A few pieces of shelving. A PC fan. An air filter. A shower curtain. Some lighting

This hard drive clock by Russian designer Viacheslav Slavinsky feels like it could fly off its hinge at any moment, impaling onlookers shuriken-style…which is exactly why the video is so entrancing. To craft the device, Slavinsky stripped back the hard drive to just one platter, which was ground down and etched with digits. Combined with an immaculately timed LED backlight rig (synced through IR), you get this: As Slavinsky explains, “This is an awesome piece of hackage that tends to impress people. Unfortunately it fails at being quiet and reliable, which is a very important quality of a useful timepiece. Strobeshnik makes an awesome exhibition item however and can be classified as art.” We’re inclined to agree—to silence the Strobeshnik would be as sinful as welding an effective muffler on a Harley.

This mod turns the PSP into a pretty cool looking little VU Meter (that’s volume meter, to you non-audiophiles). So dust of that PSP kiddo, it’s time to breathe life into that fledgling portable once again! The hack is the work of “foo foo” and it works as advertised. Spin up an audio track, and watch the little lights pump up in down with the levels. It’s no Korg DS-10, but then again few things are. At the very least this hack would provide you with literally minutes of fun as you wait for Sony to get its act together and release the mythical PSPad , PSP Phone, or whatever it ends up being. [ Foo foo via Engadget ]

Take a Linksys running custom firmware , tap into the hardware to power a circuit controlling the locks, and SSH into the router with custom iPhone and Android apps to flip the circuit. Easy, right? [ Sunlight via Make via Engadget ]

It’s in French, but you owe it to yourself to flip through one man’s war story of crafting his own SLR camera, which he machined from scratch. The pictures alone will make you feel properly inadequate. [ Forum via MAKE ]

Say whatever bad things you will about the PS3, but have you ever seen an alien bust out of an Xbox 360’s torso? I didn’t think so. Just in time for cyborg surrealist Hans Rudi Giger’s birthday (he’s attributed with creating the trademark Alien look), a long-time Alien PS3 modder has completed his latest creation—this far from understated chestburster PS3. Now if only Sony were ballsy enough to actually mass manufacture one of these mods, I just may be tacky enough to buy it. [ Llamma's Forums via technabob ]

George Hotz, the young gun who first hacked the iPhone 2G, has claimed to have compromised the Playstation 3. On his blog , Hotz wrote: I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software.

Earlier today, we posted our first dSLR follow focus mod, and it nothing if not simple . This other follow focus mod…well…its hand crank drill drive shaft is but a stone’s throw from a hamster wheel and a hot poker. [ FocusDrill ]

In film and video, if you want to rack focus , a ” follow focus ” makes the job a lot easier. Attaching to the focus ring, a follow focus can be as simple as a stick or as complicated as a gearbox. Ultimately, the purpose is always the same: Make it as quick and simple as possible to rotate that focus ring from one spot to another. And make the job one-handed.

An All Spark Xbox 360 seems like a clever idea, that is, until your TV turns into a robot during a Golden Girls marathon and your head is decapitated by a very strange amalgamation of pop culture motifs. Though this mod looks impressive, its construction was relatively simple. A plywood box was coated with self-hardening clay, and this clay was carved with various glyphs before it dried. Given that the All Spark 360 has more component real estate than the Xbox 360, squeezing in the electronics was a reasonable process. And if only the disc drive let out a burst of steam upon ejection, I’d be molding myself a new Xbox at this very moment. [ Flickr via HawtyMcBloggy via technabob ]