Search for anonymous in Topics

I am unable to post a question anonymously. It will allow me to fill out the form to do so, but when I hit "preview", I am sent to a login page. It will only allow me to continue if I enter my username and password. I followed the link from the home page, and I logged out to try this. OS - Vista Tested in the following browsers: FireFox v 3.0.5 Chromium v 2.0.159.0 (8613) Chrome v 1.0.154.43 Internet Explorer v 7.0.6001.18000 (bleh!)

Someone gave me a free pro membership.  Since I do not know who it was and thus cannot thank them personally on their orangeboards/PM's, I have decided to post this topic to publicly thank the person who gave it to me.  To whoever gave it to me, you know who you are, thanks a bunch.  And the timing couldn't have been better, my birthday is coming up soon lol.

Like DJ Radio, someone has given me a Pro membership, and I'd like to thank them. I feel a little guilty about this, actually...I've been putting off buying one myself until I had college paid for and could warrant frivolities like website memberships, and I just made National Merit Finalist, which means I get a full-ride... Point is, thank you to whoever is behind this. I am quite grateful, though a bit annoyed that now I feel obligated to build and post something...something relatively major is in the works, though. ;-)

If we first Turn One Hotspot shield VPN and then opn tor browser then what will be the path of traffic when leaving my Computer? What i am already Assuming: Data will be encrypted first and reach to VPN server that will then forward the request to first tor relay and then to second and third then coming back in same way ?

The Communications Act of 1934 criminalizes anonymous harassment by a telecommunications device. Congress recently amended the law to criminalize anonymous harassment via the Internet. Some argue that the law curtails freedom of speech. Perhaps. If someone is blogging or commenting anonymously about a private citizen in an obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent manner with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass, it is actionable, according to the new law. But should someone have the freedom to do that? Apparently Congress doesnt think so. What do you think?

Http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEe7qhlFNs4Australians Need our Help! Soon Their Internet will be censored! Spread the Video

Well, I am going to camp for the next week. I will bring my iphone, but my bet is the reception will be shoddy.I will miss you all. pce.UPDATEim back.

Question i want to ask that if i have turned on hotspot shield and i run a port scanner will that port scanner data pass by hotspot shield VPN or from my real ip address? I am confused because i have studied somewhere that hotspot shield vpn actually Only encrypt HTTP and HTTPS protocols so if i run nmap port scanner throw Ms dos command line or any other this type of software or tool by ms word will all my traffic pass by VPN or my real ip? I will select the best answer immediately after i get clean explanation from anybody :) Thanks in advance

OK. So I have a box, a little bigger than a piece of paper. I want to give said box to somebody in 6th period on the last day of school. I have 5th period with said somebody, and they are usually pretty much last out of class. I want to give this box to them, but not actually be there, and I want it to be the end of the day. My original idea was to stuff it in their band locker... But... We won't be using those for the rest of the year. Then I thought, what if I was to beat said somebody out of class, run to their sixth period, and tell the teacher they left it in another class, all in time to make it out without them seeing me? I would probably have a timeframe of less than a minute to talk to this teacher, but I don't know... That would be cutting it pretty close, and what if they were the first out of the class then? Then I would be screwed. I may be able to convince a teacher to help me out, like maybe hold said somebody back on the last day to give me more time. I don't know. Any ideas?

We already have a chair in the office that twitters your toots, but now there's a bed that tweets when you get busy. The anonymous creator made this bed for his anonymous friend and it lets the world know when the action begins and ends and the intensity of the action. Too much information? We'll see. Link

A cool new video from Denki Groove that showcases a legion of anonymous divers. Insanely dangerous coordination? Well... the title of the song is "Fake It," so...

I want to be able to link up school computers, and send messages, like in winpopup, and send files, anonymously. I don't know it the computers are networked, can anyone helpe?

I was wondering if there was anyone out there that had one of these and could think of an improvised one and make in instructable, because 60$ is alot. I would also like it to be pocket sized, and able to hold ur " anonymous herb" in without leaking.

A great Harry Potter project even non-fans will like. Ran across this while looking for interesting clock projects. The author remains anonymous on his blog.  Magic Whereabouts Clock

"The right to engage in anonymous speech, particularly anonymous political or religious speech, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment," Agee wrote, citing a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case."By prohibiting false routing information in the dissemination of e-mails," the court ruled, Virginia's anti-spam law infringes on that protected right ."ISPs were outraged. "Horrendous," said Jon Praed of the Internet Law Group, which has represented America Online, Verizon and other Internet providers. "The idea that someone can intrude on someone else's mail server, because they might be reciting the Gettysburg Address? I guess a burglar can break into your home as long as they are reciting the Gettysburg Address." Link to the article....

Hello, I wonder if you have any information or guidance on the following:- Is there a service which transfers content from handwritten letters, or in images, such as in a fax service, to typed text which can then be sent to an e-mail address? Would there be some sort of security / anonymity / privacy involved, as there is with e-mails and post? Many people who require help on benefits, housing (travellers, homeless) do not necessarily have access to a computer, yet most of this information and guidance is available online. This is great for those who have access, but what about for those who have not? I know of PO Boxes which give anonymity, but this only works from one person to another, and only with written material. Any ideas or suggestions of such a service would be much appreciated. Ephemerol9

Does anyone else here feel like they might as well have a full time job at instructables? I need some kind of Instructablers Anonymous group. I wouldn't be surprised if I spend 40 hours a week on here. (Can any of the staff members check that for me?) Anyways...I'm sure I'm not alone here...

Hey, world! I have a challenge for you.  Your mission... should  you choose to accept it... Is to photoshop that picture of the eye down there better than anyone else! Yop. AND IF YOU WIN! You won't get anything. Sorry. This is just for fun! :D  The deadline is TBD (to be determined), so go and manipulate!! Post your entries in the comments. **EDIT: Because an anonymous person *cough* ^kiteman^ ,your photoshop must resemble an eye. ***EDIT No. 2: The deadline in January 31!

I'm not able to open the editor. I get an error in the javascript console: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'Go' of undefined     at loadEditor (EEZ9RA7IPCYCPKA:1260)     at EEZ9RA7IPCYCPKA:1285 loadEditor @ EEZ9RA7IPCYCPKA:1260 (anonymous) @ EEZ9RA7IPCYCPKA:1285 Resources: https://www.instructables.com/static/drag_editor/deploy/editorcss.html5.min.56.css https://www.instructables.com/static/drag_editor/deploy/SCRIPT_MANIFEST.102.js https://www.instructables.com/static/drag_editor/deploy/editor.html5uploader.min.133.js all return 404 and I assume are required for the editor. Thanks

Just curious of your thoughts on the /b/ raids on Scientology...If you're not "in the know" as they say....1. http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3992707 TPB torrent for the new docs2. http://partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology Project Chanology (name of the raid) boiler plate3. [http://web.archive.org/web/20070531071115/http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/media-newsroom/5000-reward/ 5,000 reward from the church of scientology to catch anonymous]4. Wired Magazine to explain what I'm talking about5. http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/ YTMND on scientology

After seeing hay_jumper's post office art and revenge of the post office art instructables, I decided to give it a whack. Just so proper respect is given where due please note that l read hay's instructables once and remembered the ideas several months later that's how awesome this idea is.I wanted to make a creative valentine's card for a special friend who happens to be very very talented at all that creative stuff that I tend to suck at. I figured the best way to impress her was to FAKE IT!I basically copied what hay did except l most importantly used a heart-shaped fence to make a specific shape and a (much) smaller stylus than his second project. The pictures should explain most of this madness. The stylus was made with two square layers of foam i cut and PLENTY of glue (in between layers as well as in/around pencil holes.Aftermath: I decided to send it anonymously and she called the middle man (who I used to add further anonymity as well as shipping time) and told her how awesome it was and asked for my phone number. THIS SHIT WORKS, GENTLEMEN. TAKE NOTE!

Some of you probably already know this, but Windows Phone is having an app contest where you post an idea for an app and if you win they give you $5K and dev your app for you. These are some that I thought were cool. Post 'em if you got 'em :D BTW, you can vote anonymously. phone as POV display:   http://tinyurl.com/wp7POV level up your ingame characters from your phone:    http://bit.ly/wp7game phone as 360 controller:    http://www.windowsphone7.com/longlink

For my latest website, I have created a MySQL database to store user-submitted data. Currently for the homepage a PHP script connects to the database and selects a random row to display on the page. The table is set out like this: ID               Quote                 Author                Category 21              blah                    anonymous        Life 22              hdhshs               anonymous        Food I wanted to create a page where when a user goes to www.example.com/post.php?id=45 , it displays the row with the ID number of 45. That I have done successfully. But now I want to create a page where if you go to, say: www.example.com/cat.php?catergory=Life, where it lists all rows under Life. But after tweaking the code for the Post page, it doesn't seem to work. Code for Post Page: $user="**********"; $password="**********";$database="**********"; $connection=mysql_connect('**********',$user,$password);@mysql_select_db($database) or die( "Unable to select database");  $sql = "SELECT * FROM `quotes` WHERE `id` = " . mysql_real_escape_string ( $_GET['id'] );  mysql_select_db ( $database, $connect ); if ( @mysql_query ( $sql ) )  { $query = mysql_query ( $sql );   $row = mysql_fetch_assoc ( $query );   echo '' . $row['quote'] . '#' . $row['id'] . ''; }  else { die ( mysql_error () );  }?> What do I need to change in the above code, to display a list of every row in the database with a category of whats in the URL?  This is my first time running a MySQL database, so sorry if the code is a bit squiffy.

I am asking for anyone and everyone who has ever had experience storing and/or transporting tools to help me out. I am designing a new  product for tools and I need input. Please take my short (10 question) survey. No personal information is collected. It is totally anonymous. You would be helping out a fellow maker in a major way. Thank you so much. Here's the link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BMLTGW5 P.S. If you could also share pictures or your toolboxes/storage areas I'd appreciate the data. Thanks again!

Hi everyone! I'm an Industrial Design student at the Rhode Island School of Design and am working on a project investigating DIY/Hacker culture. I'm truly inspired and fascinated with all the people posting on sites like Instructables and would love to learn a little more about the community/culture. Please please please take a few quick minutes to help me answer some survey questions! It's anonymous and I would love any input I can get! Find it here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3RHH2M9 Thank you very much!! :) - Tina P.S. Let me know below if you'd be willing to help me with further questions down the line!

HELP Please: Hi everyone! I'm an Industrial Design student at the Rhode Island School of Design and am working on a project investigating DIY/Hacker culture. I'm truly inspired and fascinated with all the people posting on sites like Instructables and would love to learn a little more about the community/culture. Please please please take a few quick minutes to help me answer some survey questions! It's anonymous and I would love any input I can get! Find it here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3RHH2M9 Thank you very much!! :) - Tina P.S. Let me know below if you'd be willing to help me with further questions down the line!

Just a random tidbit: 4chan is considered the bad side of the surface internet, full of trolls, disgusting imagery, and all kinds of things your average person doesn't need to know about. You may have heard of them in relationship to ANONYMOUS, #cutforbeiber, or any one of a number of cyber bullying incidents. Anywho, 4chan actually has some pretty well instituted rules, and it even has a DIY forum, although you have been warned about what you may find out how to make there. Well, it so happens that the famous site looks to Instructables as a standard of content and how to share projects. Picture is a direct copypasta from the rules.

I've noticed that the images and the "I made it" header have disappeared from all of my Instructables where people had posted them in the comments section, the comment itself remains, but no images. I've also checked on I'bles where I posted an "I made it" and those images have gone too, any idea what's going on here? The problem only occurs when I am logged-in, if I view anonymously they appear as expected. The following I'ble is a good example as it contains a few "I made it" comments: instructables.com/id/Enchanted-Rose-Beauty-and-the-Beast UPDATE: This issue now appears to have been resolved, everything is behaving as expected.

I have a weird problem: when I turn off my floor fan, my computer wakes up from standby. I have tried a different fan, similar problem happens, except when I turn on the fan. I have previously ignored this problem, but my computer started acting weird and eventually failed completely. I found a bunch of capacitors in my PSU are blown. I recapped and it's working again. What is causing the problem, and are there some fix? (not using a fan is not an option) My setup: outlet <- cheater plug <- power strip <- everything else                                                                      ^                                                             power strip <- fan The second power strip is used due to length constraints. Here at college dormitory each student only get one ungrounded socket, hence the cheater plug.

I was checking my pro membership today because it expires in a few weeks and I noticed I had a 1 year pro membership code in my account. Now the weird thing is I received no PM about it or anything. I had previously gotten a 3mo membership from having a featured instructable. I received a PM when that one appeared statin that because my instructable was featured I had received a free 3 mo membership. With this one, there is no PM of any sort. Its not from winning a contest because i haven't won any cosntests (i checked all 4 that I have entered). It just appeared there. If it was an anonymous gift from someone I would still think I would get a PM. Now I'm not complaining, I just was totally surprised by it being there and was wondering where it came from. Thanks!

We seem to be attracting a number of troubled souls at the moment.Without wanting to reject any cries for help outright, most people here are ill-equipped to offer useful, non-judgemental advice.If you are reading this in the UK, may I recommend The Samaritans?I have had personal experience of their services when trying to help a close friend who tried to commit suicide, and I found them to be clear, rational people with a far better understanding of the depressed or teenage mind than I do.Their website is http://www.samaritans.orgTheir email address is jo@samaritans.orgTheir phone number in the UK is 08457 90 90 90Their phone number in the ROI is 1850 60 90 90If you are not in the UK/ROI then they recommend using http://www.befrienders.org/ to find similar help and advice in your country.As I said, this is not meant as a rejection - we will help if we can - but there are people infinitely better at providing suitable, non-judgemental, anonymous advice.If any American readers know of similar organisations in the US, please add links to their websites.

Sometimes I wonder how we earned our reputation as a seafaring nation... A DIY sailor had to be rescued by the Lyme Regis coastguard and lifeboat after taking to the sea in a DIY yacht consisting mainly of two coffin-sized plywood boxes and an iron bed frame. The anonymous man had spent several days on the beach, lashing his vessel together.  It was so obviously unseaworthy that the coastguard and lifeboat crews warned him not to put to sea. Unfortunately, he did put to sea off Charmouth.  On an out-going tide in an offshore breeze. Within yards, onlookers had to call emergency services, and the lifeboat insisted on towing the (for want of a better word) boat back to the beach.  The captain had been unable to make headway against the breeze with his home-made oars... I've got to wonder... how many of our own authors have been in a similar situation? (You get all the serious news in the Daily Mail...)

I love this so hard. The fine folks at 2600 put up all of the talks from The Last HOPE (Hackers Of Planet Earth)  (all of them as far as I can tell, anyway) up as free mp3 downloads here: http://www.thelasthope.org/talks.html  The hacker* talk subjects range from escaping high security handcuffs, to cold boot utilities, to Anonymous, to Wikipedia's sleaziness to ballot hacking and everything in between. Featured speakers include such guys and gals as Adam Savage, Jello Biafria, Kevin Mitnick, Marcia Wilbur and many, many more. My mp3 player is filled with techy goodness for hours and hours of sweet listening. Both High quality/Large size and Lower quality/small size are available.  *Don't talk about the identity-stealing, male, trouble making criminal hackers and make me have to track you down and beat you to death with a length of CAT 5 cable

Hi everyone,Instructables readers may already know about the community of blind woodworkers from pages like ww4b.org. The university I am affiliated with (OCADU), and my research group are interested in bringing the expertise of all blind woodworkers into more and more classrooms. This includes post secondary institutions (colleges, universities), makerspaces, and anywhere else it might be useful. We currently have an open dialogue with some professional blind woodworkers, and have enrolled in woodworking classes at non-profit facilities for the visually impaired. But we are looking to learn from anyone else who has first hand knowledge of teaching woodworking (or other kinds of making) to visually impaired students.If this sounds like you or you are interested, please see the details at this instructables link: https://www.instructables.com/id/Blind-Woodworkin...If you have more questions, feel free to pm me.The instructable provides an option to do the survey via phone, but if you want to jump right into the anonymous online survey, here is a link.https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdoRLx0lC...BestEric

Recently, I saw someone use a variation the phrase "You have no right to say that".  Location and who said that are not important.  Anyways, my bull detector went off, so I just decided to post this topic. For all the people who have used this phrase before, guess what?  They still said it.  The receivers of this skewered phrase obviously don't care if they don't have the right to say it, which brings me to this train of thought: Why do we call it a "Right"?  Most times people say it as if it was not a legal right at all, but matter of fact is, that most conversation on the internet is not really anything to involve cops or authorities in (Well, at least the conversations with the phrase I mentioned above), so why are we treating this as something straight out of the constitution or bill of rights or whatever? Offtopic: I kept the poster of the comment and the location of the comment anonymous for a reason.  It would be smart for him/her to not blow it with a poorly written comment. Why I posted this topic: There have been a bunch of phrases on the internet (some offensive with cuss words and whatnot) that don't make sense when you go by their definition, and I felt like ruining one of them.

After showing off something that I've worked on or made there will be someone, usually anonymous on the internet, who will say, "This guy clearly has too much time on his hands."Yet these same people will gladly spend hours on blogs or on digg making comments. If there was ever a worthless way to throw away your voice online, commenting on digg is one of the best. Or maybe youtube. There's no point to that for anyone.For me it's a matter of priorities. I don't watch TV and only occasionally watch movies. I think that for many people it's possible to get free time. The hard part is deciding which way to use it. People are clearly willing to spend it on distractions. It was recently announced that the average WoW player spends 17 hours a week online. And according to the A.C. Nielsen Co. the average TV viewer watches 28 hours a week. That's a lot of building time.So when someone says that I have a lot of time on my hands I can just laugh and know that I'm putting my time where I want to. It helps that I don't have kids, I know, but there are many others in the same situation as myself who work hard on keeping up on their cultural knowledge and that's about it.Time to make something new.

Hello! My name is Ben Shultz (bshultz@utk.edu) and I'm a PhD student in Geography at the University of Tennessee. I'm conducting a survey to further our understanding of innovation and creativity in DiY projects. I'm particularly interested in creative inspirations, motivations, and level of participation in DiY projects. Many scholars research innovation and creativity, but overlook the incredible richness and quality of innovation/creativity in DiY communities. I'd like to conduct one of very few academic examinations of the DiY ethos and community.I'd like to invite you to participate in my project by taking a 10-minute survey on the web. The results of this survey are for university research only, and are completely unaffiliated with marketing or other for-profit institutions. All responses are anonymous. Link to survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/131093/a9nnwYou can follow the progress of this research at my blog (diydissertation.blogspot.com) where I will post write-ups and aggregated results. You may freely share any of the information posted there. Feel free to contact me at bshultz@utk.edu if you have any questions.Thank you so much for helping me gather data for my dissertation. I hope to offer you back useful and interesting information on DiY communities once I'm finished.Ben ShultzUniversity of TennesseeDepartment of GeographyLink to survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/131093/a9nnw(Note: Eric Wilhelm has approved this post!)

Hello, I am writing my dissertation on the role of DIY and Amateur design and how/if it challenges the established professional design process. I would really love to have opinions and ideas from amateur designer's and DIYer's ( not amateur in a derogatory sense, but as the design and making process that exist outside out business and industry, for fun or nessessity) included in my essay, as it seems really contradictory and silly to be championing the role of non-professionals but only asking professionals for their input.  I would really like ideas on the motivations behind unpaid design and making, examples of sucsesful/unsucsessful amateur design practice, where you feel your output stands in the wider field of design and society, whether its importance is personal to you or has wider implications, is it about individual expression? helping others through design solutions or simply a fun way to pass the time? is it a challenge to the role of the professional designer? thankyou very much for taking the time to read this, it would be great if you could give me a quick introduction to you and where your coming from along with any opinions, anecdotes etc, just to give it some context, also my tutors don't seem to take well to anonymous quotes. any way, thanks again, hope to hear from you soon!

Hello everyone!  I've got some patches that are burning a hole in my pocket, and I'd love to share them with you! Here is my plan:  on a not at all regular schedule, I will come up with a harebrained idea for a strange and/or difficult to acquire picture.  I will take an example picture and post it in the community blog.  You will then go and take your own version of said picture and post it here in the comments, and in return I will send you a patch.  Sound good?  This needs to be your original picture, but if you feel the need to cover your face or whatever, that's fine.  Just make sure that you identify yourself in some way, say with a sign or something with your username on it.  For example, if I cared about preserving my anonymity I would wear a paper bag over my head with eye holes cut out and "Depot Devoid" written on it in sharpie. Photoshop is fine to touch up pictures, but don't overdo it.  I don't want any pictures that are completely photoshopped fabrications . . . unless they are really awesome.  I reserve the right to be the sole judge of what is awesome and my decisions are totally arbitrary and cannot be appealed to a higher authority.  I AM THE HIGHER AUTHORITY MWA HA HA HA!!!! Anyway, here's your first Photo Scavenger Hunt objective:  A picture of you and your mom (or grandma, or some reasonable facsimile thereof), engaged in lightsaber combat . . . to the death! Go forth my minions, and bring me pictures!

I am in search of educators and students using Instructables as part of a course or class. I would like to present at my state and national art education conference in the next year on how to use Instructables.com as a resource for student learning, sharing, critique, and assessment, but I have not been able to try this yet in my own classroom. It is a hope for the future, as my district has Instructables blocked through our web filter presently. If you are using Instructables for any of these purposes or know of someone who is, please drop me a line through a comment or PM so we might connect and share thoughts and experiences.   I'm posting this in feedback, because I am unaware of any way to find these people otherwise. Could there be some way to search for users that have added a particular city, state, or country to their profile? A profession section in the profile that is also searchable would be helpful as well.  Additionally, I am all for web anonymity and staying safe online, but it seems rare for authors to include their location in their profile. Requiring or encouraging authors to include at least the country of origin would  make it easier to understand and connect with those who come from a country or state/province/county that is not your own. For example, if I see an ible with less than perfect grammar or spelling, it is easier to overlook when I see that the author is not from an english speaking country. I have my state listed on my location, because we Texans have some pretty unique traditions and perspectives that may seem foreign even to those in another state. 

Hi,I was uploading this code to my esp8266 on the arduino IDE app and I got the the error in the image I have included. It also would not show that the nodemcu was plugged in when it is plugged in and shows it is on. Can someone please help me solve it. I have already downloaded and run the driver for the nodemcu. Here is the whole code with the libraries if you need it. Thank you so much!#include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include /*========================================================================== IOT Weather Station By: "Anonymous" ==========================================================================*/ #define FIREBASE_HOST "#########" // Enter the Firebase Database URL Without Https and backslash #define WIFI_SSID "Enter your WiFI SSID" // Change the name of your WIFI #define WIFI_PASSWORD "WIFI PASSWORD" // Change the password of your WIFI #define DHTPIN 14 // Data Pin of DHT 11 , for NodeMCU D5 GPIO no. is 14 #define DHTTYPE DHT11 // DHT 11 DHT dht(DHTPIN, DHTTYPE); void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); WiFi.begin (WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD); while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) { delay(500); Serial.print("."); } dht.begin(); pinMode(4,INPUT); // Data Pin of Rain Sensor , for NodeMCU D2 GPIO no. is 4 Serial.println (""); Serial.println ("WiFi Connected!"); Firebase.begin(FIREBASE_HOST); } void loop() { float h = dht.readHumidity(); float t = dht.readTemperature(); // Reading temperature as Celsius (the default) int r = digitalRead(4); // Reading the Rain Sensor Data Firebase.setFloat ("Temperature",t); Serial.println(t); Firebase.setFloat ("Humidity",h); Serial.println(h); if (r == 1) { Firebase.setString("Rain", "Yeah"); Serial.println("its raining"); } else { Firebase.setString("Rain", "Nah"); Serial.println("no rains today"); } delay(200); }

Hi Everybody:My name is Ben Shultz and I'm a PhD student in Geography at the University of Tennessee (check out my department's page here: http://web.utk.edu/~utkgeog/grads_home.htm). Just wanted to post here one more time to ask you to participate in my short survey for research I'm conducting on DiY communities. It takes less than ten minutes, is completely anonymous, and is for academic research only. Many of you already have participated and really appreciate it! If you haven't yet, below is a little blurb about my study. Link to survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/131093/a9nnwThanks for your time and happy Mother's Day!Overview:In academics we have traditionally viewed innovation and creativity from the perspective of a large corporation. But we have overlooked the incredibly innovative and creative ideas that come out of the DiY community.With its substantial web presence and an ethos based on sharing and repurposing knowledge, the DiY movement changes how and where innovations come about. Rather than protecting innovations or charging for access, the DiY community freely reveals designs from start to finish on the Internet. The non-hierarchical, open manner in which creative media are produced in this setting democratizes the innovation process and opens creative pursuits to a geographically distributed public.As part of my research, I'm conducting a simple web-based survey to get an idea of where makers are (I'm in geography after all!), how they share knowledge, and what influences their creative endeavors.With my dissertation, I plan to reciprocate the DiY ethos and keep my research as open as possible. I am keeping a blog of all my research progress, including write-ups and aggregated results, and inviting anyone interested to use the information. You can check out my blog, DiY Dissertation (http://diydissertation.blogspot.com). I hope to offer you back useful and interesting information on both the research process and the DiY community.

I wish I'd posted this a while ago, but I think I was remembering a post in some other forum as being on here. I'm not selling these or making money, I just think it's cool.2009 is the International Astronomical Union's International Year of Astronomy, in recognition of both Galileo's first recorded astronomical observations and Kepler's publishing Astronomia Nova. As a part of this whole thing, the Galileoscope was created.Although most astronomers/telescope enthusiasts discourage buying telescopes of this size, because they are usually crap, and just discourage you with lousy views, this one was designed by professional astronomers. While it is largely plastic to keep costs down, the lenses are high-quality glass achromatic doublet lenses, which are usually found in much more expensive 'scopes. The other cool part about this project is that you can anonymously donate a telescope, and it will be sent to someone who can use it, whether it's a homeschooling family in Iowa or a schoolhouse in southeast Asia.Oh, and the best part: the telescope is $15. You really can't beat that price, and shipping is only $8.95 in the US. If you donate one, it's $12.50 with no shipping charges. I bought one, even though I have a larger telescope, as a more portable one for quick peeks at planets and to take on trips.Buy one! Or two! And donate some! They're cheap!Update 30 Aug 09: due to increased manufacturing costs since they started production, the price has been raised to $20 plus shipping to buy one, and $15 with no shipping to donate one. Still a heck of a deal, though.Second Update 2 September 09: ZOMG IT'S HERE! I should have just ordered the thing when I first heard about it. I was order #22,670, and the first 20,000 were shipped in mid-June. I have it, though, and I'll be posting an Instructable with assembly instructions as soon as I get around to it, and pictures taken through it once this stupid overcast blows over.

There's an excellent thread over on Slashdot ( yeah - who knew, right?) about electronic kits for adults. *Lots of great suggestions and links - check it out!Best Electronics Kits For Adults?Posted by kdawson on Friday June 20, @10:19AMfrom the resistance-is-futile dept.An anonymous reader writes "I'm an adult looking to learn how electronics work and have some fun building projects. But all the kits I've found online are for kids 8-10 years old, and they don't really explain the principles - they just color-code where to place components on boards. Are there any kits aimed at adults? I know if anyone has got the answer, it's this community." Here's a short selection of good links - many more to be found in the Slashdot thread itself:HeathKit and Velleman - The classics, but mostly mentioned as an example of the "not aimed at adults" or the "not as good as they used to be" categoryQuasar Electronics 200-in-1- 200 projects in one kit! MakerShed - bunch of cool projects, many of which you've seen here at Instructables! Electronics Learning Lab Designed by Forrest Mims and sold by radio shack.What is a Microcontroller - Another "exception to the rule" good Radio shack kit.Ramsey Electronics - Including some nice radio transmitter kitsAdaFruit - Including the MintyBoost USB charger and Arduino kits.Nerdkit - For microcontroller and real-world/computer interaction.One other common recommendation is "You're an adult, you don't need to put up with big brightly colored components and "put tab A in slot B" diagrams - make your own kit!"US Navy Electricity & Electronics Training Series (NEETS) - All the practical electronics training you could want, in a free online PDF book format.Lessons In Electric Circuits - A free series of textbooks on the subjects of electricity and electronics.Sparkfun tutorials - Dozens of cool projects and tutorials from a major parts supplier.Getting Started in Electronics - By Forrrest Mims; cited by several readers as the de-facto standard for learning electronics.

Here's an interesting point of view for moderating a web forum. Our "be nice" policy is similar, but doesn't reach this level. I have spent long periods of time thinking about and debating how to value the contributions of essentially anonymous authors. Anyone can contribute an Instructable, forum topic, or comment, and their value varies wildly. Would Instructables be better if we aggressively pruned contributions deemed to be low value? How would we do so in a scalable way? Catching swear words is a good first step, and maybe misspellings are next, but reviewing content is really best done by humans. Should each Instructable author be able to moderate the comments on their Instructables? We've been loathe to do this because the potential for abuse seems to outweigh any benefit. Democratic systems are good in theory, but in practice a vocal minority tends to dominate the conversation. Moderating a forum is fairly straightforward: knowing what you want, deleting entire threads that aren't going anywhere, correcting the spelling of the word "it's," fixing URLs, deleting individual contributions that fail to advance the thread. It helps to have experience writing and editing (and reading student papers, refereeing journal articles, reviewing manuscripts and grant proposals).As clearly indicated to potential contributors, we do a lot of deleting--only about half of all submitted contributions survive for more than a month. This doubtless hurts a few feelings but substantially raises the quality of the board. Very few published contributions are edited at all, other than silently to correct spelling, update an URL, or to delete a sour note in an otherwise good answer. Our view is that every contribution to Ask E.T. should advance the analytical quality of the thread. We particularly seek to avoid the chronic internet disease of "All Opinions, All the Time." The idea is to have an interesting and excellent board on analytical design that serves the content and the readers, not a board logging every attempt at publication. We also are ruthless in deleting contributions with incivilities, rants, taunts, and personal commentary on other contributors....For some boards, a bozo filter may prove useful by automatically deflecting certain trigger words. My friend Philip Greenspun constructed a filter at photo.net which bounced all those who misspelled the word "aperture," on the grounds that they did not know much about photography.Our experiences in moderating a forum: What's best, not what's newThanks to Nivi for the find.

Hi... This is an open letter.. made with a new id which i will never use again.. i promise you that my sole intention is for instructible to be better. Lately it's been very difficult for me to follow the one rule "be nice policy"... I'm still trying very hard... It's been made very hard by the newsletter editor, or whoever's job it is to choose which instructible to feature..  It's like you just choose randomly (or is this the case???), some times it's such a ridiculous ible that i can't hold my self much longer.. I want to be nasty in the comments of the ible.. But it's not the ible's writer's fault..  S/he's just making and sharing what s/he wants and i wouldn't even open the ible if it wasn't featured!!! To me, featuring means that you think it's a really nice piece and everyone should have a look at it.. it's brilliant! it's new!! it's unique! A little screening should be done prior to featuring.. Featuring doesn't mean "hey guys.. look at these random pages and see what you think.. or whatever..." Some of the ible's that was featured lately  that i dont think that everybody should see: "is my sweater blue?"  i admit it's a funny one.. well written.. yet it's pointless!  anticlimactic! i was expecting so much more only because it was featured. If i stumbled on it on my own, i wouldn't have put so much expectation and wont be too disappointed.. might even enjoy the joke..  it was 1st of march!!! Not april fools!!!!! "router hack"  more like router 101..  or how to use your router.. look at all the breach in the be-nice-policy comments... I wont even comment there..  A few was a re-post of older ible, some even a only re-make (i dont want to say plagiarism), and few more i care to remember... Were they innovative? were they interesting? were they everyone-must-see material? subjectively i say NO, NO, and NO. But if i look at the other commenting on them, mostly breaching the be nice policy, i'm not alone! I'm seriously starting to see instructible newsletter to be more junk lately.. Not like before when i got excited everytime one arrives in my inbox.. now i'm like "meh.. gotta screen to these stuff again because someone didn't do his/her job properly"... Please do something about this.. I'm worried that instructible would spiral down into the abyss, becoming flamming troll land due to the domino effect from negative comments making others feeling negative and spreading like a virus.. If it happens, there's only one to blame: unscreened newsletter featuring undeserving ibles. So i say again: please.. please.. please.. Anonym

Embedding a Github gist results in code with random whitespace missing. To reproduce:  1. Edit an Instructable.  2. Click the "add" button, then click "Video".  3. In the URL field, enter the URL of a Github gist (for example, https://gist.github.com/anonymous/c4286979ded2d927b40a71fdd75038df)  4. Click "Preview", then "Done".  5. Save changes to the Instructable, then view it. The embedded code from Github will be mostly correct, but random whitespace characters will be missing (both leading whitespace and whitespace between words).  In the attached screenshot, the code inside the function is supposed to have 4 leading spaces.  The function signature should also read "static int pad_open" instead of running everything together.  You can view the original code using the URL above to compare what's being displayed with what's actually showing up. It's not clear whether this is a bug on the Instructables side or on the Github side.  I don't have any way to debug it from my end, so I thought I'd ask about it here before complaining to Github. I am using Firefox v52.0.2 on Windows 7 (64-bit). Update: I poked around using Firefox's development mode, and it looks like this is indeed a problem on the Instructables side.  I inspected the HTML source for the embedded gist and compared it to what I got directly from github (using 'wget' on the command line to fetch the content).  It appears that the Instructables site is doing some sort of post-processing on the results that is removing critical whitespace:  - Whitespace at the beginning of a line is sometimes deleted.  Lines inside the function in my example should be indented four spaces.  The function's comment block should have all of the star characters lined up vertically; the second row displays correctly, but not the third.  - Whitespace between words with syntax highlighting gets removed.  The function prototype is missing spaces between "static", "int", and "pad_open".  Whitespace between formatted and non-formatted elements seems to be correct, as is seen after the keyword "struct" on that same line. If I turn on Firefox's developer tools (Ctrl+Shift+I), I can edit the page's source to add in the spaces that are present in the straight-from-github version but missing in the Instructables version.  When I do this, the gist displays normally. It feels like something somewhere is trying to compress whitespace in the HTML source in order to save space, but is a bit overzealous and is accidentally eliminating whitespace that's critical for the content to display correctly. Update 2: I have recently seen similar problems when using the HTML view in the pro editor to create a formatted code block manually.  If you manually indent code using "&nbsp;", publish the Instructable, then edit it, you can see that the non-breaking spaces get converted to normal spaces and are then consolidated (which completely ruins the code's alignment).  This further points to the bug being in the code for the editor, and not on the Github side.

Sign-up for our newsletter here. Mar. 27, 2008 Welcome back! Enter the new April Fools' Day speed contest! Show us a clever prank and win some cool prizes. Burning Questions is back with Round 4. Answer a question from our list to win our eternal thanks and an Instructables patch! Both the Pocket-Sized speed contest and Pets Month will be ending in a few days. This is your last weekend to enter! Check out these cool instructables! How to refill a "disposable" Brita brand water pitcher filter with activated carbon. Why buy a replacement filter for $6 to $10 (or more) when you can refill your old filter cartridge housing for about 50 cents?! posted by IAMSatisfied on Mar 24, 2008 Shopping Bag Wallet Make a virtually indestructible wallet with a very surprising design by reusing one of those strong shopping bags. posted by rollin on Mar 24, 2008 Make a Vibrating Dog Collar for a Deaf Dog Hack a remote control car with a dog collar to give yourself a way to call your deaf dog. All for about $5. posted by arcticpenguin on Mar 26, 2008 Make Shingles and Siding Out of Aluminum Cans (Beer Can Roof) This chicken coop is protected by the power of hard work and a lot of beer. posted by robbtoberfest on Mar 24, 2008 15-Minute Halter Top Need a halter top RIGHT NOW? Here's how to make a stylish, no-sew top in just 15 minutes with an old T-shirt and a pair of scissors. posted by Smexy Dead on Mar 24, 2007 Making a PostSecret in Photoshop PostSecret is an online art project that allows people to anonymously mail in postcards with their secrets on them. Try making one of your own. posted by AmandaRose on Mar 23, 2008 What tricks are up your sleeve? Pocket-Sized Speed Contest Give your old shirta new life! Portable speaker in a CD case Now that you only listen to MP3s, try making your own portable speaker in your old CD case. Here's how you do it. posted by fatrickuk on Mar 21, 2008 Fireball Shooter! Make a flaming fireball shooter just like magicians use. Save your cash and make your own! posted by Kipkay on Mar 22, 2008 Transform a boring old black t-shirt with bleach! Here's a way to transform boring old black t-shirts into "something else." It's like tie-dying, but uses bleach to remove the color, instead of adding it. posted by stinkymum on Mar 1823 2008 Pocket Graffiti Pen Crack open a permanent marker to make an impromptu device for getting a funky sprayed-on look. posted by PocketSized on Mar 21, 2008 Green Rainwater Use this simple but beautiful way to collect rainwater for use in your yard so that it need not go to waste. The best part: you can create it yourself. posted by Michelle Kaufmann on Mar 24, 2008 Pink Eraser USB Flash Drive Use an analog icon to hide your flash drive in this digital age. posted by fungus amungus on Mar 26, 2008 Now go make something awesome, and I'll see you next week! - Eric

Sign-up for our newsletter here. Jan. 10, 2008 Welcome back. Instructables is a finalist for Best User-Generated Content Award in the Crunchies over on techcrunch. We'd love to win so vote for us! The Homemade Holidays Contest closes this weekend. Enter now or wait till next year! The Laser Cutter Contest finalists have been announced! Check out these cool instructables! WinXP Overhaul Guide: How to make it look like Vista & run like lightning Give your Windows XP installation a complete overhaul with an updated interface, speed tweaks, and free software. Who needs Vista? posted by CharredPC on Jan 9, 2008 Pipe Loft Bed Get more space in your cramped dorm room with a trip to the hardware store and some quick construction.posted by nerdologist on Jan 5, 2008 Realistic, Animatronic Lion Mask with stereo night vision and amplified hearing Build a realistic lion mask with moving jaw, stereo night vision/color vision system, and amplified hearing augmentation. posted by Solion on Jan 8, 2008 Covert Spy Sunglasses Make your own sunglasses that secretly record video and audio for less than $50. Remember to use these powers for good and not evil, OK? posted by Kipkay on Jan 9, 2008 Making an army of Gromit's (Claymation Mold making) Fancy making a stop-motion animation Aardman style? Chances are that you will need more than one clay figure. You'll likely need an army. posted by edwatkins on Jan 8, 2008 Show off your project and win Lion Brand yarn!Contest closes this weekend! Shadow or Illusion Knitting Shadow knitting, or illusion knitting, is a process of knitting such that the finished piece has a hidden image only viewable from an angle. Learn how.posted by ERNesbitt on Jan 7, 2007 Give your loved one a real "fallen star" It may be romantic to name an anonymous dot in the sky after your loved one, but how about catching a real "fallen star" for them? posted by Kiteman on Jan 6, 2008 Perfect English SconesA recipe for the perfect rustic english scone which goes with sweet or savory foods like clotted cream and jam or parmesan and spinach... yum.posted by dancook on Jan 5, 2008 Noise Free HDD Does your computer's hard drive sound like it's getting ready for lift-off? Use this trick to bring some peace back into your life. posted by liknus on Jan 7, 2008 Turn a TI Graphing Calculator into an Intervalometer and Create Time Lapse Videos A quick and cheap way to make time lapse videos with a DSLR and a calculator that is quick, cheap, and requires little time or skill. posted by yonderknight on Jan 5, 2008 Laser Cutter Finalists! We looked at over 600 entries for the Laser Cutter Contest and decided on 14 finalists for the VersaLaser worth over $15,000. Now the voting is open to Instructables users until Jan. 31. Vote for your favorite Instructables! Check out the 2008 Instructables and Universal Laser Cutter Contest Finalists Announcement to see all the finalists and 20 second prize winners. Or you can go straight to the Voting Page to cast your votes now.   Now go make something awesome, and I'll see you next week! - Eric

I recently made up an outdoor kids adventure game that is really fun for most, but could use help with making the game more fun for all the kids. I conducted an anonymous survey afterwards and a few kids were sad that they didn't get to find the batteries (explained below). My question relates to this. I'm asking here because I figure teachers have tons of experience with kids!The game is called Jurassic Spark. I've written up the details with lots of pictures in this Instructable for the game, but I'll summarize here:Target kid age: 4 to 7 years old (although I plan to continue adapting as kids get older) Scenario: The Jurassic Spark electrified fence has lost power and many dangerous dinosaurs are on the loose. Can our brave explorers (kids) find the high power batteries to energize the fence before it's too late? Watch out for the T-Rex!Player roles: explorers (kids), small dinosaurs (adults), and the terrifying T-Rex (adult)!To win: the explorers need to find and return the 6 high power Batteries back to the Power Station to energize the electric fence before the dinosaurs tag all the explorers. Because the kids are young, the dinosaurs (adults) aren't playing to win, just to make it an exciting challenge. The game lasts around 15 to 20 minutes.Getting tagged: When a dinosaur tags an explorer, the explorer has to freeze and put their arms out like in freeze tag. Frozen explorers are encouraged to yell for assistance "Help! Help! A dino chomped me!" and can be unfrozen by being touched by another free explorer.Tail stealing: The explorers are not completely defenseless, however. The small dinosaurs have tails that can be stolen and they hate that! "Roar! Who stole my tail!?" Tail lacking dinosaurs must return to the dinosaur pen before they can regrow their tail and return to hunting. I feel that this is a very important part of the game as it brings balance and a whole lot of fun. It also encourages lots of exciting team building as kids will often gang up on a dino to take it down or distract it. Once the electric fence is powered up, dinos that have their tails stolen are trapped in the pen until the game ends (usually only a minute or two).T-REX: To up the level of excitement, we add a T-Rex wild card into the mix! The T-Rex cannot be stopped and loves chomping on explorers! There's nothing quite like seeing a giant roaring T-Rex head chase or stalk their cute tiny prey :)We played the game with 20 kids, 6 small dinosaurs, and 1 T-Rex.Question: How can I make the game more fun for the kids that feel left out because they didn't find a battery? We made a rule that a kid can only return one battery per game, but there are 6 batteries and 20 kids. The older kids tended to find the batteries each game. My gut is telling me that I wouldn't be able to handle a game with 20 batteries.The part that makes this extra challenging is that the kids are young and I can't make too many complicated rules. We'll add complexity as they grow older with tranquilizer darts and stuff like that :)If you are interested in reading all the survey feedback, it is near the bottom of the Instructable.Thanks!Adam