So, Cherry keyboards are my favoured brand generally, and the Inifinity is simply the best I've ever found for tactile excitement and overall pleasure. Foolishly they decided to put the mute and volume buttons on exactly the bit of the keyboard where your hand rests if you are someone who can use software correctly and has their fingers resting on hotkeys... The result, constant muting and unmuting of all your computer's sound output, which is highly disabling if you were, for instance, editing video.

Never fear as I turn this worthless piece of junk into a fully functioning keyboard in a few easy steps.

1. Forget unplugging the keyboard, only those people who follow rules would even consider this 'safety' precaution as remotely purposeful.

2. Get a screwdriver and remove all 250 screws from the back of the keyboard. Do not be fooled by their weak camoflauge as there are even more screws under the two frontmost rubber feet and one under the label (your warranty is surely fucked from here on in). Some of the screws are different sizes to others, which is another design flaw as it can cause unnecessary extra work when 'servicing' this keyboard.

3. Split the keyboard open, probably riving the ribbon cable thing out of its connector - do not worry, we're not working with any level of sense or safety here, who cares.

4. Now, you can see the offending workings which reside under the stupid-ass mute and volume buttons. Though I've never had any problems with the volume buttons, their function is related to mute and I HATE THEM ALL. It offends me so much I can't even take a photo with it in focus in its factory state! If you lift up the flimsy flap of button mechanics (it is made of acetate and bubblegum, which will work in our favour in a moment when we do our precision modification work), you can see the offending traces which allow this ridiculous functionality... Using the correct tools (I used some blunt scissors), destroy the tracks ensuring that they can NEVER make contact ever again. Do not simply cut them, but remove a whole chunk of it all.

5. For safety, and to ensure that the now severed and exposed tracks do not short out, possibly even performing the mute operation in an ironic fashion, use tropicalising varnish to coat all exposed track ends and insulate them. We do have tropicalising varnish but instead I used a piece of sellotape on the metal bit underneath as a fine bit of insulation.

6. Reassemble the piece of shit, and enjoy as it is now the best keyboard ever made!

[Prior to performing this hardware modification I did attempt to disable the mute key using various keyboard scan code re-routing/disabling software techniques, none of which worked, and I would recommend this technique as being far more time-effective a solution].

Quality Some stuff from the archives of hacking, prior to the invention of Maschine.

Jungle Brothers 'I'll House You' hacked [2006]:

Kelis 'Milkshake' hacked [2005] (many said her voice should be removed completely, though that would make it more an actual original piece of muzak and not a true hack=fail):

GQ 'Disco Nights' hacked [2006]:

There are more crimes against music I am responsible for, though fortunately the wealth of pseudonyms involved means it highly unlikely I shall ever be held accountable.

Peace.

Test renders raw out of Cinema 4D, 3000 photos which form into a logo. BOOM!

A few more of my doodling-when-I-should-be-working masterpieces.

My friend bought a second hand pub pool table from Ebay to replace his dining table (no-one in the UK has time to actually eat due to the ridiculous financial/emotional burden of trying to survive in a communist state anyway), so naturally we had to start modifying it, first off with some in-table lighting. Finally a 'valid' use for my soldering skills.

Hand made hemp shoes to go with the high volume nettle tea consumption. A step too far?