On Ep. 114 of CheapShow, Paul and Eli found a bizarre French single promoting a failed electronic pin badge called Winkie. It’s just a badge that alternates between a red and green LED every second. It sounds incredibly dull but somehow it’s not. I found myself so far down the rabbit hole, I decided to design a clone. I present to you, Wankie: This post will go through how I designed it and how to make your own (if you can etch your own circuit boards…) …

A nice little song by a seemingly overlooked folk singer named Len Chandler. These chords are transcribed from his appearance on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest which I think is the best recording of the song. Len released a few studio albums during the mid-late 60s but they all sound a bit forced and over-produced to me - the live recordings he appears on are well worth a listen While this particular song is more personal and sentimental, he first became known as a protest singer during the civil rights movement. …

My recipe for a strawberry hydromel (low alcohol mead). Ready to drink in 3-4 weeks. 2kg strawberries Frozen or fresh will do. Hull and then chop them into small (~2cm) chunks and place them into a pot. Cover with water and bring to a boil then simmer until the water is a deep red and strawberries have lost most of their colour - about 25 minutes. Strain through a sieve and/or cheesecloth. …

Here is my recipe for the simplest, cheapest way to make a nice apple wine. It comes out between 10-12% ABV and tastes pretty good. Yields 5l (UK gallon). 5l of apple juice from concentrate It shouldn’t contain any additives, except ascorbic acid which is just the posh name for vitamin C. In my experience the price/quality doesn’t impact on the final product, so I’d reccomend just using supermakret own brand. …

This project started off with the idea of creating a chatbot that speaks through a typewriter. I’ve not got round to making the chatbot part yet, but I probably will in the future. The major hurdle of course was making the typing work. Here it is booting up: Your browser does not support the video tag. Concept The typewriter I got uses matrix polling to determine what keys to type. …