I've been working on the mobile version of password for a while now, mostly lending to the fact that much of the infrastructure of the game required expansion to accomodate for that. Plus, this sort of gameplay on mobile is a new territory for me, which makes it both worrisome and exciting.

Long story short, you can preview the mobile gameplay of password with the same link:

Play the game.

The gameplay is different from the desktop version. Here, you have to tap the keys in the order of their number: 1, then 2, then 3, and so on until the last key. Tapping keys out of order (4, then 6) results in a foul, which takes away a bit of time. Tapping all keys in the correct order means you win the round and get awarded the score. Other instructions are on screen.

It is NOT the final version. It's playable but contains some visual bugs. I'm gonna work on fixing those in the coming weeks. Right now, I'm looking for feedback:

• How does the mobile gameplay feel?
• How does the sizing of the score looks?
• Are there any problems with swiping or tapping?
• How does the timer bar look on smaller screens? (Think smaller than iPhone X.)
• How does the timer look on devices that have a notch?
• Does it load the correct version at all? (If you're on a mobile device – smartphones and tablets – you should not see keyboard references. If you do, it didn't load the correct version of gameplay.)

Desktop gameplay has only received visual updates. You can still play it with the same link.

Let me know if you encounter issues. You can post here, or you can open an issue in the GitHub repo. If you do, make sure to provide what information you can on the issue, like what sort of a device you're using (maker, model, OS version, browser etc.): this helps figure out the problem easier and quicker.

I know of these issues so far, and am working on resolving them:

• after pressing the last key of the order (8 right now), the red border flashes, as if you've received a foul (you don't)
• score has to fully animate towards the final value before it resizes to fit the screen
• swiping distance may or may not be too short, so it may feel as though it doesn't register

Play it now.

Alternatively, visit the repo.

password has been updated to v1.1:

• the game now starts after you press [Space]
• you gain points for victories (score is not saved between reloads)
• UI is a little nicer

v1.2 planned features:

• adjustable difficulty, via either or both of password length and time per round
• zen mode: longer rounds, no score tracking, calmer UI
• persistent personal high score you can compete against

I almost feel like this is not worth an update, but people have been curious and supportive of the game.

You can see all planned features in the issues section. Suggestions on gameplay and visuals are welcome.

EDIT: updated hosted version to not reset score on loss (only resets when you start over).

A simple web game I made to combat depression.

To play, go here. Warning: the game starts as soon as you enter the page.

To view source, visit the GitHub repo.

How to play:

• Press the keys you see before yourself. The key turns green if it's been "solved".

• Once all keys are "solved", you start a new round automatically.

• If the timer runs out before all keys are "solved", the game is over. Press [Space] to start over.

• There's no score. Play whenever and for as long as you like. Quit whenever you've had enough.

A while ago I mentioned I was going to attempt making a knife for the first time. Well, I did.

Apologies in advance for there not being many photos of the process - steel is really messy to work with so I mostly kept my phone safely out of the way. I'll try to get more pictures next time, although there are plenty of videos and picture tutorials around if people are super interested in the process. I shall endeavour to describe what I did in text, however.

I started out with a bar of 01 tool steel (wiki) which I cut into a rough knife blank. This I then hit with a ball hammer a load of times to get some texture. Then I used a belt grinder to put a bevel on the edge side, although only enough to thin the knife down to roughly the right shape, not actually sharp. Once that and a few other minor shaping tasks were done, it was time to heat treat it.

Heat treating changes the structure of the metal to make it harder. Hard steel will hold an edge longer, but it does make it much more difficult to work, hence doing most of the shaping before heat treating. To harden steel you need to heat it to a particular temperature, which depends on the exact alloy being used but 'bright orange' is close enough. Fun fact - when steel gets to it's 'critical' temperature, it stops being magnetic, so that's another way you can test it. The steel is then quenched, this one in oil, which makes it hard.

Hardened steel is very brittle so it's usually tempered after hardening. For 01 steel that means putting it in an oven at 160-200C for a couple of hours. You lose some hardness but you gain back some toughness and flexibility.

After tempering, cleaning, polishing, polishing and so much polishing. Steel is so dirty and difficult to work with compared to the silver, gold and copper I'm more used to. But eventually, and after glueing and bolting a sycamore wood handle on, then giving it a final sharpen on my wetstone, I had a knife.

It is a Japanese-style Nakiri knife. Usually used for cutting vegetables, it's really nice to use. Lightweight and agile, the balance is nice and it's comfortable in my hand. It's not perfect and there are a few things I'd do differently but I can see myself using this on a daily basis. More pictures

I have already laid out and started shaping my next knife, which will be a slightly more complicated bunka knife

Any questions, please just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

I saw these things originally on Reddit that extracted the average colour of frames from films and put them together to make a colour palette for said film, the original creator has a site called The Colors of Motion. I thought it would be cool to try and create a simple PowerShell script that does the same thing.

Here are a few examples:
Finding Nemo: https://i.imgur.com/8YwOlwK.png
The Bee Movie: https://i.imgur.com/umbd3co.png
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone: https://i.imgur.com/6rsbv0M.png

I've hosted my code on GitHub so if anyone wants to use my PowerShell script or suggest some ways to improve it feel free. You can use pretty much any video file as input as it uses ffmpeg to extract the frames.

GitHub link: https://github.com/ArkadiusBear/FilmStrip

Someone recently asked me to replace the battery in their old iPod, and I found myself wondering what I should do with the old battery. It still works, but has less capacity than when it was new. So I looked around my workshop and found some of these surface mount LEDs and decided to test the limits of my soldering skills and make a flashlight out of them.

These LEDs are very hard to solder, since they're surface-mount and the pads are on the bottom of the LED. They were never meant to be soldered by hand, but rather placed by machine onto a specific amount of solder paste, which is then baked in a fancy oven at very specific temperatures for very specific times. To solder these by hand, you need to create a liquid puddle of solder and sorta float the LED on top, while being careful to not short the pads which are very close together as well as not overheating the LED. The temperature the plastic melts at seems to be only a few degrees higher than the solder melts at.

I wired up 5 of the LEDs in parallel, each with its own 6.8ohm resistor wired in series with the LED. This should limit the current to 150mA per LED. I hot glued this in place, as well as a lithium battery charging circuit I got off ebay for a dollar. Here's one such listing.

I slapped on a pushbutton, and Bob's your uncle! It worked first try!

Here's a blurry picture of the finished product. I'm pretty proud of how it came out, considering how tiny and fiddly the soldering was. And, I think I'll actually get some use out of it too. The battery ought to last at least an hour of runtime, and the thing is seriously bright.

Anyone here into electronics as a hobby?

Edit: Better-ish pic: https://i.imgur.com/Kxqy1jg.jpg

^{No potatoes were harmed in the making of this photo.}