Conscience of the Hacker... via Google Translate

I took a paragraph of the Conscience of the Hacker (aka the Hacker Manifesto):

This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.

... and ran it through Google Translate several times. Specifically, from English to Arabic, and then to Bulgarian, Chinese, Filipino, Finnish, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Russian, Thai, Polish and back into English. Here's what I came up with:

We are in the world ... Now the world speed electronic switch is not. We will use the service if the cost is very low, and not on income, call the search of criminals. You can find the perpetrator ... I call. We are in the crime ... We know that you are interested in our skin color, nationality and religion, without discrimination on the criminals ... Please let us know. I have the atomic bomb, the war of murder, fraud and payroll fraud, we think we believe that the offender does not go.

April Maker Challenge 30/30: Mystery Box

In this video, Star Trek director JJ Abrams describes how he got a sealed "mystery box" full of magic tricks as a kid, but has never opened it. For him, the possibilities of its imagined contents will always beat the reality of opening it up. I want a mystery box.

April Maker Challenge 29/30: Pop

DSCF0020, originally uploaded by improbcat.

I've always been a soda fan, and I want to formulate my own. I'd like to make orange pop, root beer, cola, grape, and grapefruit pop.

April Maker Challenge 28/30: Kid-Friendly Communications Device

Supposedly Woz and his best friend communicated via a wired intercom they stretched between their houses, using parts given them my nerd-friendly PacBell linemen. (Dude, I haven't read iWoz in ages so I might have mangled that story.)

One failure of the classic intercom is if the other person isn't there, no communication takes place. What I'm envisioning is an arduino-controlled system where messages can be transmitted to and stored at the remote site.

My original idea is to not have a keyboard, instead using keywords like Food, Sleep, Ball, Movie, Ball, and would be intended for kids who haven't learned how to read yet. Maybe there could be four words, chose by turning knobs, and you press a button to hit "send" -- and the receiving station shows those four keywords. One station could be in one kid's room and the other would be in the other kid's room.

(I tell ya, cell phones and laptops take all the fun out of walkie-talkies and intercoms.)

April Maker Challenge 27/30: Geodesic Dome

geodesic dome patent and color-coded packaging plan, originally uploaded by Shira Golding.

Wouldn't it be awesome to be a kid with a geodesic dome playhouse? My kids would be stoked. I'd love to be the nerddad who could make that happen. I'm sure the frame would be the expensive part.

April Maker Challenge 26/30: Audio Lock

A lock, controlled by an arduino, that requires that you whistle a specific tune for the lock to pop. Would the signal-to-noise limitations of whistling into a cheap microphone limit its use? Would it only work with one person's whistling, the way voice recognition software has (had?) to be fine-tuned before it works?

April Maker Challenge 25/30: Wearable Electronics

complete LilyPad Arduino set, originally uploaded by leahbuechley.

I wanna add electronics to clothing. My current thought is to use it to send data to me by non-audio or video means. A tactile interface, perhaps, using a subtle vibration unit. Or even scent -- imagine getting a whiff of juniper every time you walked through an unsecured wifi hotspot?