Area 50 is a collection of unusual, difficult, or simply lightly documented projects. Much of the information in Area 50 is intended for experienced hobbyists - not beginners. The information may be incomplete or even incorrect and readers are assumed to have sufficient knowledge of the areas covered to evaluate the suitability and veracity of the information. Many projects will have kernels of information that are useful for other purposes and those will be mentioned at the end of the page.
The Amazing All-Band Receiver is basically a diode detector followed by a high-gain audio amplifier. This is not a multi-band receiver; it picks up everything at once! The detector uses a biased Schottky diode for excellent sensitivity and bandwidth; the detector will detect signals from below the AM broadcast band up to the microwave bands. The number of interesting signals is surprising; it is fun to drive around listening to the numerous strange sounds.
By trying different antennas and locations, this receiver has picked up AM radio stations, FM stations, TV video (buzz), car lock transmitters, cell phones, and even the microwave oven (a whoosh-whoosh sound as the microwave spreader rotated). It isn't clear how FM stations are demodulated; perhaps the antenna Q is sufficient for slope detection. (See reader Karen's excellent theory.) Even the familiar buzz from a narrow-band FM pager transmitter has been heard - somehow. There are some mysterious signals out there, too! What is that occasional descending whistle over by the highway? Some vehicles emit a curious buzz, too. If you hear a mysterious click-click now and then, its your cell phone! Don't expect to tune in international shortwave stations. This receiver is for strong, local sources. The advanced experimenter will find it useful as a detector section for low power tuned receivers.
Animated Knots by Grog is the web’s number 1 site for learning how to tie knots. From Boating Knots, Fishing Knots and Climbing Knots to tying a tie, or even Surgical Knots — we’ve got it covered. Follow along as ropes tie themselves, showing just the essential steps, so you can master a knot in no time. Jump into any category to get started.
This is a free communication tool that is designed for simplicity, privacy, and security. All interaction between you and your online peers is encrypted. There is no record of your conversation once you all leave.
Serverless, decentralized, ephemeral. Peer to peer whenever possible. Explicitly designed to be self-hostable. Public and private rooms. Audio and video chat. File transfer.
Paisa is a Personal finance manager. It builds on top of the ledger double entry accounting tool.
Demo site: https://demo.paisa.fyi/
Cross-platform GUI written in Rust using ADB to debloat non-rooted android devices. Improve your privacy, the security and battery life of your device.
Packages are as well documented as possible in order to provide a better understanding of what you can delete or not. The worst issue that could happen is removing an essential system package needed during boot causing then an unfortunate bootloop. After about 5 failed system boots, the phone will automatically reboot in recovery mode, and you'll have to perform a FACTORY RESET. Make a backup first!
In any case, you CANNOT brick your device with this software! That's the main point, right?
The purpose of the cable wire protocol is to facilitate the members of a group chat to exchange cryptographically signed documents with each other, such as chat messages, spread across various user-defined channels.
The BackBit Pro Cartridge is a universal instant loading cartridge capable of interfacing with a multitude of vintage computers and game consoles via proprietary adapters, including:
- Apple II+/IIe/IIgs Slot
- Atari 8-bits
- Commodore 8-bits
Supports most, if not all, original cartridge-based titles for each machine, and additionally supports tape, disk, and RAM expansion for a limited number of systems. Capable of supporting most modern homebrews. Bankswitching schemes up to 1MB in size can be implemented for nearly all platforms (if they aren’t already). Flash saving support can often be implemented. Special coprocessors can sometimes be implemented. Some adapters feature additional hardware for various things, such as audio emulation, copy protection bypass, joystick plugs, reset support, and more!
Loading is always instant. No need to take a coffee break while your program is loading. Built-in versioning system preserves your original files (on systems/configurations that support saving). Supports cartridge images up to 1MB in size. Real-time-clock. One-button diagnostic mode helps you identify system faults (on most systems).
This project turns the Raspberry Pi Pico into a USB I/O Board.
It implements the USB protocol used by the dln2 Linux drivers and in addition it supports 2 CDC UARTS.
Functional specs of M-foo hardware (M3, M4, etc). Includes thread pitch, nominal diameter, core diameter, effective diameter, and so forth.
A list of Free Software network services and web applications which can be hosted on your own servers. With repository stars and repo forks.
I don't know what this has over the other awesome-selfhosted directory. Need to compare them.
freezeFS.py is a utility program that runs on a PC and converts an arbitrary folder, subfolder and file structure into a Python source file. The generated Python file can then be frozen as bytecode into a MicroPython image together with the Virtual File System driver vfsfrozen.py.
When the generated Python file is imported, the file structure is mounted with os.mount() as a read only Virtual File System, which can be accessed on the microcontroller with regular file operations such as open in "r" or "rb" mode, read, readinto, readline, seek, tell, close, listdir, ilistidr, stat.
If the deploy option is used, the files and folders of the frozen files are copied to the standard flash file system. This enables installing configuration and data files when booting the MicroPython image the first time.
An important topic is that opening files in "r" mode requires to buffer the file in RAM. However, many libraries such as web servers and json support reading text modes in "rb" mode, and no overhead is incurred.
eried's personal repository for findings and things to remember.
This is a Chrome and Firefox browser extension that strips Google Analytics (i.e. Urchin Tracking Monitor) parameters, and various other click tracking tokens, from URL query strings. This is done before the web request is made and results in both more private browsing as well as more aesthetically pleasing URLs.
Aware of Facebook, Google, Hubspot, Instagram, Mailchimp, Marketo, Microsoft, Olytics, Wicked Reports, Yahoo, Yandex, and a few generic URIs.
This privacy add-on protects your identity by changing tracking parameters.
Addresses containing Google Analytics parameters will be altered to protect your privacy: no buttons to press and no configuration required.
It will scan the page for links and correct them. If a redirected URL contains the tracking parameters, they will be edited. Not functionality is lost.
This add-on is provided as part of Projekt ONI.
OpenWetWare is an effort to promote the sharing of information, know-how, and wisdom among researchers and groups who are working in biology & biological engineering.
If you would like edit access, would be interested in helping out, or want your lab website hosted on OpenWetWare, please join us. OpenWetWare is managed by the BioBricks Foundation.
A community of permissively licensed video game assets (art, backgrounds, textures, music, sound effects) that can be used in your own projects.
Free fonts have met their match. We know how hard it is to find quality freeware that is licensed for commercial work. We've done the hard work, hand-selecting these typefaces and presenting them in an easy-to-use format.