Taking apart the 2006 Honda Odyssey dashboard, part 1 of ?

I got it into my head that a true hacker must know how to hack his car. Especially the dash. You've got the connection to the car's diagnostic computer, DC power (without occupying a cigarette lighter port), auxiliary audio, and the ability to use any blank switchplates you might find there.

I found that the average hacker can probably figure it out, but with a caveat: you have to use much more force than when building a computer (for example). The car's retaining snaps and bolts were designed to stay in place in a vibrating environment, extreme temperatures, and in the event of an accident. HOWEVER! The force you apply must be at the correct time and place. The same force you use to disengage a connector or snap could end up tearing a tab somewhere if you force it too much. If you feel inordinate resistance, check for screws. Basically, it's the same as disassembling your garden variety coffee pot, but with more prying force and snap tabs. Be careful!

Cryptap: rhythmic combo lock

A while ago in December, I posted something at hackaday.com: a rhythmic door lock. I had in mind to use a keypad at the beginning, but I didn't have enough buttons and wanted to keep this a very low-budget project. For instance, the buttons were free samples and the filter capacitor was pulled from a TV or CRT monitor, I can't remember which.

Hacking in martial arts

You don't have to be a computer expert to be a hacker. According to many definitions that hackers use among themselves (like RFC1392, aka The Internet User's Glossary, for example) a hacker is "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system."

So, all you really need to be called a hacker is a love of knowing how things tick. The specialty doesn't need to be programming and circuits. The very authoritative Jargon file says that a person could be an astronomy hacker, for example.

Customizing grub, Part 3

Here I am again with grub 2. In Part 2, I was cleaning up the boot menu that chooses which OS or kernel you want to use. But, that time, I only showed how to modify entries for OSes besides the one you are currently booted into. (Which is Linux, right? Right.)

This time, I'll show you how to modify /etc/grub.d/10_linux to clean up the menu entries for the OS that you will be running update-grub from.

Customizing grub, Part 2

In the last post, I talked about the general approach to customizing grub. Now I'll get into the details fix up those messy grub menus.

First, before mucking inside the config files, I'd like to change the order of the menu; I think that memtest should be after the other OS entries, so I'll run

$ sudo mv /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ \
/etc/grub.d/50_memtest86+

Customizing grub, Part 1

Ubuntu has upgraded grub to version 2 in their default install. The new version is more powerful than the old one, but the config interface has changed.

Aaargh! Where is menu.lst?!