom of your shower while you wash up. More »

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Convert an Orange Into a Candle with a Little Kitchen Oil

Power outages are never any fun, but they're even worse if you get hit with one when you don't have any candles around. Thankfully, Instructables user DualPhase shares a way to convert an orange into a candle in a pinch.

Using an orange, grapefruit, or lemon, and any type of oil, you can hollow out... More »

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Build a Secret Closet Door for $200 or Less

Even if you have nothing to hide secret rooms, can safes, and the like are fun projects that can help you protect your valuables when not at home. YouTube user luvguns61 is a high school teacher who transformed a standard coat closet into a hidden room with a two-way mirror. More »

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Build a Computer Into Your Desk for Easy Upgrades, Hidden Cables

If you're tired of wrestling with cables and having to take everything apart just for a simple hard drive upgrade, this DIY "PC in a desk" could solve many of your woes. More »

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Transform Your Digs into a Home of the Future, DIY-Style

Ever wished your house would greet you when you opened the front door, which unlocked automatically when you approached? Or your kitchen kept an inventory of everything inside it? More »

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Never Get a Red Light Camera Ticket Again with This DIY GPS Hack

If you live in a city with red light cameras that snap pictures when you accidentally sneak through a red light then chances are you've received a ticket with your picture in the mail before. More »

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Use Tennis Balls to Hold Just About Any Small Item Around the House (and Be Extremely Cute)

Tennis balls are remarkably useful. They can rescue a worn-out pillow, speed up laundry, help clean your pool, open stuck jars, and a lot more. This clever little use from Redditor IAMmojo, however, is the most adorable of them all: More »

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Build a Self-Regulating, Automatic Plant Watering System with a Plastic Bottle and a Tray

Planning a vacation doesn't necessarily mean you have to get someone to come and water your plants, especially if you only have a few that need a little care while you're out of town for a few days. More »

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Turn a Watermelon into a Keg

The perfect drink dispenser for your summer cocktail parties may actually be a watermelon. Serve punch, juice, or a real fruit cocktail in that giant melon. More »

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DIY Wi-Fi Antenna Cheaply Extends Your Wireless Network

We've shared tons of ways to boost your home Wi-Fi, but if you need something a bit more powerful, this DIY antenna can stretch your wireless network much further. More »

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Build a Self-Resetting Mouse Trap

We've covered many mouse traps over the years, but they all need to be reset once you've caught a mouse. This means if you have lots of furry intruders you'll need to have several traps or just build this version using a 5-gallon bucket, an aluminum beverage can, a small piece of wood, and a wooden... More »

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So there you have it. Lots of great DIY ideas this year. Whether your favorite made the list or not, we'd love to hear which project you enjoyed the most. And if you're hungry for more DIY, check out the most popular DIY projects from 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2008.

via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5966084/most-popular-diy-projects-of-2012

"All of Our Life Is Nothing but a Mass of Habits"

We have good habits and bad ones. Some make us more productive and affect our ability to perform well, while some make it difficult to do anything else. Regardless of their nature, our habits make up our life—as psychologist and philosopher William James says so eloquently in this quote. If habits are the ingredients, you may want to consider how many bad ones you allow yourself to keep.

How Habits Hold Us | The Wall Street Journal via Swissmiss

Image by Depiano .

via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5966095/all-of-our-life-is-nothing-but-a-mass-of-habits

Acoustic levitation of water droplets

These water droplets are not falling; they’re actually stuck in place. What we’re seeing is the effects of an acoustic levitator. The device was initially developed by NASA to simulate microgravity. Now it’s being used by the pharmaceutical industry do develop better drugs.

The two parts of the apparatus seen in the image above are both speakers. They put out a sound at about 22 kHz, which is beyond the human range of hearing. When precisely aligned they interfere with each other and create a standing wave. The droplets are trapped in the nodes of that wave.

So are these guys just playing around with the fancy lab equipment? Nope. The levitation is being used to evaporate water from a drug without the substance touching the sides of a container. This prevents the formation of crystals in the solution. But we like it for the novelty and would love to see someone put one of these together in their home workshop.

Don’t miss the mystical demo in the clip after the break.

Filed under: chemistry hacks



via Hack a Day http://hackaday.com/2012/12/06/acoustic-levitation-of-water-droplets/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackaday%2FLgoM+%28Hack+a+Day%29

The Science of Storytelling: Why Telling a Story is the Most Powerful Way to Activate Our Brains

A good story can make or break a presentation, article, or conversation. But why is that? When Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich started to market his product through stories instead of benefits and bullet points, sign-ups went through the roof. Here he shares the science of why storytelling is so uniquely powerful.

In 1748, the British politician and aristocrat John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, spent a lot of his free time playing cards. He greatly enjoyed eating a snack while still keeping one hand free for the cards. So he came up with the idea to eat beef between slices of toast, which would allow him to finally eat and play cards at the same time. Eating his newly invented "sandwich," the name for two slices of bread with meat in between, became one of the most popular meal inventions in the western world.

What's interesting about this is that you are very likely to never forget the story of who invented the sandwich ever again. Or at least, much less likely to do so, if it would have been presented to us in bullet points or other purely information-based form.

For over 27,000 years, since the first cave paintings were discovered, telling stories has been one of our most fundamental communication methods. Recently a good friend of mine gave me an introduction to the power of storytelling, and I wanted to learn more.

Here is the science around storytelling and how we can use it to make better decisions every day:

Our brain on stories: How our brains become more active when we tell stories

We all enjoy a good story, whether it's a novel, a movie, or simply something one of our friends is explaining to us. But why do we feel so much more engaged when we hear a narrative about events?

It's in fact quite simple. If we listen to a powerpoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated. Scientists call this Broca's area and Wernicke's area. Overall, it hits our language processing parts in the brain, where we decode words into meaning. And that's it, nothing else happens.

When we are being told a story, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

If someone tells us about how delicious certain foods were, our sensory cortex lights up. If it's about motion, our motor cortex gets active:

"Metaphors like "The singer had a velvet voice" and "He had leathery hands" roused the sensory cortex. […] Then, the brains of participants were scanned as they read sentences like "John grasped the object" and "Pablo kicked the ball." The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which coordinates the body's movements."

A story can put your whole brain to work. And yet, it gets better:

When we tell stories to others that have really helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on them too. The brains of the person telling a story and listening to it can synchronize, says Uri Hasson from Princeton:

"When the woman spoke English, the volunteers understood her story, and their brains synchronized. When she had activity in her insula, an emotional brain region, the listeners did too. When her frontal cortex lit up, so did theirs. By simply telling a story, the woman could plant ideas, thoughts and emotions into the listeners' brains."

Anything you've experienced, you can get others to experience the same. Or at least, get their brain areas that you've activated that way, active too:

Evolution has wired our brains for storytelling—how to make use of it

Now all this is interesting. We know that we can activate our brains better if we listen to stories. The still unanswered question is: Why is that? Why does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other, have such a profound impact on our learning?

The simple answer is this: We are wired that way. A story, if broken down into the simplest form, is a connection of cause and effect. And that is exactly how we think. We think in narratives all day long, no matter if it is about buying groceries, whether we think about work or our spouse at home. We make up (short) stories in our heads for every action and conversation. In fact, Jeremy Hsu found [that] "personal stories and gossip make up 65% of our conversations."

Now, whenever we hear a story, we want to relate it to one of our existing experiences. That's why metaphors work so well with us. While we are busy searching for a similar experience in our brains, we activate a part called insula, which helps us relate to that same experience of pain, joy, or disgust.

The following graphic probably describes it best:

In a great experiment, John Bargh at Yale found the following:

"Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key experimental manipulation, the coffee was either hot or iced. Subjects then read a description of some individual, and those who had held the warmer cup tended to rate the individual as having a warmer personality, with no change in ratings of other attributes."

We link up metaphors and literal happenings automatically. Everything in our brain is looking for the cause and effect relationship of something we've previously experienced.

Let's dig into some hands on tips to make use of it:

Exchange giving suggestions for telling stories

Do you know the feeling when a good friend tells you a story and then two weeks later, you mention the same story to him, as if it was your idea? This is totally normal and at the same time, one of the most powerful ways to get people on board with your ideas and thoughts. According to Uri Hasson from Princeton, a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.

The next time you struggle with getting people on board with your projects and ideas, simply tell them a story, where the outcome is that doing what you had in mind is the best thing to do. According to Princeton researcher Hasson, storytelling is the only way to plant ideas into other people's minds.

Write more persuasively—bring in stories from yourself or an expert

This is something that took me a long time to understand. If you start out writing, it's only natural to think "I don't have a lot of experience with this, how can I make my post believable if I use personal stories?" The best way to get around this is by simply exchanging stories with those of experts. When this blog used to be a social media blog, I would ask for quotes from the top folks in the industry or simply find great passages they had written online. It's a great way to add credibility and at the same time, tell a story.

The simple story is more successful than the complicated one

When we think of stories, it is often easy to convince ourselves that they have to be complex and detailed to be interesting. The truth is however, that the simpler a story, the more likely it will stick. Using simple language as well as low complexity is the best way to activate the brain regions that make us truly relate to the happenings of a story. This is a similar reason why multitasking is so hard for us. Try for example to reduce the number of adjectives or complicated nouns in a presentation or article and exchange them with more simple, yet heartfelt language.

Quick last fact: Our brain learns to ignore certain overused words and phrases that used to make stories awesome. Scientists, in the midst of researching the topic of storytelling have also discovered, that certain words and phrases have lost all storytelling power:

"Some scientists have contended that figures of speech like "a rough day" are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more."

This means, that the frontal cortex—the area of your brain responsible to experience emotions—can't be activated with these phrases. It's something that might be worth remembering when crafting your next story.

What storytelling does to our brains | Buffer

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Leo Widrich is the co-founder of Buffer, a smarter way to share on Twitter and Facebook. Leo writes more posts on efficiency and customer happiness over on the Buffer blog. Hit him up on Twitter @LeoWid anytime; he is a super nice guy.

Title illustration by Tina Mailhot-Roberge.

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5965703/the-science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains

Three Studies That Changed the Way We Think About Productivity

The team at 99U follows productivity trends on a daily basis and noticed that every few years, a research study comes along that fundamentally changes the way we think about work. These studies are often conducted over decades and follow people across their careers to offer the rest of us a template to follow for our day-to-day lives. Below are three studies that are behind much of the productivity and creativity advice you read every day.

The Marshmallow Test

In this landmark 1972 study of delayed gratification, Stanford researchers selected a group of children and offered them a deal: the child could be given a single marshmallow immediately or, if they chose to wait 15 minutes, they would be rewarded with two marshmallows.

This simple test of willpower ended up being a powerful indicator of the child's future success. In a follow up, the children who were able to wait for the second marshmallow were shown to have higher grades and better SAT scores. What's this mean for us? First, thankfully, dozens of people have reenacted the test on YouTube. More importantly, willpower is vital to our success, but we have a limited supply so use yours on stuff that matters.

The 10,000 Hours Rule

Popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, this 1993 study by Florida State Researcher Dr. K. Anders Ericsson suggested that to truly master our craft we need to spend 10,000 hours practicing.

And not just any practice, deliberate practice. Top performers select the difficult aspects of their work and repeat them endlessly until they are ingrained as habit. Think of Shaquille O'Neal practicing his free throws—his weak point—rather than practicing slam dunks.

The Grit Scale Indicator

Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania and Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan took the Stanford Marshmallow test to the next level. In 2007, they developed a test that would measure a person's "grit," that is, an unassailable desire to see a goal or project through to the end. The test asked participants to read questions like "I have achieved a goal that took years of work" and rate its truthfulness on a five point scale.

Those who were shown to have more "grit" outperformed their less gritty peers. High grit scores correlated to higher GPAs, spelling bee winners, and West Point graduates.

The study touched off an entirely new school of thought in education that believes a high I.Q. isn't a predictor of success. And the good news is, as adults it's never too late to increase our grit.

Whenever a new theory on productivity and work emerges, you can bet it has origins in studies like these. Luckily, writers and journalists comb through the science journals so you don't have to. While studies will never replace the observations we get from our day to day lives, keep an ear out and see if they can inspire small tweaks or changes to your workday.

Studies

#1: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/21/2/204/

#2: Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. Th., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363-406.

#3: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Grit%20JPSP.pdf

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This post is part of a monthly series by 99U that will deliver the action-oriented education that you didn't get in school, highlighting real-world best practices for making your ideas happen.

Sean Blanda is the Associate Editor of 99U, the "think tank" of Behance. You can find him on Twitter at @SeanBlanda.

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

via Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5965021/three-studies-that-changed-the-way-we-think-about-productivity

December 06, 2012

OH SHNIZZLE. Science shirt is back in stock as is Revenge. AND, we discounted our discount section so the discount is discounted.









via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (updated daily) http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2816&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+smbc-comics%2FPvLb+%28Saturday+Morning+Breakfast+Cereal+%28updated+daily%29%29

Unlike Steve Jobs, Mac Users Are The Most Charitable Of All

When counting up donations by users of different computer and email platforms, some stark trends emerge.

If you’re a Gmail-using, Safari-browsing smartphone addict with a penchant for Macs, you’re probably pretty charitable--more charitable, at least, than your Hotmail-using counterparts who surf the Internet on Internet Explorer from their Windows machine. That’s according to Qgiv, an online donation processing company that analyzed more than 320,000 donations across 165,000 users to come up with giving trends over the past few years. Here are some of the highlights of the research:

• Out of all the big, free branded email services, Gmail users are the most charitable, giving an average of $143 per donation. In comparison, AOL users give $138, Hotmail users give $128, and Yahoo users give $120.


• But there is evidence that Gmail lovers are becoming more miserly, however. While the service has the highest donation average, it has experienced the largest year over year drop in average donations. Donations have also dropped overall, with users of all the free email services donating less than they did in 2010--though the numbers have picked up since 2011.


• People tend to be more charitable at work. People who use a unique domain name--corporate or personal--average $165 per donation, or 13% more than Gmail users.


• People using mobile browsers donate more on average ($156.59) than those using computers ($144.66). Safari users also donate more than Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer users.


• Mac users donate significantly more ($181.51) than Windows ($137.30) and Linux users ($116.54). Bill Gates may be a philanthropic legend at this point, but the less openly generous Steve Jobs apparently has more charitable fans.

We can’t say for certain what’s behind these trends. But it probably has something to do with differences in disposable income and willingness to part with it. Travel site Orbitz found, for example, that Mac users are 40% more likely to book a room at a four- or five-star hotel than Windows users, and they’re game to spend up to 30% more each night. At the same time, smartphone users often pay upwards of $100 per month for access to data services, so they too may have a bit of extra spare income. We can’t account for the differences between free email services. But we do know this: In addition to being generous, Gmail users also are good at conserving energy.

Read Full Story

via Fast Company http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681012/unlike-steve-jobs-mac-users-are-the-most-charitable-of-all?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company%29

The Work You Love is Waiting For You

Post written by Leo Babauta.

When I wake up in the morning, I can’t wait to start writing.

It’s not that I’m productivity-driven, or a workaholic … it’s that I love what I do.

And I’ll tell you a secret to loving what I do: if I think my work will help someone, there’s no better motivator.

I see lots of people, every day, who don’t like the work they’re doing. If I could help a few of them find work they love, it would make my year.

So this is a mini-guide to finding the work you love. Because it’s waiting for you — you just need to find it and go get it.

We’re going to do this in 3 simple steps.

Ready? Let’s go!

Step 1: Believe in yourself. The main reason people don’t try to do work they love, don’t even look for it, is because they don’t think they’re good enough. That’s hogwash. We’ve been bamboozled and hornswoggled into believing we are insufficient, that it’s scary to fail, when neither is remotely true.

You are not only sufficient, you are perfect. And failure is inevitable, but it’s how you succeed. Failure is how we learn to get better. It’s a step towards success.

I highly recommend you watch this TEDx talk from Scott Dinsmore for some inspiration … it’s the best 18 minutes you could invest in your life right now:

Step 2: Find the work you love. This is probably the most difficult step for many people, because they don’t know what they want to do. Luckily, I’ve written a guide for you.

Actually, this step is the fun part. You get to try different things. Fail often. Explore yourself. Learn about what you’re good at. Help people.

Step 3: Take the leap. It’s the scariest, most exciting thing ever to take the leap and do work you love. I call it JoyFear. It’s totally worth it.

Luckily, I’ve written a guide for this too.

Making a living doing what you want isn’t exactly easy, but it’s not as hard as you might think. Create something that will help people. Do it the best you can, and keep getting better. Make it uniquely you, and tell your story. Don’t be a marketer or push yourself on people, but really help them and they’ll come to you.

Two more things to read when you have the time:

1. The Five Things You Need to Know About Finding the Work You Love


2. Crazy Talk: The Do-What-You-Love Guide

What are you waiting for? I’ve given you three steps, so you should be taking the first step already. If not, get moving!

The work you love is out there. Waiting for you. But it won’t find you — you have to go looking for it.

via zenhabits http://zenhabits.net/ticktock/

The One-Minute Change That Will Transform Your Company

We talk a lot about major pivots--but what about minor ones? Here's how one small piece of pivotal behavior can change your company for the better.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.--Goethe

Can a single behavior elevate an entire organization? It can--if it’s the right behavior. Here’s how a simple 1-minute act helped an organization reinforce its purpose and outperform its competition by leaps and bounds.

Read Full Story

via Fast Company http://www.fastcompany.com/3003455/one-minute-change-will-transform-your-company?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company%29

Lose The Bell And Make Your Bike Sound Like A Horse Instead

Is the one thing missing from your bike ride the sense that you are riding an animal rather than a machine? A new contraption from Trotify is just right for you.

There was a time when people used horses as their primary means of conveyance. If you had to get somewhere, you simply jumped on your steed and rode there. Innovations in the field have since rendered horses obsolete: There are any number of ways to get to a place which do not require the responsibility and cost of having to care for a living creature. This is generally considered a good thing. But sometimes you may feel like something is missing from that horse-bound era. If that’s true, consider Trotify, which uses a trick from Monty Python to imbue your bike with the sounds of a horse’s clopping hoofs.

Trotify is doing a sort of self-Kickstarter campaign: They need 1,000 orders before you can actually get one. But if they do make them, you’ll be sent a flat piece of wood, from which you can assemble your device and affix it to the front of your bicycle. From there, you need only find a coconut--a la the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail --and you will be well on your way to a bike-horse hybrid.

Read Full Story

via Fast Company http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681000/lose-the-bell-and-make-your-bike-sound-like-a-horse-instead?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company%29

Kickstarting: An Ultra Minimal Shoe, Inspired By Amazon Natives

The Amazon’s natives invented the minimal rubber shoe. A new Kickstarter project channels the design heritage.

It’s a great commercial. Carl Lewis runs across New York barefoot, all the way up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. The reveal? The bottoms of his feet are tires. Pirelli tires.

While we’re talking about a tire commercial here, Lewis’s minimal shoes are a stone’s throw from what Amazonians invented. By dipping their bare feet in latex from the Hevea tree, they invented the world’s first rubber shoes--shoes so simplistically tailored that they put Vibram FiveFingers to shame.

Read Full Story

via Fast Company http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671346/kickstarting-an-ultra-minimal-shoe-inspired-by-amazon-natives?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company%29