Magic Blue Ball

A picture of Magic Blue Ball sao

Made to fit the DEFCON 31 badge, the Magic Blue Ball is so named because of its functional resemblance to a Magic 8 Ball, and the fact that it is blue.


Operation: Shake it and watch the lights flash... then gradually slow... before settling on the answer to your question. As long as your question is "what terrible shell command should I run to ease the boredom of a normally functioning computer".


Implemented using a 555 timer, a decade counter, and a tilt switch, this circuit produces a random output by virtue of the non-repeatability of human input.

As long as you shake it enough before letting it settle, it's about as random as any D10.