Last month as most of you know I had a few visitors over to the house for what some have dubbed “Geek Fest”. Essentially that is what it was but regardless of that, one of the “Geeks” who attended was RIT student [Julian Hammerstein] or better known as [BETA].

He and [Mike Moffitt] had been in development of a new computer game called [Ghost In The Machine] which [BETA] had brought with him to the meet-up. I gotta say I was pretty impressed with how well and how smoothly it worked and the 8-bit sounds and music really kept with the nostalgic nature of the game play which apparently is extremely challenging, just like old games were.

So anyway, the two have started up a KickStarter to bring this game to a larger market via Steam (I think) so if you’ve got $5 bucks, back their project and get the game after the KS concludes. Hard to go wrong! Check out the video on the KS page with the big pic above will take you right too and get the full low down on the project!

Reblogged from Hack a Day:

Several people have sent us this story. I've seen it everywhere. A lot of people are upset, on several sides.  A gun has been 3d printed that can actually fire a round.

First, we have people scared that this will bring undetectable guns to people who wouldn't have had access before. Then we have the gun fans that are reacting to the others with shouts of freedom and liberty and stuff. 

Read more… 562 more words

Last year I saw a really cool home-build machine that was used for mounting SMT components to PCBs. A small manual pick and place machine was cool at the time but I had no real use for it. But now with recent projects forcing me to use these tiny components, I really needed a better way and this popped into my mind as a cheap and pretty straight forward solution.

It’s just in the planning phase at the moment as I’m really only doing this with the spare time that I don’t have much of, but the concept is coming along nicely.

Check out the blog of the man who invented this neat little contraption and made it open source for everyone to make their own versions of it.

Though admittedly, the week before last I really had no clue who or what the Jace Hall Show was, I found myself in a unique position to be interviewed by one of the staff writers about the meet-up last week. So, of course doing my home work, I found out that Jace Hall is actually a pretty heavy hitter and get’s to do some skits/shows with some pretty big celebrities!

But in any case, if you click the image up top and you’ll be taken to the article. It’s been one hell of a week, both full of personal success and horrible tragedies to the country as a whole and it does put a lot of this into perspective.

So, hope you enjoy and there will be some other announcements in the near future regarding my latest projects! Have a good day!

On top of that, the bonds that have been made with just a few days of real life contact are one of the most valuable experiences to leave with and I think we’re all going to be holding on to that for a very long time now and I can’t wait to see where this leads us all in the future!

So, over the next few days, I’ll be making some posts of the accomplishments that were made while we were all together. We’ll all be posting either finished or in-progress threads on the forums and I’ll be doing a short write-up of each one after they get posted on their respective sites.

Some new big things coming up soon as well, including a glimpse of my secret project that I’ve been working on for over 8 months now! Stay tuned for some exciting news shortly!

Check it out here at ShockSlayer’s Channel!

I’ll have some pics and videos up in awhile. Sorry for short post, but just want to keep everyone who cares updated!

Next to arrive will be Hailraizer! He’s expected to hit traffic right about now but he’ll be here probably around 8PM or so! More updates to follow!

Jonathan Shine, from Hollywood California, with the longest trip made it here faster than anyone else! We’ve been going through the orientation of the basement and just talking a lot of shop. Pretty cool though to see that this is actually happening and the next 4 days are going to be amazing! Next to show up is Ashen, probably getting here around 3 or 4PM this afternoon and then Hailraizer who’ll be showing up around 8 or 9pm.

SS, Beta and Aux will be here probably around 1AM Friday morning as they can’t start the trip until Aux get’s out of work.

But anyway, I’m gonna try and update here a bit more frequently this week so you all can see what’s happening! Should be a great time! Say tuned!

So, to keep an engaged and ever growing audience, I really want to get some outside influence into the posts on DB about the modding world in general.

What I’m looking for is a writer who is up-to-date and active in the console modding community and someone who has a fair grasp of the concepts they’d be writing about. A tech wizard isn’t necessary but someone with a general tech knowledge who can write about a story or project in a clever and interesting way is what will fit the bill.

Just to be clear, this isn’t something I plan to go up against Hack-A-Day or Engadget with (not that I’d ever expect to get that large). This is going to remain my personal blog site which main focus is to still showcase my works, but with ever growing time constraints, I sometimes find my blog time running low and no posts for weeks at a time.

The Main Job Responsibilities

This will not be a paid position as that’s not what this site is about. Just wanted to get that out there right now, but doing so may entitle you to some special “behind the scenes or first looks” at projects I’m doing or things along those lines. But mostly it’ll be done for the fun of it and being able to build up your blog/writing skills should you have any desire to practice. A minimum 2 articles per week is what I need to keep things fresh and hopefully begin to generate new subscribers. No more than 5 posts per week though as then the site begins to go off topic a bit.

All articles are to be video game/tech based, so personal reviews on upcoming games or system hardware, console hardware hacks or just cool tech news are all acceptable examples. I don’t really want to get to much into coding hacks, vehicle or non-electronics based projects unless it’s something really cool like CNC or 3D printers.

Also, proper grammar and punctuation are a must. I know that I sometimes miss a word, spell it wrong or mix up the order and that’s fine, I understand that. But, if you write in “text speak” that is not going to fly. The articles are to be well written, insightful and above all accurate to the best of your knowledge. Quality posts are what make people come back to read the next one so they must be interesting and clean.

So if you have any interest in joining DB as the first Staff Writer, please PM me and either have links or examples of some form of writing you’ve done in the past I can have a look at. As always if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them as well. Hope to hear from you soon!

Downing