We're back from this weekend's Maker Faire, the third-annual event in San Mateo, CA . Our friends at Make continue to up the ante, bringing DIYers from far and wide to show off their projects at the ultimate geek county fair.

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Soon after the Nintendo Wii’s release, hackers immediately began uncovering ways to use its unique motion-sensing controller to interface with other things—PCs, musical instruments, you name it. But Tom Tlalim, an Israeli-born composer who now lives in the Netherlands, may have outdone them all: His full-body, eight-piece “suit” of Wiimotes interfaces fully with custom software to turn his entire body into an electronic instrument that responds to his every motion. In his suit, Tlalim doesn’t play songs. He dances them.

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As any informed PopSci reader will know, the iPhone is definitely a game-changing piece of hardware, but it's not without its problems. Chief among those nagging little imperfections, for me, was the recessed headphone hack that rejected any headphones but Apple's trademark gleaming white buds. Apple's 'phones aren't that bad, but my Shure in-ear pair is better for blocking out noise on the subway (and my Grado SR60s are better for listening at home). Thankfully, an easy solution to this problem is just a trip to the local Radioshack away.

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Remember the used-record store? The racks were made of dirty white particleboard, the signs were handwritten in red permanent marker, and the bald guy with the lip piercing behind the counter played in your cousin’s band. You could find almost anything there, usually for around $6. Music megastores and Web sites put these places out of business, and even if you can get just as good a deal buying a CD off eBay, you don’t get the music community that came part and parcel with your local punk-rocker-run music shop. And obscure titles are getting harder and harder to find in CD form.

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Dept.: Geek Guide
Tech: DIY Internet Radio
Cost: Free—$2,850
Time: 10 minutes and up
Dabbler | | | | | Master

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