Follow neurostech on twitter, retweet a message about the free stuff within 30 minutes and we'll select a random winner (via random.org) from the list (the 3rd retweet system was too easy to game). We'll DM you that you won and get your address and mail it to you.

No whining, complaining if it doesn't work, is scuffed, sucks, whatever. All this stuff is randomly collected around the office, most is used, some is broken, but all of it is completely free, use them as doorstops if they don't work, we're sorry.

That's really it.

In another flash of genius in the it-seemed-like-a-fabulous-publicity-stunt-to-me category, I have come up with an idea that is guaranteed to accomplish virtually nothing for Neuros other than waste time and energy and of course provide another source of grave disappointment, contributing to a further sense of gloom and despair. But hey, at least I'm going into it with a good attitude!

Ok, here's the deal. I'm sick of eBaying off this worthless junk (but we've still got a considerable amount of it) so I had quite a conundrum. It's clogging up the place, it's perfectly good stuff, so you shouldn't throw it out, but its just miserable sticking this stuff up on eBay only to end up sell a perfectly good smartphone for $5. So here's my idea:

We randomly post notices for free junk on twitter, no elaborate description, just tell you what it is, and the 3rd person to retweet the notice gets the free junk mailed to them for... free. In theory, these retweets will spread the word of Neuros in a "viral fashion" far and wide, and millions will follow neurostech on twitter (aka Mr. Happy Pants) thus increasing our exposure and allowing us to actually sell the wonderful stuff that we actually... sell In practice, you can be sure, no one will pay any attention whatsoever and we'll end up throwing out the stuff anyway since it's more or less just throwing good money after bad to pay for postage to send this stuff to my brother in law, the only one paying enough attention to bother to play this game. But, hey at least I'll be a bit more bitter and disenchanted about this whole viral thing that's all the rage with you kids.

This update that its almost impossible to really appreciate if you haven't been a part of Neuros for a while. After years of teeth gnashing about the read only file system and and lack a package manager fully implemented, a new community member bmc has released software that solves these issues called OSDng.

Here's the toast I planned on my 40th birthday, but it varied a bit each time (I posted on youtube too):

I'd like to tell you a little story about my journey to this moment. It's a story that begins on New Years Eve coming into this year. Prior to that, my "emotional journey" to turning 40 was fairly ordinary. A bit of regret, self-pity and a remorse over life's disappointments.

The LINK has quietly generated more hacks and experimentation than any product in Neuros history. Thankfully, I have managed to do an equally historic job in dropping the ball on promoting these hacks. This strategic ineptitude on my part has saved these noble (but private) hackers the undesirable attention that they otherwise would have gotten, had I been more attentive, they might now be suffering from the blinding glare of the FOSS spotlight.

Regrettably, we can no longer hold back the floodgates of the free software paparazzi. They have uncovered the hack the duck mugs silently perched on the desks of the otherwise anonymous heroes fighting for the freedom of your television set.

Ok, I've beat this joke to death. Bottom line is that I created a wiki Gamma LINK Hacker User Manual that begins to attempt to catalog the results of the hacks that are spread out among the forums, mailing lists, etc into one place that the bring the next Greyback or ChadV up to speed, without having to dig through the entire history on the forums. Really it's for anyone that wants to go a bit deeper in using the LINK, and obviously the device is still evolving too rapidly to put this in a printed manual anyway.

Please make sure your favorite hacks, tips and tricks are there, and remember DON'T PANIC!

Those of you that follow Neuros know about our longstanding relationship with DVRupgrade, which has even included co-sponsoring some bounties with the Neuros LINK, we've begun to forge an even tighter relationship. As I said nearly 18 months ago, I believe that open electronics will follow the path of PCs in many ways, and one of those important ways will be with value added resellers. The concept of openness goes hand in hand with customization. Obviously much of that customization can be done easily by users themselves with simple plug ins and third party apps. But, it's clear there's also a place for more complicated customization that many users will be looking for the convenience of a reseller for.

In the nascent field of open electronics, there are few manufacturers, let alone the infrastructure of resellers, but Neuros happens to have the good fortune of being within a few miles of one of the world's few "electronics value added resellers." or eVARs Expanding on that luck is something we've been working on for years, and I'm proud to announce it's starting to bear fruit. So what does it mean to be an eVAR? and more importantly what does it bring to Neuros customers?

If you think you've seen junk before, well, you haven't seen anything until you've seen this junk. Do you know we sold a working motorola Q for $4 last round of auctions! In any case, we've got a nice assortment of first rate junk this time. For starters, there's the Random Box of Stuff inspired by woot's bag of crap. We've got shelf stereos we've got Boomboxes an old Dell Workstation

One item some of you might be interested in is a LINK like set of HW in a tower case. It's got HDMI, etc and I threw in a LINK USB, which I tested to play hulu, etc. So if you are looking to get in the LINK game, but are a bit short of scratch, then this could be your ticket. No keymote, but you can always buy that separately.

BTW, if anyone is local (we're in Chicago in the west loop) and are interested in some random stuff, you can pick stuff up and save the postage. We've got monitors and more workstations that it doesn't really pay to ship, but that work just fine. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to peruse our fine wares. And remember at this dark time in our nations economic history, it is your patriotic duty to buy some junk you don't really need.

You might think I have a one track mind these days, but I'm determined to get some of these fabulous treasures out of the office and into your hands!

Brand New Noxon iRadio Internet Radio and streaming device. Never opened, got at tradeshow, best of intentions, but hey our loss is your gain.

Com-Power Biconical Antenna which would make a fabulous Easter gift to that someone special on your list. This is a great conversation piece if nothing else, Hardly a visitor to our office saw this and didn't make a comment.

and a Bed of Nails test assembly for the N2 that is so massively valuable that we only now decided to sell it, in direct response from the President (in the hopes such a massive transaction would provide a further boost to the economy)

Dell Docking Station which seems like no big deal until you realize it was used by Chairman Gao when hosting one of his famed IRC Breakfasts.

As promised, here are some more treasures from our carefully acquired collection. We have scoured the globe to bring you these prized antiques and historical artifacts. First, an original Motorola Q which came directly from Motorola during testing of the MPEG-4 Recorder days. Next a PalmOne LifeDrive Dating back to the Ming Dynasty also used in testing of the MPEG-4 Recorder. Next, a portable Canon Inkjet printer which I personally used and printed out such historic documents such as Non Disclosure Agreements used at the famous Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Finally, an ethernet bridge which I bought off woot and had the best intentions of hooking up to provide wireless to an OSD, but never got around to opening the hbox.

Obviously these are genuine treasures, and we debated long and hard as to whether we should donate them to the Smithsonian or put up for auction on eBay, but being the populists that we are, we felt our ultimate aims of insuring direct access to the common man were best served through the eBay auction route. Good Luck!

We're doing some spring cleaning and unloading a ton of stuff we're not using anymore. We're moving our manufacturing to an off-site location and losing a lot of storage space as a result. We've got various gadgets (now you'll see a couple PSPs and a nice headphone amp) as well as unused HDDs, etc). Here's a start PSP #1,

PSP#2,

Headphone Amp,

Box of laptop HDDs

More Junk Coming Soon!