As an aspiring electronics geek, I am still collecting cool tools and techniques for my projects. While working on a weekend project, I stumbled upon a treasure trove containing meticulous (almost obsessively complete) advice regarding soldering and circuit board design. These videos were the perfect addition to my education, and even though I already had halfway-decent soldering technique, I have definitely improved as a result of the videos. It even inspired me to get some new tools, like a needle-tipped soldering iron and desoldering wick.

So, unless you’ve been formally trained in an EE course, I really recommend the Tangent Tutorials series of videos. Excellent work, Tangent!

RTFA: http://www.tangentsoft.net/elec/movies/

Tangent Tutorials
Getting Started Soldering

TT #1: Basic Soldering Equipment – My advice on the basic equipment necessary for DIY electronics work. 27 minutes.

TT #2: Basic Soldering Techniques – How to solder thru-hole components, plus basic advice for all sorts of soldering. 9 minutes.

TT #3: Surface Mount Soldering Techniques – How to solder surface-mount components using only basic DIYer equipment. Covers SO-8 chips and 2-lead parts in 1206 and larger size packages. 14 minutes.

RTFA: http://www.videothevote.org/

Video the Vote is a national initiative to protect voting rights by monitoring the electoral process. We organize citizen journalists-ordinary folks like you and me-to document election problems as they occur. And then we distribute their footage to the mainstream media and online to make sure the full story of Election Day gets told. Watch our 2006 highlights and join us as we Video the Vote this November.

Following up on the documented vote-flipping in West Virginia, I want to promote “Video the Vote.” It’s a really simple concept: create your own record of the voting day.

UPDATE 2008-10-29 I had some stuff about documenting your actual vote, but I’ve taken that offline… it’s just such a bad idea. Keep this part of the process confidential, and avoid accidentally violating anyone else’s rights.

Instead, here’s the Bill of Rights: