#Ideas
232 postsVancouver SkyTrain PCB v3 - generated from real geography
The third redesign of the Vancouver SkyTrain PCB, built from real map data instead of hand-drawn artwork
Read postMixxtape - a cassette you can actually record on
A cassette-shaped PCB, sized to fit a real Norelco case, that actually records
Read postA variation of the useless machine idea
ChatGPT pretends to be a useless machine and tries to stop you from flipping the switch.
Read postPCB Metro maps retrospective
Retrospective of the Vancouver SkyTrain and Washington DC Metro PCB maps with LEDs that light up as trains arrive.
Read postDodecahedron PCB Retrospective
What went right and wrong building a dodecahedron lamp from twelve LED pentagon PCBs, about $60 USD from JLCPCB for 25 panels.
Read postDodecahedron PCB Design
Design notes for a pentagon PCB panel with addressable LEDs, twelve of which weld together into a dodecahedron lamp.
Read postUSB-C PD Power Bank to Resmed AirMini or Airsense CPAP
A roughly $150 DIY battery for a Resmed CPAP built from a USB-C PD power bank, a trigger cable and a 24V boost converter.
Read post100 ideas project retrospective (2023)
Looking back at 100 days of daily project ideas in 2023, what got built, what got scrapped, and why I burned out doing it.
Read postIdea 100 - Lavender Farm
Plans for a Gulf Islands lavender farm with distillery, beehives, chickens, and a hillside field for retirement.
Read postIdea 099 - Stevens projects club
A Patreon subscription where members receive one of Steven's small hardware projects twice a year.
Read postIdea 098 - All that are lost
A resin-covered pendant with a round LCD and GPS that points toward a new geohash location each morning.
Read postIdea 097 - Modern decoder ring
A decoder ring replacement with a screen and buttons that encrypts messages using modern public-key cryptography.
Read postIdea 096 - Boom numbers go up
A top-down survival game in the style of Crimsonland and Disgaea where everything can be leveled up.
Read postIdea 095a - Light Graffiti Projector
A cheap stencil projector made from a plastic lens, cardboard tubes and a flashlight that casts a message onto a building.
Read postIdea 095b - Dot Matrix water printer bike carriage
A bike-towed carriage with a row of 16 water nozzles that spells messages in dots of water on the sidewalk.
Read postIdea 100 plus
Ideas that came after the 100 day project or missed the cut, starting with a capacitive touch Ouija board that doubles as a MIDI controller.
Read postIdea 094 - Quickest way to rank a list of ideas
A quicksort-based web tool that ranks a long list of ideas with the fewest possible head-to-head comparisons.
Read postIdea 093 - Video Quotes and Truisms
A video series of puppets reciting popular quotes and truisms, posted to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.
Read postIdea 092 - Command line tools as desktop applications
Electron desktop apps that wrap common command line tools in a friendly UI with help text.
Read postIdea 091 - Honeypot terrarium
A Conway's Game of Life visualization of bots attacking fake BACnet honeypot devices exposed to the internet.
Read postIdea 090 - Dead Bug electronic circuits jigs
3D printed jigs for building dead bug style electronic circuits without a PCB, with tutorials for Instructables.
Read postIdea 089 - Wheres Wren?
A Where's Waldo style search book for each region where a wren in a striped bobble hat hides among local birds.
Read postIdea 088 - Glass room of perspectives
A walk-in dome with many head-sized windows that looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope.
Read postIdea 087 - Crowd sourced life planner
A website of crowd-sourced flowcharts for life choices, in choose-your-own-adventure style.
Read postIdea 086 - Origami Terrarium Diorama
Paper origami flowers and plants sealed in a glass terrarium or mason jar so they stay dust-free.
Read postIdea 085 - Carved wooden postcards
Baltic birch plywood postcards, one for every mammal in BC, mailed through Canada Post.
Read postIdea 084 - Pressed lotus flower lamp
A lotus-shaped lamp of LED-lit acrylic shards holding pressed flowers, in a 3D printed base.
Read postIdea 083 - Dried flower art installation
A staircase tunnel of dried flowers sandwiched between acrylic plates and lit from within.
Read postIdea 082 - Classic video games maps posters
A poster of level maps from classic 80s and 90s video games such as Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario Kart.
Read postIdea 081 - Experience confidence scores
A system for third parties to vouch for a person's skills with Open Badges and a confidence score, dropped as LinkedIn with more steps.
Read postIdea 080 - Real Identity provider
An identity provider for online platforms that proves who someone is through social trust instead of documents.
Read postIdea 079 - Gorilla water quality monitoring device
A $10-20 citizen science sensor for streams that logs several data points to flag unusual water quality.
Read postIdea 078 - House to Tree house telephone system
Old corded phones wired point to point between a house and a tree house over cheap RJ45 or three-wire cable.
Read postIdea 077 - Equilateral triangles LED panels
Equilateral triangle LED PCBs that join into regular polyhedrons; built as the Dodecahedron PCB.
Read postIdea 076 - The Vancouver Tone
Cheap wind-chime devices tossed into Vancouver's boulevard trees to give the city its own ambient tone.
Read postIdea 075 - Birdnet festival mesh network
A festival mesh network of birdhouses that pass messages to each other with ultrasonic bird chirps.
Read postIdea 074 - Dandelion Galaxy
A dandelion-shaped sculpture of a reflective earth sphere with steel tubes ending in LEDs that show the night sky from outside.
Read postIdea 073 - Glowing tentacle eyeball monster
A 20-foot glowing tentacle monster made of flexible vinyl ducting and LED strips, with eyeball monsters in a Pepper's ghost dome head.
Read postIdea 072 - Reminders for basic body needs
A sensor that reminds you to eat, drink and move when deep focus makes you forget your body.
Read postIdea 071 - Levitating 3D Mouse
A 3D mouse for CAD that is a magnetically levitated cube with a 9-axis motion sensor inside.
Read postIdea 070 - CNC Pointillism
A CNC machine with a paintbrush holder that paints a photo as 2mm dots, one dot at a time.
Read postIdea 069 - One Liners
A dump of 36 throwaway one-line ideas, posted on idea day 69 to clear the backlog.
Read postIdea 068 - Talking Toy story teller
A Furby-style robotic toy that uses ChatGPT and text to speech to tell interactive stories that children steer with three buttons.
Read postIdea 67 - Deadmans vault SAAS SafePassage
SafePassage, an end-to-end encrypted online vault for messages that read-only recipients can open after the owner dies.
Read postIdea 066 - Tilt Pacman
A one-pixel Pac-Man on an RGB LED matrix, steered by tilting an accelerometer.
Read postIdea 065 - Atari Space Invaders LED Matrix pendent
A necklace pendant with an LED matrix that plays Atari Space Invaders animations.
Read postIdea 064 - Inflatable crowd
A matrix of mini inflatable air dancer figures made of fabric tubes and controlled by sound.
Read postIdea 063 - RootedIn
A spoof social network for Vancouver's 100,000 public trees, each with a generated name, hobbies and a wall of ChatGPT conversations.
Read postIdea 062 - Music festival dancing painting robotic marionettes in a million parts
A robotic marionette that listens to a music festival and turns the sound into generative artworks, one per slice of time.
Read postIdea 061 - The Dark Side Of The Moon in a million parts
Generative line drawings in sand, one per song on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, drawn by a CNC zen garden.
Read postIdea 060 - The Little Prince in a million parts
Layered paper craft light boxes, one per chapter or planet of The Little Prince.
Read postIdea 059 - Alices Adventures in Wonderland in a million parts
Stained glass windows, one per location in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, built with the digital stained glass technique.
Read postIdea 058 - In a million parts
A series of small artworks, one per quotable line from a book, movie, or album, made and shared on a steady schedule.
Read postIdea 057 - Movie Mogul Mania
A fantasy movie league where players draft actors, directors and films and earn points from awards, box office and release stats.
Read postIdea 056 - Great people make great movies
A movie recommendation site that scores the actors, crew, companies and locations of movies you like and suggests films with the highest scores.
Read postIdea 055 - Truchet tessellating bathroom tiles
Ceramic bathroom and kitchen tiles based on Truchet tiling patterns instead of the usual plain squares and hexagons.
Read postIdea 054 - Digital Dices
A six-sided die with an LCD on each face and an accelerometer inside that shows a random number in a range when rolled.
Read postIdea 053 - HTML and CSS photo book for Blurb
Build the yearly Blurb photo book from HTML and CSS, exported to PDF, instead of using Blurb's BookWright tool.
Read postIdea 052 - Landscape Table
A coffee table with a CNC-cut topographic map in layered plywood, about 6 inches from lowest to highest point, topped with glass.
Read postIdea 051 - Enigma machine kit
A kit that recreates the German Enigma cipher machine using PCBs.
Read postIdea 050 - Tessellating Illuminated Origami Wall Sculpture
An interactive origami tessellation wall sculpture with an individually addressable RGB LED in each cell.
Read postIdea 049 - Cheap meals if you follow directions
A deal where diners get cheap meals if they finish a 10-restaurant challenge, review each place and file expense claims on time, betting most will not.
Read postIdea 048 - The beat of the crowd - badge
A small six-LED badge that broadcasts a Bluetooth beacon every second and pulses faster as more badges come near.
Read postIdea 047 - Weekly Scavenger Hunt
A fully automated global scavenger hunt that posts 15 random objects every Saturday at noon and ranks players by how fast they upload a photo.
Read postIdea 046 - Cherry Blossom Timelapse
Time lapse videos of the cherry blossoms blooming in the park, shot on a GoPro, a Raspberry Pi camera and a Sony a6400.
Read postIdea 045 - Spread your genes
An outdoor game where players scan each other's alien-looking QR glyphs to spread their DNA and create offspring.
Read postIdea 044 - Bio Punk Conference badge
A conference badge with an animated electronic pet whose DNA mixes with another badge's pet when the two are connected.
Read postIdea 043 - BACnet MSTP Testing conference Badge
A sub-$10 conference badge for BACnet plugfest that works as both a BACnet server and client for testing equipment.
Read postIdea 042 - GPIO tester breakout board
An 8-position DIP switch breakout board for setting dev board GPIO pins high or low while testing.
Read postIdea 041 - BioPunks Garden
A screensaver-style game where you breed genetically engineered plants by combining DNA from different species, meant to be played over a year.
Read postIdea 040 - Growth Commander - Tower defense
Idea: a tower defense game without towers, where you direct mutations and send your army out to gather food and fight enemies.
Read postIdea 039 - Growth a game
Idea: a game where you start as the smallest living thing and evolve based on the actions you take most.
Read postIdea 038 - Club House co-op
Idea: a club house owned by its members and open to them for their own use.
Read postIdea 037 - Chatbot Task Organizer
Idea: a chatbot that organizes simple tasks by date, location or person.
Read postIdea 036 - Kaleidoscope Chandler
Idea: a ceiling light where rotating colored glass casts moving washes of color onto the ceiling.
Read postIdea 035 - Update your address book automatically
Idea: a tool that gets your contacts to update their own details in your address book.
Read postIdea 034 - 20 questions for people
Idea: a website that asks 20 questions and tries to uniquely identify you, which raises the question of which questions work best.
Read postIdea 033 - AI Grant Writing
Idea: use AI to take on the labor-intensive work of writing grant applications.
Read postIdea 032 - Cistercian stained glass Swatch internet .beat clock
Idea: a segmented clock display combining Cistercian numerals with Swatch Internet .beat time.
Read postIdea 031 - Fabric Floral Cyberpunk Armor
Idea: cyberpunk cloth armor for raves, based on the pattern of a Japanese cloth armor from the 1800s.
Read postIdea 030 - Chatbot Journaling
Idea: a chatbot that gives daily journaling prompts, asks follow-up questions, and builds up knowledge about you to give feedback.
Read postIdea 029 - SproutSwipe
Idea: an app that uses phone sensors to list plants suited to a space, then shows them in augmented reality, like a dating app for plants.
Read postIdea 028 - Finite Future Clock
Idea: an A2 LED panel that shows a progress bar of how much of your life has passed and how much is left.
Read postIdea 027 - Print on demand Keyboard Keycaps
Idea: a website where users upload their own glyphs or images to be printed on keyboard keycaps.
Read postIdea 026 - Digger game
Idea: a tile game about digging, with resource management, worker placement and exploration.
Read postIdea 025 - Skull card game
Idea: laser-cut or PCB versions of the Skull card game.
Read postIdea 024 - Call to Adventure
Idea: a mystery letter full of puzzles whose solution gives directions to a meeting place where an adventure starts.
Read postIdea 023 - Light painting rod
Idea: a programmable strip of LEDs mounted on a rod for light painting photos.
Read postIdea 022 - Translink map PCB
Idea: a live, interactive TransLink metro map of Vancouver built from LEDs on a PCB.
Read postIdea 021 - AI auto summarization / Auto cliffsnotes
Idea: an AI tool that boils large amounts of information down to brief notes and main points, like automatic CliffsNotes.
Read postIdea 020 - Many styles of Vancouver
Idea: a photo of the Vancouver skyline with each building painted over in a different artistic style.
Read postIdea 019 - Big Red Button
Idea: labeled buttons installed around the city to see which ones people push the most.
Read postIdea 018 - Just the tip skyscraper coffee table book
Idea: a coffee table photo book of only the tops of very tall buildings, the top few floors.
Read postIdea 017 - Traveling 3D printed sculptures
Idea: a traveling art exhibit of every sculpture by one great master, 3D printed to look like marble.
Read postIdea 016 - Lego RGB Addressable LED blocks
Idea: addressable RGB LEDs for Lego builds, with the Lego bricks acting as light pipes.
Read postIdea 015 - AI Create your own story book
Idea: an AI-written personalized children's story book that works in details you provide and follows common plots like the hero's journey.
Read postIdea 014 - AI Pictionary
Idea: a Pictionary-style game where an AI draws the picture and players guess the prompt that generated it.
Read postIdea 013 - Speech to Text, always listening, ear badge
Idea: an ear-shaped electronic badge that records speech to text 24 hours a day using OpenAI Whisper, feeding a personal AI assistant.
Read postIdea 012 - LED Constellation Star map
Idea: a constellation star map PCB made with overlapping LEDs.
Read postIdea 011 - Birdhouse Crypto Puzzle
Idea: birdhouses that double as cryptographic puzzles for humans to solve.
Read postIdea 010 - Polyhedron Papercraft Mobile
Idea: a hanging mobile of regular polyhedrons and other geometric shapes made from papercraft.
Read postIdea 009 - Princess Peach castle stained glass window
Idea: a replica of the Princess Peach castle stained glass window, made with the digital stained glass method before the Mario movie release.
Read postIdea 008 - Reconnect a postcard project
Idea: a series of postcards mailed in packs to friends and family, who send them onward to reconnect people.
Read postIdea 007 - Emoji Macro Pad Keyboard
Idea: a macro pad with the most commonly used emoji as keycaps, for answering messages with one key press.
Read postIdea 006 - Procedurally generated Glowing Mushroom PCB
Idea: procedurally generated mushroom art PCBs for the GameOfShrooms art project, with backlit LEDs for a glow.
Read postIdea 005 - Scream Photo Booth
Idea: a photo booth that only takes the picture when you scream loud enough, so the photo captures a real emotion.
Read postIdea 004 - Universal Serial breakout board
Idea: a USB to serial board that supports TTL 3.3V and 5V, RS232, and RS485 2-wire and 4-wire, with DB9, DB25 and screw terminals.
Read postIdea 003 - PCB Art of Every Mammal in BC
Idea: a series of PCB art badges, one for each of the 130 mammals in BC, with LED eyes and an SAO connector for an art show display.
Read postIdea 002 - Keyboard Flute
Idea: an electronic flute PCB the size of a ruler with hot-swappable keyboard switches, a MEMS mic for breath control, and an ESP32.
Read postIdea 001 - Cherry Blossom Profile Photo Booths
Idea: a free portrait photo booth in a park during cherry blossom season, as practice for portrait photography with consenting strangers.
Read postKangaroo words
A python script that hunts kangaroo words, smaller words hidden inside larger ones, across the 20,000 most common English words.
Read postGoals for 2014
Three goals for 2014: meditate after every project, post to abluestar.com weekly, and add weight, meal, and sleep tracking.
Read postA response to Life tracking and Quantified Self movement.
My life-tracking setup: Google Calendar for every event, phone alarms for sleep, and a spreadsheet of daily habit points.
Read postVancouver Scavenger Hunts
A walking and transit-only scavenger hunt list built for exploring Vancouver with friends and family.
Read postFive Pirates
The classic five pirates and 100 gold coins puzzle, posted for readers to solve in the comments.
Read postPing and pong
A short note on why the ping and pong handshake is a quietly beautiful piece of network design.
Read postLED light bulb suit.
Bookmark of an LED light bulb suit to recreate for Burning Man.
Read postDrawing with water and ink
Idea for a short story narrated over footage of ink swirling through water.
Read postThey are made out of data
A Terry Bisson style rewrite where the aliens discover that humans inside Tron 2 are made out of data.
Read postYankee Grab
Rules for Yankee Grab, a three-dice game where players keep the highest die from each of three throws and total the score.
Read postYahtzee
A printable Roll the Dice score sheet plus the history, rules, and inherited grandfather strategies for winning Yahtzee.
Read postWishing Well
Rules for Wishing Well, also called Help Your Neighbor, a three-dice game where players race to empty their chips into the pot.
Read postWho Shit, What Shit
Rules for Who Shit What Shit, a memory drinking game where everyone gets a scatological nickname woven into a rambling story.
Read postWaterfall
Rules for Waterfall, a relay-style team drinking game where each player chugs a pint before tagging the next teammate.
Read postVegetable
Rules for Vegetable, a word drinking game where players hide their teeth while shouting vegetable names at each other.
Read postUp and Down the River
Rules for Up and Down the River, a card-based drinking game with escalating drinks and give-aways across multiple decks.
Read postUnderOver 7
Rules for UnderOver 7, a two-dice betting game where players wager on whether the total beats seven.
Read postTwenty-Six
Rules for Twenty-Six, a ten-dice banking game popular in mid-century Midwest taverns until anti-gambling laws killed it off.
Read postTwenty-One Aces
Rules for Twenty-One Aces, a five-dice drinking game where the 7th, 14th, and 21st ace pick, pay for, and drink the shot.
Read postTwenty One
Rules for Twenty One, a single-die jeopardy game where players roll to get as close to 21 as possible without busting.
Read postTwelve Up
Rules for Twelve Up, a single-die banker game where players bet on hitting a total between 14 and 18 without rolling 13.
Read postTractor Pull
Rules for Tractor Pull, a timed drinking game with six cups holding one through six shots of beer.
Read postThrees
Rules for Threes (Tripps), a five-dice gambling game where threes count as zero and the lowest total wins.
Read postThree Man
Rules for Three Man, a dice drinking game where rolling a 3 makes you the unlucky designated drinker.
Read postThe Three
Rules for The Three, also called Four-Five-Six, a three-dice banking game derived from the Chinese game Strung Flowers.
Read postThe Movies
Drinking rules for The Boondock Saints, Big Lebowski, Star Wars, Walker Texas Ranger, and other movies worth watching twice.
Read postTen Pins
Rules for Ten Pins, a two-dice version of ten-pin bowling scored over ten frames with strikes and spares.
Read postSwipe
Rules for Swipe, a Fundex elimination dice game where each die face tells you to take, lose, or steal chips and dice.
Read postSpoils of War
Rules for Spoils of War, a three-dice banking game where players bet the roll will total more than ten.
Read postSnakes and Ladders
History of Snakes and Ladders, from the 2nd-century Indian game Moksha-Patamu to its Victorian and Western versions.
Read postSix-Six-Six
Rules for Six-Six-Six, a three-dice bluffing game where players announce rolls they may or may not have made.
Read postSixes Bet
Rules for Sixes Bet, a single-die street gambling game with fixed 1-in-6 odds no matter how often you roll.
Read postSimplified Craps
Rules for Simplified Craps, a two-dice street version of craps with a 2.8% house edge.
Read postShut the Box
Shut the Box is an old French sailor dice game where players close numbered tiles 1 through 9 using two dice.
Read postShip
Ship is a five-dice game where players must roll 6, 5, and 4 in order before counting the remaining dice as crew points.
Read postInstructions on how to fix your computer, install windows applications on your mac, Hack someones Facebook, and make a million dollars from a World of warcraft clone.
A joke set of universal tech instructions involving a metal fork and your own face.
Read postSevens Out
Sevens Out is a two-dice game where players keep rolling and adding until they roll a seven, then pass the dice.
Read postSevens
Sevens is a six-dice game where pairs adding to seven are discarded and the rest of the dice count for your score.
Read postSettlers of Catan: Tricks and Tactics
Settlers of Catan strategy tips: where to place first settlements, which hexes to claim, and how to build cities faster.
Read postSequences
Sequences is a six-dice game where players score points for consecutive runs starting at 1, racing to 100.
Read postScrew Your Neighbor
Screw Your Neighbor is a card elimination game where players hold one card and try to avoid being stuck with the lowest.
Read postRound The Clock
Round the Clock is a two-dice game where players race to roll the numbers 1 through 12 in sequence.
Read postQuestions
Questions is a drinking game where players take turns asking questions and drink for any hesitation, answer, or rule break.
Read postQualify
Qualify is a five-dice game where each player rolls five times, setting aside at least one die per turn for the highest total.
Read postIdeas on how to advertise your stories
A list of ways writers can promote a short story before and after publication, from blogs to social media to forums.
Read postPyramids
Pyramids is a bluffing card drinking game played with a pyramid of face-up cards and a hand of four hidden cards.
Read postPig
Rules and history of Pig, a single-die push-your-luck game used in classrooms to teach probability.
Read postPerverted Sounds
Rules for Perverted Sounds, a rhythm-and-recall drinking game where each player invents a sound and matching gesture.
Read postPassage
Rules for Passage, a two-dice game where the lowest opening roll sets the point and players race to hit it 11 times.
Read postPar
Rules for Par, a five-dice betting game where you try to beat 24 and pay or collect tokens based on the difference.
Read postPaper, Rock, Scissors Ultimate
Rules for Paper, Rock, Scissors Ultimate, a drinking variant where ties stack extra shots onto whoever loses next.
Read postOne-O-Five
Rules for One O Five, a five-dice race to roll five of a kind for every number from 1 through 6.
Read postOne Big Chicken
Rules for One Big Chicken, a tongue-twister drinking game where each round stacks one more absurd phrase onto the last.
Read postMexico
Rules for Mexico, a two-dice elimination game named after its highest roll of 2-1.
Read postLandmines
Rules for Landmines, a quarter-spinning shot game where empty beer cans pile up on the table as obstacles.
Read postKlondike
Rules for Klondike, a five-dice poker game from American frontier saloons where the dealer wins ties.
Read postKings Cup
Rules for Kings Cup with every card assignment and a list of house variations to mix in.
Read postJackpot
Rules for Jackpot, a medieval tavern dice game also called Dragon's Hoard, played on a board of nine numbered circles.
Read postWhy don't we have free phones yet?
A rant on Canadian carrier monopolies and a thought experiment about a mesh-networked open phone with no cell towers.
Read postI never
Rules for I Never, the drinking word game where you find out way too much about your friends.
Read postIndian Poker
Rules for Indian Poker, a drinking card game where you stick a card to your forehead and bet drinks that yours is the highest.
Read postIndian Dice
Rules for Indian Dice, a five-dice poker variant for when you want to play poker but have no cards.
Read postIce Cube Raft Race
Rules for Ice Cube Raft Race, a drinking game where each player fills an ice cube tray with beer and sucks every slot dry through a straw.
Read postHigh
Rules for High, the simplest two-dice game: each player rolls and the highest total wins the pot.
Read postGolf
Rules for Golf, a three-dice game also called Dragon Slayer where every non-double roll counts as a stroke over 18 rounds.
Read postFourteens
Rules for Fourteens, a ten-dice tavern banking game from the 1930s Midwest paying 8-to-1 on fourteen hits of the point.
Read postFifty
Rules for Fifty, a quick two-dice game where doubles score five, double sixes score 25, and double threes wipe you out.
Read postDisarm The Bomb
Rules for Disarm The Bomb, a drinking game with four beer cans taped into a cube and to your hands, ten minutes to finish.
Read postDirty Hearts
Rules for Dirty Hearts, a card-flipping drinking game where every heart turns into nosy questions and dares.
Read postDice 10,000
Rules and house variants for Dice 10,000, the five-dice push-your-luck game also called Zilch and Amish Dice.
Read postDice
A short history of dice, from divining sticks and pyramid dice at Ur to teetotums and medieval dice boards.
Read postDanger Dice
Rules for Danger Dice, a drinking game where six numbered pint glasses get filled and downed based on one die.
Read postCutpurse
Rules for Cutpurse, a two-dice tavern game where the low roller sets the point and players race to eleven.
Read postCubilete
Rules for Cubilete, a traditional Cuban five-dice game scored on five of a kind in kings, queens, jacks, and aces.
Read postCrokinole
Crokinole, the Ontario-born tabletop flicking game: its 1876 history and the basic rules.
Read postCrazy Eights
Rules for Crazy Eights, the classic shedding card game where 8s are wild and let you change the called suit.
Read postChase The Ace
Rules for Chase The Ace, a circle drinking game with two dice where each face passes, drinks, or gives a drink.
Read postCenturians
Rules for Centurions, the Power Hour drinking game: one shot of beer every minute for 100 minutes, no chugging.
Read postCentennial
Rules for Centennial, a three-dice race game where you hit the numbers 1 through 12 and back down again in order.
Read postCaps
Rules for Caps, a circle drinking game where players flick bottle caps at the cap on each opponent's beer.
Read postBoxing
Rules for Boxing, a two-team dice drinking game where the lowest roll takes the shot and a fall is a knockout.
Read postBoss Dice
Rules for Boss Dice, a two-player San Francisco bar game scored on five-dice poker hands with two rerolls each.
Read postBooray
Rules for Booray, a French-Louisiana trick-taking card game with a five-card draw and ante-and-pot scoring.
Read postBlack or Red
Rules for Black or Red, a card-based drinking game where guessing the next card wrong means you drink.
Read postBeat The Barman
Rules for Beat The Barman, a bar drinking game where you finish your shot before the bartender returns with change.
Read postBarbudi
Rules for Barbudi, a two-player Mexican casino dice game where shooter and fader bet on which doubles come up first.
Read postAces In The Pot
Rules for Aces In The Pot, a two-dice gambling game where 1s feed the pot and 6s pass coins to your neighbour.
Read postCoyote catches the road runner
A clip where Wile E. Coyote finally catches the Road Runner.
Read postFlower plug
A bathtub plug shaped like a flower that shifts from pink to deep purple once the water hits a safe temperature.
Read postWastbasket for the bathroom
A bathroom wastebasket from SnowTone with a lid you seal by dropping in a magazine, made for toilet readers.
Read postAPEX Holiday Subscription Drive
APEX magazine runs a November subscription drive promising pro-rate 5-cents-per-word pay if they hit 500 new subscribers.
Read postWork Smarter, Not Harder
In 1968 a man in a police uniform stole 294 million yen from a Toshiba bank car in Tokyo and was never caught.
Read postLee Krasnow - Puzzle box maker
Lee Krasnow's Barcode Burr puzzle, a six-piece burr whose notches force the pieces to move in a strict binary sequence.
Read postMaBeGroMo Rules
Joining MaBeGroMo, the November alternative to NaNoWriMo where you put the razor away and grow a beard until December.
Read postNot allowing comments
Warren Ellis turns off comments and asks readers to reply via trackback instead, boosting his inbound links and Google rank.
Read postProving that 3 + 2 = 0
A math paradox that proves 3 + 2 = 0 by quietly dividing both sides of an equation by zero.
Read postBoard Game design challenge
A poster for the second Board Game Design Challenge in Vancouver.
Read postTips for pulling an all nighter
Tips for pulling an all-nighter at the computer, written as a rebuttal to Jon Lee's advice to work in a dark room.
Read postOK to talk to
Ordering an OK Social button for Vancouver, a wearable signal that says strangers are welcome to start a conversation.
Read postWhen big people steal small guys ideas
Adobe Kuler looks a lot like ColourLovers.com, and small site owners have no real way to push back on big copycats.
Read postDefeat your Google twin
Plotting how to outrank my Google twin, an engine-casting site also named Steven Smethurst, by Christmas.
Read postMistakes I have made
Ten blogging and web design mistakes I made over the years, from subdirectories and subdomains to too many RSS feeds.
Read postWhere I went wrong
Reflecting on my offline games niche blog and where the original niche-picking calculation went wrong.
Read postRemoving the Nofollow link
Why the WordPress DoFollow plugin and its public user list make blogs an easy target for comment spammers.
Read post5 MSN/Yahoo/GTtalk/AOL/IM Etiquette tips
Five etiquette tips for using MSN, Yahoo, GTalk and other IM clients without annoying the people on the other end.
Read postTimeless content
Why blog posts about current events go stale, and how to write content that stays useful 5 to 10 years later.
Read postPrint your own Yahtzee sheets
Printable Roll the Dice score sheets, a Yahtzee clone, in PDF, with a short history of Yahtzee.
Read post12 Tips for creating a killer landing page.
Twelve rules for landing pages that convert, drawn from rebuilding a friend's AdWords campaign from 2 leads a day to 12-25.
Read post23 Tips for writing good blog posts and articles.
Twenty-three rules for writing readable blog posts, from snappy headlines to splitting long pieces and crediting sources.
Read postCard game - Munchkin - Kill monsters, steal the treasure, and stab your buddy
Review of Steve Jackson's card game Munchkin, where you kill monsters, steal treasure, and race to level 10.
Read postHow to make dice, and a brief history
A short history of dice from divining sticks and the tombs of Ur to teetotums and medieval dice boards.
Read postRandom drinking game generator
A small script that pulls rules from a database of card-and-dice drinking games and spits out a random one.
Read postHouse maze
A backyard corn maze run as a paid attraction, with notes on why the right-hand rule beats most mazes.
Read postFan works of Mario
A small roundup of dark and weird Mario fan art and flash animations including Communist Mario and Burly Mario.
Read postMore riddles
A second batch of lateral-thinking riddles with answers tucked below the cut.
Read postRiddles
A list of classic riddles saved from around the web, with answers tucked below the cut.
Read postMy Ferrofluid Project
A failed attempt to build a Sachiko Kodama style ferrofluid sculpture with a 500lb electromagnet and a litre of fluid.
Read postThe Eden project - Artificial ecosystem
Design notes for an artificial ecosystem sim with creatures that age, mate, eat, and inherit traits from their parents.
Read postCreate an invisible book shelf
An invisible bookshelf made by hiding an L bracket behind the bottom book of a stack.
Read postA mini hydroelectric damn that runs a LED inside your shower head.
A forum project to put a tiny water-driven turbine inside a shower head so it powers an LED while you shower.
Read postThings to do in vancouver
A personal running list of Vancouver spots and events, from Treetops Adventure and La Casa Gelato to the Parade of Lost Souls.
Read postLego Ice cube Tray
A $7.99 silicone tray from the Lego online store that freezes water into stackable Lego brick ice cubes.
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