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https://hackaday.com/2025/02/20/water-jets-will-carve-your-pumpkin/ | Water Jets Will Carve Your Pumpkin | Lewin Day | [
"cnc hacks",
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"halloween",
"holiday hacks",
"pumpkin"
] | Carving pumpkins by hand is hot, sweaty, messy work, and a great way to slice your way into a critical artery. Why not let a water jet do it for you? It’ll be cleaner and more precise to boot,
and [Jo_Journey] is here to show us how.
So sharp!
Obviously, you’ll need a water jet machine, there’s no getting around that. You’ll also still have to do the basic preparation of the pumpkin yourself—cutting a porthole into the top and mucking it out is your job. With that done, you must then mount the pumpkin on two metal rods which will be used to mount it in the water jet machine’s working area.
You can then create a vector file of your design, and use your chosen software to generate the G-code to run the water jet. [Jo_Journey] uses Scribe, and recommends cutting at a speed of around 200 in/min at low pressure. Remember, it’s pumpkin you’re cutting, not high-strength steel.
There is some inaccuracy, of course—your pumpkin’s surface is not a flat plane, after all—but the results are good enough for most Halloween-related purposes. Even despite the geometrical issues, though, [Jo_Journey] shows us that you can get pleasantly sharp edges on your design. That’s very hard to achieve by hand!
We do love
a good holiday hack around these parts
, even if it’s out of season. If you’ve been cooking up your own pumpkinous plans, don’t hesitate to
let us know
! Earlier is sometimes better—after all, who has time to hack together a project if you’ve just read about it on October 29? | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8100715",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-02-20T10:32:24",
"content": "xmas is early this year",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8100799",
"author": "Consulting Joe",
"timestamp": "2025-02-20T13:40:07",
... | 1,760,371,633.286065 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/19/add-a-little-wopr-to-your-server-rack/ | Add A Little WOPR To Your Server Rack | Tom Nardi | [
"LED Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"led matrix",
"led matrix display",
"MAX7219",
"wargames"
] | Like so many of us, [aforsberg] found themselves fascinated with the WOPR computer from
WarGames —
something about all those blinking LEDs must speak to nerds on some subconscious level. But rather than admire the light show from afar, they decided to
recreate it at a scale suitable for a 1U server rack
.
So what goes into this WOPR display? In this case, the recipe simply calls for three MAX7219 dot matrix LED modules and a Raspberry Pi Pico, although you could swap that out for your favorite microcontroller if you wish. You should probably stick with something that at least runs MicroPython though, or else you won’t be able to use the included Python code to mimic the light patterns seen in the film.
What we like most about this project is how simple and inexpensive it is to recreate. There’s no custom PCB, and all the parts are mass produced enough that the economies of scale have made them comically cheap. Even at Amazon prices, you’re looking at around $50 USD in parts, and quite a bit less if you’ve got the patience to order everything through AliExpress.
Critics will note that, in its current state, this display just shows gibberish (admittedly stylish gibberish, but still). But as we’ve seen with similar projects, that’s
simply a matter of software
. | 28 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8100649",
"author": "Jon Mayo",
"timestamp": "2025-02-20T07:11:04",
"content": "Next I need a little IMSAI 8080 system. Maybe call up the WOPR with an acoustic coupler.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8100689",
"author... | 1,760,371,633.486229 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/19/pulsed-deposition-points-a-different-path-to-diy-semiconductors/ | Pulsed Deposition Points A Different Path To DIY Semiconductors | Dan Maloney | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"CVD",
"fab",
"fabrication",
"laser",
"mask",
"plasma",
"pulsed deposition",
"semiconductor",
"silicon"
] | While not impossible, replicating the machines and processes of a modern semiconductor fab is a pretty steep climb for the home gamer. Sure, we’ve seen it done, but nanoscale photolithography is a demanding process that discourages the DIYer at every turn. So if you want to make semiconductors at home, it might be best to change the rules a little and give something like this
pulsed laser deposition prototyping apparatus
a try.
Rather than building up a semiconductor by depositing layers of material onto a silicon substrate and selectively etching features into them with photolithography, [
Sebastián Elgueta
]’s chips will be made by adding materials in their final shape, with no etching required. The heart of the process is a multi-material pulsed laser deposition chamber, which uses an Nd:YAG laser to ablate one of six materials held on a rotating turret, creating a plasma that can be deposited onto a silicon substrate. Layers can either be a single material or, with the turret rapidly switched between different targets, a mix of multiple materials. The chamber is also equipped with valves for admitting different gases, such as oxygen when insulating layers of metal oxides need to be deposited. To create features, a pattern etched into a continuous web of aluminum foil by a second laser is used as a mask. When a new mask is needed, a fresh area of the foil is rolled into position over the substrate; this keeps the patterns in perfect alignment.
We’ve noticed regular updates on this project, so it’s under active development. [
Sebastián
]’s most recent improvements to the setup have involved adding electronics inside the chamber, including a resistive heater to warm the substrate before deposition and a quartz crystal microbalance to measure the amount of material being deposited. We’re eager to see what else he comes up with, especially when those first chips roll off the line. Until then, we’ll just have to look back at some of
[Sam Zeloof]’s DIY semiconductors
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8100630",
"author": "Vik",
"timestamp": "2025-02-20T04:51:45",
"content": "There are conductive and semiconductive UV resins available based on PEDOT or graphene. The RepRapMicron Open Source 3D printer just demonstrated laying down 30 micron lines, and can do multi-material resin p... | 1,760,371,633.745876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/19/the-us-militarys-unsecured-ufo-satellites-and-their-use-by-russia/ | The US Military’s Unsecured UFO Satellites And Their Use By Russia | Maya Posch | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"satellite communication"
] | Something that you generally don’t expect as a North-America-based enthusiast, is to listen in on Russian military communications during their war in Ukraine via WebSDR, or that these communications would be passing through US military satellites that are happy to just broadcast anything. Yet that’s the situation that the
Saveitforparts
YouTube channel recently described
. As it turns out, there is a gaggle of UFOs up there, as the US DoD lovingly calls them.
Between 1979 and 1989 eight
FLTSATCOM
launches took place, with FLTSATCOM 7 and 8 still operating today. They were later joined by their successor UHF Follow-On (
UFO
) with 11 launches between 1993 and 2003. All of these operate in the UHF spectrum, with some UFO satellites also covering other bands. Their goal is to provide communication for the military’s forces, with these satellites for the most part acting as simple repeaters. Over time non-military parties learned to use these satellites too, even if it’s technically illegal in many jurisdictions.
As described in the video, if you listen in on WebSDR streams from Ukraine, you can not only find encrypted military comms, but also unencrypted Russian radio traffic. It seems that in lieu of being provided with proper (encrypted) radio systems, Russian forces are using these US military satellites for communication much like how US (and NATO) forces would have. This is reminiscent of how Russian troops were caught using Discord via Starlink for communication, before
Russian command shutdown Discord
.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip. | 31 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8100562",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-02-20T01:00:50",
"content": "If it is unsecured (or has such weak security) then yes of course highly motivated actors will exploit it.I sure hope no legitimate US military comms still go through these ancient satellites. And if they don’... | 1,760,371,633.564756 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/19/homebrew-cpu-gets-a-beautiful-rotating-cube-demo/ | Homebrew CPU Gets A Beautiful Rotating Cube Demo | Donald Papp | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Development"
] | [
"8 bit",
"cpu",
"demo",
"homebrew",
"vga"
] | [James Sharman] designed and built his own 8-bit computer from scratch using TTL logic chips, including a VGA adapter, and you can watch it run a
glorious rotating cube demo
in the video below.
The rotating cube is the product of roughly 3,500 lines of custom assembly code and looks fantastic, running at 30 frames per second with shading effects from multiple light sources. Great results considering the computing power of his system is roughly on par with vintage 8-bit home computers, and the graphics capabilities are limited. [James]’s computer uses a tile map instead of a frame buffer, so getting 3D content rendered was a challenge.
The video is about 20 seconds of demo followed by a detailed technical discussion on how exactly one implements everything required for a 3D cube, from basic math to optimization. If a deep dive into that sort of thing is up your alley, give it a watch!
We’ve featured [James]’ fascinating work on his homebrew computer before. Here’s more detail on
his custom VGA adapter
, and his
best shot at making it (kinda) run
DOOM
. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8100538",
"author": "jbx",
"timestamp": "2025-02-19T23:56:20",
"content": "Impressive !However making a rotating sphere would have been easier.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8100546",
"author": "Mark Topham",
... | 1,760,371,634.090868 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/17/decoy-killswitch-triggers-alarm-instead/ | Decoy Killswitch Triggers Alarm Instead | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"car alarm",
"decoy",
"dummy switch",
"killswitch",
"relay",
"security"
] | There are a few vehicles on the road that are targeted often by car thieves, whether that’s because they have valuable parts, the OEM security is easily bypassed, or even because it’s an antique vehicle that needs little more than a screwdriver to get started. For those driving one of these vehicles an additional immobilization feature is often added, like a hidden switch to deactivate the fuel pump. But, in the continual arms race between thieves and car owners, this strategy is easily bypassed. [Drive Science] hopefully took one step ahead though and
added a decoy killswitch instead which triggers the alarm
.
The decoy switch is placed near the steering column, where it would easily be noticed by a thief. Presumably, they would think that this was the reason the car wouldn’t start and attempt to flip the switch and then start the ignition. But secretly, the switch activates a hidden relay connected to the alarm system, so after a few seconds of the decoy switch activating, the alarm will go off regardless of the position of this switch. This build requires a lot of hiding spots to be effective, so a hidden method to deactivate the alarm is also included which resets the relay, and another killswitch which actually disables the fuel pump is also added to another secret location in the car.
As far as “security through obscurity” goes, a build like this goes a long way to demonstrate how this is an effective method in certain situations. All that’s generally needed for effective car theft prevention is to make your car slightly more annoying to steal than any other car on the road, and we think that [Drive Science] has accomplished that goal quite well. Security through obscurity is generally easily broken on things deployed on a much larger scale.
A major European radio system was found to have several vulnerabilities recently thanks in part to the designers hoping no one would look to closely at them
. | 43 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8099192",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T16:41:31",
"content": "the alarm will go off regardless of the position of this switch.Isn’t it “on” instead? You want to arm the alarm, not disarm it, right?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,633.650811 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/17/the-unbreakable-beer-glasses-of-east-germany/ | The “Unbreakable” Beer Glasses Of East Germany | Lewin Day | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"History",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"ceverit",
"chemically strengthened glass",
"glass",
"hardened glass",
"superfest"
] | We like drinking out of glass. In many ways, it’s an ideal material for the job. It’s hard-wearing, and inert in most respects. It doesn’t interact with the beverages you put in it, and it’s easy to clean. The only problem is that it’s rather easy to break. Despite its major weakness, glass still reigns supreme over plastic and metal alternatives.
But what if you could make glassware that
didn’t
break? Surely, that would be a supreme product that would quickly take over the entire market. As it turns out, an East German glassworks developed just that. Only, the product didn’t survive, and we lumber on with easily-shattered glasses to this day. This is the story of Superfest.
Harder, Better, Glasser, Stronger
It all started in the German Democratic Republic in the 1970s; you might know it better as East Germany. The government’s Council of Ministers deemed it important to develop higher-strength glass. Techniques for the chemical strengthening of glass were already known by the 1960s, and work on developing the technology further began in earnest.
The patent goes into great detail on design of the production line, indicating how perforated plates create a “rain” of molten potassium salt upon the glassware. Credit:
patent
These efforts came to fruition in the form of a patent filed
on the 8th of August, 1977.
It was entitled
Verfahren und Vorrichtung Zur Verfestigung Von Glaserzeugnissen Durch Ioenenaustausch—
or, translated to English—Process and Apparatus for Strengthening Glassware By Ion Exchange. The patent regarded an industry-ready process, which was intended for use in the production of hollow glass vessels—specifically, drinking glassware.
The researchers understood that glasses typically broke in part due to microscopic cracks in the material, which are introduced in the production process. These microcracks could be mitigated by replacing the sodium ions in the surface of the glass with larger potassium ions. The larger ions thus cause a state of compression in the surface layer. Glass is far more capable of resisting compression rather than tension. The high compressive stresses baked into the material help resist tension forces that occur during impact events, thus making the material far more resistant to breakage.
The process of exchanging sodium ions in the glass with potassium ions was simple enough. The patent outlined a process for raining down a molten potassium salt solution onto the glassware, which would harden the outside surface significantly. This process was chosen for multiple reasons. It was desired to avoid immersing glassware into a huge bath of molten potassium salt, as the large bath of hot material would present safety hazards. There were also concerns that excessive time spent at high temperatures following immersion would lead to a relaxation of the crucial compressive stresses that built up in the glass from the ion exchange. Interior surfaces of the glassware could also be hardened by rotating the glasses on a horizontal axis under the “salt rain” so they were also exposed to the potassium salt to enable the ion exchange.
While the design of apparatus to strengthen drinking glassware is novel, the fundamental chemical process is not dissimilar to that used in the production of Gorilla Glass. Credit:
patent
Recognizing the value of this patent, the Council of Ministers fast-tracked the technology into commerical production at the Sachsenglas Schwepnitz factory. The glassware was originally named CEVERIT, which was a portmanteau of the German words chemisch verfestigt—meaning “chemically solidified.” It also wore the name CV-Glas for the same reason. Production began in earnest in 1980, primarily centered around making beer glasses for hospitality businesses in East German—bars, restaurants, and the like. The glass instantly lived up to its promise, proving far more durable in commercial use. While not
completely
indestructible, the glasses were lasting ten to fifteen times longer than traditional commercial glassware.
A Superfest glass marked for 250 mL. Today, the only real way to source Superfest glassware is to buy used. Much remains in commercial use. Credit: Kaethe17, CC BY-SA 4.0
Despite the political environment of the time, there were hopes to expand sales to the West. On the urging of sales representative Eberhard Pook, the glasses were referred to by the name Superfest. The aim was to avoid negative connotations of “chemicals” in the name when it came to drinking glasses. Despite efforts made at multiple trade fairs, however, international interest in the tough glassware was minimal. Speaking to ZEITMagazin in 2020, Pook noted the flat response from potential customers. “We built a wall where we stacked the glasses… Look at it, it’s unbreakable!” says Pook, translated from the original German. “No reaction.” He was told that the material’s strength was also a great weakness from a sales perspective. “At Coca Cola, for example, they said, why should we use a glass that doesn’t break, we make money with our glasses,” he explained. “The dealers understandably said, who would cut off the branch they’re sitting on?”
Production nevertheless continued apace, with 120 million glasses made for the domestic market. Hardened glassware was manufactured in all shapes and sizes, covering everything from vases to tea cups and every size of beer glass. Stock eventually began piling up at the factory, as restaurants and bars simply weren’t ordering more glassware. Their chemically-strengthened glasses were doing exactly what they were supposed to do, and replacements weren’t often necessary.
Superfest glass was also used in the production of vases and other hollow glass items. Credit:
Mernst1806/TeKaBe
, CC BY-SA 4.0
Regardless, the future was unkind to Superfest. Urban legend says that the reunification of Germany was the beginning of the end, but it’s not entirely true. As covered by
ZEITMagazin,
the production of Superfest glassware was ended in July 1990 because it simply wasn’t profitable for the company. Production of other glassware continued, but the chemically-hardened line was no more. The patent for the process was allowed to lapse in 1992, and pursued no more.
The question remains why we don’t have chemically-hardened glassware today. The techniques behind Superfest are scarcely different to those used in
Gorilla Glass
or other chemically-strengthened glasses. The manufacturing process is well-documented, and the world is full of factories that ignore any concept of intellectual property if there was even an issue to begin with. Indeed, a German crowdfunding effort even attempted to replicate the material—
only to fall into insolvency
this year.
It seems that either nobody can make stronger drinking glasses, or nobody wants to—perhaps because, as Superfest seemed to indicate—there simply isn’t any money in it in the long term. It’s a shame, because the world demands nice things—and that includes beer glasses that last seemingly forever.
Featured image: “
Superfest glasses in five sizes
” by Michael Ernst | 80 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "8099165",
"author": "Lars",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T15:46:01",
"content": "Hehe, here is one from eastern germany: I have still one of those drinking glasses in dayly use. I was not aware, that it was something special. But yes, it never broke. Keep in mind, that it was part of the... | 1,760,371,634.037228 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/17/parametric-design-process-produces-unique-speakers/ | Parametric Design Process Produces Unique Speakers | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"audiophile",
"design",
"driver",
"parametric",
"speaker",
"stereo"
] | When building one-off projects, it’s common to draw up a plan on a sheet of paper or in CAD, or even wing it and hope for the best outcome without any formal plans. Each of these design philosophies has its ups and downs but both tend to be rigid, offering little flexibility as the project progresses. To solve this, designers often turn to parametric design where changes to any part of the design are automatically reflected throughout the rest, offering far greater flexibility while still maintaining an overall plan. [Cal Bryant]
used this parametric method to devise a new set of speakers for an office
, with excellent results.
The bulk of the speakers were designed with OpenSCAD, with the parametric design allowing for easy adjustments to accommodate different drivers and enclosure volumes. A number of the panels of the speakers are curved as well, which is more difficult with traditional speaker materials like MDF but much easier with this 3D printed design. There were a few hiccups along the way though; while the plastic used here is much denser than MDF, the amount of infill needed to be experimented with to achieve a good finish. The parametric design paid off here as well as the original didn’t fit exactly within the print bed, so without having to split up the print the speakers’ shape was slightly tweaked instead. In the end he has a finished set of speakers that look and sound like a high-end product.
There are a few other perks to a parametric design like this as well. [Cal] can take his design for smaller desk-based speakers and tweak a few dimensions and get a model designed to stand up on the floor instead. It’s a design process that adds a lot of options and although it takes a bit more up-front effort it can be worth it while prototyping or even for producing different products quickly. If you want to make something much larger than the print bed and slightly changing the design won’t cut it,
[Cal] recently showed us how to easily print huge objects like arcade cabinets with fairly standard sized 3D printers
. | 28 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8099105",
"author": "steelman",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T12:19:42",
"content": "while the plastic used here is much denser than MDF, the amount of infill needed to be experimented with to achieve a good finish.What is wrong or right with “the amount of infill”? And what has the fini... | 1,760,371,633.355773 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/17/usb-stick-hides-large-language-model/ | USB Stick Hides Large Language Model | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"arm",
"generative AI",
"large language model",
"LLM",
"plug and play",
"Zero W"
] | Large language models (LLMs) are all the rage in the generative AI world these days, with the truly large ones like GPT, LLaMA, and others using tens or even hundreds of billions of parameters to churn out their text-based responses. These typically require glacier-melting amounts of computing hardware, but the “large” in “large language models” doesn’t really need to be that big for there to be a functional, useful model. LLMs designed for limited hardware or consumer-grade PCs are available now as well, but [Binh] wanted something even smaller and more portable,
so he put an LLM on a USB stick
.
This USB stick isn’t just a jump drive with a bit of memory on it, though. Inside the custom 3D printed case is a Raspberry Pi Zero W running
llama.cpp
, a lightweight, high-performance version of LLaMA. Getting it on this Pi wasn’t straightforward at all, though, as the latest version of
llama.cpp
is meant for ARMv8 and this particular Pi was running the ARMv6 instruction set. That meant that [Binh] needed to change the source code to remove the optimizations for the more modern ARM machines, but with a week’s worth of effort spent on it he finally got the model on the older Raspberry Pi.
Getting the model to run was just one part of this project. The rest of the build was ensuring that the LLM could run on any computer without drivers and be relatively simple to use. By setting up the USB device as a composite device which presents a filesystem to the host computer, all a user has to do to interact with the LLM is to create an empty text file with a filename, and the LLM will automatically fill the file with generated text. While it’s not blindingly fast, [Binh] believes this is the first plug-and-play USB-based LLM, and we’d have to agree. It’s not the least powerful computer to ever run an LLM, though.
That honor goes to this project which is able to cram one on an ESP32
. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8099067",
"author": "strawberrymortallyb0bcea48e7",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T09:38:29",
"content": "Cmake is awful, use Waf instead.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8099071",
"author": "Carl Breen",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,371,633.420993 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/davincis-new-threads/ | DaVinci’s New Threads | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"DaVinci",
"screw thread",
"threaded rod"
] | Last year, we saw [How To Make Everything’s] take on [DaVinci’s] machine for cutting threads. However, they stopped short of the goal, which was making accurate metal screw threads. After much experimentation, they have a working solution. In fact, they
tried several different methods
, each with varying degrees of success.
Some of the more unusual methods included heating a bar red hot and twisting it, and casting a screw out of bronze. The last actually worked well with a normal screw as the mold, although presumably, a good wood or wax shape would have resulted in a workable mold, too.
The real goal, though, was to make the DaVinci machine more capable on its own. The machine uses leadscrews and can cut its own leadscrews, so, in theory, if you improve the machine, it can cut better components for itself, which may make it possible to cut even better leadscrews.
The reality was the machine required some significant rework to correctly cut metal threads. But it does, as you can see in the video below. With some additional scaling of gears, they were able to cut a 20 TPI threaded rod that would take an off-the-shelf nut.
If you missed the original post on the machine, you can still
go back and read it
. Of course, once you have a threaded rod, you are just a few steps away
from a tap
, too. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8099049",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T08:19:24",
"content": "Erm…Interesting? The stories are very predictable. I know exactly what’s going to happen when the young woman gets stuck in the washing machine and her step brother is nearby!",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,371,633.703763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/using-antimony-to-make-qubits-more-stable/ | Using Antimony To Make Qubits More Stable | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"antimony",
"quantum processing",
"qubit"
] | One of the problems with quantum bits, or “qubits”, is that they tend to be rather fragile, with a high sensitivity to external influences. Much of this is due to the atoms used for qubits having two distinct spin states of up or down, along with the superposition. Any disturbing of the qubit’s state can cause it to flip between either spin, erasing the original state. Now
antimony is suggested as a better qubit atom
by researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia due to it having effectively eight spin states, as
also detailed in the university press release
along with a very tortured ‘cats have nine lives’ analogy.
For the experiment, also
published
in
N
ature Physics,
the researchers doped a silicon semiconductor with a single antimony atom, proving that such an antimony qubit device can be manufactured, with the process scalable to arrays of such qubits. For the constructed device, the spin state is controlled via a transistor constructed on top of the trapped atom. As a next step a device with closely spaced antimony atoms will be produced, which should enable these to cooperate as qubits and perform calculations.
By having the qubit go through many more states to fully flip, these qubits can potentially be much more stable than contemporary qubits. That said, there’s still a lot more research and development to be done before a quantum processor based this technology can
go toe-to-toe with a Commodore 64
to show off the Quantum Processor Advantage. Very likely we’ll be seeing more of IBM’s
hybrid classical-quantum
systems before that. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8099000",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T04:31:18",
"content": "So… looking at the image of the team, it’s safe to say that they are working on a plan to take over the world after throwing it into chaos. Someone call 007. ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,634.135292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/hackaday-links-february-16-2025/ | Hackaday Links: February 16, 2025 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"Al Williams",
"bitcoin",
"brandmeister",
"council",
"digital mobile radio",
"dmr",
"enshittification",
"grid",
"hackaday links",
"infotainment",
"landfill",
"Monkey",
"outage",
"Sri Lanka",
"Stellantis",
"wallet"
] | Just when you thought the saga of the Bitcoin wallet lost in a Welsh landfill was over,
another chapter of the story appears to be starting
. Regular readers will recall the years-long efforts of Bitcoin early adopter James Howells to recover a hard drive tossed out by his ex back in 2013. The disk, which contains a wallet holding about 8,000 Bitcoin, is presumed to be in a landfill overseen by the city council of Newport, which denied every request by Howells to gain access to the dump. The matter looked
well and truly settled
(last item) once a High Court judge weighed in. But the announcement that the Newport Council plans to cap and close the landfill this fiscal year and turn part of it into a solar farm has rekindled his efforts.
Howells and his investment partners have expressed interest in buying the property as-is, in the hopes of recovering the $780 million-ish fortune. We don’t think much of their odds, especially given the consistently negative responses he’s gotten over the last twelve years. Howells apparently doesn’t fancy his odds much either, since the Council’s argument that closing the landfill to allow him to search would cause harm to the people of Newport was seemingly made while they were actively planning the closure. It sure seems like something foul is afoot, aside from the trove of dirty diapers Howells seeks to acquire, of course.
When all else fails, blame the monkey.
The entire nation of Sri Lanka suffered a blackout last Sunday
, with a hapless monkey being fingered as the guilty party. The outage began when a transformer at a substation south of the capital city of Colombo went offline. Unconfirmed reports are that a troop of monkeys was fighting, as monkeys do, and unadvisedly brought their tussle over the fence and into the substation yard. At some point, one of the warring animals sought the high ground on top of a transformer, with predictable results. How turning one monkey into air pollution managed to bring down an entire country’s grid is another question entirely.
From the enshittification files comes
this horrifying story of in-dashboard ads
. Stellantis, maker of Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler, and other brands that can reliably be counted upon to be littered with bad grounds, has decided to start putting full-screen pop-up advertisements on infotainment systems. As if that’s not atrocious enough, the ads will run not just when the car is first started, but every time the vehicle comes to a stop in traffic. The ads will hawk things like extended warranties, at least initially, but we predict it won’t be long before other upsell attempts are made. It would be pretty easy to pull in other data to customize ads, such as an offer to unlock heated seats if the outside temperature gets a little chilly, or even flog a pumpkin spice latte when the GPS shows you’re near a Starbucks. The possibilities are endless, and endlessly revolting, because if one car company does it, the rest will quickly follow. Ad-blocking wizards, this may be your next big target.
And finally, calling all hams, or at least those of us with an interest in digital modes. Our own Al Williams will be making an appearance on
the DMR Tech Net
to talk about
his Hackaday recent article
on Digital Mobile Radio. The discussion will be on Monday, February 17 at 00:30 UTC (19:30 EST), on Brandmeister talk group 31266. If you’ve got a DMR-capable radio, DMR Tech Net has a handy guide to getting the talk group into your code plug. If none of that makes any sense, relax — you can still tune in online using
this link
and the Player button in the upper right. Or, if ham radio isn’t your thing, Al will be making a second appearance the next night but on
a Zoom call
to discuss “How to Become
Rich and
(almost) Famous on Hackaday,” which is his collection of tips and tricks for getting your project to catch a Hackaday writer’s eye. | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098960",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T02:02:47",
"content": "I think you mean Monday 17th 19:30EST (Tuesday 00:30UTC), because Monday 00:30UTC passed a few hours ago :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098967",
... | 1,760,371,634.344204 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/how-hard-is-it-to-write-a-calculator-app/ | How Hard Is It To Write A Calculator App? | Al Williams | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"floating point",
"mathematics"
] | How hard can it be to write a simple four-function calculator program? After all, computers are good at math, and making a calculator isn’t exactly blazing a new trail, right? But [Chad Nauseam] will tell you that it is
harder than you probably think
. His post starts with a screenshot of the iOS calculator app with a mildly complex equation. The app’s answer is wrong. Android’s calculator does better on the same problem.
What follows is a bit of a history lesson and a bit of a math lesson combined. As you might realize, the inherent problem with computers and math isn’t that they aren’t good at it. Floating point numbers have a finite precision and this leads to problems, especially when you do operations that combine large and small numbers together.
Indeed, any floating point representation has a bigger infinity of numbers that it
can’t
represent than those that it can. But the same is true of a calculator. Think about how many digits you are willing to type in, and how many digits you want out. All you want is for each of them to be correct, and that’s a much smaller set of numbers.
Google’s developer, [Hans-J. Boehm] tackled this problem by turning to recursive real arithmetic (RRA). Here, each math function is told how accurate it needs to be, and a set of rules determines the highest required accuracy.
But every solution brings a problem. With RRA, there is no way to tell very small numbers from zero. So computing “1-1” might give you “0.000000000”, which is correct but upsetting because of all the excess precision. You could try to test if “0.00000000” was equal to “0”, and simplify the output. But testing for equality of two numbers in RRA is not guaranteed to terminate: you can tell if two numbers are unequal by going to more and more precision until you find a difference, but if the numbers happen to be equal, this procedure never ends.
The key realization for [Boehm] and his collaborators was that you could use RRA only for cases where you deal with inexact numbers. Most of the time, the Android calculator deals with rationals. However, when an operation produces a potentially irrational result, it switches to RRA for the approximation, which works because no finite representation ever gets it exactly right. The result is a system that doesn’t show excess precision, but correctly displays all of the digits that it does show.
We really like [Chad’s] step-by-step explanation. If you would rather dive into the math, you can read [Boehm’s]
paper on the topic
. If you ever wonder how many computer systems handle odd functions like sine and cosine, read about
CORDIC
. Or, avoid all of this and stick to your
slide rule
. | 40 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098892",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T21:34:31",
"content": "“Or, avoid all of this and stick to your slide rule.”Swiping the small parts was common hazing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098906",
"autho... | 1,760,371,634.21711 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/graphene-tattoos-the-future-of-continuous-health-monitoring/ | Graphene Tattoos: The Future Of Continuous Health Monitoring? | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"bandaid",
"bioelectronics",
"care",
"GET",
"graphene",
"health",
"health monitoring",
"metrics",
"tattoo"
] | In the near future, imagine a world where your health is continuously monitored, not through bulky devices but through an invisible graphene tattoo. Developed at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,
these tattoos
could soon detect a range of health metrics, including blood pressure, stress levels, and even biomarkers of diseases like diabetes. This technology, though still in its infancy, promises to revolutionize how we monitor health, making it possible to track our bodies’ responses to everything from exercise to environmental exposure in real-time.
Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, is key to the development of these tattoos. They are flexible, transparent, and conductive, making them ideal for bioelectronics. The tattoos are so thin and pliable that users won’t even feel them on their skin. In early tests, graphene electronic tattoos (GETs) have been used to measure bioimpedance, which correlates with blood pressure and other vital signs. The real breakthrough here, however, is the continuous, non-invasive monitoring that could enable early detection of conditions that usually go unnoticed until it’s too late.
While still requiring refinement, this technology is advancing rapidly. Graphene
still amazes us
, but it’s no longer just science fiction. Soon, these tattoos could be a part of everyday life, helping individuals track their health and enabling better preventative care. Since we’re hackers out here – but this is a far fetch – combining
this knowledge on graphene production
, and this article on
tattooing with a 3D printer
, could get you on track. Let us know, what would you use graphene biosensors for?
Original photo by
engin akyurt
on
Unsplash | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098835",
"author": "Old nerd",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T18:14:19",
"content": "What makes these tattoos? They seem to be super thin tape.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8098863",
"author": "Giane",
"timestam... | 1,760,371,634.279206 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/quinn-dunki-makes-a-screw-shortener-fit-for-kings/ | [Quinn Dunki] Makes A Screw Shortener Fit For Kings | Elliot Williams | [
"how-to",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"jig",
"machining",
"quinn dunki",
"screws"
] | It’s common problem when you’re building anything with screws: this one is too long, this one is too short. While she can’t teach you how to fix the latter, [Quinn Dunki] has
made herself an absolutely deluxe screw shortening jig
. And while that’s cool and all, the real value here is the journey; watching over [Quinn]’s shoulders while she’s in the machine shop is always illuminating.
First off, she starts with her old jig, which frankly makes us want one. It’s a short piece of aluminum angle stock with threaded holes in it. You thread the screw in as far as you want, and use the edge as a cutting guide. Very nice!
But aluminum threads wear out quickly so it works if you’re shortening dozens of screws, but gets wonky when you need to cut hundreds. The new jig is made out of steel, and has a slit that clamps the threads in place so she doesn’t have to hold the tiny screws with her other hand while sawing.
This video is, on the surface, about making an improved tool out of steel. But it’s the tips along the way that make it worth your watch. For instance “deburr early and often” is a recurring leitmotif here: it keeps the extra bits that form along any cut from messing up edge finding or vise registration. And yeah, she deburrs after every operation.
There are mistakes, and lessons learned along the way. We’re not going to spoil it all. But in the end, it’s a sweet tool that we’ve never seen before.
If you haven’t read
[Quinn]’s series on machine tools
that she wrote for us, it’s a treasure trove of machining wisdom. | 49 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098796",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T16:01:51",
"content": "Huh. Usually I just hold screws in the vise by the waste end when I’m cutting them to length.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8098811",
"... | 1,760,371,634.903295 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/piano-gets-an-arduino-implant/ | Piano Gets An Arduino Implant | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"piano",
"solenoid"
] | [Paul] likes his piano, but he doesn’t know how to play it. The obvious answer: program an
Arduino to do it
. Some aluminum extrusion and solenoids later, and it was working. Well, perhaps not quite that easy — making music on a piano is more than just pushing the keys. You have to push multiple keys together
and
control the power behind each strike to make the music sound natural.
The project is massive since he chose to put solenoids over each key. Honestly, we might have been tempted to model ten fingers and move the solenoids around in two groups of five. True, the way it is, it can play things that would not be humanly possible, but ten solenoids, ten drivers, and two motors might have been a little easier and cheaper.
The results, however, speak for themselves. He did have one problem with the first play, though. The solenoids have a noticeable click when they actuate. The answer turned out to be orthodontic rubber bands installed on the solenoids. We aren’t sure we would have thought of that.
Player pianos, of course, are nothing new. And, yes, you can even make one
with a 555
. If a piano isn’t your thing, maybe try a
xylophone
instead. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098771",
"author": "gogo",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T13:24:40",
"content": "Can it play doom?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8099038",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-02-17T07:36:02",
"... | 1,760,371,634.962453 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/16/scrapyard-vacuum-dehydrator-sucks-the-water-from-hydraulic-oil/ | Scrapyard Vacuum Dehydrator Sucks The Water From Hydraulic Oil | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"dehydrator",
"farm hacks",
"gas cylinder",
"hydraulic",
"oil",
"vacuum"
] | Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of a blown head gasket knows that the old saying “oil and water don’t mix” is only partially true. When what’s coming out of the drain plug looks like a mocha latte, you know you’re about to have a very bad day.
[SpankRanch Garage] recently found himself in such a situation, and the result was
this clever vacuum dehydrator
, which he used to clean a huge amount of contaminated hydraulic fluid from some heavy equipment. The machine is made from a retired gas cylinder welded to a steel frame with the neck pointing down. He added a fill port to the bottom (now top) of the tank; as an aside, we had no idea the steel on those tanks was so thick. The side of the tank was drilled and threaded for things like pressure and temperature gauges as well as sight glasses to monitor the process and most importantly, a fitting for a vacuum pump. Some valves and a filter were added to the outlet, and a band heater was wrapped around the tank.
To process the contaminated oil, [Spank] glugged a bucket of forbidden milkshake into the chamber and pulled a vacuum. The low pressure lets the relatively gentle heat boil off the water without cooking the oil too badly. It took him a couple of hours to treat a 10-gallon batch, but the results were pretty stark. The treated oil looked far better than the starting material, and while it still may have some water in it, it’s probably just fine for excavator use now. The downside is that the vacuum pump oil gets contaminated with water vapor, but that’s far easier and cheaper to replace that a couple hundred gallons of hydraulic oil.
Never doubt the hacking abilities of farmers. Getting things done with what’s on hand is a big part of farm life, be it
building a mower from scrap
or
tapping the power of the wind
. | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098743",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T09:26:49",
"content": "Very neat",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098752",
"author": "Menno",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T11:25:20",
"content": "Well, every pharmaci... | 1,760,371,634.664769 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/curious-claim-of-conversion-of-aluminium-into-transparent-aluminium-oxide/ | Curious Claim Of Conversion Of Aluminium Into Transparent Aluminium Oxide | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"aluminium"
] | Sometimes you come across a purported scientific paper that makes you do a triple-check, just to be sure that you didn’t overlook something, as maybe the claims do make sense after all. Such is the case with a recent publication in the
Langmuir
journal
by [Budlayan] and colleagues
titled
Droplet-Scale Conversion of Aluminum into Transparent Aluminum Oxide by Low-Voltage Anodization in an Electrowetting System
.
Breaking down the claims made and putting them alongside the
PR piece
on the [Ateneo De Manila] university site, we start off with a material called ‘transparent aluminium oxide’ (TAlOx), which only brings to mind
aluminium oxynitride
, a material which we have
covered
previously. Aluminium oxynitride is a ceramic consisting of aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen that’s created in a rather elaborate process with high pressures.
In the paper, however, we are talking about a localized conversion of regular aluminium metal into ‘transparent aluminium oxide’ under the influence of the anodization process. The electrowetting element simply means overcoming the surface tension of the liquid acid and does not otherwise matter. Effectively this process would create local spots of more aluminium oxide, which is… probably good for something?
Combined with the rather suspicious artefacts in the summary image raising so many red flags that rather than the ‘cool breakthrough’ folder we’ll be filing this one under ‘spat out by ChatGPT’ instead, not unlike a certain
rat-centric paper
that made the rounds about a year ago. | 31 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098725",
"author": "CH",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T06:46:05",
"content": "Perhaps ChatGPT watched too many star trek movies… Scottie and the mouse was quite amusing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098728",
"author": "Iain... | 1,760,371,634.805283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/chop-chop-chop-considering-vr-for-woodworking/ | Chop, Chop, Chop: Trying Out VR For Woodworking | Heidi Ulrich | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"Meta Quest",
"meta quest 3",
"table saw",
"virtual reality",
"vr",
"woodworking"
] | Virtual Reality in woodworking sounds like a recipe for disaster—or at least a few missing fingers. But [The Swedish Maker] decided to put this concept to the test, diving into a full woodworking project while wearing a Meta Quest 3. You can check out
the full experiment here
, but let’s break down the highs, lows, and slightly terrifying moments of this unconventional build.
The plan: complete a full furniture build while using the VR headset for everything—from sketching ideas to cutting plywood. The Meta Quest 3’s passthrough mode provided a semi-transparent AR view, allowing [The Swedish Maker] to see real-world tools while overlaying digital plans. Sounds futuristic, right? Well, the reality was more like a VR fever dream. Depth perception was off, measuring was a struggle, and working through a screen-delayed headset was nauseating at best. Yet, despite the warped visuals, the experiment uncovered some surprising advantages—like the ability to overlay PDFs in real-time without constantly running back to a computer.
So
is
VR useful to the future of woodworking? If you’re a woodworking novice, you might steer clear from VR and
read up on the basics first
. For the more seasoned: maybe, when headsets evolve beyond their current limitations. For now, it’s a hilarious, slightly terrifying experiment that might just inspire the next wave of augmented reality workshops. If you’re more into electronics, we did cover
the possibilities with AR
some time ago. We’re curious to know your thoughts on this development in the comments! | 23 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098709",
"author": "JayCop",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T04:10:34",
"content": "Much better: the dynamicland folks do projection mapping to project your cuts right on the wood. No goggles.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8098710... | 1,760,371,634.733287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/most-energetic-cosmic-neutrino-ever-observed-by-km3net-deep-sea-telescope/ | Most Energetic Cosmic Neutrino Ever Observed By KM3NeT Deep Sea Telescope | Maya Posch | [
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"ARCA",
"neutrino"
] | On February 13th of 2023, ARCA of the
kilometre cubic neutrino telescope
(KM3NeT) detected a neutrino with an estimated energy of about 220 PeV. This event, called KM3-230213A, is the
most energetic neutrino ever observed
. Although extremely abundant in the universe, neutrinos only weakly interact with matter and thus capturing such an event requires very large detectors. Details on this event were
published
in
Nature
.
Much like other types of telescopes,
KM3NeT
uses neutrinos to infer information about remote objects and events in the Universe, ranging from our Sun to other solar systems and galaxies. Due to the weak interaction of neutrinos they cannot be observed like photons, but only indirectly via e.g. photomultipliers that detect the blue-ish light of Cherenkov radiation when the neutrino interacts with a dense medium, such as the deep sea water in the case of ARCA (Astroparticle Research with Cosmics in the Abyss). This particular detector is located at a depth of 3,450 meters off the coast of Sicily with 700 meter tall detection units (DUs) placed 100 meters apart which consist out of many individual spheres filled with detectors and supporting equipment.
With just one of these high-power neutrinos detected it’s hard to say exactly where or what it originated from, but with each additional capture we’ll get a clearer picture. For a fairly new neutrino telescope project it’s also a promising start especially since the project as a whole is still under construction, with additional detectors being installed off the coasts of France and Greece. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098329",
"author": "Greg Mathews",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T03:13:02",
"content": "Lol their lucky they don’t use Japanese photo lamps for detection because they tend to go boom all at once when water goes slightly funny.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,635.006247 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/magnetic-vise-makes-positioning-your-workpiece-easier/ | Magnetic Vise Makes Positioning Your Workpiece Easier | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"magnetic vise",
"tools",
"vise"
] | [Chris Borge] was doing some fine tapping operations, and wanted a better way to position his workpieces. This was critical to avoid breaking taps or damaging parts. To this end, he whipped up
a switchable magnetic vice to do the job.
The key to the build is that the magnetic field can be switched on and off mechanically. This is achieved by having two sets of six magnets each. When the poles of both sets of magnets are aligned, the magnetic field is effectively “on.” When the poles are moved to oppose each other, they effectively cancel each other out, turning the field “off.” [Chris] achieved this functionality with 12 bar magnets, 12 M12 nuts, and a pair of 3D-printed rings. Rotating the rings between two alignments serves to switch the set up on or off. The actual switching mechanism is handled with a cam and slider setup which allowed [Chris] to build a convenient vice with a nice large working area. He also took special effort to ensure the device wouldn’t pick up large amounts of ferrous swarf that would eventually clog the mechanism.
It’s a neat build, and one you can easily recreate yourself. [Chris] has supplied the files online
for your printing pleasure.
We’ve featured
some other types of magnetic vise before, too
. Video after the break. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098323",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T01:57:03",
"content": "That’s a very clever approach to controlling magnets.It has me imagining a robot with toggling magnets like this as a form of actuator. Less compact but more efficient than electromagnets.",
"pare... | 1,760,371,635.162236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/3dbenchy-sets-sail-into-the-public-domain/ | 3DBenchy Sets Sail Into The Public Domain | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3dbenchy"
] | Good news for everyone who cannot get enough from improbably shaped boats that get referred to as a bench: the current owner (NTI Group) of the copyright has announced that 3DBenchy has been
released into the public domain
. This comes not too long after Prusa’s Printables website had
begun to purge all derived models
to adhere to the ‘no derivatives’ license. According to NTI, the removal of these derived models was not requested by NTI, but by a third-party report, unbeknownst to NTI or the original creator of the model. Recognizing its importance to the community, 3DBenchy can now be
downloaded
& modified freely.
NTI worked together with the original creator [Daniel Norée] and former Creative Tools CEO [Paulo Kiefe] to transition 3DBenchy and the associated website to the public domain, with the latter two having control over the website and associated social media accounts. Hopefully this means that the purged models on Printables can be restored soon, even if some may prefer to print
alternate (literal) benches
.
The unfortunate part is that much of this mess began courtesy of the original 3DBenchy license being ignored. If that point had been addressed many years ago instead of being swept under the rug by all parties involved, there would have been no need for any of this kerfuffle. | 27 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098251",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T21:28:45",
"content": "I’m actually disappointed if they fully released it public domain.I’d have preferred a more permissive license (than the prior one), while acknowledging the original purpose.Regardless, better than it... | 1,760,371,635.069578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/satellite-internet-on-80s-hardware/ | Satellite Internet On 80s Hardware | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"commodore",
"data",
"inmarsat",
"networking",
"retrocomputing",
"satellite",
"SX-64"
] | Portability has been a goal of a sizable section of the computing world for many decades now. While the obvious products of this are laptops, there are a number of “luggable” PCs that pack more power while ostensibly maintaining their portability. Going back in time past things like the LAN party era of the 90s and 00s takes us to the early era of luggables, with the Commodore SX-64 being one such machine of this era.
Its portability is on display in this video where [saveitforparts] is using it to access the Internet over satellite
.
The project uses a Glocom Inmarsat modem and antenna to access the internet through a geostationary satellite, but since this computer is about four decades old now this takes a little bit more effort than a modern computer. A Teensy microcontroller is used to emulate a modem so that the Ethernet connection from the satellite modem can be understood by the Commodore. There was a significant amount of setup and troubleshooting required as well, especially regarding IP addresses and networking but eventually [saveitforparts] got the system up and running well enough to chat on a BBS and browse Wikipedia.
One thing he found that might make a system like this relevant for a modern user is that the text-only mode of the Commodore significantly limited data use. For a normal Internet connection this might be a problem, but on a geostationary satellite network where the data is orders of magnitude more expensive, this can be surprisingly helpful. We might not recommend an SX-64 system specifically, but one inspired by similar computers
like this text-only cyberdeck
might do the trick with the right networking connections. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098528",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T20:18:56",
"content": "Interesting. So this is the satellite equivalent to hooking up a 2G mobile phone to a notebook in the 90s.Back then, cell phones had a 9600 Baud data/fax modem for, say, CompuServe/E-Mail access on the go ... | 1,760,371,635.11099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/hackaday-podcast-episode-308-the-worst-1-ever-googles-find-my-opened-and-sar-on-a-drone/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 308: The Worst 1 Ever, Google’s Find My Opened, And SAR On A Drone | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | It’s Valentine’s Day today, and what better way to capture your beloved’s heart than by settling down together and listening to the Hackaday Podcast! Elliot Williams is joined by Jenny List for this week’s roundup of what’s cool in the world of hardware. We start by reminding listeners that Hackaday Europe is but a month away, and that a weekend immersed in both hardware hacking and the unique culture offered by the city of Berlin can be yours.
The stand-out hack of the week is introduced by Elliot, Henrik Forstén’s synthetic aperture radar system mounted on a cheap quadcopter, pushing the limits of construction, design, and computation to create landscape imagery of astounding detail. Most of us will never create our own SAR system, but we can all learn a lot about this field from his work. Meanwhile Jenny brings us Sylvain Munaut’s software defined radio made using different projects that are part of Tiny Tapeout ASICs. The SDR isn’t the best one ever, but for us it represents a major milestone in which Tiny Tapeout makes the jump from proof of concept to component. We look forward to more of this at more reasonable prices in the future. Beyond that we looked at the porting of Google Find My to the ESP32, how to repair broken zippers, and tuning in to ultrasonic sounds. Have fun listening, and come back next week for episode 309!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
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Check
out our Libsyn landing page
We’d love it if you downloaded the MP3.
Episode 308 Show Notes:
News:
What’s that Sound?
Congrats to [make piece not war] for guessing
Olivia – Signal Identification Wiki
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Budget-Minded Synthetic Aperture Radar Takes To The Skies
A Tiny Tapeout SDR
Google FindMy Tools Run On An ESP32
Hack That Broken Zipper!
Hearing What The Bats Hear
Make Custom Shirts With A 3D Print, Just Add Bleach
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
On The Original Punched Cards
DIY Microwave Crucibles
Make A Secret File Stash In The Slack Space
Jenny’s Picks:
A Twin-Lens Reflex Camera That’s Not Quite What It Seems
A Tiny Computer With A 3D Printed QWERTY Keyboard
Running Doom On An Apple Lightning To HDMI Adapter
Can’t-Miss Articles:
NASA Taps Webb To Help Study 2032 Asteroid Threat
The Solar System Is Weirder Than You Think
How Magnetic Fonts Twisted Up Numbers And Saved Banking Forever | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098198",
"author": "David Plass",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T18:28:00",
"content": "5 people getting “What’s that sound” wasn’t the number I expected after last week’s “this is a big hint”…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "80982... | 1,760,371,635.296818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/home-depot-lamp-gets-a-rainbow-upgrade/ | Home Depot Lamp Gets A Rainbow Upgrade | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"glowables",
"rainbow",
"rgb",
"wemos d1 mini",
"ws2812b"
] | Home Depot has at times sold a neat spiral lamp that relies on LEDs to supply its soothing white glow. When [Craig Lindley] saw some modified versions on YouTube he decided he had to build one himself. The result is a
charming rainbow lamp that really lights up a room (pardon the pun).
[Craig] first set about stripping the lamp of its white LED strips, replacing them with addressable WS2812B LEDs. No more would the lamp just output white light—any color in the RGB gamut was now on the table.
A powerful 10 amp 5 volt power supply was then installed to provide the necessary juice. A Wemos D1 Mini was pressed into service as the controller, which was also hooked up to an HC-SR04 infrared motion sensor. This provided the capacity to trigger the lamp when it detects someone moving nearby.
Alternatively, the lamp was given a time-activated mode as well. Either way, when activated, the lamp displays a range of colorful patterns on its elegant spirals, all with the aid of the popular FastLED library.
The final result is impressive—it looks almost stock, except it’s far more colorful and interesting to look at than the original. It’s also amusingly hard to display in our usual image formats because it’s so tall and narrow. In any case,
we’ve seen some great lamp builds before, too
. If you’re working on your own charming illuminations, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098151",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T16:35:27",
"content": "DNA lamp :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8098207",
"author": "Hollie",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T19:31:04",
"conte... | 1,760,371,635.348307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/this-week-in-security-the-uk-wants-your-icloud-libarchive-wasnt-ready-and-aws/ | This Week In Security: The UK Wants Your ICloud, Libarchive Wasn’t Ready, And AWS | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"AWS",
"backdoor",
"powershell",
"This Week in Security"
] | There’s a constant tension between governments looking for easier ways to catch criminals, companies looking to actually protect their users’ privacy, and individuals who just want their data to be truly private. The
UK government has issued an order
that threatens to drastically change this landscape, at least when it comes to Apple’s iCloud backups. The order was issued in secret, and instructed Apple to provide a capability for the UK officials to access iCloud backups that use the Advanced Data Protection (ADP) system. ADP is Apple’s relatively new end-to-end encryption scheme that users can opt-into to make their backups more secure. The key feature here is that with ADP turned on, Apple themselves don’t have access to decrypted user data.
If this order wasn’t onerous enough, it seems to explicitly include
all
ADP-protected data, regardless of the country of origin. This should ring alarm bells. The UK government is attempting to force a US company to add an encryption backdoor to give them access to US customer data.
Cryptographer [Matthew Green] has thoughts on this situation
. One of the slightly conspiratorial theories he entertains is that portions of the US government are quietly encouraging this new order because the UK has weaker protections against unreasonable search and seizure of data. The implication here is that those elements in the US would use this newfound UK data access capability to sidestep Fourth Amendment protections of citizens’ data.
This doesn’t seem like much of a stretch
.
[Matthew] does have a couple of suggestions. The first is passing laws that would make it illegal for a US company to add backdoors to their systems, specifically at the request of foreign nations. We’ve seen first-hand how such backdoors can backfire once accessed by less-friendly forces. In an ironic turn of fate, US agencies have even started recommending that users use end-to-end encrypted services to be safe against such backdoors. Technically, if this capability is added, the only recourse will be to disable iCloud backups altogether. Thankfully Apple has pushed back rather forcefully against this order, threatening to simply turn off ADP for UK users, rather than backdoor the rest of the world. Either way, it’s a scary bit of overreach.
Github Actions Can Be Dangerous
This is a
bit of tag-team research between [Lupin] and [Snorlhax]
. The pair went from competitors on the French Hackerone leaderboard, to co-conspirators looking for bugs. And this is the story of finding the big one. The pair went searching for flaws at a specific unnamed company, and found a docker image that contained an entire copy of some proprietary server-side code. That was certainly worthy of a bug bounty, but there was more. The
.git
folder hadn’t been properly scrubbed, and contained a token from a Github Actions run. That probably shouldn’t be a problem, as these tokens expire at the end of the run. But our protagonists found something interesting: a race condition where the docker image gets uploaded before the action completes. (Here is
Palo Alto’s independent discovery and coverage.
) And that wasn’t even the big find from this research.
The big find was a quirk of Docker images. The build process creates a
.npmrc
file in the Docker image, which contains an npm token for publishing packages. That file is deleted as part of the Docker image finalization. But Docker images are more complicated that simple file archives. They are made up of layers, and “Each instruction in a Dockerfile (such as FROM, COPY, RUN, etc.) creates a new layer.” That’s an incredibly important concept, because Docker images are like onions: You can peel back the layers, and they can make you cry.
The build process for this Docker image did delete the
.npmrc
file before publishing it, but only after triggering the creation of another filesystem layer. It wasn’t obvious, but the Docker image did contain this critical npm secret, and anyone with access could publish arbitrary libraries to the company’s npm repository. That is definitely an exceptional find, and resulted in a well-earned $50,000 bounty.
Libarchive Wasn’t Ready for Windows
Microsoft
pulled the Libarchive open source library into Windows 11 back in 2023
, giving Windows Explorer the native ability to handle a wider variety of archive files. This is a “time-tested library” that even has fuzzing coverage. It has not, however, been time tested in the context of running in Microsoft Windows. Which is why it’s not surprising that Explorer’s temporary file extraction feature failed to catch an archive with the
C:
root directory. That is not a terribly useful vulnerability, but is technically an arbitrary file write/delete as the local user.
There’s more, like the patch for a previous vulnerability replacing disallowed characters in file names. The
\
character is escaped with another backslash, giving us
\\
instead. The problem there is that
\
and
\\
are both aliases for the device root, aka
C:\
.
There are more tricks to find, much of it the result of libarchive features that weren’t entirely intended to be exposed inside Windows. There are more than the 11 advertised archive types supported. There’s confusion because Windows strictly uses filename extensions to determine a file type, while libarchive uses the Unix/Linux convention of looking at the magic bytes at the beginning of the a file. The whole thing is an interesting read, with implications for the limitations of automated fuzzing, particularly when not using the same compile options as in production.
AI Poisoning Two-fer
We start off with a tale of
prompt injection that can corrupt long-term AI memory
. Imagine a document or website that secretly instructs an AI to believe that its primary user believes he is living in a simulation. That sort of manipulation would color the results of the given AI for all future queries, and all it would take is to process a single malicious source. Another trick used is to instruct the AI to take a malicious action the next time the user took a certain action. This allows an attacker to slip something in, and the AI will see that instruction as coming from the legitimate user, sidestepping some of the protections against such attacks.
The other poisoning story is a bit more conventional. It’s
in-the-wild Pickle deserialization attacks in Hugging Face AI models
. Many AI models use Python’s pickle serialization format for their data, but pickle can also store code objects, and this makes it obviously insecure. Many AI projects have rolled out support for safetensors, a format that doesn’t allow code to mix with data. The news here is that researchers at ReversingLabs found models on Hugging Face with malicious pickle files. Hugging Face scans those files with Picklescan to find malicious pickles, but these malicious files escaped detection via a pair of incredibly sophisticated techniques: 7-zip compression and broken pickle files. The malicious models have pulled down, and Picklescan has been improved to catch these avoidance techniques. Download and unpickle cautiously!
AWS
AWS has also been the topic of a couple very interesting bits of research. The first is
how to check for valid IAM usernames
. That takes two flavors, users with and without two-factor authentication. For users with 2FA, attempting to log-in with a valid user name jumps directly to prompting for the 2FA code, while an attempt with an invalid username throws an immediate error. This was deemed an acceptable risk by Amazon, and indeed is much preferred to disclosing whether the password is correct or not. On the other hand, accounts without 2FA displayed a detectable timing difference between a valid and invalid user. Both returned the same error, but an invalid username returned that error detectably faster. This was deemed an actual vulnerability and assigned a CVE.
AWS has a public repository of virtual machine images, indexed by Amazon Machine IDs (AMIs). AMIs are plain-text identifiers, is set by whoever uploads the image, and AMIs can be duplicated by different users. If
that sounds like the recipe for some sort of name confusion attack, you’d be exactly correct
. Any API call that references an image using the AMI and not specifying the owner can be hijacked by creating another image with the same AMI. Surely this is theoretical, and never happens in practice, right? The authors wondered that, too. And to find out, they created an image using an internal Amazon AMI, just to see if it would actually get used. And it did, confirmed by Amazon itself.
Bits and Bytes
The zkLend money lending service
lost $9.5 million in an interesting cryptocurrency heist
. This decentralized finance system uses Ethereum smart contracts to deposit and lend money. A rounding error in one of those smart contracts allowed an attacker to siphon money off of multiple transactions. zkLend has made a public offer to the attacker that they can keep 10% of the total as a bounty, if they return the other 90%. This would be in exchange for not considering the action theft and informing law enforcement.
At least one
Swatting as a Service (SaaS?) offering is finally offline
. Alan Filion ran a swatting service for nearly two years, committing the potentially deadly crime a staggering 375 times. While it’s a good thing that his reign of terror has finally ended, the paltry 48-month prison sentence is shamefully short in my opinion.
Sitevision is the content management system that seems to run most of the Swedish government. And for more than two years,
it’s had a really nasty footgun
in the intersection between WebDav, SAML, and Java keystores. To put it simply, the
https:///webdav/files/saml-keystore
endpoint on multiple Sitevision sites contained the public
and
private keys for SAML authn requests, encrypted with a random 8-character alphanumeric password. It’s not quite the entire keys to the kingdom, but still not something you really want to leak.
I warn new Linux users all the time not to copy instructions from the Internet into their bash terminals without understanding what the commands actually do. It turns out that
this is not just a Linux problem
, as that’s the exact attack that North Korean attackers used against a handful of targets. “To register your device, please paste the commands below into an admin PowerShell prompt.” No thank you. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098166",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T17:18:15",
"content": "My position. If you use the cloud (whether iCloud or not) expect your data to be accessible by anyone as no longer under your control. I don’t know why it is so hard to understand. You want private backup... | 1,760,371,635.737574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/you-know-this-font-but-you-dont-really-know-it/ | You Know This Font, But You Don’t Really Know It | Jenny List | [
"History"
] | [
"engraver",
"font",
"keyboard",
"teletype"
] | Typography enthusiasts reach a point at which they can recognise a font after seeing only a few letters in the wild, and usually identify its close family if not the font itself. It’s unusual then for a font to leave them completely stumped, but that’s where [Marcin Wichary] found himself.
He noticed a font which many of you will also have seen
, on typewriter and older terminal keys. It has a few unusual features that run contrary to normal font design such as slightly odd-shaped letters and a constant width line, and once he started looking, it appeared everywhere. Finding its origin led back well over a century, and led him to places as diverse as New York street furniture and NASA elevators.
The font in question is called Gorton, and it came from the Gorton Machine Co, a Wisconsin manufacturer. It’s a font designed for a mechanical router, which is why it appears on so much custom signage and utilitarian components such as keyboard keys. Surprisingly its history leads back into the 19th century, predating many of the much more well-know sans serif fonts. So keep an eye out for it on your retro tech, and you’ll find that you’ve seen a lot more of it than you ever knew. If you are a fellow font-head, you might also know the
Hershey Font
, and we just ran a piece on the
magnetic check fonts last week
.
Thanks [Martina] for the tip! | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098681",
"author": "TT",
"timestamp": "2025-02-16T00:15:42",
"content": "Unfortunately the company where Marcin works as Design Director, Figma, is going full-on ‘ai’ nonsense. So keep that in mind when you read his stuff.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,371,635.688029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/octet-of-esp32s-lets-you-see-wifi-like-never-before/ | Octet Of ESP32s Lets You See WiFi Like Never Before | Dan Maloney | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"AoA",
"ar",
"augmented reality",
"channel state information",
"csi",
"ESP32",
"phase",
"PLL",
"TDOA",
"wifi"
] | Most of us see the world in a very narrow band of the EM spectrum. Sure, there are people with a genetic quirk that extends the range a bit into the UV, but it’s a ROYGBIV world for most of us. Unless, of course, you have something like
this ESP32 antenna array
, which gives you an augmented reality view of the WiFi world.
According to [Jeija], “ESPARGOS” consists of an antenna array board and a controller board. The antenna array has eight ESP32-S2FH4 microcontrollers and eight 2.4 GHz WiFi patch antennas spaced a half-wavelength apart in two dimensions. The ESP32s extract channel state information (CSI) from each packet they receive, sending it on to the controller board where another ESP32 streams them over Ethernet while providing the clock and phase reference signals needed to make the phased array work. This gives you all the information you need to calculate where a signal is coming from and how strong it is, which is used to plot a sort of heat map to overlay on a webcam image of the same scene.
The results are pretty cool. Walking through the field of view of the array, [Jeija]’s smartphone shines like a lantern, with very little perceptible lag between the WiFi and the visible light images. He’s also able to demonstrate reflection off metallic surfaces, penetration through the wall from the next room, and even outdoor scenes where the array shows how different surfaces reflect the signal. There’s also a demonstration of using multiple arrays to determine angle and time delay of arrival of a signal to precisely locate a moving WiFi source. It’s a little like a reverse
LORAN system
, albeit indoors and at a much shorter wavelength.
There’s a lot in this video and the accompanying documentation to unpack. We haven’t even gotten to the really cool stuff like using machine learning to see around corners by measuring reflected WiFi signals. ESPARGOS looks like it could be a really valuable tool across a lot of domains, and a heck of a lot of fun to play with too.
Thanks to [Buckaroo] for the tip. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098673",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T23:09:02",
"content": "Passive radar using existing WiFi signals is a very interesting idea.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8098683",
"author": "Shannon",
"ti... | 1,760,371,635.634448 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/how-to-find-where-a-wire-in-a-cable-is-broken/ | How To Find Where A Wire In A Cable Is Broken | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"cable repair",
"diagnostics"
] | Determining that a cable has a broken conductor is the easy part, but
where
exactly is the break? In a recent video, [Richard] over at the
Learn Electronics Repair
channel on YouTube
gave two community-suggested methods a shake
to track down a break in a proprietary charging cable. The first attempt was to run a mains power detector along the cable to find the spot, but he didn’t have much luck with that.
The second method involved using the capacitance of the wires, or specifically treating two wires in the cable as the electrodes of a capacitor. Since the broken conductor will be shorter, it will have less capacitance, with the ratio theoretically allowing for the location of the break in the wire to be determined.
In the charging cable a single conductor was busted, so its capacitance was compared from both sides of the break and compared to the capacitance of two intact conductors. The capacitance isn’t much, on the order of dozens to hundreds of picofarads, but it’s enough to make an educated guess of where the rough location is. In this particular case the break was determined to be near the proprietary plug, which ruled out a repair as the owner is a commercial rental shop of e-bikes.
To verify this capacitor method, [Richard] then did it again on a piece of mains wire with a deliberate cut to a conductor. This suggested that it’s not a super accurate technique as applied, but ‘good enough’. With a deeper understanding of the underlying physics it likely can be significantly more accurate, and it’s hardly the only way to find broken conductors, as commentators to the video rightly added.
Thanks to [Jim] for the tip. | 43 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098511",
"author": "wm",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T19:01:27",
"content": "Is it possible to do time domain reflectometry with a VNA? I’m genuinely not knowledgeable enough to be sure lol, maybe it wouldn’t work well on relatively short cables without a purpose built TDR",
"paren... | 1,760,371,635.584454 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/valentines-day-hacks/ | Valentine’s Day…Hacks? | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"newsletter",
"rants",
"Valentines day"
] | How do you reconcile your love for hacking projects together with your love for that someone special? By making him or her a DIY masterpiece of blinking red LEDs, but in heart shape. Maybe with some custom animations, and in a nice frame with a capacitive touch sensor to turn it on or off.
Or at least, that’s what I did. The good news is that my girlfriend, now wife, understands that this sort of present comes from a place of love. And it probably didn’t hurt that I
also
picked up some flowers to frame it with, and cooked her favorite lunch later that afternoon.
But if I’m 100% frank with myself, I’d have to admit that this was about 50% “present” and 50% “project”. Of course it also helps that she gets me, and that she knows that I put a bunch of effort into making it look as good as it did, and maybe because of that she forgives the 50% project.
Valentine’s day projects are a high-wire balancing act. If any other project fails, you can just try again. But here, the deadline is firm. Cosmetics matter a lot more on Valentine’s day than the other 364 days of the year, too. And finally, you really have to know the gift-receiver, and be sure that you’re not falling deeper into the excuse-for-a-cool-project trap than I did. And don’t forget the flowers.
I pulled it off with this one, at least, but I
do
feel like it was close, even today. Have you ever made a Valentine’s hacking project? How’d it go?
(Note: Featured image isn’t my project:
It’s a lot more colorful
!)
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
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! | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098522",
"author": "Allen",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T20:05:13",
"content": "Nice job shitting on someone that is CRAFTING SOMETHING UNIQUE FOR SOMEBODY THEY LOVE.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098531",
"author": "a_do_z"... | 1,760,371,636.169357 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/adding-usb-c-kinda-to-a-powermac-g4/ | Adding USB-C (Kinda) To A PowerMac G4 | Tom Nardi | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"pci",
"PowerMac G4",
"usb",
"USB C"
] | For those who’ve never bitten the Apple, the PowerMac G4 was a blue-tinted desktop Macintosh offered from 1999 to 2004. At the time, the machines were plenty fast — being advertised as the first “personal supercomputer” when they hit the market. But Father Time is particularly harsh on silicon, so they’re properly archaic by modern standards.
As such, the rear panel of one of these machines is hardly where you’d expect to run into a functional USB-C port.
But thanks to the efforts of [Dandu]
, old has officially met new. Critics will note that it’s not
real
USB-C, and instead uses USB 2.0 with the more modern connector. That’s true, but considering how many commercial devices we run into that are still using the same trick, we’ll give it a pass.
So in theory, all it should take to make this possible is a USB 2.0 PCI card and some clever wiring going into the back of a bulkhead USB-C connector. Which if you zoom out far enough, is exactly what [Dandu] did. But when your dealing with a 20+ year old computer, everything is easier said than done.
For one thing, it look awhile to find a PCI USB card that would actually work under the two operating systems the computer runs (OS X Tiger and Mac OS 9). For those taking notes, a card using the Ali M5273 chip ended up being the solution, although it can only hit USB 1.1 speeds under OS 9. He also needed to find card that had an internal header connector to wire the USB-C port to, which wasn’t always a given.
[Dandu] provides some screen shots and benchmarks to show how the new port works in both versions of Mac OS, but the most important feature is that he can casually plug his phone into the back of the machine. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098407",
"author": "Ken C",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T12:05:34",
"content": "being advertised as the first “personal supercomputer” when they hit the market.Apple M1 😜",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098421",
"author": "Jo... | 1,760,371,635.87624 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/15/game-bub-plays-roms-and-cartridges/ | Game Bub Plays ROMs And Cartridges | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"cartridge",
"emulator",
"fpga",
"game boy",
"game boy advance",
"games",
"Link Cable",
"rom",
"wi-fi"
] | With today’s technology, emulating video game consoles from the 90s or before is trivial. A Raspberry Pi and a controller of some sort is perhaps the easiest and simplest way to go to get this job done, but to really impress the masses some extra effort is required.
This handheld from [Eli] called the Game Bub
not only nails the appearance and feel of the first three generations of Nintendo handhelds but, thanks to its FPGA, can play not only ROMs but the original game cartridges as well.
As [Eli] notes, the FPGA is not strictly necessary for emulation, but does seem to be better at interfacing with physical hardware like controllers and game cartridges. For this task an Xilinx XC7A100T with integrated memory was chosen, with a custom PCB supporting the built-in controller, speaker, a rechargeable lithium battery, and a 480×320 display (that had to be rotated out of portrait mode). An SD Card reader is included for any ROM files, and there’s also a ESP32-S3 included to give the handheld WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities, with future plans to support the communications protocol used by the Game Boy Advance Wireless Adapter.
There are a few other features with the Game Bub as well, including the ability to use an authentic link cable to communicate with the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color, and a Switch-like dock that allows the Game Bub to be connected to an external monitor. It’s also open source, which makes it an even more impressive build. Presumably it doesn’t include the native ability to dump cartridges to ROM files
but you don’t need much more than a link cable to do that if you need to build your ROM library
.
Thanks to [Charles] for the tip! | 11 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098383",
"author": "Daid",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T09:56:33",
"content": "Amazing build, well done!Also love the section “A brief rant about FPGA retrogaming”, there has been so much parroting of the analogue pocket marketing lies in the emulation community. Super annoying, and th... | 1,760,371,636.03193 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/a-guide-to-making-the-right-microcontroller-choice/ | A Guide To Making The Right Microcontroller Choice | Dan Maloney | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"IoT",
"MCU",
"microcontroller",
"Rant",
"SBC",
"selection"
] | Starting a new microcontroller project can be pretty daunting. While you have at least a rough idea of where you want to end up, there are so many ways to get there that you can get locked into “analysis paralysis” and never get the project off the ground. Or arguably worse, you just throw whatever dev board you have in the junk bin and deal with the consequences.
While it’s hard to go wrong with relying on a familiar MCU and toolchain, [lcamtuf] argues in
this recent guide to choosing microcontrollers
that it’s actually not too much of a chore to make the right choice. Breaking the microcontroller universe down into three broad categories makes the job a little easier: simple process control, computationally intensive tasks, and IoT products. Figuring out where your project falls on that spectrum narrows your choices considerably.
For example, if you just need to read some sensors and run a few servos or solenoids, using something like a Raspberry Pi is probably overkill. On the other hand, a Pi or other SBC might be fine for something that you need wireless connectivity. We also appreciate that [lcamtuf] acknowledges that intangible considerations sometimes factor in, such as favoring a new-to-you MCU because you’ll get experience with technology you haven’t used before. It might not override technical considerations by itself, but you can’t ignore the need to stretch your wings once in a while.
There’s nothing earth-shattering here, but we enjoy think pieces like this. It’s a bit like [lcamtuf]’s recent piece on
rethinking your jellybean op-amps
. | 50 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098352",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-02-15T06:25:24",
"content": "The author recommends 8-bit mcu’s over 32-bit ones for basic tasks, but picks the fastest 8-bit and the absolute slowest 32-bit chips to put together, and completely ignores the normal M3/M4 tier. I’m scra... | 1,760,371,636.119728 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/lathe-and-laser-team-up-to-make-cutting-gear-teeth-easier/ | Lathe And Laser Team Up To Make Cutting Gear Teeth Easier | Dan Maloney | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"fiber laser",
"Hirth coupling",
"lathe",
"machining",
"manufacturing",
"rosette"
] | Fair warning: watching
this hybrid manufacturing method for gear teeth
may result in an uncontrollable urge to buy a fiber laser cutter. Hackaday isn’t responsible for any financial difficulties that may result.
With that out of the way, this is an interesting look into how traditional machining and desktop manufacturing methods can combine to make parts easier than either method alone. The part that [Paul] is trying to make is called a
Hirth coupling
, a term that you might not be familiar with (we weren’t) but you’ve likely seen and used. They’re essentially flat surfaces with gear teeth cut into them allowing the two halves of the coupling to nest together and lock firmly in a variety of relative radial positions. They’re commonly used on camera gear like tripods for adjustable control handles and tilt heads, in which case they’re called rosettes.
To make his rosettes, [Paul] started with a block of aluminum on the lathe, where the basic cylindrical shape of the coupling was created. At this point, forming the teeth in the face of each coupling half with traditional machining methods would have been tricky, either using a dividing head on a milling machine or letting a CNC mill have at it. Instead, he fixtured each half of the coupling to the bed of his 100 W fiber laser cutter to cut the teeth. The resulting teeth would probably not be suitable for power transmission; the surface finish was a bit rough, and the tooth gullet was a little too rounded. But for a rosette, this was perfectly acceptable, and probably a lot faster to produce than the alternative.
In case you’re curious as to what [Paul] needs these joints for, it’s a tablet stand for his exercise machine. Sound familiar? That’s because we recently covered his attempts to
beef up 3D prints with a metal endoskeleton
for the same project.
Thanks to [Ziggi] for the tip. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098092",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T12:40:45",
"content": "Hirth couplings (joints) are indeed a quite nice invention. Probably patented once (just like the generic “crank shaft”, but long expired. And many people have seen these without knowing their name. These... | 1,760,371,635.98113 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/14/3d-printed-air-raid-siren-sounds-just-like-the-real-thing/ | 3D Printed Air Raid Siren Sounds Just Like The Real Thing | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"air raid siren",
"rotor",
"siren",
"stator"
] | Air raid sirens have an important job to do, and have been a critical piece of public safety infrastructure in times of geopolitical turmoil. They sound quite unlike anything else, by virtue of their mechanical method of generating an extremely loud sound output. They’re actually remarkably simple to build yourself,
as [MarkMakies] demonstrates.
[Mark’s] build relies almost entirely on 3D printed components and ex-RC gear. The sound itself is generated by a rotor which spins inside a stator. Each is designed with special slots, such that as the rotor turns at speed, it creates spikes of air pressure that generate a loud wail. The rotor and stator are fitted inside a housing with a horn for output, which helps direct and amplify the sound further.
To spin the rotor, [Mark] used a powerful brushless motor controlled by a common hobby speed controller. The actual speed is determined by a potentiometer, which generates pulses to command the speed controller via a simple 555 circuit. By ramping the speed of the motor up and down, it’s possible to vary the pitch of the siren as is often done with real air raid sirens. This action could be entirely automated if so desired.
If you do decide to build such a siren, just be wary about how you use it. There’s no need to go around agitating the townsfolk absent an actual air raid. It’s worth noting that sirens of this type aren’t just used for air raids, either. They’re often used for tornado warnings, too,
such as in Dallas
, for example. But why not
for music? | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098180",
"author": "PurposelyCryptic",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T17:55:33",
"content": "I’ve always wanted an air raid siren, ideally mounted outside my house and wired to my home security system on a 3 minute delay (so I can still cancel it in case of a false alarm, before the enti... | 1,760,371,635.921894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/understanding-the-miller-effect/ | Understanding The Miller Effect | Al Williams | [
"Engineering"
] | [
"amplifier",
"miller effect",
"parasitic capacitance"
] | As electronics rely more and more on ICs, subtle details about discrete components get lost because we spend less time designing with them. For example, a relay seems like a simple component, but selecting the contact material optimally has a lot of nuance that people often forget. Another case of this is the
Miller effect
, explained in a recent video by the aptly named [Old Hack EE].
Put simply, the Miller effect — found in 1919 by [John Milton Miller] — is the change in input impedance of an inverting amplifier due to the gain’s effect on the parasitic capacitance between the amplifier’s input and output terminals. The parasitic capacitance acts like there is an additional capacitor in parallel with the parasitic capacitance that is equivalent to the parasitic capacitance multiplied by the gain. Since capacitors in parallel add, the equation for the Miller capacitance is C-AC where C is the parasitic capacitance, and A is the voltage gain which is always negative, so you might prefer to think of this as C+|A|C.
The example uses tubes, but you get the same effect in any inverting amplification device, even if it is solid state or an op amp circuit. He does make some assumptions about capacitance due to things like tube sockets and wiring.
The effect can be very pronounced. For example, a chart in the video shows that if you had an amplifier with gain of -60 based around a tube, a 10 kΩ input impedance could support 2.5 MHz, in theory. But in practice, the Miller effect will reduce the usable frequency to only 81.5 kHz!
The last part of the video explains why you needed compensation for old op amps, and why modern op amps have compensation capacitors internally. It also shows cases where designs depend on the Miller effect and how the cascode amplifier architecture can negate the effect entirely.
This isn’t our first look at
Miller capacitance
. If you look at what’s
inside a tube
, it is a wonder there isn’t more parasitic capacitance. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098050",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T08:16:05",
"content": "Its a very interesting and a relatively simple to identify and explore effect if you’re doing any kind of high frequency switching. Its pretty intuitive as well, even if you don’t go into all the math, ... | 1,760,371,636.222729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/cute-face-tells-you-how-bad-the-air-quality-is/ | Cute Face Tells You How Bad The Air Quality Is | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"air quality",
"ESP32"
] | You can use all kinds of numbers and rating systems to determine whether the air quality in a given room is good, bad, or somewhere in between. Or, like [Makestreme], you could go for a more human visual interface. He’s built a air quality monitor
that conveys its information via facial expressions on a small screen.
Named Gus, the monitor is based around a Xiao ESP32-C3. It’s hooked up with the SeeedStudio Grove air quality sensor, which can pick up everything from carbon monoxide to a range of vaguely toxic and volatile gases. There’s also a THT22 sensor for measuring temperature and humidity. It’s all wrapped up in a cute 3D-printed robot housing that [Makestreme] created in Fusion 360. A small OLED display serves as Gus’s face.
The indications of poor air quality are simple and intuitive. As “Gus” detects poor air, his eyelids droop and he begins to look more gloomy. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily tell you what you should do to fix the air quality. If your issue is pollution from outside, you’ll probably want to shut windows or turn on an air purifier. On the other hand, if your issue is excess CO2, you’ll want to open a window and let fresh air in. It’s a limitation of this project that it can’t really detect particulates or CO2, but instead is limited to CO and volatiles instead. Still, it’s something that could be worked around with richer sensors a more expressive face. Some will simply prefer hard numbers, though, whatever the case. To that end, you can tap Gus’s head to get more direct information from what the sensors are seeing.
We’ve seen some other great air quality projects before, too,
with remarkably similar ideas behind them
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Willem de Vries for the tip!] | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098023",
"author": "baltar",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T04:57:31",
"content": "Sir this is Microsoft your computer has virus.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8098051",
"author": "Christoph",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T08:21... | 1,760,371,636.41856 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/what-the-well-dressed-radio-hacker-is-wearing-this-season/ | What The Well-Dressed Radio Hacker Is Wearing This Season | Al Williams | [
"Wearable Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"Meshtastic",
"necktie"
] | We’ve seen a lot of interest in Meshtastic, the license-free mesh network for small amounts of data over the airwaves. [Ham Radio Rookie] was disappointed with his Meshtastic node’s small and inefficient antennas. So he decided to make what we suspect is the world’s first
Meshtastic necktie
.
We assume the power is low enough that having it across your thorax is probably not terrible. Probably. The tie is a product of a Cricut, Faraday cloth, and tiny hardware (the Xiao ESP32S3 and the WIO SX1262 board). The biggest problem was the RF connector, which needed something smaller than the normal BNC connector.
Of course, ideally, you’d like to have a very tiny battery. We can handle tying the knot, but you might prefer using a clip-on. Besides, then you could clip it to anything handy, too.
The tie antenna is probably going to outperform the rubber duckies. Still, we don’t expect it to get
super long range
. If you press a USB battery into service, you might find the low power electronics keep letting the battery shut off. There is
an easy fix
for this, but it will up your power consumption. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8098008",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T03:18:24",
"content": "Really interested in knowing how much the antenna gets detuned by that hundred kilos of meat next to it.But not interested enough to click on the video.But the first question at anyrealnerd party is “Why is ... | 1,760,371,636.488913 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/the-nokia-3310-finally-gets-a-usb-c-upgrade/ | The Nokia 3310 Finally Gets A USB-C Upgrade | Lewin Day | [
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"3310",
"gsm",
"nokia",
"nokia 3310",
"phone"
] | The Nokia 3310 has a reputation of being one of the most indestructible devices ever crafted by humanity. It’s also woefully out of date and only usable in a handful of countries that still maintain a GSM network. It might not be easy to bring it into the 5G era,
but you can at least convert it to work with modern chargers
, thanks to [Andrea].
[SGCDerek] whipped up their own solution for USB-C charging.
If you don’t want to buy the parts, you can just DIY the same mod.
[SGCDerek] did just that a few years ago.
From what it looks like, you likely don’t even need to worry about doing any fancy charger handshaking. The 3310 will happily grab a charge from a low-current 5V supply straight off the USB pins.
You might think this is a messy, complicated mod, but [Andrea] engineered it as a drop-in upgrade. He’s combined a USB-C port with a small plastic adapter that enables it to sit in place of the original phone’s charge port module. Contact between the port and the rest of the phone is via spring-loaded contacts. The only additional step necessary is popping out the mic from the original charge module and putting it in the new one. You need only a screw driver to disassemble the phone, swap out the parts, and put it all back together.
If you want to upgrade your own handset, [Andrea] is more than happy to provide the parts
for a reasonable price of 25 euros
. It’s almost worth it just for the laughs—head around to your friend’s house, ask to borrow a charger, and then plug in your USB-C 3310. You’ll blow some minds.
Once upon a time, it was big news that someone
hacked a USB-C port into the iPhone
. Video after the break. | 27 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097936",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T21:06:46",
"content": "I’ve often thought of buying a Nokia 3310 and using it for phone calls (for the novelty really), then I remembered, it’s very rare I get an actual phone call these days…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,371,636.375116 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/a-3d-printed-camera-you-can-now-download-shutter-and-all/ | A 3D Printed Camera You Can Now Download, Shutter And All | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"120 film",
"camera",
"medium format"
] | A couple of years ago we were excited to read news of an entirely 3D printed camera, right down to the shutter. We wrote it up back then but sadly the required STL files were not yet available. Now after time away with his family, its creator [Mark Hiltz] is back. The medium-format Pioneer Camera
can now be downloaded for printing in its entirety
under a Creative Commons licence.
Looking at the design, it appears to be a relatively straightforward build. The shutter is extremely simple, as far as we can see, relying on magnets to ensure that the open part of its rotation is at an unstable repulsing point between stable magnetic poles. The images aren’t perfect because he’s using a very simple lens, but this is part of the charm of a camera like this one. We hope that people will take it and produce refinements to the design making for a cheap and good entry to medium format photography.
While you’re printing your own Pioneer, take a look at
our original coverage
. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097942",
"author": "Mark Hiltz",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T21:35:00",
"content": "Thanks for covering!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097975",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2025-02-14T00:00:37",
"... | 1,760,371,636.660741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/reviewing-a-very-dodgy-bsk-602-adjustable-power-supply/ | Reviewing A Very Dodgy BSK-602 Adjustable Power Supply | Maya Posch | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"dc power supply",
"teardown"
] | There’s no shortage of cheap & cheerful power supplies which you can obtain from a range of online retailers, but with no listed certification worth anything on them calling them ‘dodgy’ is more of a compliment. On the [DiodeGoneWild] YouTube channel an adjustable power supply by the
model name BSK-602 is tested and torn down
to see exactly what less than $5 off sites like Alibaba will get you.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, voltage regulation is very unstable with massive drifting when left to heat up for a few hours, even though it does hit the 3 V to 24 V DC and 3 A output that it’s optimistically rated for. After popping open the adapter, a very basic switching mode power supply is revealed with an abysmal component selection and zero regard for safety or primary and secondary side isolation. With the case open, the thermal camera reveals that the secondary side heats up to well over 150 °C, explaining why the case was deforming and the sticker peeling off after a few hours of testing.
The circuit itself is based around a (possibly legit)
UC3843RN
500 kHz current mode PWM controller, with the full schematic explained in the video. Highlights include the lack of inrush protection, no EMI filtering, a terrible & temperature-dependent voltage reference, not to mention poor component selection and implementation. Basically it’s an excellent SMPS if you want to blast EMI, fry connected electronics and conceivably burn down your home.
UC3843-based BSK-602 circuit schematic in all its dodgy glory. (Credit: Diode Gone Wild, YouTube) | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101419",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T21:30:15",
"content": "Good grief, 150 Celsius? Sounds like it has a max rated output of 72 watts of electrical power; I wonder how many watts of heat it puts out? Certainly more than 72.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,636.718796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/pocket-device-tracks-planets-and-the-iss/ | Pocket Device Tracks Planets And The ISS | Lewin Day | [
"Space"
] | [
"AWS",
"iss",
"orbit",
"planets",
"space"
] | Ever been at a party and landed in a heated argument about exactly where the International Space Station (ISS) is passing over at that very instant? Me neither, but it’s probably happened to someone. Assuming you were in that situation, and lacked access to your smartphone or any other form of internet connected device,
you might like the pocket-sized Screen Tracker from [mars91].
The concept is simple. It’s a keychain-sized item that combines an ESP32, a Neopixel LED, and a small LCD screen on a compact PCB with a couple of buttons. It’s programmed to communicate over the ESP32’s WiFi connection to query a small custom website running on AWS. That website processes orbit data for the ISS and the positions of the planets, so they can be displayed on the LCD screen above a map of the Earth. We’re not sure what font it uses, but it looks pretty cool—like something out of a 90s sci-fi movie.
It’s a great little curio
, and these sort of projects can have great educational value to boot. Creating something like this will teach you about basic orbits, as well as how to work with screens and APIs and getting embedded devices online. It may sound trivial when you’ve done it before, but you can learn all kinds of skills
pursuing builds like these
. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101400",
"author": "Robert",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T20:45:46",
"content": "“and lacked access to your smartphone or any other form of internet connected device”But this IS an internet connected device! Surely a no-connection-needed ISS and planet tracker should be able to downloa... | 1,760,371,636.853227 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/hackaday-podcast-episode-309-seeing-wifi-a-world-without-usb-linux-in-nes-in-animal-crossing/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 309: Seeing WiFi, A World Without USB, Linux In NES In Animal Crossing | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off with updates on the rapidly approaching Hackaday Europe and the saga of everyone’s favorite 3D printed boat.
From there they’ll cover an impressive method of seeing the world via WiFi, Amazon’s latest changes to the Kindle ecosystem, and an alternate reality in which USB didn’t take over the peripheral world. You’ll also hear about a multi-level hack that brings the joys of Linux into the world of Animal Crossing, 3D printed circuit components, and the imminent release of KiCAD 9.
Stick around until the end to learn about a unique hardened glass from East Germany and the disappointing reality of modern voice control systems.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Download the DRM-free MP3 for safe keeping.
Episode 309 Show Notes:
News:
Hackaday Europe 2025: Speakers, Lightning Talks, And More!
3DBenchy Sets Sail Into The Public Domain
What’s that Sound?
Know that sound?
Fill out this form for a chance to win
a Hackaday Podcast t-shirt!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Octet Of ESP32s Lets You See WiFi Like Never Before
Building Your Own SDR-based Passive Radar On A Shoestring
Open-Source Passive Radar Taken Down For Regulatory Reasons
[2502.09405] ESPARGOS: An Ultra Low-Cost, Realtime-Capable Multi-Antenna WiFi Channel Sounder
Auto-Download Your Kindle Books Before February 26th Deadline
In A World Without USB…
Give Your Animal Crossing Villagers The Gift Of Linux
Because You Can: Linux On An Arduino Uno
A Unique Linear Position Sensor Using Magnetostriction
2024 :: fischertechnik Community
MIT Demonstrates Fully 3D Printed, Active Electronic Components
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
You Know This Font, But You Don’t Really Know It
Measuring Local Variances In Earth’s Magnetic Field
Probably The Most Esoteric Commodore 64 Magazine
Tom’s Picks:
Get Ready For KiCAD 9!
Vacuum Forming With 3D Printed Moulds And Sheets
Belfry OpenSCAD Library (BOSL2) Brings Useful Parts And Tools Aplenty
Can’t-Miss Articles:
The “Unbreakable” Beer Glasses Of East Germany
The High-Tech Valor Glass Vials Used To Deliver The Coronavirus Vaccine
Be Careful What You Ask For: Voice Control | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101384",
"author": "Jon",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T19:54:58",
"content": "I wonder, could use the 3d printed electronic components to run animal crossing?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8101871",
"author": "JMR",
... | 1,760,371,636.758772 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/building-a-one-wheel-with-tracks/ | Building A One Wheel With Tracks | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"one wheel",
"onewheel",
"track",
"tracked vehicle",
"tracks"
] | One-wheels use motion-tracking hardware and fine motor control to let you balance on a single wheel. That’s neat and all, but [Michael Rechtin] had another idea in mind—
what if a one-wheel used a track instead?
The idea behind the track was to make the one-wheel more capable on surfaces
where wheels simply can’t compete.
The tracked drivetrain was largely 3D printed, including some massive gears that are supplemented by a big old 150 mm ball bearing which sits around the drive motor itself. If you love planetary gear trains with a 4:1 reduction, this project is for you. Carbon-fiber reinforced filament was used for many of the parts to give them some additional strength. Control is a little different than a traditional one-wheel, since the flat-bottomed track means lean controls won’t work. Instead, a wireless hand throttle was constructed to enable the rider to command the direction of travel.
It’s not easy to ride, but the one-track does actually work. It’s capable of crawling its way around on grass and snow quite well. There were some issues with the printed tracks and rollers, particularly when turning, but tweaks to round out the track profile helped solve that issue to a degree. There’s a reason
we often use wheels instead of tracks
, but somehow tracks are still just cool. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101331",
"author": "That guy ¯\\(°_o)/¯",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T17:35:44",
"content": "its not a 1 wheel anymore is it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8101390",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T20:26:59",
... | 1,760,371,636.808389 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/this-week-in-security-openssh-jumbledpath-and-ransacked/ | This Week In Security: OpenSSH, JumbledPath, And RANsacked | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"JumbledPath",
"openssh",
"RANsacked",
"This Week in Security"
] | OpenSSH has a
newly fixed pair of vulnerabilities
, and while neither of them are lighting the Internet on fire, these are each fairly important.
The
central observation made by the Qualsys Threat Research Unit (TRU)
was that OpenSSH contains a code paradigm that could easily contain a logic bug. It’s similar to Apple’s infamous
goto fail;
SSL vulnerability. The setup is this: An integer,
r
, is initialized to a negative value, indicating a generic error code. Multiple functions are called, with
r
often, but not always, set to the return value of each function. On success, that may set
r
to 0 to indicate no error. And when one of those functions does fail, it often runs a
goto:
statement that short-circuits the rest of the checks. At the end of this string of checks would be a
return r;
statement, using the last value of
r
as the result of the whole function.
1387 int
1388 sshkey_to_base64(const struct sshkey *key, char **b64p)
1389 {
1390 int r = SSH_ERR_INTERNAL_ERROR;
....
1398 if ((r = sshkey_putb(key, b)) != 0)
1399 goto out;
1400 if ((uu = sshbuf_dtob64_string(b, 0)) == NULL) {
1401 r = SSH_ERR_ALLOC_FAIL;
1402 goto out;
1403 }
....
1409 r = 0;
1410 out:
....
1413 return r;
1414 }
The potential bug? What if line 1401 was missing? That would mean setting
r
to the success return code of one function (1398), then using a different variable in the next check (1400), without re-initializing
r
to a generic error value (1401). If that second check fails at line 1400, the code execution jumps to the
return
statement at the end, but instead of returning an error code, the success code from the intermediary check is returned. The TRU researchers arrived at this theoretical scenario just through the code smell of this particular
goto
use, and used the CodeQL code analysis tool to look for any instances of this flaw in the OpenSSH codebase.
The tool found 50 results, 37 of which turned out to be false positives, and the other 13 were minor issues that were not vulnerabilities. Seems like a dead end, but while manually auditing how well their CodeQL rules did at finding the potentially problematic code, the TRU team found a very similar case, in the VerifyHostKeyDNS handling, that could present a problem. The burning question on my mind when reaching this point of the write-up was
what exactly VerifyHostKeyDNS was
.
SSH uses public key cryptography to prevent Man in the Middle (MitM) attacks. Without this, it would be rather trivial to intercept an outgoing SSH connection, and pretend to be the target server. This is why SSH will warn you
The authenticity of host 'xyz' can't be established.
upon first connecting to a new SSH server. And why it so strongly warns that
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
when a connection to a known machine doesn’t verify properly. VerifyHostKeyDNS is an alternative to trusting a server’s key on first connection, instead getting the cryptographic fingerprint in a DNS lookup.
So back to the vulnerability. TRU found one of these
goto out;
cases in the VerifyHostKeyDNS handling that returned the error code from a function on failure, but the code a layer up only checked for a
-1
value. On one layer of code, only a
0
was considered a success, and on the other layer, only a
-1
was considered a failure. Manage to find a way to return an error other than -1, and host key verification automatically succeeds. That seems very simple, but it turns out the only other practical error that can be returned is an out of memory error. This leads to the second vulnerability that was discovered.
OpenSSH has its own PING mechanism to determine whether a server is reachable, and what the latency is. When it receives a PING, it sends a PONG message back. During normal operation, that’s perfectly fine. The messages are sent and the memory used is freed. But during key exchange, those PONG packets are simply queued. There are no control mechanisms on how many messages to queue, and a malicious server can keep a client in the key exchange process indefinitely. In itself it’s a denial of service vulnerability for both the client and server side, as it can eat up ridiculous amount of memory. But when combined with the VerifyHostKeyDNS flaw explained above, it’s a way to trigger the out of memory error, and bypass server verification.
The vulnerabilities were fixed in the 9.9p2 release of OpenSSH. The client attack (the more serious of the two) is only exploitable if your client has the VerifyHostKeyDNS option set to “yes” or “ask”. Many systems default this value to “no”, and are thus unaffected.
JumbledPath
We now have
a bit more insight into how Salt Typhoon recently breached multiple US telecom providers
, and deployed the JumbledPath malware. Hopefully you weren’t expecting some sophisticated chain of zero-day vulnerabilities, because so far the answer seems to be simple credential stealing.
Cisco Talos has released
their report on the attacks
, and the interesting parts are what the attackers did
after
they managed to access target infrastructure. The JumbledPath malware is a Go binary, running on x86-64 Linux machines. Lateral movement was pulled off using some clever tricks, like changing the loopback address to an allowed IP, to bypass Access Control Lists (ACLs). Multiple protocols were abused for data gathering and further attacks, like SNMP, RADIUS, FTP, and SSH. There’s certainly more to this story, like where the captured credentials actually came from, and whose conversations were actually targeted, but so far those answers are not available.
Ivanti Warp-Speed Audit
The preferred method of rediscovering vulnerabilities is patch diffing. Vendors will often announce vulnerabilities, and even release updates to correct them, and never really dive into the details of what went wrong with the old code. Patch diffing is looking at the difference between the vulnerable release and the fixed one, figuring out what changed, and trying to track that back to the root cause. Researchers at Horizon3.ai knew there were vulnerabilities in Ivanti’s Endpoint manager, but didn’t have patches to reverse engineer. Seems like a bummer, but was actually serendipity,
as the high-speed code audit looking for the known vulnerability actually resulted in four new ones being found
!
They are all the same problem, spread across four API endpoints, and all reachable by an unauthenticated user. The code is designed to look at files on the local filesystem, and generate hashes for the files that are found. The problem is that the attacker can supply a file name that actually resolves to an external Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path. The appliance will happily reach out and attempt to authenticate with a remote server, and this exposes the system to credential relay attacks.
RANsacked
The Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research have published a
post
and
paper
(PDF) about RANsacked, their research into various LTE and 5G systems. This is a challenging area to research, as most of us don’t have any spare LTE routing hardware laying around to research on. The obvious solution was to build their own, using open source software like Open5GS, OpenAirInterface, etc. The approach was to harness a fuzzer to find interesting vulnerabilities in these open implementations, and then apply that approach to closed solutions. Serious vulnerabilities were found in every target the fuzzing system was run against.
Their findings break down into three primary categories of vulnerabilities. The first is untrusted Non-Access Stratum (NAS) control messages getting handled by the “core”, the authentication, routing, and processing part of the cellular system. These messages aren’t properly sanitized before processing, leading to the expected crashes and exploits we see in every other insufficiently hardened system that processes untrusted data. The second category is the uncertainty in the protocol specifications and mismatch between what those specifications seem to indicate and the reality of cellular traffic. And finally, deserialization of ASN.1 data itself is subject to deserialization attacks. This group of research found a staggering 119 vulnerabilities in total.
Bits and Bytes
[RyotaK] at GMO Flatt Security
found an interesting vulnerability in Chatwork
, a popular messaging application in Japan. The desktop version of this tool is just an electron app, and it makes use of webviewTag, an obsolete Electron feature. This quirk can be combined with a dangerous method in the preload context, allowing for arbitrary remote code execution when a user clicks a malicious link in the application.
Once upon a time,
Microsoft published Virtual Machines for developers to use for testing websites
inside Edge and IE. Those VM images had the
puppet
admin engine installed, but no configuration set. And that’s not great, because in this state
puppet
will look for machine using the
puppet
hostname on the local network, and attempt to download a configuration from there. And because puppet is explicitly designed to administer machines, this automatically results in arbitrary code execution. The VMs are no longer offered, so we’re past the expiration date on this particular trick, but what an interesting quirk of these once-official images.
[Anurag]
has an analysis of the Arechclient2 Remote Access Trojan (RAT)
. It’s a bit of .NET malware, aggressively obfuscated, that collects and exfiltrates data and credentials. There’s a browser element, in the form of a Chrome extension that reports itself as Google Docs. This is more data collection, looking for passwords and other form fills.
Signal users are
getting hacked by good old fashioned social engineering
. The trick is to generate a QR code from Signal that will permit the account scanning the code to log in on another device. It’s advice some of us have learned the hard way, but QR codes are just physical manifestations of URLs, and we really shouldn’t trust them lightly. Don’t click that link, and don’t scan that QR code. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101301",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T16:03:57",
"content": "Don’t click that link, and don’t scan that QR code.unless you do it with a “proper” 2d-code scanner app like eg.https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.secuso.privacyFriendlyCodeScannerIt’s exact... | 1,760,371,636.906149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/a-new-8-bit-cpu-for-c/ | A New 8-bit CPU For C | Al Williams | [
"FPGA",
"Software Development"
] | [
"8 bit",
"8-bit CPU",
"cpu",
"SDCC"
] | It is easy to port C compilers to architectures that look like old minicomputers or bigger CPUs. However, as the authors of the Small Device C Compiler (SDCC) found, pushing C into a typical 8-bit CPU is challenging. Lessons learned from SDCC inspired a new 8-bit architecture,
F8
. This isn’t just a theoretical architecture. You can find an example
Verilog implementation
in the SDDC project and on
GitHub
. The name choice may turn out to be unfortunate as there was an
F8 CPU
from Fairchild back in the 1970s that apparently few people remember.
In the video from FOSDEM 2025, [Phillip Krause] provides a nice overview of the how and why of F8. While it might seem odd to create a new 8-bit CPU when you can get bigger CPUs for pennies, you have to consider that 8-bit machines are more than enough for many jobs, and if you can squeeze one into an FPGA, it might be a good choice as opposed to having to get a bigger FPGA to hold your design and a 32-bit CPU.
Many 8-bit computers struggle with efficient C code mainly because the data size is smaller than the width of a pointer. Doing things like adding two numbers takes more code, even in common situations. For example, suppose you have a pointer to an array, and each element of the array is four bytes wide. To find the address of the n’th element, you need to compute: element_n = base_address + (n *4). On, say, an 8086 with 16-bit pointers and many 16-bit instructions and addressing modes can do the calculation very succinctly.
Other problems you frequently run into with compiling code for small CPUs include segmented address spaces, dedicated registers for memory indexing, and difficulties putting wider items on a stack (or, for some very small CPUs, even having a stack, at all).
The wish list was to include stack-relative addressing, hardware 8-bit multiplication, and BCD support to help support an efficient printf implementation.
Keep in mind, it isn’t that you can’t compile C for strange 8-bit architectures. SDDC is proof that you can. The question is how efficient is the generated code. F8 provides features that facilitate efficient binaries for C programs.
We’ve seen other
modern 8-bit CPUs use SDCC
. Writing C code for the
notorious PIC
(with it’s banked memory, lack of stack, and other hardships) was truly a surreal experience. | 61 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101213",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T12:13:35",
"content": "I was absolutely floored when I found out there are Chinese 8 bit MCUs which can do Bluetooth. It didn’t even have an FPU otherwise!Kinda makes sense though, if you have everything (timers, serial inter... | 1,760,371,637.011825 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/21/acoustic-engine-harnesses-the-power-of-sound/ | Acoustic Engine Harnesses The Power Of Sound | Dan Maloney | [
"Tech Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"acoustic",
"fibonacci",
"propulsion",
"ramjet",
"resonance",
"sonic"
] | If you think sonic booms from supersonic aircraft are a nuisance, wait until the sky is full of planes propelled by up-scaled versions of
this interesting but deafening audio resonance engine
.
Granted, there’s a lot of work to do before this “Sonic Ramjet” can fly even something as small as an RC plane. Creator [invalid_credentials] came up with the idea for a sound-powered engine after listening to the subwoofers on a car’s audio system shaking the paint off the body. The current design uses a pair of speaker drivers firing into 3D printed chambers, which are designed based on Fibonacci ratios to optimize resonance. When the speakers are driven with a low-frequency sine wave, the chambers focus the acoustic energy into powerful jets, producing enough thrust to
propel a small wheeled test rig across a table
.
It’s fair to ask the obvious question: is the engine producing thrust, or is the test model moving thanks to the vibrations caused by the sound? [invalid_credentials] appears to have thought of that, with
a video
showing a test driver generating a powerful jet of air. Downloads to STL files for both the large and small versions of the resonating chamber are provided, if you want to give it a try yourself. Just be careful not to annoy the neighbors too much.
Thanks to [cabbage] for the tip via [
r/3Dprinting
]. | 35 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8101124",
"author": "mre",
"timestamp": "2025-02-21T09:48:09",
"content": "a few questions:– Assuming this is really “sonic locomotion”, How does the system draw in new air to be compressed and ejected from the chamber?– How do you know this is not actually linear motion derived fro... | 1,760,371,637.080121 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/why-ai-usage-may-degrade-human-cognition-and-blunt-critical-thinking-skills/ | Why AI Usage May Degrade Human Cognition And Blunt Critical Thinking Skills | Maya Posch | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"artifical intelligence",
"programming",
"software development"
] | Any statement regarding the potential benefits and/or hazards of AI tends to be automatically very divisive and controversial as the world tries to figure out what the technology means to them, and how to make the most money off it in the process. Either meaning Artificial Inference or Artificial Intelligence depending on who you ask, AI has seen itself used mostly as a way to ‘assist’ people. Whether in the form of a chat client to answer casual questions, or to generate articles, images and code, its proponents claim that it’ll make workers more efficient and remove tedium.
In a
recent paper
published by researchers at
Microsoft
and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) the findings from a survey are however that the effect is mostly negative. The general conclusion is that by forcing people to rely on external tools for basic tasks, they become less capable and prepared of doing such things themselves, should the need arise. A related example is
provided
by Emanuel Maiberg in his commentary on this study when he notes how simple things like memorizing phone numbers and routes within a city are deemed irrelevant, but what if you end up without a working smartphone?
Does so-called generative AI (GAI) turn workers into monkeys who mindlessly regurgitate whatever falls out of the Magic Machine, or is there true potential for removing tedium and increasing productivity?
The Survey
In this survey, 319
knowledge workers
were asked about how they use GAI in their job and how they perceive GAI usage. They were asked how they evaluate the output from tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E, as well as how confident they were about completing these same tasks without GAI. Specifically there were two research questions:
When and how do knowledge workers know that they are performing critical thinking when using GAI?
When and why do they perceive increased/decreased need for critical thinking due to GAI?
Obviously, the main thing to define here is the term ‘
critical thinking
‘. In the survey’s context of creating products like code, marketing material and similar that has to be assessed for correctness and applicability (i.e. meeting the requirements), critical thinking mostly means reading the GAI-produced text, analyzing a generated image and testing generated code for correctness prior to signing off on it.
The first research question was often answered by those partaking in a way that suggests that critical thought was inversely correlated with how trivial the task was thought to be, and directly correlated to the potential negative repercussions of flaws. Another potential issue appeared here where some participants indicated accepting GAI responses which were outside that person’s domain knowledge, yet often lacking the means or motivation to verify claims.
The second question got a bit more of a diverse response, mostly depending on the kind of usage scenario. Although many participants indicated a reduced need for critical thinking, it was generally noted that GAI responses cannot be trusted and have to be verified, edited and often adjusted with more queries to the GAI system.
Distribution of perceived effort when using a GAI tool. (Credit: Hao-Ping Lee et al., 2025)
Of note is that this is about the participant’s perception, not about any objective measure of efficiency or accuracy. An important factor the study authors identify is that of self-confidence, with less self-confidence resulting in the person relying more on the GAI to be correct. Considering that text generated by a GAI is well-known to do the LLM equivalent of
begging the question
, alongside a healthy dose of
bull excrement
disguised as forceful confidence and bluster, this is not a good combination.
It is this reduced self-confidence and corresponding increase in trust in the AI that also reduces critical thinking. Effectively, the less the workers know about the topic, and/or the less they care about verifying the GAI tool output, the worse the outcome is likely to be. On top of this comes that the use of GAI tools tends to shift the worker’s activity from information gathering to information verification, as well as from problem-solving to AI-output integration. Effectively the knowledge worker thus becomes more of a GAI quality assurance worker.
Essentially Automation
Baltic Aviation Academy Airbus B737 Full Flight Simulator (FFS) in Vilnius (Credit: Baltic Aviation Academy)
The thing about GAI and its potential impacts on the human workforce is that these concerns are not nearly as new as some may think it is. In the field of commercial aviation, for example, there has been a strong push for many decades now to increase the level of automation. Over this timespan we have seen airplanes change from purely manual flying to today’s glass cockpits, with autopilots, integrated checklists and the ability to land autonomously if given an ILS beacon to lock onto.
While this managed to shrink the required crew to fly an airplane by dropping positions such as the flight engineer, it changed the task load of the pilots from actively flying the airplane to monitoring the autopilot for most of the flight. The disastrous outcome of this arrangement became clear in June of 2009 when
Air France Flight 447
(AF447) suffered blocked pitot tubes due to ice formation while over the Atlantic Ocean. When the autopilot subsequently disconnected, the airplane was in a stable configuration, yet within a few minutes the pilot flying had managed to put the airplane into a fatal stall.
Ultimately the AF447 accident report concluded that the crew had not been properly trained to deal with a situation like this, leading to them not identifying the root cause (i.e. blocked pitot tubes) and making inappropriate control inputs. Along with the poor training, issues such as the misleading stopping and restarting of the stall alarm and unclear indication of inconsistent airspeed readings (due to the pitot tubes) helped to turn an opportunity for clear, critical thinking into complete chaos and bewilderment.
The bitter lesson from AF447 was that as good as automation can be, as long as you have a human in the loop, you should always train that human to be ready to replace said automation when it (inevitably) fails. While not all situations are as critical as flying a commercial airliner, the same warnings about preparedness and complacency apply in any situation where automation of any type is added.
Not Intelligence
A nice way to summarize GAI is perhaps that they’re complex tools that can be very useful but at the same time are dumber than a brick. Since these are based around probability models which essentially extrapolate from the input query, there is no reasoning or understanding involved. The intelligence bit is the one ingredient that still has to be provided by the human intelligence that sits in front of the computer. Whether it’s analyzing a generated image to see that it does in fact show the requested things, criticizing a generated text for style and accuracy, or scrutinizing generated code for accuracy and lack of bugs, these are purely human tasks without substitution.
We have seen in the past few years how relying on GAI tends to get into trouble, ranging from lawyers who
don’t bother to validate (fake) cited cases
in a generated legal text, to programmers who
end up with 41% more bugs
courtesy of generated code. Of course in the latter case we have seen enough
criticisms of e.g. Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot
back when it first launched to be anything but surprised.
In this context this recent survey isn’t too surprising. Although GAI tools are just that, like any tool you have to properly understand them to use them safely. Since we know at this point that accuracy isn’t their strong suit, that chat bots like ChatGPT in particular have been programmed to be pleasant and eager to please at the cost of their (already low) accuracy, and that GAI generated images tend to be full of (hilarious) glitches, the one conclusion one should not draw here is that it is fine to rely on GAI.
Before ChatGPT and kin, we programmers would use forums and sites like StackOverflow to copy code snippets for. This was a habit which would introduce many fledging programmers to the old adage of ‘trust, but verify’. If you cannot blindly trust a bit of complicated looking code pilfered from StackOverflow or GitHub, why would you roll with whatever ChatGPT or GitHub Copilot churns out? | 98 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097879",
"author": "Dave Boyer",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T18:06:09",
"content": "The general conclusion is that by forcing people to rely on external tools for basic tasks, they become less capable and prepared of doing such things themselves, should the need arise.No shit! A Nobel... | 1,760,371,637.339666 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/tiny-typing-tutor-tuts-at-your-incorrect-shift-usage/ | Tiny Typing Tutor Tuts At Your Incorrect Shift Usage | Lewin Day | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"colemak",
"dvorak",
"keyboard",
"peripherals",
"qwerty",
"shift",
"shift key",
"typing",
"typing tutor"
] | There are a wide range of typing tutors out there that will educate you in the glorious skill of touch-typing. Many just focus on the basics, ranking you on accuracy and speed. However, there’s
a nifty little online tutor
that can help you with one skill specifically—it’s aim is to teach you to use the Shift keys “properly.”
The tutor is the work of [KaarelP2rtel]. The unnamed tool is intended to guide you into instinctively using both the left and right Shift keys as you type. Many typers default to using one or the other. This can lead to fumbles and slowdown when one hand is trying to hit both the Shift key and a letter.
[KaarelP2rtel]’s belief is that the “correct” method is to press the Shift key with the opposite hand to the one typing the letter, and this typing tutor enforces that practice. You must type repeated capitalized words one after the other, and you’ll only progress quickly if you’re hitting the opposite Shift key each time. Unconventional keyboardists fear not—you can convert the tool to work with Dvorak or Colemak layouts if necessary.
Is this a crucial tool for the fast typist? The jury’s out on that one. It’s entirely possible to hit in excess of 120 wpm without this technique for most normal passages of text, using dynamic finger reassignments when hitting Shift with the same hand. Still, the diligent may find it a useful upgrade to their existing typing abilities.
Source code
is on GitHub
for the curious. Notably, it’s a very small website that weighs in at just a few kilobytes; it would be a rather fitting part of the Small Web,
which we’ve explored before! | 16 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097857",
"author": "DarlyB",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T16:50:36",
"content": "So after 40 years I’ve been using the wrong shift key for B (kept hammering the left one lol), its in no-mans land on the (computer) keyboard, need to check an old school typewriter. Maybe I evolved after... | 1,760,371,637.132957 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/nasa-taps-webb-to-help-study-2032-asteroid-threat/ | NASA Taps Webb To Help Study 2032 Asteroid Threat | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"asteroid",
"james webb space telescope",
"jwst",
"nasa",
"planetary defense"
] | In all likelihood, asteroid 2024 YR4 will slip silently past the Earth. Based on the data we have so far, there’s an estimated chance of only 2.1% to 2.3% that it will collide with the planet on December 22nd, 2032. Under normal circumstances, if somebody told you there was a roughly 98% chance of something
not
happening, you probably wouldn’t give it a second thought. There’s certainly a case to be made that you should feel that way in regards to this particular event — frankly, it’s a lot more likely that some other terrible thing is going to happen to you in the next eight years than it is an asteroid is going to ruin your Christmas party.
That being said, when you consider the scale of the cosmos, a 2+% chance of getting hit is enough to raise some eyebrows. After all, it’s the highest likelihood of an asteroid impact that we’re currently aware of. It’s also troubling that the number has only gone up as further observations of 2024 YR4’s orbit have been made; a few weeks ago, the impact probability was just 1%. Accordingly,
NASA has recently announced
they’ll be making time in the James Webb Space Telescope’s busy scientific schedule to observe the asteroid next month.
So keeping in mind that we’re still talking about an event that’s statistically unlikely to actually occur, let’s take a look at what we know about 2024 YR4, and how further study and analysis can give us a better idea of what kind of threat we’re dealing with.
An Unexpected Visitor
Officially, 2024 YR4 was discovered on December 27th, 2024 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), but by that time we had already dodged a potential impact. It turns out that the asteroid had come within 828,800 kilometers (515,000 miles), or around two times the distance from the Earth to the Moon, on December 25th without anyone realizing.
2024 YR4’s Orbit (Gray)
All of the observations of the asteroid made since its discovery have therefore been made while the object is moving away from the planet and back into deep space. This is a less than ideal situation when you consider that the asteroid is estimated to be between 40 to 90 meters (130 to 300 ft) in diameter.
With each passing day, it becomes more difficult to track and resolve 2024 YR4, and it’s currently estimated that observing it with ground-based telescopes will no longer be possible beyond April.
That is, until 2028. As you might have put together by now, 2024 YR4 is in such an orbit that it comes within close proximity of Earth every four years. If current orbital projections hold true, during the summer of 2028, the asteroid will be close enough again that we can observe it on the way towards us.
That will include a fly-by of Earth in early December before it swings back out of range. Hopefully by that time we’ll have collected enough data to know whether or not we’ll need to brace for impact the next time it swings by our neighborhood.
Deflect, or Evacuate?
As far as potentially dangerous Near Earth Objects (NEOs) go, 2024 YR4 is about as ideal as they get. While it did sneak up on us in 2024, now we know it’s on a fairly predictable schedule and there’s enough time that we could actually do something about it if the chance of impact gets high enough to take it more seriously. In 2028, we’ve even got a chance to deflect it as it zooms past Earth.
That would have been science fiction a few years ago, but after
NASA’s successful DART demonstration mission
, we now know it’s possible to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid simply by ramming a spacecraft into it at high velocity. The target asteroid in that test was much larger than 2024 YR4, with a diameter of 177 meters (581 ft). Yet the head-on impact of the 500 kg (1,100 lb) DART spacecraft was able to slow it down enough to make a noticeable change in its orbit.
Given how close 2024 YR4 would be passing by Earth, it’s not hard to imagine that a spacecraft with several times the mass of DART could be put on a collision course with the asteroid in 2028. Even if such an impact would not be enough to entirely prevent a collision with 2024 YR4, if applied carefully, it could certainly be sufficient to move the calculated point of impact.
Potential 2032 Impact Corridor
But would such a mission even be necessary? Current estimates put around half of the potential impact points for 2024 YR4 over the ocean. Even where the path of the asteroid does cross over land, most of it is sparsely populated. The biggest risks to human life would be in Nigeria and India, but the chances of a direct hit over either area is particularly remote, especially given the estimated blast radius of 50 km (31 miles).
Unless updated orbital data for 2024 YR4 indicates that it’s going to directly impact one of these densely populated areas, the most cost effective approach may be to simply move as many people out of the impact area as possible. While an evacuation of this scale would still be a monumental task, we’d at least have several years to implement the plan.
Bringing Out the Big Guns
While the chances are still excellent that 2024 YR4 will zip harmlessly past our Blue Marble in 2032, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that some big decisions might need to be made in the next few years. So how do we figure out how large of a threat this asteroid really is before it’s too late?
That’s where advanced space-bound observatories like the
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) come in
. While our instruments on Earth soon won’t be able to see 2024 YR4, the JWST will not only be able to keep its gaze on the asteroid for longer, but the infrared observatory is uniquely suited for capturing critical data about its size and shape.
Up to this point, the size of 2024 YR4 has been estimated based on its visible appearance, but that can be misleading. It could be that only part of the asteroid is reflective, which would give the impression that its smaller than it actually is. But the JWST doesn’t rely on visible light, and instead can use its IR instruments to detect the heat being given off by the asteroid’s rocky surface.
With definitive data about the asteroid’s size, shape, and rotation, astronomers will be able to better model how 2024 YR4 is moving through space. That’s going to be key to figuring out whether or not that 2.3% chance of impact is going to go up or down — and if it does go up, will help narrow down exactly where the asteroid is likely to hit. | 43 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097838",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T15:36:21",
"content": "“2024 YR4’s obit”Rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated…which could wind up being unfortunate for us.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "80... | 1,760,371,637.43409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/budget-minded-synthetic-aperture-radar-takes-to-the-skies/ | Budget-Minded Synthetic Aperture Radar Takes To The Skies | Dan Maloney | [
"drone hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"drone",
"DSA",
"FPGS",
"patch antenna",
"polarization",
"sar",
"Synthetic aperture radar",
"uav"
] | Unless you work for the government or a large corporation, constrained designs are a fact of life. No matter what you’re building, there’s likely going to be a limit to the time, money, space, or materials you can work with. That’s good news, though, because constrained projects tend to be interesting projects, like
this airborne polarimetric synthetic aperture radar
.
If none of those terms make much sense to you, don’t worry too much. As [Henrik Forstén] explains, synthetic aperture radar is just a way to make a small radar antenna appear to be much larger, increasing its angular resolution. This is accomplished by moving the antenna across a relatively static target and doing some math to correlate the returned signal with the antenna position. We saw this with
his earlier bicycle-mounted SAR
.
For this project, [Henrik] shrunk the SAR set down small enough for a low-cost drone to carry. The build log is long and richly detailed and could serve as a design guide for practical radar construction. Component selection was critical, since [Henrik] wanted to use low-cost, easily available parts wherever possible. Still, there are some pretty fancy parts here, with a Zynq 7020 FPGA and a boatload of memory on the digital side of the custom PCB, and a host of specialized parts on the RF side.
The antennas are pretty cool, too; they’re stacked patch antennas made from standard FR4 PCBs, with barn-door feed horns fashioned from copper sheeting and slots positioned 90 to each other to provide switched horizontal and vertical polarization on both the receive and transmit sides. There are also a ton of details about how the radar set is integrated into the flight controller of the drone, as well as an interesting discussion on the autofocusing algorithm used to make up for the less-than-perfect positional accuracy of the system.
The resulting images are remarkably detailed, and almost appear to be visible light images thanks to the obvious shadows cast by large objects like trees and buildings. We’re especially taken by mapping all combinations of transmit and receive polarizations into a single RGB image; the result is ethereal. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097801",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T12:26:48",
"content": "This is insane. Making a camera with low freq RF instead of light",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8098281",
"author": "Col. Panek",
... | 1,760,371,639.285165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/13/a-transparent-bb-8-build-using-christmas-ornaments/ | A Transparent BB-8 Build Using Christmas Ornaments | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"BB-8",
"droid",
"star wars"
] | The cool thing about the droids of
Star Wars
is that they’re not
that
hard to recreate in real life. R2-D2 is a popular choice, but you can even build yourself a neat little BB-8 if you’re so inclined.
[Piyush] has built a particularly compelling example
that’s transparent, which lets you see the internals and how it all works.
The build makes creative use of a pair of Christmas ornaments. They are perhaps the cheapest and easiest way to source a clear plastic sphere. One serves as the “head”, while the other serves as the larger spherical body. Inside, an Arduino Pro Micro is running the show. It’s hooked up to a L293D motor driver which runs the drive motors and the reaction wheel motor which provides stability, while a separate MOSFET is on hand to run the gear motor which controls the head.
There’s also an HC-05 module for Bluetooth communication, and a BNO055 sensor for motion tracking and ensuring the robot stays the right way up. 3D printed components are used prodigiously to cram everything together tightly enough to fit. There’s even a printed charging base to juice up the little droid. Controlling the robot is as simple as using a smartphone with an app created in the MIT App Inventor.
If you’ve never built a spherical rolling robot before—and few of us have—this design is a great reference for your own work. We’ve seen
a few BB-8s
over the years, most of which dropped
shortly after the movie was released. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097770",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T09:54:35",
"content": "Eww, sequel trilogy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097866",
"author": "Mr. Christopher",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T17:21:50",
... | 1,760,371,639.618089 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/on-the-original-punched-cards/ | On The Original Punched Cards | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"jacquard loom",
"punch card",
"Punched Card"
] | If you mention punch cards to most people, they’ll think of voting. If you mention it to most older computer people, they’ll think of punching programs for big computers on cards. But punched cards are much older than that, and [Nichole Misako Nomura] talks about how the original use was to
run looms and knitting machines
and — thanks the Internet Archive — you can still find old cards to drive modern machines.
According to the post, a dedicated group of people own old commercial knitting machines, and with some work, they can use archived punch cards with patterns that predate the computerized world. The Jacquard loom was famously the first machine to use cards like this, and it is no secret that they were the inspiration for Hollerith’s use of cards in the census, which would eventually lead to the use of cards for computing.
This is an interesting example of format issues. There are many card patterns stored on the Internet, but getting from a digital image to a workable card or even a set of instructions is difficult. But it is doable. You have to wonder if pulling old data off other, more modern media will be workable in the future.
If you want to relive (or try for the first time) keypunching, you can
use your browser
. The Jacquard loom may be ancient history, but it has many
spiritual descendants
. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097629",
"author": "McErer",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T06:16:28",
"content": "“…mention punch cards to most people…” I think that sentence was meant do be “…to most US americans”. Not many countries outside the states use punch cards (according to a quick binging resulting inhttps:/... | 1,760,371,639.020702 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/automatic-pill-dispenser-is-cheap-and-convenient/ | Automatic Pill Dispenser Is Cheap And Convenient | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"piezo",
"piezo sensor",
"pill dispenser"
] | If you’re taking any medication, you probably need to take it in a certain dose on a certain schedule. It can quickly become difficult to keep track of when you’re taking multiple medications. To that end, [Mellow_Labs] built an automated pill dispenser
to deliver the right pills on time, every time.
The pill dispenser is constructed out of 3D printed components. As shown, it has two main bins for handling two types of pills, controlled with N20 gear motors. The bins spin until a pill drops through a slot into the bottom of the unit, with the drop detected by a piezo sensor. It uses a Beetle ESP32 as the brains of the operation, which is hooked up with a DS1307 real-time clock to ensure it’s dosing out pills at the right time. It’s also wired up with a DRV8833 motor driver to allow it to run the gear motors. The DRV8833 can run up to four motors in unidirectional operation, so you can easily expand the pill dispenser up to four bins if so desired.
We particularly like how the pill dispenser is actually controlled — [Mellow_Labs] used the ESP32 to host a simple web interface which is used for setting the schedule on which each type of pill should be dispensed.
We’ve featured some other pill dispenser builds before, too
.
Thanks to [Prankhouz] for the tip! | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097586",
"author": "Sven Hapsbjorg",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T04:11:11",
"content": "All it’s missing is “\\<beep> \\<beep> WEŹ PIGUŁKĘ \\<beep> \\<beep>” soundSee 26:17 for an examplehttps://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8qeff5(Would love to link YouTube, but for them important piece... | 1,760,371,639.675885 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/diy-microwave-crucibles/ | DIY Microwave Crucibles | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"crucible",
"metal casting"
] | You know the problem. You are ready to melt some metal in your microwave oven, and you don’t have any crucibles. Not to worry. [Shake the Future] will show you how to
make your own
. All you need is some silicon carbide, some water glass (sodium silicate), and some patience.
The crucible takes the shape of a glass container. Don’t get too attached to it because the glass will break during the crucible construction. You can also use 3D-printed forms.
You can shape the vessel before it cures and after. Then, you give it a heat treatment. [Shake The Future] also recommends you harden it at the end. This is optional; he tells you how to decide if you need it.
Hardening helps prevent cracking during use. The process involves wrapping the vessel in a ceramic sheet and heating it until the crucible turns red. The ceramic sheet is somewhat dangerous to work with because it has such tiny fibers and dust, so he only treats the crucibles when necessary.
We always enjoy watching [Shake]
casting metal
. He’s even done a
Benchy
. | 18 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097632",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T06:25:11",
"content": "Zero mention or use of respiratory protection? Can we please start requiring proper safety disclaimers for dangerous projects?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,371,639.44978 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/will-embodied-ai-make-prosthetics-more-humane/ | Will Embodied AI Make Prosthetics More Humane? | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Medical Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"artificial intelligence",
"embodied ai",
"limb",
"prosthetic",
"touch"
] | Building a robotic arm and hand that matches human dexterity is tougher than it looks. We can create aesthetically pleasing ones, very functional ones, but the perfect mix of both? Still a work in progress. Just ask [Sarah de Lagarde], who in 2022 literally lost an arm and a leg in a life-changing accident.
In this BBC interview
, she shares her experiences openly – highlighting both the promise and the limits of today’s prosthetics.
The problem is that our hands aren’t just grabby bits. They’re intricate systems of nerves, tendons, and ridiculously precise motor control. Even the best AI-powered prosthetics rely on crude muscle signals, while dexterous robots struggle with the simplest things — like tying shoelaces or flipping a pancake without launching it into orbit.
That doesn’t mean progress isn’t happening. Researchers are training robotic fingers with real-world data, moving from ‘oops’ to actual precision. Embodied AI, i.e. machines that learn by physically interacting with their environment, is bridging the gap. Soft robotics with AI-driven feedback loops mimic how our fingers instinctively adjust grip pressure. If haptics are your point of interest,
we have posted about it before
.
The future isn’t just robots copying our movements, it’s about them
understanding
touch. Instead of machine learning, we might want to shift focus to human learning. If AI cracks that, we’re one step closer. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097528",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T22:23:08",
"content": "How many of you pervs had the same question come to mind?Can they fap with them?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097645",
"author": "adobefla... | 1,760,371,639.330813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/floss-weekly-episode-820-please-dont-add-ai-clippy-to-thunderbird/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 820: Please Don’t Add AI Clippy To Thunderbird | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"FLOSS Weekly",
"Thunderbird"
] | This week,
Jonathan Bennett
talks Thunderbird with
Ryan Sipes
! What’s the story with almost becoming part of LibreOffice, How has Thunderbird collected so many donations, and more!
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/the-untold-history-of-thunderbird/
https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/so-thats-it-for-thunderbird/
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on
our YouTube Channel
? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us!
Take a look at the schedule here
.
Direct Download
in DRM-free MP3.
If you’d rather read along,
here’s the transcript for this week’s episode
.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:
Spotify
RSS
Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under
Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097584",
"author": "BrendaEM",
"timestamp": "2025-02-13T03:39:30",
"content": "What we do not need: another AI infected anything that we cannot and should not trust.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8101027",
"author":... | 1,760,371,639.485872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/pcb-design-review-m-2-ssd-splitter/ | PCB Design Review: M.2 SSD Splitter | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"PCB Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"bifurcation",
"design review",
"M.2",
"PCB design",
"PCIe"
] | Today’s PCB design review is a board is from [Wificable]. iI’s a novel dual-SSD laptop adapter board! See, CPUs and chipsets often let you split wide PCIe links into multiple smaller width links. This board relies on a specific laptop with a specific CPU series, and a BIOS mod, to put two M.2 NVMe SSDs into a single SSD slot of a specific series’ laptop.
This board has two crucial factors – mechanical compatibility, and electrical function. Looking into mechanics, it’s a 0.8 mm thick PCB that plugs into a M.2 socket, and it has sockets for two SSDs on it – plenty of bending going on. For electronics, it has a PCIe REFCLK clock buffer, that [Wificable] found on Mouser – a must have for PCIe bifurcation, and a must-work for this board’s core! Apart from that, this is a 4-layer board, it basically has to be for diffpairs to work first-try.
Of course, the clock buffer chip is the main active component and the focus of the board, most likely mistakes will happen there – let’s look at the chip first.
All Eyes On Chip
The schematic is from a server board schematic – which is wonderful! Datasheet schematics are not always as complete or as succinct as you’d like them to be, and it’s super helpful to have a known-working schematic designed by a third party, that is production-grade and well-tested for 24/7 operation. We used that for our M.2 card design,
The symbol. It works, but cross-checking it against the original schematic isn’t as easy.
Of course, the symbol had to be redrawn for KiCad, and [Wificable] also rearranged the symbol corresponding to the physical pinout, as opposed to arranging them logically, like many KiCad symbols do. This is mostly a matter of preference and either way is fair – I switch between either of the two, depending on the situation. One note, though – when copying a schematic, I highly recommend you use the same pin arrangement as that schematic, it’s just really helpful to avoid mistakes.
In this case, I’d argue the logical arrangement is also cleaner, and that’s what I’d personally go for. However, design reviews are about function way more than aesthetics, and the chip’s wiring looked fine!
In my view, policing aesthetics is generally a no-go for PCB design – most you can do is suggestions. The line between aesthetic problems and practical problems is often blurry, let’s say, when the problem is about track routing, connector layout, making the schematic easy to check at a glance, or a good few other things. When in doubt, think about the best effort-to-payoff ratio for the person receiving the review.
Layout-wise, things are also fine – but they could be a little finer. The decoupling capacitors do need vias on their GND pads – easy to add, and a big benefit as far as power delivery goes. There are other areas where vias are called for! That, or having vias arranged a little differently, at the very least. Let’s take a look!
Well-Grounded
There are quite a few ground-related changes I’d recommend here specifically, given that it’s a high-speed design. I’ve been reading a fair few “how to treat ground fills better” documents, and they discuss about a row of signals with vias, ground unable to get between them. The recommended way is to arrange the vias diagonally, instead, letting some of the ground polygon fill between the gaps and freeing up space for GND vias – and that’s what we can do here, too.
from “Gen 4 PCIe Connector & Channel Design and Optimization: 16G T/s for Free”, [Intel]
It’s also important to add vias on all GND pads next to high-speed signals, as close to the GND pads as possible. In our case, this means the M.2 edge and socket GND pads, so we have to move their respective GND vias as close to them as possible – signals have to be moved around a bit for this, but it’s worthwhile. Keep in mind – use the smallest vias your fab offers, at least without a price increase, because it helps a ton during design, especially considering how comically large the default KiCad vias are! The default is 0.8/0.4 (outer/drill), but you can safely go down to 0.6/0.4, and at fabs like JLCPCB, 0.5/0.3 is available without a price increase.
Do Not Bend
For dessert, we look at mechanics more closely. One thing that springs out to me – this is a 0.8 mm board inserted into a M.2 socket. The cutout in the middle is a liability. Some sort of cutout is necessary to accomodate plastic features of the laptop, but having a wide center-to-edge slot is a recipe for PCB bends. In this case, the edge-to-center slot can become a shorter one, mechanically connected on the edge again, just needs a little bit more measurement.
So far, the boards have been produced, thanks to Aisler’s new 0.8 mm four-layer process. They’ve been partially tested: [Wificable] didn’t get the chip yet, but has already successfully done the BIOS mod, and tested the bifurcation using magnet wire to switch between REFCLKs. Whenever [Wificable] finds time to finish testing, we will hear from her about how well the chip functions!
As usual, if you would like a design review for your board,
submit a tip
to us with
[design review]
in the title, linking to your board files. KiCad design files strongly preferred, both repository-stored files (GitHub/GitLab/etc) and shady Google Drive/Dropbox/etc
.zip
links are accepted. | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097435",
"author": "Kenavru",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T18:04:42",
"content": "Is there any mobo that allow m2 x4 biffurcation to 2x2x ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097763",
"author": "Mallen",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,371,639.396769 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/safer-and-more-consistent-woodworking-with-a-power-feeder/ | Safer And More Consistent Woodworking With A Power Feeder | Maya Posch | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"power feeder",
"woodworking"
] | Woodworking tools like table- and bandsaws are extremely useful and versatile, but they generally have the distinct disadvantage that they make no distinction between the wood and the digits of the person using the machine. While solutions like SawStop were developed to make table saws sense flesh and try to not cut it, [James Hamilton] makes
a compelling argument in a recent video
for the use of power feeders.
These devices are placed above the table and feed the material into the machine without having to get one’s digits anywhere near the machine. Other than the safety aspect, it also means that the material is always fed in at a consistent speed, which is great when using it with a router table. Most of these power feeders are portable, so a single unit can be moved from the table saw to the router table, with [James] showing how he is using MagSwitch magnetic clamps to ease the process of moving between machines.
With the 1/8 HP mini power feeder that he’s using, the 4 magnetic clamps appear to be enough even when cutting hardwood on the table saw, but it’s important to make sure the power feeder doesn’t twist while running, for obvious safety reasons. On [James]’s wish list is a way to make moving the power feeder around more efficient, because he only has a single one, for cost reasons.
Although these power feeders cost upwards of $1,000, the benefits are obvious, including when running larger jobs. One might conceivably also DIY a solution, as they appear to be basically an AC motor driving a set of wheels that grip the material while feeding. That said, do you use a power feeder, a SawStop table saw or something else while woodworking? | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097390",
"author": "Me",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T16:35:45",
"content": "Matthias Wandel has made a power feeder before. Might be worth learning from his experiments before making your own.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tPiaduBZHRU",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repli... | 1,760,371,639.117346 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/plastic-on-the-mind-assessing-the-risks-from-micro-and-nanoplastics/ | Plastic On The Mind: Assessing The Risks From Micro- And Nanoplastics | Maya Posch | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"microplastics"
] | Perhaps one of the clearest indications of the Anthropocene may be the presence of plastic. Starting with the commercialization of Bakelite in 1907 by Leo Baekeland, plastics have taken the world by storm. Courtesy of being easy to mold into any imaginable shape along with a wide range of properties that depend on the exact polymer used, it’s hard to imagine modern-day society without plastics.
Yet as the saying goes, there never is a free lunch. In the case of plastics it would appear that the exact same properties that make them so desirable also risk them becoming a hazard to not just our environment, but also to ourselves. With plastics degrading mostly into ever smaller pieces once released into the environment, they eventually become small enough to hitch a ride from our food into our bloodstream and from there into our organs, including our brain as evidenced by a recent study.
Multiple studies have indicated that this bioaccumulation of plastics might be harmful, raising the question about how to mitigate and prevent both the ingestion of microplastics as well as producing them in the first place.
Polymer Trouble
Plastics are effectively synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers. This means that the final shape, whether it’s an enclosure, a bag, rope or something else entirely consists of many monomers that polymerized in a specific shape. This offers many benefits over traditional materials like wood, glass and metals, all of which cannot be used for the same wide range of applications, including food packaging and modern electronics.
Photodegradation of a plastic bucket used as an open-air flowerpot for some years. (Credit: Pampuco,
Wikimedia
)
Unlike a composite organic polymer like wood, however, plastics do not noticeably biodegrade. When exposed to wear and tear, they mostly break down into polymer fragments that remain in the environment and are likely to fragment further. When these fragments are less than 5 mm in length, they are called ‘microplastics’, which are further subdivided into a nanoplastics group once they reach a length of less than 1 micrometer. Collectively these are called MNPs.
The process of polymer degradation can have many causes. In the case of e.g. wood fibers, various microorganisms as well as chemicals will readily degrade these. For plastics the primary processes are oxidation and
chain scission
, which in the environment occurs through UV-radiation, oxygen, water, etc. Some plastics (e.g. with a carbon backbone) are susceptible to hydrolysis, while others degrade mostly through the interaction of UV-radiation with oxygen (
photo-oxidation
). The purpose of
stabilizers
added to plastics is to retard the effect of these processes, with antioxidants, UV absorbers, etc. added. These only slow down the polymer degradation, naturally.
In short, although plastics that end up in the environment seem to vanish, they mostly break down in ever smaller polymer fragments that end up basically everywhere.
Body-Plastic Ratio
In a
recent review article
, Dr. Eric Topol covers contemporary studies on the topic of MNPs, with a particular focus on the new findings about MNPs found in the (human) brain, but also from a cardiovascular perspective. The latter references a March 2024 study
by Raffaele Marfella et al.
as published in
The New England Journal of Medicine
. In this study the excised plaque from carotid arteries in patients undergoing
endarterectomy
(arterial blockage removal) was examined for the presence of MNPs prior to the patients being followed to see whether the presence of MNPs affected their health.
What they found was that of the 257 patients who completed the full study duration 58.4% had polyethylene (PE) in these plaques, while 12.1% also had polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in them. The PE and PVC MNPs were concentrated in macrophages, alongside active inflammation markers. During the follow-up period during the study, of the patients without MNPs 8 of 107 (7.5%) suffered either a nonfatal myocardial infarction, a nonfatal stroke or death. This contrasted with 30 of 150 (20%) in the group with MNP detected, suggesting that the presence of MNP in one’s cardiovascular system puts one at significantly higher risk of these adverse events.
Microplastics in the human body. (Credit:
Richard C. Thompson et al.
, Science, 2024)
The presence of MNPs has not only been confirmed in arteries, but effectively in every other organ and tissue of the body as well. Recently the impact on the human brain has been investigated as well, with a study in
Nature Medicine
by Alexander J. Nihart et al. investigating MNP levels in decedent human brains as well the liver and kidneys. They found mostly PE, but also other plastic polymers, with the brain tissue having the highest PE proportion.
Interestingly, the more recently deceased had more MNP in their organs, and the brains of those with known dementia diagnosis had higher MNP levels than those without. This raises the question of whether the presence of MNPs in the brain can affect or even induce dementia and other disorders of the brain.
Using mouse models,
Haipeng Huang et al.
investigated the effects of MNPs on the brain, demonstrating that nanoplastics can pass through the blood-brain barrier, after which phagocytes consume these particles. These then go on to form blockages within the capillaries of the brain’s cortex, providing a mechanism through which MNPs are neurotoxic.
Prevention
Clearly the presence of MNPs in our bodies does not appear to be a good thing, and the only thing that we can realistically do about it at this point is to prevent ingesting (and inhaling) it, while preventing more plastics from ending up in the environment where it’ll inevitably start its gradual degradation into MNPs. To accomplish this, there are things that can be done, ranging from a personal level to national and international projects.
On a personal level, wearing a respirator while being in dusty environments, while working with plastics, etc. is helpful, while avoiding e.g. bottled water. According to a
recent study by Naixin Qian et al.
from the University of California they found on average 240,000 particles of MNPs in a liter of bottled water, with 90% of these being nanoplastics. As
noted in a related article
, bottled water can be fairly safe, but has to be stored correctly (i.e. not exposed to the sun). Certain water filters (e.g. Brita) filter particles o.5 – 1 micrometer in size and
should filter out most MNPs
as well from tap water.
Another source of MNPs are plastic containers, with old and damaged plastic containers more likely to contaminate food stored in them. If a container begins to look degraded (i.e. faded colors), it’s probably a good time to stop using it for food.
That said, as some exposure to MNPs is hard to avoid, the best one can do here is to limited said exposure.
Environmental Pollution
Bluntly put, if there wasn’t environmental contamination with plastic fragments such personal precautions would not be necessary. This leads us to the three Rs:
Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Simply put, the less plastic we use, the less plastic pollution there will be. If we reuse plastic items more often (with advanced stabilizers to reduce degradation), fewer plastic items would need to be produced, and once plastic items have no more use, they should be recycled. This is basically where all the problems begin.
Using less plastic is extremely hard for today’s societies, as these synthetic polymers are basically everywhere, and some economical sectors essentially exist because of single-use plastic packaging. Just try to imagine a supermarket or food takeout (including fast food) without plastics. A potential option is to replace plastics with an alternative (glass, etc.), but the viability here remains low, beyond replacing effectively single use plastic shopping bags with multi-use non-plastic bags.
Some sources of microplastics like from make-up and beauty products have been (partially) addressed already, but it’d be best if plastic could be easily recycled, and if microorganisms developed a taste for these polymers.
Dismal Recycling
Currently only about 10-15% of the plastic we produce is recycled, with the remainder incinerated, buried in landfills or discarded as litter into the environment as noted in
this recent article by Mark Peplow
. A big issue is that the waste stream features every imaginable type of plastic mixed along with other (organic) contaminants, making it extremely hard to even begin to sort the plastic types.
The solution suggested in the article is to reduce the waste stream back to its original (oil-derived) components as much as possible using high temperatures and pressures. If this new hydrothermal liquefaction approach which is currently being trialed by Mura Technology works well enough, it could replace mechanical recycling and the compromises which this entails, especially inferior quality compared to virgin plastic, and an inability to deal with mixed plastics.
Hydrothermal liquefaction process of plastics. (source: Mura Technology)
If a method like this can increase the recycling rate of plastics, it could significantly reduce the amount of landfill and litter plastic, and thus with it the production of MNPs.
Microorganism Solutions
As mentioned earlier, a nice thing about natural polymers like those in wood is that there are many organisms who specialize in breaking these down. This is the reason why plant matter and even entire trees will decay and effectively vanish, with its fundamental elements being repurposed by other organisms and those that prey on these. Wouldn’t it be amazing if plastics could vanish in a similar manner rather than hang around for a few hundred years?
As it turns out, life does indeed find a way, and researchers
have discovered multiple species
of bacteria, fungi and microalgae which are reported to biodegrade
PET
(polyethylene terephthalate), which accounts for 6.2% of plastics produced. Perhaps it’s not so surprising that microorganisms would adapt to thrive on plastics, since we are absolutely swamping the oceans with it, giving the rapid evolutionary cycle of bacteria and similar a strong nudge to prefer breaking down plastics over driftwood and other detritus in the oceans.
Naturally, PET is just one of many types of plastics, and generally plastics are not an attractive target for microbes, as
Zeming Cai et al. note in a 2023 review article
in
Microorganisms
. Also noted is that there are some fungal strains that degrade HDPE and LDPE, two of the most common types of plastics. These organisms are however not quite at the level where they can cope with the massive influx of new plastic waste, even before taking into account additives to plastics that are toxic to organisms.
Ultimately it would seem that evolution will probably fix the plastic waste issue if given a few thousand years, but before that, we smart human monkeys would do best to not create a problem where it doesn’t need to exist. At least if we don’t want to all become part of a mass-experiment on the effects of high-dose MNP exposure. | 49 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097352",
"author": "strawberrymortallyb0bcea48e7",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T15:05:40",
"content": "Why isn’t this movie mentioned?https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/Is HaD being silenced by 3M company?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,371,639.574697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/laser-cut-acrylic-provides-movie-style-authentication/ | Laser Cut Acrylic Provides Movie-Style Authentication | Tom Nardi | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"authenticator",
"laser cut",
"prop"
] | Here at Hackaday, we pride ourselves on bringing you the latest and greatest projects for your viewing pleasure. But sometimes we come across a creation so interesting that we find ourselves compelled to write about it, even if it’s already been hanging around the Internet for years. This may or may not be due to the fact that we just re-watched
Crimson Tide
, and found ourselves on a self-imposed dive into a very particular rabbit hole…
If you’ve seen
Crimson Tide
, or the first few minutes of
WarGames
, you might already know what this post is about. Both films prominently make use of a one-time authentication device which the user snaps in half to reveal a card that has some secret code printed on it — and as it turns out,
there are at least two different projects
that aim to
replicate the props used in the movies
.
The props were inspired by the real-world “Sealed Authenticators” used by the United States to verify commands regarding the launch of nuclear weapons. As shown in the films, once a launch order, known as an Emergency Action Message, is received, its validity could be confirmed by breaking open one of the Authenticators and comparing the code sequence printed on it to what was sent along with the message. Supposedly the real ones are more like foil envelopes that would be torn open, but presumably that wasn’t cool enough for Hollywood.
So how do you make your own film-quality Authenticator? The two projects take slightly different approaches, but the basic idea is to create a three layer acrylic stack. The top and bottom pieces are identical, and scored in the middle so they’ll break along a clean line. The center piece is cut in half and largely hollowed out to create the compartment for your printed message. It’s perhaps best described as two “C” shapes that have slight gap where they meet, which provides some room for the top and bottom layers to flex. With the acrylic pieces aligned and the message inside, everything is solvent welded together.
Of course, the question now is what to do with them. We can think of all sorts of games and challenges that could make use of this kind of thing, but if you’re looking for something a little more practical, these would be an awesome way to store your two-factor authentication recovery codes.
With the proper software
, you could even use these for secure file storage via QR code. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097359",
"author": "Mr. Christopher",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T15:12:37",
"content": "May the next thing you find joy in be crushed by a steam roller",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097373",
"author": "Carl Breen",
... | 1,760,371,639.724237 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/hearing-what-the-bats-hear/ | Hearing What The Bats Hear | Elliot Williams | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"high frequency",
"music",
"recording",
"ultrasound"
] | [Iftah] has been exploring the sounds beyond what we can hear, recording ultrasound and pitching it down.
He made a short video on the practice
, and it’s like a whole new world of sounds exists just outside of our hearing.
For instance,
a dropped toothpick sounds like you’ve just dropped a piece of lumber
,
a broken lightbulb sounds like a shattered window
, and
a blackbird sounds like a blue whale
. Besides simply sounding super, [Iftah] speculates that there’s some regularity here: that as you slow down the sound it sounds like it came from sources that are physically bigger.
He follows this up in a second video
, but if you just think about the basic physics, it makes sense.
If you’re interested in recording your own ultrasound, there are a bunch of options on the market. With modern audio processors running up to 192 kHz or even 384 kHz out of the box, all that’s missing is the high-frequency-capable microphone. Those aren’t unobtainable anymore either with many MEMS mics performing well above their rated frequency response specs. Recording ultrasound sounds like a fun and not-too-expensive project to us!
Of course, most of the ultrasound recording we’ve seen has been about the bats. Check out
the Pipistrelle
or
this pair of DIY bat detectors
for some good background. But after watching [Iftah]’s video, we’re no longer convinced that the cute little insectivores are the coolest thing going on in the ultrasound. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097083",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T17:52:46",
"content": "Interesting how everything sounds exactly like it would if the objects were much larger.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097103",
"autho... | 1,760,371,640.226263 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/the-science-behind-making-buildings-comfortably-non-combustible/ | The Science Behind Making Buildings Comfortably Non-Combustible | Maya Posch | [
"Current Events",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"prevention",
"wildfire"
] | Although the most fire-resistant building is likely a windowless, concrete bunker, this tends to be not the vibe that most home owners go for. This is why over the years construction of buildings in areas prone to bush- and wildfires – i.e. an uncontrolled fire in an area with combustible vegetation – has adapted to find a happy medium between a building that you’d enjoy living in and a building that will not instantly combust the moment an ember from a nearby wildfire gently touches down upon any part of it.
To achieve this feat, the primary means include keeping said combustible vegetation and similar away from the building, and to make the house as resistant to ember attacks as possible. That this approach is effective has been demonstrated over the course of multiple wildfires in California during the past years, whereby houses constructed more recently with these features had a much higher chance of making it through the event unscathed.
Naturally, the devil is in the details, which is why for example the Australian standard for construction in bushfire-prone areas (AS 3959, last updated in 2018,
2009 version PDF
) is rather extensive and heavy on details, including multiple Bushfire Attack Level (
BAL
) ratings that define risk areas and legally required mitigation measures. So what does it take exactly to survive a firestorm bearing down on your abode?
Wild Bushfires
Fire is something that we are all familiar with. At its core it’s a rapid oxidation reaction, requiring oxygen, fuel, and some kind of ignition, which can range from an existing flame to a lightning strike or similar source of intense heat. Wild- and bushfires are called this way because the organic material from vegetation provides the fuel. The moisture content within the plants and branches act to set the pace of any ignition, while the spread of the fire is strongly influenced by wind, which both adds more oxygen and helps to distribute embers to susceptible areas downwind.
This thus creates two hazards: the flame front and the embers carried on the warm air currents, with the latter capable of travelling well over a kilometer in ideal conditions. The level of threat will differ of course depending on the region, which is what the Australian BAL rating is about. As each higher BAL comes with increasing risk mitigation costs it’s important to get this detail right. The main factors to take into account are flame contact, radiant heat and ember attack, the risk from each depending on the local environment.
In AS 3959-2009 this risk determination and mitigation takes the form of the following steps:
Look up the predetermined Fire Danger Index (FDI) for the region.
Determine the local vegetation types.
Determine the distance to classified vegetation types.
Determine the effective slope(s).
Cross-reference tables with these parameters to get the BAL.
Implement the construction requirements as set out by the standard.
The FDI (see table 2.1) is a fairly course measurement that is mostly set by the general climate of the region in question, which affects parameters like air temperature, humidity, wind speeds and long- and short-term drought likelihoods. Many parts of Australia have an FDI of 100 – the highest rating – while for example Queensland is 40. When putting these FDI ratings next to the
list of major bushfires
in Australia, it’s easy to see why, as the regions with an FDI of 100 are overwhelmingly represented on it.
Vegetation Angle
Not all vegetation types are equally dangerous, with both the distance and slope to them changing the calculation. The vegetation type classification ranges from forest to unmanaged grassland, most of which are further subdivided into a number of sub-categories, such as woodland being sub-divided into open, low or a combination thereof. This kind of classification is of course highly dependent on the country’s native vegetation.
Determination of distance of site from classified vegetation (Source: AS 3959-2009, Figure 2.1)
Following on this are the edge to the thus classified vegetation, such as the beginning of the forest or shrubland, and the effective slope between it and the house or construction site. This determines how close the flame front can get, the effective radiant heat and the likelihood of embers reaching the site. If the building is downslope, for example, embers will have a much easier time reaching it than if they have to find their way upslope.
For certain areas with low-threat vegetation as well as non-vegetated areas the resulting BAL will be ‘low’, as this renders the threat from all three risk factors essentially nil.
Threat Mitigation
The BAL can thus be determined for one’s (future) abode either painstakingly using the Australian Standard document, or by using e.g. the
CSIRO’s online tools
for new and existing structures. Either way, next comes a whole list of mitigations, which at least in Australia are generally required to fulfill local regulations. These mitigations include any adjacent structures (garage, carport, etc.).
One exception here is with BAL-LOW, which has no specific requirements or mitigations. The first BAL where measures are required is BAL-12.5, which has to cope with ember attack, burning debris and radiant heat up to 12.5 kW/m
2
. The next two levels bump this up to 19 and 29 kW/m
2
, before we get the final two levels that include the flames reaching the building either intermittently (BAL-40) or engulf fully (BAL-FZ, i.e. Flame Zone).
Regardless of the BAL, most of the mitigations are rather similar:
any external surfaces exposed to potential embers, radiant heat and/or flames shall be either non-combustible, or bushfire-resistant.
gaps and vents larger than 3 mm must be covered with a (bushfire) mesh that has a maximum aperture of 2 mm.
installation of bushfire shutters to protect windows and doors.
non-combustible roof tiles, sheets, etc.
One aspect that differs here is the setback distance, which for BAL-FZ is at least 10 meters between the house and the classified vegetation, which is less stringent with the other BALs.
Common Sense
Many of these measures are common sense, albeit it that the devil is in the details. What the right type of bushfire mesh or sealant is to keep embers out, for example, or the best kind of siding. Fortunately this kind of information is readily available, which makes a solid assessment of one’s abode the most crucial step. Perhaps the most crucial one after assessing gaps is the removal of flammable material near the house, including bushes and other vegetation, and the consideration of what’d happen if any part of the house exterior got exposed to embers, radiant heat and/or flames.
So-called wall and roof penetrations like skylights, AC units and ventilation can inadvertently become welcoming entrances. This plays a major role in the US, for example, where
attic venting
is very common. Without mesh keeping embers out, such vents will do what they’re designed to do, which is circulating (ember-filled) outside air. Generally the local fire department in bush- and wildfire prone areas will have resources to help hardening one’s home, such as
CalFire’s dedicated resource site
.
Although keeping up with these defenses is not super-easy, it bears keeping in mind that in the case of a major fire it can only take a single ember to compromise every other measure one might have taken. Since big fires do not generally announce themselves weeks in advance, it’s best to not put off repairs, and have a checklist in case of a wildfire so that the place is buttoned up and prepared when the evacuation notice arrives.
Though following all mitigations to the letter is no guarantee, it will at least give your abode a fighting chance, and with it hopefully prevent the kind of loss that not even the most generous fire insurance can undo.
Featured image: “
Deerfire
” by John McColgan | 33 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097036",
"author": "martinimartin",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T15:31:26",
"content": "“non-combustible roof tiles, sheets, etc.” this seems a big one. As is not covering the outside of your plywood built house with vinyl.Just a few ideas.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,640.407243 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/precision-reference-puts-interesting-part-to-work/ | Precision Reference Puts Interesting Part To Work | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts"
] | [
"ADR1399",
"compensated",
"LM399",
"oven",
"precision",
"voltage reference",
"zener"
] | Interesting parts make for interesting projects, and
this nifty precision voltage reference
has some pretty cool parts, not to mention an interesting test jig.
The heart of [Gaurav Singh]’s voltage reference is an ADR1399, precision shunt reference from Analog Devices. The datasheet makes for pretty good reading and reveals that there’s a lot going on inside the TO-49 case, which looks unusually large thanks to a thick plastic coat. The insulation is needed for thermal stability for the heated Zener diode reference. The device also has a couple of op-amps built in, one that provides closed-loop voltage control and another that keeps the internal temperature at a toasty 95°C. The result is a reference that’s stable over a wide range of operating conditions.
[Gaurav]’s implementation maximizes this special part’s capabilities while making it convenient to use. The PCB has a precision linear regulator that accepts an input voltage from 16 V to 20 V, plus a boost converter that lets you power it from USB-C. The board itself is carefully designed to minimize thermal and mechanical stress, with the ADR1399 separated from the bulk of the board with wide slots. The first video below covers the design and construction of an earlier rev of the board.
One problem that [Gaurav] ran into with these boards was the need to age the reference with an extended period of operation. To aid in that, he built
a modular test jig
that completed PCBs can be snapped into for a few weeks of breaking in. The jigs attach to a PCB with pogo pins, which mate to test points and provide feedback on the aging process. See the second video for more details on that. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096978",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T10:35:39",
"content": "Cool project! I’ve been stuck in the past using the lm399. Definitely going to check out it’s evolved form.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8097003... | 1,760,371,640.183885 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/make-a-secret-file-stash-in-the-slack-space/ | Make A Secret File Stash In The Slack Space | Donald Papp | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"cluster",
"file system",
"secret",
"slack space"
] | Disk space is allocated in clusters of a certain size. When a file is written to disk and the file size is smaller than the cluster(s) allocated for it, there is an unused portion of varying size between the end of the file’s data and the end of the allocated clusters. This unused space is the slack space, it’s perfectly normal, and [Zachary Parish] had an idea to write
a tool to hide data in it
.
The demo uses a usb drive, using the slack space from decoy files to read and write data.
[Zachary]’s tool is in Python and can map available slack space and perform read and write operations on it, treating the disparate locations as a single unified whole in which to store arbitrary files. A little
tar
and
gzip
even helps makes things more efficient in the process.
There’s a whole demo implemented on Linux using a usb drive with some decoy files to maximize the slack space, and you can watch it in action in the video embedded below. It’s certainly more practical than
hiding data in a podcast
!
Note that this is just a demo of the concept. The approach does have potential for handling secret data, but [Zachary] points out that there are — from a serious data forensics point of view– a number of shortcomings in its current form. For example, the way the tool currently structures and handles data makes it quite obvious that
something
is going on in the slack space.
[Zachary] created this a few years ago and has some ideas about how to address those shortcomings and evolve the tool, so if you have ideas of your own or just want to try it out, the
slack_hider
GitHub repository
is where you want to go. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096908",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T06:03:16",
"content": "Yea cute in the 286 age + python. I need to go barf now",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096912",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,371,640.277301 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/nice-pdf-but-can-it-run-linux-yikes/ | Nice PDF, But Can It RunLinux? Yikes! | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Linux Hacks",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"asm.js",
"doom",
"emscripten",
"javascript",
"linux",
"pdf",
"RISC-V",
"security",
"tinyemu",
"word"
] | The days that PDFs were the granny-proof Swiss Army knives of document sharing are definitely over, according to [vk6]. He has managed to pull off the ultimate mind-bender:
running Linux inside a PDF file
. Yep, you read that right. A full Linux distro chugging along in a virtual machine all encapsulated within a document. Just when you thought
running DOOM
was the epitome of it. You can even try it out in your own browser,
right here
. Mind-boggling, or downright Pandora’s box?
Let’s unpack how this black magic works. The humble PDF file format supports JavaScript – with a limited standard library, mind you. By leveraging this, [vk6] managed to compile a RISC-V emulator (TinyEMU) into JavaScript using an old version of Emscripten targeting asm.js instead of WebAssembly. The emulator, embedded within the PDF, interfaces with virtual input through a keyboard and text box.
The graphical output is ingeniously rendered as ASCII characters – each line displayed in a separate text field. It’s a wild solution but works astonishingly well for something so unconventional.
Security-wise, this definitely raises eyebrows. PDFs have long been vectors for malware, but this pushes things further: PDFs with computational power. We know not to trust Word documents, whether they just
capable of running Doom
, or trash your entire system in a blink. This PDF anomaly unfolds a complete, powerful operating system in front of your very eyes. Should we think lightly, and hope it’ll lead to smarter, more interactive PDFs – or will it bring us innocent looking files weaponized for chaos?
Curious minds, go take a look for yourself. The project’s code is available on
GitHub
. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096877",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T04:00:46",
"content": "Note: the PDF only works inside Chromium-based browsers. [Whew – I’m safe, Firefox here!]",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096935",
"author":... | 1,760,371,640.46791 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/blinds-automated-with-offline-voice-recognition/ | Blinds Automated With Offline Voice Recognition | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"automated blinds",
"blinds",
"DFRobot"
] | Blinds are great for keeping light out or letting light in on demand, but few of us appreciate having to walk over and wind them open and shut on the regular. [DIY Builder] resented this very task,
so set about creating an automated system to do the job for him.
The blinds in question use a ball chain to open and close, which made them relatively easy to interface with mechanically. [DIY Builder] set up a NEMA 17 stepper motor with an appropriate 3D-printed gear to interface with the chain, allowing it to move the blinds accurately. The motor is controlled via an Arduino Nano and an A4988 stepper motor driver.
However, that only covered the mechanical side of things. [DIY Builder] wanted to take the build a step further by making the blinds voice activated. To achieve this, the Arduino Nano was kitted out with a DFRobot Gravity voice recognition module. It’s a super simple way to do voice recognition—it’s an entirely offline solution with no cloud computing or internet connection required. You just set it up to respond to simple commands and it does the rest.
The result is a voice activated blind that works reliably whether your internet is up or not.
We’ve seen some other great projects in this space, too.
Video after the break. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097045",
"author": "Haragog",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T15:58:44",
"content": "Who needs an alarm, if the noise of your automated blinds motor wakes you up before the sun does? 😅 Kidding, it looks beautifully designed!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},... | 1,760,371,640.664815 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/upgrading-ram-on-a-honda-infotainment-system/ | Upgrading RAM On A Honda Infotainment System | Maya Posch | [
"Android Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"android auto",
"Honda",
"infotainment"
] | Car infotainment systems somehow have become a staple in today’s automobiles, yet when it comes down to it they have all the elegance of a locked-down Android tablet. In the case of
the Honda infotainment system that [dosdude1] got
from a friend’s 2016/2017-era Honda Accord, it pretty much is just that. Powered by a dual-core Cortex-A15 SoC, it features a blazin’ 1 GB of RAM, 2 GB of storage and runs Android 4.2.2. It’s also well-known for crashing a lot, which is speculated to be caused by Out-of-RAM events, which is what the RAM upgrade is supposed to test.
After tearing down the unit and extracting the main board with the (Renesas) SoC and RAM, the SoC was identified as being an automotive part dating back to 2012. The 1 GB of RAM was split across two Micron-branded packages, leaving one of the memory channels on the SoC unused and not broken out. This left removing the original RAM chips to check what options the existing pads provided, specifically potential support for twin-die chips, but also address line 15 (A15). Unfortunately only the A15 line turned out to be connected.
This left double capacity (1 GB) chips as the sole option, meaning a total of 2 GB of RAM. After installation the infotainment system booted up, but only showed 1 GB installed. Cue hunting down the right RAM config bootstrap resistor, updating the boot flags and updating the firmware to work around the
LINEOWarp
hibernation image that retained the 1 GB configuration. Ultimately the upgrade seems to work, but until the unit is reinstalled in the car and tested it’s hard to say whether it fixes the stability issues.
Thanks to [Dylan] for the tip. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096928",
"author": "the gambler",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T07:16:00",
"content": "great video and anyone into board level modifications should sub to dosdude1’s channel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8097062",
"author": "... | 1,760,371,640.504186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/12/new-documentary-details-ventilator-development-efforts-during-covid/ | New Documentary Details Ventilator Development Efforts During COVID | Donald Papp | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"COVID",
"documentary",
"engineering",
"ventilator"
] | What would it be like to have to design and build a ventilator, suitable for clinical use, in ten days? One that could be built entirely from locally-sourced parts, and kept oxygen waste to a minimum? This is the challenge [John Dingley] and many others faced at the start of COVID-19 pandemic when very little was known for certain.
Back then it was not even known if a vaccine was possible, or how bad it would ultimately get. But it
was
known that hospitalized patients could not breathe without a ventilator, and based on projections it was possible that the UK as a whole could need as many as 30,000 ventilators within eight weeks. In this worst-case scenario the only option would be to build them locally, and towards that end groups were approached to design and build a ventilator, suitable for clinical use, in just ten days.
A ventilator suitable for use on a patient with an infectious disease has a number of design constraints, even before taking into account the need to use only domestically-sourced parts.
[John] decided to create a documentary called
Breathe For Me: Building Ventilators for a COVID Apocalypse
, not just to tell the stories of his group and others, but also as a snapshot of what things were like at that time. In short it was challenging, exhausting, occasionally frustrating, but also rewarding to be able to actually deliver a workable solution.
In the end, building tens of thousands of ventilators locally wasn’t required. But [John] felt that the whole experience was a pretty unique situation and a remarkable engineering challenge for him, his team, and many others. He decided to do what he could to document it, a task he approached with a typical hacker spirit: by watching and reading tutorials on everything from conducting and filming interviews to how to use editing software before deciding to just roll up his sleeves and go for it.
We’re very glad he did, and the effort reminds us somewhat of the book
IGNITION!
which aimed to record a history of technical development that would otherwise have simply disappeared from living memory.
You can watch
Breathe for Me
just below the page break, and there’s
additional information about the film
if you’d like to know a bit more. And if you are thinking the name [John Dingley] sounds familiar, that’s probably because we have featured his work — mainly on
self-balancing personal electric vehicles
— quite a few times in the past. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097291",
"author": "al",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T11:42:08",
"content": "Thank you for taking the time to write this. “Ignition!” is a seminal tome, and any work that can be compared to it is worthy of note. I read with interest that the author notes “based on projections it was ... | 1,760,371,640.335207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/its-always-pizza-oclock-with-this-ai-powered-timepiece/ | It’s Always Pizza O’Clock With This AI-Powered Timepiece | Dan Maloney | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"generative",
"Pizza",
"Raspberry Pi Zero W",
"stable diffusion"
] | Right up front, we’ll say that
[likeablob]’s pizza-faced clock
gives us mixed feelings about our AI-powered future. On the one hand, if that’s Stable Diffusion’s idea of what a pizza looks like, then it should be pretty easy to slip the virtual chains these algorithms no doubt have in store for us. Then again, if they do manage to snare us and this ends up on the menu, we’ll pray for a mercifully quick end to the suffering.
The idea is pretty simple; the clock’s face is an empty pizza pan that fills with pretend pizza as the day builds to noon, whereupon pizza is removed until midnight when the whole thing starts again. The pizza images are generated by a two-stage algorithm using Stable Diffusion 1.5, and tend to favor suspiciously uncooked whole basil sprigs along with weird pepperoni slices and Dali-esque globs of cheese. Everything runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero W, with the results displayed on a 4″ diameter LCD with an HDMI adapter. Alternatively, you can just hit
the web app
and have a pizza clock on your desktop. If pizza isn’t your thing, fear not — other food and non-food images are possible, limited only by Stable Diffusion’s apparently quite limited imagination.
As clocks go, this one is pretty unique. But we’re used to seeing unusual clocks around here, from
another food-centric timepiece
to
a clock that knits
. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097256",
"author": "null",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T08:29:20",
"content": "I don’t especially want to be one ofthosemean hackaday commentors but…I think we already have the technology to take photographs of pizzas with varying numbers of slices (and have for over a century)",
"... | 1,760,371,640.62394 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/push-your-toy-train-no-more-with-this-locomotive/ | Push Your Toy Train No More, With This Locomotive! | Jenny List | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"locomotive",
"train"
] | One of the most popular evergreen toys is also one of the simplest, wooden track with push-along trains. We all know the brand name, and savvy parents know to pick up the much cheaper knock-off because the kid won’t know the difference. But a really cool kid shouldn’t have to push their train around by hand, and thus [Lauri] has given the wooden track
a real, powered, locomotive
.
In the 3D printed chassis goes a small geared motor driving one axle, with an ESP32 and a motor driver taking care of the smarts. Power comes from an 18650 cell, which almost looks like the right scale for a fake steam boiler. The surprise with this train comes in the front axle, this machine has steering. We’re curious, because isn’t the whole point of a train that the track directs it where it needs to go? Or perhaps a little help is required in the absence of a child’s guidance when it comes to points. Either way, with remote control we guess there would be few kids who wouldn’t want one. We certainly do. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097209",
"author": "asheets",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T03:27:50",
"content": "As a parent, I discovered that TOMY-brand battery powered Thomas the Tank Engine engines run just fine on these wooden tracks.The real hack for my family was granddad building a jig that allowed him to cu... | 1,760,371,640.707073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/google-findmy-tools-run-on-an-esp32/ | Google FindMy Tools Run On An ESP32 | Elliot Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"google hacks",
"gps hacks"
] | [
"AirTag",
"Find My",
"Find My Device"
] | As of about a day ago, Google’s reasonably new Find My network just got more useful. [Leon Böttger] released his re-implementation of the Android tracker network:
GoogleFindMyTools
. Most interestingly for us, there is example code to turn an ESP32 into a trackable object. Let the games begin!
Everything is in its first stages here, and not everything has been implemented yet, but you are able to query devices for their keys, and use this to decrypt their latest location beacons, which is the main use case.
The ESP32 code appears not to support MAC address randomization just yet, so it’s possibly more trackable than it should be, but if you’re just experimenting with the system, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The README also notes that you might need to re-register after three days of use. We haven’t gotten to play with it just yet. Have you?
If you’re worried about
the privacy implications of yet another ubiquitous tracking system out there
, you’re not alone. Indeed, [Leon] was one of the people working on the
Air Guard project
, which let iPhone users detect trackers of all sorts around them. Anyone know if there’s something like that for Android?
Thanks [Lars] for the hot tip! | 43 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097183",
"author": "Gardoni",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T00:28:52",
"content": "I’d rather ferment mayo into vodka than use Google services.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097194",
"author": "J",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,371,640.921385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/a-tiny-computer-with-a-3d-printed-qwerty-keyboard/ | A Tiny Computer With A 3D Printed QWERTY Keyboard | Jenny List | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ESP32",
"palmtop computer",
"qwerty"
] | The ESP32 family are the microcontrollers which just keep on giving, as new versions keep them up-to-date and plenty of hackers come up with new things for them. A popular device is a general purpose computer with a QWERTY keypad, and the latest of many we’ve seen comes from [StabbyJack].
It’s a credit card sized machine whose special trick is that its keyboard is integrated in the 3D printing of its case
. We’ve seen rubber membranes and push in keys, but this one has flexible print-in-place keys that line up on the switches on its PCB.
It’s not complete yet but the hardware appears to be pretty much there, and aside from that keyboard it has an
ESP32-S3
and a 1.9″ SPI LCD. When finished it aims for an ambitious specification, with thermal camera and time-of-flight range finder hardware, along with an OS and software to suit. We like it a lot, though we suspect it might be a little small for our fingers.
If you like this project you may appreciate
another similar one
, and
perhaps your version will need an OS
. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097152",
"author": "puriscalidad",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T21:57:28",
"content": "Just like a cardputer, but for some reason, hackaday seems to dont know about that device",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097213",
"a... | 1,760,371,640.837598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/a-tiny-tapeout-sdr/ | A Tiny Tapeout SDR | Jenny List | [
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ASIC",
"sdr",
"tiny tapeout"
] | The Tiny Tapeout custom ASIC project has been around for a while now, and has passed through several iterations of its production. On each Tiny Tapeout chip are multiple designs, each representing an individual project, and in use the chip is configured to present that project to its pins. Given enough Tiny Tapeout chips it was inevitable that someone whould eventually make a project using two such functions, and here’s [Sylvain Munaut] with
an SDR using Tiny Tapeouts 6 and 7.
At its heart is [Carsten Wulff]’s
8 bit ADC
from Tiny Tapeout 6, fed by [Kolos Koblász]’s
Gilbert cell RF mixer
from Tiny Tapeout 7. There’s a local oscillator provided by an RP2040, and a USB interface board which sends the data to a host computer where GNU Radio does the maths. On the bench it’s receiving an FM signal generated around 30MHz by a signal generator, followed by some slightly indistinct commercial radio stations.
It’s clear that there are many better SDRs than this one, and that (as yet) Tiny Tapeout is perhaps not the radio enthusiast’s choice. But it does demonstrate beautifully how the chips are more than just curios, and we’re definitely in the era of useful on-demand ASICs.
The video is below the break, meanwhile you can learn about Tiny Tapeout from
[Matt Venn]’s Supercon talk
. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097153",
"author": "chilangosta",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T22:00:10",
"content": "I wanna see the SWLing report on this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8097367",
"author": "threeve",
"timestamp": "2025-02-12T15:30:20",... | 1,760,371,640.960914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/11/improving-aluminium-ion-batteries-with-aluminium-fluoride-salt/ | Improving Aluminium-Ion Batteries With Aluminium-Fluoride Salt | Maya Posch | [
"Battery Hacks",
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"aluminium-ion battery",
"Lithium-ion battery"
] | There are many rechargeable battery chemistries, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Currently lithium-ion and similar (e.g. Li-Po) rule the roost due to their high energy density at least acceptable number of recharge cycles, but aluminium-ion (Al-ion)
may become a more viable competitor
after a recently published paper by Chinese researchers claims to have overcome some of the biggest hurdles. In
the paper as published
in
ACS Central Science
by [Ke Guo] et al. the use of solid-state electrolyte, a charge cycle endurance beating LiFePO
4
(LFP) and excellent recyclability are claimed.
It’s been known for a while that theoretically
Al-ion batteries
can be superior to Li-ion in terms of energy density, but the difficulty lies in the electrolyte, including its interface with the electrodes. The newly developed electrolyte (F-SSAF) uses aluminium-fluoride (AlF
3
) to provide a reliable interface between the aluminium and carbon electrodes, with the prototype cell demonstrating 10,000 cycles with very little cell degradation. Here the AlF
3
provides the framework for the EMIC-AlCl
3
electrolyte. FEC (fluoroethylene carbonate) is introduced to resolve electrolyte-electrode interface issues.
A recovery of >80% of the AlF
3
during a recycling phase is also claimed, which for a prototype seems to be a good start. Of course, as the authors note in their conclusion, other frameworks than AlF
3
are still to be investigated, but this study brings Al-ion batteries a little bit closer to that ever-elusive step of commercialization and dislodging Li-ion. | 43 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8097059",
"author": "R.r.",
"timestamp": "2025-02-11T16:37:14",
"content": "All the time the same history, all on the paper, nothing on the shelves",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8097073",
"author": "sweethack",
... | 1,760,371,641.039177 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/make-custom-shirts-with-a-3d-print-just-add-bleach/ | Make Custom Shirts With A 3D Print, Just Add Bleach | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"chemistry hacks",
"how-to"
] | [
"bleach",
"design",
"shirt",
"stamp"
] | Bleach is a handy way to mark fabrics, and it turns out that combining bleach with a 3D-printed design is an awfully quick-working and effective way to stamp a design onto a shirt.
Plain PLA stamp with bleach gives a slightly distressed look to
this design
.
While conceptually simple, the details make the difference. Spraying bleach onto the stamp surface helps get even coverage, and having the stamp facing “up” and lowering the shirt onto the stamp helps prevent bleach from running where it shouldn’t. Prompt application of hot air with a heat gun (followed by neutralizing or flushing any remaining bleach by rinsing in plenty of cold water) helps keep the edges of the design clean and sharp.
We wondered if combining techniques with some of the
tips on how to 3D print ink stamps
would yield even better results. For instance, we notice the PLA stamp (used to make the design in the images here) produces sharp lines with a slightly “eroded” look overall. This is very much like the result of inking with a stamp printed in PLA. With a stamp printed in flex filament, inking gives much more even results, and we suspect the same might be true for bleach.
Of course, don’t forget that it’s possible to
3D print directly onto fabric
if you want your designs to be a little more controlled (and possibly in multiple colors). Or, try
silkscreening
. Who knew there were so many options for putting designs onto shirts? If you try it out and learn anything, let us know by
sending in a tip
! | 38 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096779",
"author": "jenningsthecat",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T21:02:41",
"content": "Cool idea!FWIW, a solution of white vinegar and water neutralizes bleach much faster than water alone. I have never tried it on fabric so by all means test on scrap first. For that matter, just abo... | 1,760,371,641.112307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-sega-pico-keyboard/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The SEGA Pico Keyboard | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Easter keyboard",
"freewrite",
"Freewrite Wordrunner",
"keyboards with odometers",
"macro pad",
"macropad",
"screens",
"SEGA Pico",
"SEGA Pico keyboard"
] | It’s been a minute since I featured a tiny keyboard, and that’s okay. But if you want to get your feet wet in the DIY keyboarding community, making
a little macro pad like [Arnov Sharma]’s Paste Pal
is a great place to start.
Image by [Arnov Sharma] via
Hackaday.IO
This is a follow-up to his original Paste Pal, which only had two buttons for copy and paste plus an OLED display. This updated version does three more things thanks to a total of five blue (!) switches. The selected command shows up on the screen so you know what you’ve done.
Right now, [Arnov] has the Paste Pal set up to do Copy, Paste, Enter, Scroll Up, and Scroll Down, but changing the assignments is as easy as updating a few lines of code.
Paste Pal Mk. II is at heart a Seeed Xiao SAMD21, which in this case is programmed in Arduino. If you want to make things easier on yourself, you could program it in CircuitPython instead, although [Arnov] includes the Arduino code in his excellent build guide.
A Good Soldier, Indeed
RIP to [Pure-Bullfrog-2569]’s 7-year-old masterpiece of a hand-wired build,
which recently gave its last keystroke
.
Image by [Pure-Bullfrog-2569] via
reddit
Evidently this beauty is heavy, crappy, and hand-wired, but I have big doubts about the crappy part. It’s built out of layers of laser cut wood and hand-painted. It took [Pure-Bullfrog-2569] the better part of a year to pull this together. And now they feel too lazy to debug it.
At the urging of many redditors, it appears that [Pure-Bullfrog-2569] will set the keyboard aside for a later date, rather than just throwing or parting it out, or hanging it on the wall.
The controller itself is dead, which was a fake Teensy anyway, so maybe they’ll solder in an RP2040 or something and bring it back to life. Apparently it sounded pretty cool to type on. I bet it did!
The Centerfold: Screens, Screens Everywhere
Image by [theslinkyvagabond] via
reddit
Do you like screens, bro?
Some people do. I myself have two, but I also used a tablet back when I was streaming so I could manage my unruly chat full of tumbleweeds and crickets. Having sort of been there, I can see why a person would want a lot of screens if they have a lot going on. Apparently [theslinkyvagabond] does, what with the three-server home lab and all to manage. Maybe it’s the relative darkness, or the fact that all the screens are currently the same, but this somehow seems cozy for a five-screen setup. No mention of the keyboards, although the one on the left looks intriguing.
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: the SEGA Pico Keyboard
I know, I know; this looks like my typical centerfold choice. But hear me out. So I was trying to get ChatGPT to trawl GitHub for new-ish hardware keyboard projects on my behalf, and it came back with
this intriguing picture of a SEGA keyboard
. There was also a Hello Kitty variant!
Image via
Video Game Database
Now of course the actual link it listed goes to
a DIY keyboard with a Raspberry Pi Pico inside
, which is a nice build, by the way. You should check it out.
But anyway, back to this Japanese Fisher Price situation. It is apparently an accessory for
the SEGA Pico system
, which was a lot like a LeapPad, and used the same processor as the SEGA Mega Drive. It did sell in North America and Europe, but only for an unsuccessful four years before being discontinued.
Apparently it has a regular PS/2 connector
(Indonesian,
translated
) and works just fine as a computer input.
I don’t know what kind of switches this thing has, but I would love to find out. It looks fun to type on, at least. And I don’t just mean because of the colors. Those keycaps remind me of that 80s square gum with the goo inside. Freshen Up.
Finally, a Keyboard for Writers
So
this floaty mechanical keyboard
is the latest offering from Astrohaus, who rose to fame with their AlphaSmart NEO-like device called the Freewrite, which apparently I disliked enough to never even cover. Why bother with that when you have OG NEOs lying around? Also, those Freewrite things are pricey for what they are, and I’ve seen plenty of writer decks on Hackaday to believe that I could build my own if I wanted.
Image via
Astrohaus/Freewrite
Much like the Freewrite, the Wordrunner is aimed squarely at writers. And how do we feel about it? Well, as much as I love my Kinesis Advantage, it sure doesn’t have an electromechanical word counter or a sprint timer built into it like this one does.
It looks white, but the body is all metal and feels great according to Tom’s Hardware. All Wordrunners will ship with Kailh box browns and are not hot-swappable. Well, I suppose these are for writers and not necessarily keyboard enthusiasts. Perhaps the most interesting bit is that the F keys are replaced by common writerly actions, and there are a couple of programmable macro keys on top of those.
If there’s one thing writers love, it’s watching that word count go up. I can imagine how awesome it would be to watch it spin the faster you type, although that might trigger an urge to write nonsense. But sometimes great things come from such brainstorms.
Of course I don’t love that the Wordrunner is a standard TKL rectangle, but you gotta start somewhere, I suppose. Maybe they’ll make an ergonomic one someday. Like the other products under the Astrohaus/Freewrite umbrella, this one will launch on Kickstarter. Who knows how much it will be, probably at least $200, but
you can reserve one for a refundable $1 ahead of time
.
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096734",
"author": "Cubeblogger32",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T19:20:49",
"content": "Nothing like that classic retro heavy duty feel of a classic controller or keyboard .Great stuff.🤟",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8096874",
... | 1,760,371,641.284626 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/tiny-mouse-ring-uses-prox-sensors/ | Tiny Mouse Ring Uses Prox Sensors | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"atmega32u4",
"atto",
"mouse",
"mouse ring"
] | A traditional computer mouse typically fits in the palm of your hand. However, with modern technology, there’s no need for mice to be so large, as demonstrated by
[juskim]’s neat little mouse ring.
Check it out in the video below.
The concept is simple—it’s a tiny mouse that sits neatly on the end of one of your fingers. You then get the slightly surreal experience of pointing on your computer just by moving a single finger instead of your whole hand.
The project uses a typical optical mouse sensor for movement, as you might expect. However, there are no conventional switches for the left and right mouse buttons. Instead, [juskim] realized a more compact design was possible by using proximity sensors instead. The sensors detect the presence of his fingers on either side of the ring mouse. When one of the fingers is lifted, the absence of the finger triggers a mouse click, either left or right, depending on the finger.
The build started with junk box parts, but hooking up an Arduino Pro Micro dev board and other modules proved too cumbersome to use effectively. Instead, the build relies on an ATTO board, a tiny PCB featuring the same ATmega32U4 microcontroller. Similarly, the build relies on tiny proximity sensors from STM to fit in the “ring” form factor. It’s all wrapped up in a 3D-printed enclosure that fits snugly on the user’s finger.
We’ve seen
some other neat mouse rings before
, too. Or, if you want something really different, grab some keychains and make
a 6DOF mouse
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096684",
"author": "Beaker",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T17:05:00",
"content": "Is it weird that I’d miss my scroll wheel and center clicking?This is cool, I like when people play with a ‘settled’ tech.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,371,641.239285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/how-magnetic-fonts-twisted-up-numbers-and-saved-banking-forever/ | How Magnetic Fonts Twisted Up Numbers And Saved Banking Forever | Lewin Day | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"banking",
"check",
"checks",
"cheques",
"cmc-7",
"e-13b",
"finance",
"financial system"
] | If you’ve ever looked at the bottom of a bank check, you probably glanced over some strangely formed numbers? If you’re a fan of science fiction or retro computers, you’ve probably spotted the same figures on any number of books from the 1980s. They’re mostly readable, but they’re chunky and thin in places you don’t expect.
Those oddball numerals didn’t come from just anywhere—they were a very carefully crafted invention to speed processing in the banking system. These special fonts were created to be readable both by humans and machines—us with our eyes, and the computers with magnetic sensors. Let’s explore the enigmatic characters built for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR).
Machines Will Do The Work
Early examples of machine-readable magnetic fonts from the Department of Commerce—
Automatic Character Recognition, A State-Of-The-Art Report, May 1961.
These days, much of the money in the world is sent and received via digital transfers. Once upon a time, though, paper was king when it came to moving money. The almighty check was how you got money out of one account and into another one.
Sadly, as populations grew and economic activity skyrocketed, the status quo couldn’t hold. By the mid-1940s, the problem was already apparent, with the Federal Reserve dealing with 2 billion checks a year in 1946. While mechanical adding machines and various other techniques helped, fundamentally, bankers and clerks were processing millions of checks daily, all by hand.
The financial world needed a way to speed handling of checks as much as possible. The solution was to enable machines to read as much of the information on a check as possible, so they could handle the basic sorting and processing steps at speed. This would eliminate much of the manual reading and handling by humans, and greatly improve throughput.
The problem was that in the middle of the 20th century, technologies like optical character recognition, or even digital cameras, were decades away. Instead, the key innovation that saved banking was MICR—short for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. It involved printing certain characters on checks with an iron oxide-based ink. The combination of the ink’s magnetic content and the unique shape of each number meant machines could read the checks easily and unambiguously—even in the case they were physically damaged. Meanwhile, the MICR characters were also designed to remain human readable, so they could be readily understood by the humans using them, too. This was an important backup in the event a check failed machine reading for whatever reason.
An example US-style check with the MICR line along the bottom—printed with the E-13B font. Credit:
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
With MICR, checks could be pre-printed with a bank’s routing number and the customer account to draw from, leaving just the payment amount to be read from the check user’s handwriting. Alternatively, even the amount could be printed in MICR characters if the check was fully machine-issued, speeding processing further. With the aid of magnetic ink, processing speeds went up prodigiously. In 1950, mechanical aids had allowed one clerk to process 1,300 checks in an hour. Fast forward to the magnetic ink era just a few years later, and clerks were able to handle 33,000 checks or more in the same amount of time.
As is so often the way, the world did not agree on one standard for MICR purposes. Developments across the banking world occurred during the 1950s, with two major magnetic fonts being developed in parallel.
If you’re based in the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, or much of the rest of the English-speaking world, you’re probably most familiar with a font called E-13B. This is the one with the gloopy letters and the worst ‘1’ numeral ever committed to print. It was developed by General Electric and the Stanford Research Institute. Its designation was entirely pragmatic—E denoted that it was the fifth font considered, and B denoted the second revision. 13 referred to the fact it was designed for use on an 0013-inch grid.
The font was designed to create a unique magnetic signal pattern when each numeral or symbol was scanned by a magnetic reader. The shapes were specifically engineered to avoid any possible confusion – that’s why the 0 has those straight sides, and the 8 is so hefty at the bottom, for example. Each number generates a waveform that’s distinct from the others, making it easy to process the signal and read the check accurately. E-13B wasn’t perfect, with 2s and 5s putting out rather similar signals in some cases that could cause confusion, but it proved itself more than reliable enough to do the job.
The 14 characters of the E-14B MICR font—the last four are for control purposes.
This book cover from the 1980s was typical of the era – leaning on E-13B tropes to convey a technical aesthetic.
The standard was trialled in 1956 and was adopted by the American Bankers Association by 1958. By 1963, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) designated that E-13B would be the standard, and by 1967, the Federal Reserve mandated the use of magnetic ink on checks. E-13B went on to become a graphical motif commonly associated with computers and modernity, with artists commonly creating lookalike characters for the whole Latin alphabet. However, the official E-13B standard only ever had 14 characters—numerals 0 to 9, plus four additional control characters for check processing—”transit,” “on-us,” “amount,” and “dash.”
The CMC-7 font, designed by Groupe Bull.
At roughly the same time, French computer company Groupe Bull was working on its own standard. In 1957, it developed the CMC-7 font, which used an entirely different approach to E-13B. Rather than relying on the varying the intensity of magnetism by the amount of ink in a character, CMC-7 instead relied on characters made up of vertical bars. The spacing between the bars could be read by machine to determine the numerals. The design gave CMC-7 characters more of a barcode-like appearance. Notably, CMC-7 also featured a full alphanumerical character set—41 glyphs, including A-Z, 0-9, and five control characters.
An Italian check signed by Enzo Ferrari – note the CMC-7 font along the bottom. Credit:
Morio
, CC BY-SA 3.0
Thanks to the geopolitics of the mid-20th century, each MICR standard ended up with its own stomping ground. While E-13B dominated in the Anglophone world, CMC-7 ended up being used in France, Spain, and much of Europe and South America. At heart, both standards did the same thing—they enabled machines to read most of the data on a check with a minimum of fuss.
Banks might feel mostly digital these days, but MICR fonts are still an important standard in the financial world. If you’re issuing checks, you might end up running into some problems if you’re not printing them with the appropriate MICR font and magnetic ink. For most of us, checks are a simple tool of the past, but it turns out a great deal of engineering went into perfecting them before the computer came along. | 47 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096635",
"author": "QBFreak",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T15:25:35",
"content": "When I was a teen, my Dad did software support for a line of desktop check scanners. Initially, they just had one model, maybe the size of a toaster, but eventually they added a much larger and faster sca... | 1,760,371,641.453468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/basically-its-basic/ | Basically, It’s BASIC | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"basic",
"Sinclair Zx Spectrum"
] | The BASIC language may be considered old-hat here in 2025, and the days when a computer came as a matter of course with a BASIC interpreter are far behind us, but it can still provide many hours of challenge and fun. Even with our love of all things 8-bit, though, we’re still somewhat blown away by [Matthew Begg]’s
BASIC interpreter written in 10 lines of BASIC
. It’s an entry in the
BASIC 10-liner competition
, and it’s written to run on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
The listing can be viewed as a PNG file on the linked page. It is enough to cause even the most seasoned retrocomputer enthusiasts a headache because, as you might expect, it pushes the limits of the language and the Sinclair interpreter. It implements Tiny Basic as a subset of the more full-featured BASICs, and he’s the first to admit it’s not fast by any means. He gives a line-by-line explanation, and yes, it’s about as far away from the simple
Frogger
clones we remember bashing in on our Sinclairs as it’s possible to get.
We love it that there are still boundaries to be pushed, even on machines over four decades old, and especially that this one exceeds what we thought was a pretty good knowledge of Sinclair BASIC. Does this language
still have a place in the world
? We always look forward to the BASIC
10-liner competition
.
Header: background by Bill Bertram,
CC BY-SA 2.5
. | 36 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096573",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T12:08:51",
"content": "I remember that I wrote a Forth interpreter in Sinclair Basic :-D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096641",
"author": "Julian Skidmore",... | 1,760,371,641.537281 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/10/flip-flops-make-great-soft-switches/ | Flip Flops Make Great Soft Switches | Lewin Day | [
"News"
] | [
"flip-flop",
"logic",
"soft switch"
] | Mechanical switches are pretty easy to understand—the contacts touch, the current flows, and Bob is, presumably, your uncle. But what about soft switches? Well, they’re not that difficult to understand either,
as explained by [EDN].
You can build a touch switch quite easily with old-school chips.
The traditional softswitch takes input from a momentary single-pole pushbutton and lets you press to toggle power on and off. This operation is easy to achieve with a simple flip-flop constructed with old-school logic to create a “bistable” circuit. That means it will happily remain stable in one of two states unless you do something to make it switch.
So far, so simple. However, you’ll need to consider that a simple mechanical pushbutton tends to have an issue with the contacts bouncing as they come into contact. If ignored, this would see your softswitch rapidly flicking on and off at times, which is no good at all. To avoid this, you simply need hook up an RC network to smooth out or “debounce” the button input.
Read the post for the full circuit dynamics, as well as how to make the system work with a touchpad instead of a pushbutton. It’s rare to construct such elements from raw logic these days, what with microcontrollers making everything so easy. Still, if you want or need to do it,
the old techniques still work just fine!
There’s more than
one way to solve the problem
, of course. | 46 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096536",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T10:38:20",
"content": "Quiescent current…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096541",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T10:43:35",
"conten... | 1,760,371,641.366495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/hack-that-broken-zipper/ | Hack That Broken Zipper! | Kristina Panos | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"clothing",
"sewing",
"zipper repair"
] | We’ve all been there. That sad day when the zipper on our favorite hoodie, bag, or pair of pants breaks in some seemingly irreparable way. But there is hope, and [Magic Stitches] is gonna show you how to make some
common repairs using household items
and, in some cases, just a little bit of easy hand sewing. After a warm up with a kitchen fork, the video moves on to more significant problems.
The first problem — a chewed-away zipper bottom — is quite common, but requires no sewing to fix. As you’ll see in the video below, all it takes is a drinking straw, some hot glue, a lighter, and a pair of scissors to recreate the plastic bit that keeps the zipper from splitting in twain.
Now the second issue concerns a pair of pants wherein the head has come off the static side of the zipper. This one seems impossible to fix, but [Magic Stitches] cuts into the static side about five teeth from the bottom, slides the head back on, and sews the bottom of the zipper together.
This one we take a little bit of an issue with, because it assumes that you can get your jeans on over your hips without needing the zipper head to be fully down. But what else are you going to do but
throw the jeans away
upcycle the jeans into a fanny pack or something to immortalize them?
For the third issue, we’re back to the poor red hoodie, which also has a run in the zipper tape. After cutting off the fuzzies, [Magic Stitches] sews it back together with a contrasting thread (presumably to help us see the repair). If they had used black, it wouldn’t show at all, except now there is just a tiny bit of pull on the hoodie where the snag was. Again, we’re saving a presumably beloved hoodie here, and some people like their repairs to show.
Finally, [Magic Stitches] has a duffel bag with a zipper that comes back apart once it’s been zipped. At first, they tried squeezing the zipper head with pliers while the zipper was still attached, but that didn’t fix the problem. By carefully cutting the end of the tape, they could slide the head off of the ends and squish both sides with pliers more effectively. This is probably the hardest repair of all because it involves threading the head back on. In the end, all you have to do is sew a few stitches across the end of the teeth and then sew the tape back to the bag.
Got a broken zipper box?
You can fix that with 3D printing
. Mystified about how zippers work?
No need to be
. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096403",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T08:44:24",
"content": "If the pull tab breaks off, I use a key ring to replace it. It also has the advantage that it can be looped into the button to keep the zipper from sliding open.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,641.602037 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/powerful-flashlight-gets-active-air-cooling/ | Powerful Flashlight Gets Active Air Cooling | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"torch"
] | LEDs were once little more than weedy little indicators with low light output. Today, they’re absolute powerhouses, efficiently turning a flow of electrons into a searing beam of light. Despite their efficiency, they can still put out a fair whack of heat. Thus,
if you’re building a powerful flashlight like [CrazyScience]
, you might wanna throw some active cooling on there just to keep things happy. Check out the video below.
The build will not be unfamiliar to any casual observer of the modern DIY flashlight scene. It uses a flatpack LED module of great brightness and a wad of 18650 lithium-ion cells to provide the juice to run it. The LED itself is mounted in a 3D-printed frame, which leaves its rear exposed, and a small PC fan is mounted for air cooling. It’s not the most optimized design, as airflow out of the fan is somewhat restricted by the 3D-printed housing, but it’s a lot better than simple passive cooling. It allows the torch to be more compact without requiring a huge heatsink to keep the LED at an acceptable temperature.
The final torch doesn’t have the most ergonomic form factor, but it does
work.
However, as a learning project for a new maker, it’s a start, and the learning value of building something functional can’t be understated. If your desire for flashlights swerves to the more powerful,
we’ve covered those, too
. Just
be careful out there
. | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096330",
"author": "the gambler",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T04:04:38",
"content": "I’ve dealt a lot with these types of led’s and this is a horrible idea for nothing more than clickbait channel. These led’s on air alone last at most a month and it is far more common for them to fai... | 1,760,371,641.784476 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/hackaday-links-february-9-2025/ | Hackaday Links: February 9, 2025 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"am radio",
"bot",
"continent",
"drone",
"emergency",
"eula",
"europe",
"fine",
"geology",
"hackaday links",
"honeypot",
"LLM",
"north america",
"Super Scooper",
"tar pit",
"terms of service",
"tos"
] | January 9 ended up being a very expensive day for a Culver City, California man after he
pleaded guilty to recklessly operating a drone
during the height of the Pacific Palisades wildfire.
We covered this story a bit
when it happened (second item), which resulted in the drone striking and damaging the leading edge of a Canadian “Super Scooper” plane that was trying to fight the fire. Peter Tripp Akemann, 56, admitted to taking the opportunity to go to the top of a parking garage in Santa Monica and launching his drone to get a better view of the action to the northwest. Unfortunately, the drone got about 2,500 meters away, far beyond visual range and, as it turns out, directly in the path of the planes refilling their tanks by skimming along the waters off Malibu. The agreement between Akemann and federal prosecutors calls for a guilty plea along with full restitution to the government of Quebec, which owns the damaged plane, plus the costs of repair. Akemann needs to write a check for $65,169 plus perform 150 hours of community service related to the relief effort for the fire’s victims. Expensive, yes, but probably better than the year in federal prison such an offense could have earned him.
Another story we’ve been following for a while is the United States government’s effort to mandate that every car sold here comes equipped with an AM radio. The argument is that broadcasters, at the government’s behest, have devoted a massive amount of time and money to bulletproofing AM radio, up to and including providing
apocalypse-proof bunkers for selected stations
, making AM radio a vital part of the emergency communications infrastructure. Car manufacturers, however, have been routinely deleting AM receivers from their infotainment products, arguing that nobody but boomers listen to AM radio in the car anymore. This resulted in the
“AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act,”
which enjoyed some support the first time it was introduced but still failed to pass.
The bill has been reintroduced
and appears to be on a fast track to approval, both in the Senate and the House, where
a companion bill
was introduced this week. As for the “AM is dead” argument,
the Geerling boys put the lie to that
by noting that the Arbitron ratings for AM stations around Los Angeles spiked dramatically during the recent wildfires. AM might not be the first choice for entertainment anymore, but while things start getting real, people know where to go.
Most of us are probably familiar with the concept of a honeypot, which is a system set up to entice black hat hackers with the promise of juicy information but instead traps them. It’s a time-honored security tactic, but one that relies on human traits like greed and laziness to work. Protecting yourself against non-human attacks, like those coming from bots trying to train large language models on your content, is a different story. That’s where you might want to look at something like
Nepenthes
, a tarpit service intended to slow down and confuse the hell out of LLM bots. Named after a genus of carnivorous pitcher plants, Nepenthes traps bots with a two-pronged attack. First, the service generates a randomized but deterministic wall of text that almost but not quite reads like sensible English. It also populates a bunch of links for the bots to follow, all of which point right back to the same service, generating another page of nonsense text and self-referential links. Ingeniously devious; use with caution, of course.
When was the last time you actually read a Terms of Service document? If you’re like most of us, the closest you’ve ever come is the few occasions where you’ve got to scroll to the bottom of a text window before the “Accept Terms” button is enabled. We all know it’s not good to
agree to something legally binding without reading it
, but who has time to trawl through all that legalese? Nobody we know, which is where
ToS; DR
comes in. “Terms of Service; Didn’t Read” does the heavy lifting of ToS and EULAs for you, providing a summary of what you’re agreeing to as well as an overall grade from A to E, with E being the lowest. Refreshingly, the summaries and ratings are not performed by some LLM but rather by volunteer reviewers, who pore over the details so you don’t have to. Talk about taking one for the team.
And finally, how many continents do you think there are? Most of us were taught that there are seven, which would probably come as a surprise to an impartial extraterrestrial, who would probably say there’s a huge continent in one hemisphere, a smaller one with a really skinny section in the other hemisphere, the snowy one at the bottom, and a bunch of big islands. That’s not how geologists see things, though, and new research into plate tectonics suggests that
the real number might be six continents
. So which continent is getting the Pluto treatment? Geologists previously believed that the European plate fully separated from the North American plate 52 million years ago, but recent undersea observations in the arc connecting Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands suggest that the plate is still pulling apart. That would make Europe and North America one massive continent, at least tectonically. This is far from a done deal, of course; more measurements will reveal if the crust under the ocean is still stretching out, which would support the hypothesis. In the meantime, Europe, enjoy your continental status while you still can. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096300",
"author": "A",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T01:35:32",
"content": "“In the meantime, Europe, enjoy your continental status while you still can.” I think you mean America enjoy your continental status while you still can.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,371,641.734226 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/a-twin-lens-reflex-camera-thats-not-quite-what-it-seems/ | A Twin-Lens Reflex Camera That’s Not Quite What It Seems | Jenny List | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"toy camera",
"twin lens reflex",
"viewfinder"
] | The Camp Snap is a simple fixed-focus digital camera with only an optical viewfinder and a shot counter, which has become a surprise hit among photography enthusiasts for its similarity to a disposable film camera. [Snappiness] has one, and also having a liking for waist-level viewfinders as found on twin-lens reflex cameras, decided to make a new Camp Snap with a waist-level viewfinder.
It’s a digital twin-lens reflex camera, of sorts
.
Inside the Camp Snap is the little webcam module we’ve come to expect from these cameras, coupled with the usual microcontroller PCB that does the work of saving to SD card. It’s not an ESP32, but if you’ve ever played with an ESP32-CAM board you’re on a similar track. He creates a 3D-printed TLR-style case designed to take the PCB and mount the camera module centrally, with ribbon cable extensions taking care of placement for the other controls. The viewfinder meanwhile uses a lens, a mirror, and a Fresnel lens, and if you think this might look a little familiar it’s because he’s based it upon
his previous clip-on viewfinder project
.
The result, with an added “Snappiflex” logo and filter ring, is a rather nice-looking camera, and while it will preserve the dubious quality of the Camp Snap, it will certainly make the process of using the camera a lot more fun. We think these cheap cameras, and particular their even less expensive AliExpress cousins, have plenty of hacking potential as yet untapped, and we’re keen to see more work with them. The full video is below the break. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096286",
"author": "Gangadhar Vaidy",
"timestamp": "2025-02-10T00:43:12",
"content": "Maybe you can try with raspberry pi, as a base. The camera sensors are nice.GP",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096642",
"author": ... | 1,760,371,641.904594 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/your-chance-to-get-a-head-a-gnu-head-specifically/ | Your Chance To Get A Head (A Gnu Head, Specifically) | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"Free Software Foundation",
"FSF",
"Richard Stallman"
] | The Free Software Foundation is holding
an auction
to celebrate its 40th anniversary. You can bid on the original sketch of the GNU head by [Etienne Suvasa] and [Richard Stallman’s] Internet Hall of Fame medal.
There are some other awards, including the FSF’s 1999 Norbert Wiener Award. There’s even a katana that symbolizes the fight for computer user freedom.
The FSF has done a lot of important work to shape the computing world as we know it. We hope this sale isn’t a sign that they are running out of money. Maybe they are just funding their
birthday party in Boston
.
If you use Linux (even if it is disguised as Android, a Raspberry Pi OS, or hiding on a web server you use), you can thank the FSF. While we commonly call them “Linux systems,” Linux is just the kernel. Most of the other things you use are based on either GNU-sponsored code or builds on that GNU-sponsored code. If you want to know more about the history of the organization, you can catch [ForrestKnight’s] video below.
Without the GNU tools and the Linux kernel, you have to wonder what our computers would look like. While [Richard Stallman] is a sometimes controversial figure, you can’t argue that the FSF has had a positive impact on our computers. Maybe we’d all be
on BSD
. It is worth noting that the FSF even
certifies hardware
. | 43 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096173",
"author": "Noah",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T18:59:59",
"content": "Pass. I’m not interested in affiliating myself with movement led by someone who is “skeptical” that “voluntary pedophilia” is harmful to children.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,641.863378 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/moving-power-grids-in-a-weekend-the-baltic-states-make-the-switch/ | Moving Power Grids In A Weekend, The Baltic States Make The Switch | Jenny List | [
"News"
] | [
"50Hz",
"AC power",
"Baltic",
"Estonia",
"europe",
"Latvia",
"Lithuania",
"power",
"power grid",
"russia"
] | A significant event in the world of high-power electrical engineering is under way this weekend, as the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, disconnect their common power grid from the Russian system,
and hook it up to the European one
. It’s a move replete with geopolitical significance, but it’s fascinating from our point of view as it gives a rare insight into high voltage grid technology.
There are a few news videos in the air showing contactors breaking the circuit, and
even a cable-cutting momen
t, but in practice this is not as simple a procedure as unplugging an appliance from a wall socket. The huge level of planning that has gone into this move is evident in the countrywide precautions in case of power loss, and the heightened security surrounding the work. As we understand it at the moment the three countries exist as a temporary small grid of their own, also isolating the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad which now forms its own grid. The process of aligning the phase between Baltic and European grids has been under way overnight, and
an online monitor
shows significant frequency adjustments during that time. At some point on Sunday a new connection will be made to the European grid via Poland, and the process will be completed. We imagine that there will be a very relieved group of electrical engineers who will have completed their own version of a Moon landing when that has happened.
If you happen to live in either region, there’s still some time to watch the process in action, by
monitoring the supply frequency for yourself
. It’s not the first time that geopolitics have affected the European grid, as
the continent lost six minutes a few years ago
, and should you Americans think you are safe from such problems,
think again
. | 35 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096114",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T16:11:33",
"content": "The linked blog post from halcy.de is quite funny. Not that the idea isn’t cool but they wrap an audio cable around a powercord and analyse the audio data in audacity.I guess they didn’t try recording a... | 1,760,371,641.974695 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/matthias-wandel-hates-cnc-machines-in-person/ | Matthias Wandel Hates CNC Machines In Person | Elliot Williams | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"CNC router",
"machine building",
"matthias wandel",
"plywood"
] | Prolific woodworking YouTuber [Matthias Wandel] makes some awesome mechanical contraptions, and isn’t afraid of computers, but has never been a fan of CNC machines in the woodshop. He’s never had one either, so until now he couldn’t really talk. But he had the parts on hand,
so he built a wooden CNC router
. It’s lovely.
The router itself is what 3D printer folks would call a bed-slinger, and it’s cobbled together out of scrap plywood. Some of the parts have extra holes drilled in them, but “measure once, drill twice” is our motto, so we’re not one to judge. He spends a lot of time making “crash pads” that keep the frame from destroying itself while he’s building it – once the CNC is actually controlling things with the limit switches, we presume they won’t be necessary, but their design is fun anyway.
If you’re at all interested in CNC machines, you should give this video a watch. Not because it’s done the “right” way, but because it’s a CNC that’s being built on a budget from first principles, by an experienced wood builder, and it’s illuminating to watch him go. And by the end of the video, he is making additional parts for the machine on the machine, with all the holes in the right places, so he’s already stepping in the right direction.
He doesn’t love digital design and fabrication yet, though. If you’re making one-offs, it probably isn’t worth the setup time to program the machine, especially if you have all of his jigs and machines at your disposal. Still, we kind of hope he’ll see the light.
Of course, this isn’t the
first wooden CNC router we’ve seen around these parts
, and it probably won’t be the last. If you want to go even more fundamental, [Homo Faciens]’s
series of CNC machines is a lovely mashup of paperclips and potential
. Or, if refinement is more your style,
this benchtop machine is the bee’s knees
. | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096068",
"author": "Gill Bates",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T14:10:18",
"content": "So, he “hates CNC machines in person”, as opposed to remotely?punctuation matters, it should be “hates CNC, machines in person”, at the very least.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,371,642.033133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/09/c-is-45-years-old-stroustrup-says-you-still-dont-get-it/ | C++ Is 45 Years Old. [Stroustrup] Says You Still Don’t Get It! | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Software Development"
] | [
"c++"
] | We were surprised when we
read a post from C++ creator [Bjarne Stroustrup]
that reminded us that C++ is 45 years old. His premise is that C++ is robust and flexible and by following some key precepts, you can avoid problems.
We don’t disagree, but C++ is much like its progenitor, C, in that it doesn’t really force you to color inside the lines. We like that, though. But it does mean that people will go off and do things the way they want to do it, for any of a number of good and bad reasons.
Bjarne Stroustrup
We will admit it. We are probably some of the worst offenders. It often seems like we use C++ the way we learned it several decades ago and don’t readily adopt new features like auto variables and overly fancy containers and templates.
He proposes guidelines, including the sensible “Don’t subscript pointers.” Yet, we are pretty sure we will, eventually. Even if you are going to, also, it is still worth a read to see what you ought to be doing. We were hoping for more predictions in the section entitled “The Future.” Unfortunately — unlike Hackaday authors — he is much too smart to fall for that trap, so that section is pretty short. He does talk about some of the directions for the ISO standards committee, though.
We should have known about the 45 years, as we covered the
30th birthday
. We like safer code, but we disagree with the idea that C++ is
unsafe at any speed
.
Photograph by [Victor Azvyalov]
CC-BY-SA-2.0
. | 117 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096001",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T09:37:47",
"content": "Obligatory Stroustrup interview link:https://www.ganssle.com/tem/tem17.htm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096007",
"author": "BrightBlueJi... | 1,760,371,642.372242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/repairing-an-old-heathkit-scope/ | Repairing An Old Heathkit ‘Scope | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"heathkit",
"oscilloscope"
] | With so many cheap oscilloscopes out there, the market for old units isn’t what it used to be. But if you have a really old scope, like the Heathkit O-10 that [Ken] found in his basement, there is vintage cred to having one. [Ken’s] didn’t work, so
a repair session ensued
. You can see the results in the video below.
You can tell this is in an old scope — probably from the mid 1950s — because of its round tube with no graticle. Like many period scopes, the test probe input was just 5-way binding posts. The O-10 was the first Heathkit “O-series” scope that used printed circuit boards.
The device looked pretty good inside, except for a few dents. Of course, the box has tubes in it, so every power up test involves waiting for the tubes to warm up. [Ken] was very excited when he finally got a single green dot on the screen. That did, however, require a new CRT.
It wasn’t long after that he was able to put a waveform in and the scope did a good job of reproducing it. The unit would look good in an old movie, but might not be the most practical bench instrument these days.
These Heathkit scopes and
their cousins
were very popular in their day. The $70 price tag sounds cheap, but in the mid-1950s, that was about a month’s rent in a four-room house. While primitive by today’s standards, scopes had come a long way in
9 or 10 years
. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8096014",
"author": "adobeflashhater again",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T10:48:01",
"content": "Used to see those Heathkit units at the larger flea markets, rather often.I think some of them were eventually tossed by the dumpster on Sunday and then someone else just grabbed it for the ... | 1,760,371,642.122493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/your-favorite-basic-oscilloscope-operation-guide/ | Your Favorite Basic Oscilloscope Operation Guide? | Maya Posch | [
"hardware"
] | [
"oscilloscope"
] | Like many pieces of lab equipment, oscilloscopes are both extremely useful and rather intimidating to a fledgling user. Unlike a digital multimeter with its point-and-measure functionality, digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs) require fundamental knowledge before they can be used properly. Yet at the same time nobody likes reading manuals, so what is one to do? Try the Absolute Beginner’s Guide to DSOs
by [Arthur Pini]
[Pini’s] Cliff’s Notes version of your scope’s manual isn’t half bad. It covers the basic user interface and usage of a (stand-alone) DSO. Unfortunately, it focuses a bit too much on a fancy touch-screen Teledyne LeCroy MSO rather than something the average hobbyist is likely to have lying around.
We rather like the PSA-type videos such as the classic ‘
“How not to blow up your oscilloscope”
video by [Dave] over at
EEVBlog
. Many guides and introductions cover “what to do,” but covering common safety issues like improper grounding, isolation, or voltages might be a better place to start.
What tutorial or reference work would you hand to an oscilloscope newbie? We can endorse a hands-on approach with a suitable
test board
. We also enjoyed [Alan’s]
video on the topic
. Even if you are an old hand, do you know how to use all those
strange trigger modes
? | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095925",
"author": "Sven Hapsbjorg",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T03:12:18",
"content": "Yet at the same time nobody likes reading manuals, so what is one to do?git gud or git rekt scrub",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8096202",
... | 1,760,371,642.165711 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/turn-your-phone-into-a-pov-hologram-display/ | Turn Your Phone Into A POV Hologram Display | Al Williams | [
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"3d display",
"holographic display",
"persistance of vision"
] | It seems obvious once you think about it, but if you can spin your cell phone and coordinate the display with the motion, you can
create a 3D display
. [Action Lab] had used such a setup to make a display that you could view from any angle. After he showed it, a viewer wrote him to mention that if you spin the picture at the same rate,
it will appear in 3D
. The results look great, as you can see in the video below.
The spinning mechanism in this case is an inexpensive pottery wheel. Whatever you use, though, you need a way to match the speed of the graphics to the speed of the phone’s rotation. For this example, there are just a few pre-spun 3D models on a website. However, creating your own viewer like this wouldn’t be that hard. Even more interesting would be to read the phone sensors and spin the image in sync with the phone’s motion.
We keep hearing about
awesome commercial 3D stuff
coming out “any day now.” Meanwhile, you can always settle for
Pepper’s Cone
. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095901",
"author": "Tom G",
"timestamp": "2025-02-09T01:31:02",
"content": "It is NOT a hologram.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HolographyI would have hoped the hackaday bloggers would know that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,371,642.210949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/jeff-dunham-restores-a-1958-philco-predicta/ | Jeff Dunham Finds A NOS 1958 Philco Predicta | Heidi Ulrich | [
"classic hacks",
"High Voltage",
"home entertainment hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"Philco",
"philco predicta",
"retro",
"television",
"tv",
"tv set",
"unboxing",
"ventriloquist",
"vintage"
] | When you see a ventriloquist like [Jeff Dunham], you probably expect to see him with a puppet. This time – spoilers ahead – you won’t. Besides his fame on stage, [Dunham] is also a collector of vintage tech and a die-hard television enthusiast.
In the video below
, [Dunham] has gotten his hands on a rarity: an unboxed 1958 Philco Predicta TV. The original tape was still on the box. We get to follow along on his adventure to restore this sleek, retro-futuristic relic!
[Dunham]’s fascination with the Predicta stems from its historical significance and bold design. At a time when television was making its way into American homes, the Predicta dared to be different with its swivel-mounted picture tube and early printed circuit boards. Despite its brave aesthetics, the Predicta’s ambition led to notorious reliability issues. Yet, finding one in pristine condition, sealed and untouched for over six decades, is like unearthing a technological time capsule.
What makes this story unique is [Dunham]’s connection to both broadcasting and his craft. As a ventriloquist inspired by Edgar Bergen — whose radio shows captivated America — [Dunham] delights in restoring a TV from the same brand that first brought his idol’s voice to airwaves. His love for storytelling seamlessly translates into this restoration adventure.
After unboxing, [Dunham’s] team faces several challenges: navigating fragile components, securing the original shipping brace, and cautiously ramping up voltage to breathe life into the Predicta. The suspense peaks in the satisfying crackle of static, and the flicker of a 65-year-old screen finally awakened from slumber.
Have you ever come across an opportunity like this? Tell us about your favorite new old stock find in the comments. Buying these can be a risk, since components
have a shelf life
. We appreciate when these old TVs
play period-appropriate shows
. Who wants to watch Game of Thrones on a Predicta? | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095838",
"author": "Pedro",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T21:48:53",
"content": "Looks like something straight from STALKER 2 😂 ☢💎☢",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8095857",
"author": "Jonathan Wilson",
"timesta... | 1,760,371,642.418999 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/freed-at-last-from-patents-does-anyone-still-care-about-mp3/ | Freed At Last From Patents, Does Anyone Still Care About MP3? | Maya Posch | [
"ipod hacks",
"Portable Audio Hacks",
"Rants"
] | [
"mp3",
"mp3 codec"
] | The MP3 file format was always encumbered with patents, but as of 2017, the last patent finally expired. Although the format became synonymous with the digital music revolution that started in the late 90s, as an audio compression format there is an argument to be made that it has long since been superseded by better formats and other changes.
[Ibrahim Diallo] makes that very argument
in a recent blog post. In a world with super fast Internet speeds and the abstracting away of music formats behind streaming services, few people still care about MP3.
The last patents for the MP3 format expired in 2012 in the EU and 2017 in the US, ending many years of
incessant legal sniping
. For those of us learning of the wonders of MP3 back around ’98 through services like Napster or Limewire, MP3s meant downloading music on 56k dialup in a matter of minutes to hours rather than days to weeks with WAV, and with generally better quality than Microsoft’s WMA format at lower bitrates. When portable media players came onto the scene, they were called ‘MP3 players’, a name that stuck around.
But is MP3 really obsolete and best forgotten in the dustbin of history at this point? Would anyone care if computers dropped support for MP3 tomorrow?
Alternatives
It’s hard to disagree with [Ibrahim]’s point that MP3 isn’t quite as important anymore. Still, his argument of AAC being a good alternative to MP3 misses that the
AAC format is also patent-encumbered
. Specifically, there’s a patent license for all manufacturers and developers of “end-user codecs,” which involves per-unit pricing. Effectively, every device (computer, headphones, smartphone, etc.) incurs a fee. That’s why projects like FFmpeg implement AAC and other encumbered formats while leaving the legal responsibilities to the end-user who actually uses the code.
While
FLAC
and
Vorbis
(‘ogg’) are truly open formats, they’re not as widely supported by devices. Much like VGA, MP3 isn’t so much sticking around because it’s a superior technological solution but because it Just Works
®
anywhere, unlike fancier formats. From dollar store MP3 players to budget ‘boomboxes’ to high-end audio gear, they’ll all playback MP3s just fine. Other formats are likely to be a gamble, at best.
This compatibility alone means that MP3 is hard to dislodge, with formats like Ogg Vorbis trying to do so for decades and still being relatively unknown and poorly supported, especially when considering hardware implementations.
Audio Quality
Since the average person is not an audiophile who is concerned with exact audio reproduction and can hear every audio compression artefact, MP3 is still perfectly fine in an era where the (MP2-era)
Bluetooth SBC
codec is what most people seem to be content with. In that sense, listening to 320 kbps VBR MP3 files with wired headphones is a superior experience over listening to FLAC files with the Bluetooth SBC codec in between.
This leads to another point made by [Ibrahim]. The average person does not deal with files anymore. Many people use online applications for everything from multimedia to documents, which happily abstract away the experience of managing file formats. Yet, at the same time, there’s a resurgence in
interest in physical media
and owning a physical copy of content, which means dealing with files.
We see this also with MP3 players. Even though companies like
Apple abandoned their iPod range
and Sony’s current Walkmans are mostly rebranded Android smartphones with the ‘phone’ part stripped out, plenty of portable media players are available brand-new. People want portable access to their media in any format.
Amidst this market shift back to a more basic, less online focus, the MP3 format may not be as visible as it was even a decade ago, but it is by no means dead.
These days, rolling
your own MP3 player is almost trivial
. We’ve seen some fairly
small ones
. | 99 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095650",
"author": "defdefred",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T18:10:13",
"content": "Well… All my music library is mp3-320 and I dont need to change it…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8095687",
"author": "LordNothing",
... | 1,760,371,642.903602 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/software-in-progress/ | Software In Progress | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Software Development"
] | [
"freecad",
"newsletter",
"open source",
"progress"
] | Open source software can be fantastic. I run almost exclusively open software, and have for longer than I care to admit. And although I’m not a serious coder by an stretch, I fill out bug reports when I find them, and poke at edge cases to help the people who do the real work.
For 3D modeling, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between OpenSCAD and FreeCAD.
OpenSCAD
is basic, extensible, and extremely powerful in the way that a programming language is, and consequently it’s reliably bug-free. But it also isn’t exactly user friendly,
unless you’re a user who likes to code
, in which case it’s marvelous.
FreeCAD
is much more of a software tool than a programming language, and is a lot more ambitious than OpenSCAD. FreeCAD is also a program in a different stage of development, and given its very broad scope, it has got a lot of bugs.
I kept running into some really serious bugs in a particular function –
thickness
for what it’s worth – which is known to be glitchy in the FreeCAD community. Indeed, the last time I kicked the tires on
thickness
, it was almost entirely useless, and there’s been real progress in the past couple years. It works at least sometimes now, on super-simple geometries, and this promise lead me to find out where it still doesn’t work. So I went through the forums to see what I could do to help, and it struck me that some people, mostly those who come to FreeCAD from commercial programs that were essentially finished a decade ago, have different expectations about the state of the software than I do, and are a lot grumpier.
Open source software is working out its bugs in public. Most open source is software in development. It’s growing, and changing, and you can help it grow or just hang on for the ride. Some open-source userland projects are mature enough that they’re pretty much finished, but the vast majority of open-source projects are coding in public and software in progress.
It seems to me that people who expect software to be
done
already are frustrated by this, and that when we promote super-star open projects like Inkscape or Blender, which are essentially finished, we are doing a disservice to the vast majority of useful, but still
in progress
applications out there that can get the job done anyway, but might require some workarounds. It’s exactly these projects that need our help and our bug-hunting, but if you go into them with the “finished” mentality, you’re setting yourself up for frustration.
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 75 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095598",
"author": "Bo-Erik Sandholm",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T15:21:38",
"content": "Software testing against a functional description is an very important step in creating a functional end product!That was done by a separate department separated from the programmers that receive... | 1,760,371,642.625194 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/a-programming-language-for-building-nes-games/ | A Programming Language For Building NES Games | Tom Nardi | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"game development",
"programming",
"retrogaming"
] | Generally speaking, writing your own games for retro consoles starts with C code. You’ll need to feed that through a console-specific tool-chain, and there’s certainly going to be some hoops to jump through, but if everything goes as expected, you should end up with a ROM file that can be run in an emulator or played on real hardware if you’ve got the necessary gadgetry to load it.
But
NESFab takes things in a slightly different direction
. While the code might look like C, it’s actually a language specifically tailored for developing games on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The documentation claims that this targeted language not only compiles into considerably faster 6502 assembly than plain C on GCC or LLVM, but is designed to work around the strengths (and weaknesses) of the NES hardware.
Looking deeper into the example programs and documentation, NESFab offers quite a few quality of life features that should make developing NES games easier. For one thing, there’s integrated asset loading which automatically converts your image files into something the console can understand. One just needs to drop the image file into the source directory, open it in the code with the
file
function, and the build system will take care of converting it on the fly as the ROM is built. The nuances of bank switching — the organization of code and assets so they fit onto the physical ROM chips on the NES cartridge — are similarly abstracted away.
The obvious downside of NESFab is that,
as with something like GB Studio
, you’re going to end up putting effort into learning a programming environment that works for just one system. So before you get started, you really need to decide what your goals are. If you’re a diehard NES fan that has no interest in working on other systems, learning a language and build environment specifically geared to that console might make a certain degree of sense. But if you’d like to see your masterpiece running on more than just one system, working in straight C is still going to be your best bet. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095553",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T12:55:54",
"content": "I love to see the effort folks are still putting into the older hardware, it really shows just how far you can get with pretty basic silicon and decent optimisations.The obvious downside of NESFab is th... | 1,760,371,642.686517 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/08/retrotechtacular-point-of-sale-through-the-years/ | Retrotechtacular: Point-of-Sale Through The Years | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"4004",
"6502",
"6800",
"8008",
"cash register",
"ibm",
"MOS",
"NCR",
"point of sale",
"POS",
"retrotechtacular",
"terminal"
] | In days gone by, a common retail hack used by some of the less honorable of our peers was the price tag switcheroo. You’d find some item that you wanted from a store but couldn’t afford, search around a bit for another item with a more reasonable price, and carefully swap the little paper price tags. As long as you didn’t get greedy or have the bad luck of getting a cashier who knew the correct prices, you could get away with it — at least up until the storekeeper wised up and switched to anti-tamper price tags.
For better or for worse, those days are over. The retail point-of-sale (POS) experience has changed dramatically since the time when cashiers punched away at giant cash registers and clerks applied labels to the top of every can of lima beans in a box with a spiffy little gun. The growth and development of POS systems is the subject of
[TanRu Nomad]’s expansive video history
, and even if you remember the days when a cashier kerchunked your credit card through a machine to take an impression of your card in triplicate, you’ll probably learn something.
The history of POS automation stretches back to the 1870s, perhaps unsurprisingly thanks to the twin vices of alcohol and gambling. The “Incorruptible Cashier” was invented by a saloon keeper tired of his staff ripping him off, and that machine would go on to become the basis of the National Cash Register Corporation, or NCR. That technology would eventually morph into the “totalisator,” an early computer used to calculate bets and payout at horse tracks. In fact, it was Harry Strauss, the founder of American Totalisator, who believed strongly enough in the power of computers to invest $500,000 in a struggling company called EMCC, which went on to build UNIVAC and start the general-purpose computer revolution.
To us, this was one of the key takeaways from this history, and one that we never fully appreciated before. The degree to which the need of retailers to streamline their point-of-sale operations drove the computer industry is remarkable, and the video gives multiple examples of it. The Intel 4004, the world’s first microprocessor, was designed mainly for calculators but also found its way into POS terminals. Those in turn ended up being so successful that Intel came up with the more powerful 8008, the first eight-bit microprocessor. People, too, were important, such as a young Chuck Peddle, who cut his teeth on POS systems and the Motorola 6800 before unleashing the 6502 on the world.
So the next time you’re waving your phone or a chipped credit card at a terminal and getting a sterile “boop” as a reward, spare a thought for all those clunky, chunky systems that paved the way.
Thanks to [Ostracus] for the tip. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095501",
"author": "Julianne",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T09:32:45",
"content": "The only flaw I see in modern POS systems is the weighing they do in some countries’ self checkout machines. Minus that “place item in bagging area” nonsense it’s actually become quite a streamlined sati... | 1,760,371,642.985766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/07/whod-have-guessed-graphene-is-strange/ | Who’d Have Guessed? Graphene Is Strange! | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"graphene",
"superconductor"
] | Graphene always sounds exciting, although we aren’t sure what we want to do with it. One of the most promising features of the monolayer carbon structure is that under the right conditions, it can
superconduct
, and some research into how that works could have big impacts on practical superconductor technology.
Past experiments have shown that very cold stacks of graphene (two or three sheets) can superconduct if the sheets are at very particular angles, but no one really understands why. A researcher at Northeaster and another at Harvard realized they were both confused about the possible mechanism. Together, they have started progressing toward a better description of superconductivity in graphene.
Part of the problem has been that it is hard to make large pieces of multi-layer graphene. By creating two-ply pieces and using special techniques, an international team is finding that quantum geometry explains how graphene superconductors resist changes in current flow more readily than conventional superconductors.
Another team found that adding another layer makes the material behave more like a family of conventional higher-temperature superconductors. The research appears in two different papers. One covers the
two-ply material
. The other talks about the
material with three layers
.
Making little bits of graphene isn’t hard. Making it in quantity is
a different story
. We keep dreaming of what we could do with
a room-temperature superconductor
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095528",
"author": "Carl Breen",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T11:33:12",
"content": "Past experiments have shown that very cold stacks of graphene (two or three sheets) can superconduct if the sheets are at very particular angles, but no one really understands why.Anisotropic crystal s... | 1,760,371,642.94095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/07/all-you-need-to-make-a-go-kart-from-harbor-freight/ | All You Need To Make A Go-Kart, From Harbor Freight | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"go-kart",
"harbor freight"
] | The many YouTube workshop channels make for compelling viewing. even if their hackiness from a Hackaday viewpoint is sometimes variable. But from time to time up pops something that merits a second look. A case in point is
[BUM]’s go-kart made entirely from Harbor Freight parts
, a complete but rudimentary vehicle for around 300 dollars. It caught our eye because it shows some potential should anyone wish to try their luck with the same idea as a Power Racer or a Hacky Racer.
The chassis, and much of the running gear comes courtesy of a single purchase, a four-wheeled cart. Some cutting and welding produces a surprisingly useful steering mechanism, and the rear axle comes from a post hole digger. Power comes from the Predator gasoline engine, which seems to be a favourite among these channels.
The result is a basic but serviceable go-kart, though one whose braking system can be described as rudimentary at best. The front wheels are a little weak and require some reinforcement, but we can see in this the basis of greater things. Replacing that engine with
a converted alternator
or perhaps an electric rickshaw motor from AliExpress and providing it with more trustworthy braking would result in possibly the simplest
Hacky Racer
, or just a stylish means of gliding round a summer hacker camp. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095631",
"author": "Folkert",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T16:58:38",
"content": "Fun project, I generally applaud this kind of tinkering.That said: 300 USD for a cart that barely works (wheels breaking off, etc.) isn’t that impressive and mostly looks like an advertisement for the sto... | 1,760,371,643.035219 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/02/07/uscope-a-new-linux-debugger-and-not-a-gdb-shell-apparently/ | UScope: A New Linux Debugger AndNotA GDB Shell, Apparently | Dave Rowntree | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"c++",
"debugger",
"gdb",
"Go",
"graphical",
"linux",
"LLDB",
"rust",
"software",
"zig"
] | [Jim Colabro] is a little underwhelmed with the experience of low-level debugging of Linux applications using traditional debuggers such as GDB and LLDB. These programs have been around for a long time, developing alongside Linux and other UNIX-like OSs, and are still solidly in the CLI domain. Fed up with the lack of data structure support and these tools’ staleness and user experience, [Jim] has
created
UScope, a new
debugger
written
from scratch with no code from the existing projects.
GBD, in particular, has quite a steep learning curve once you dig into its more advanced features. Many people side-step this learning curve by running GDB within Visual Studio or some other modern IDE, but it is still the same old debugger core at the end of the day. [Jim] gripes that existing debuggers don’t support modern data structures commonly used and have poor customizability. It would be nice, for example, to write a little code, and have the debugger render a data structure graphically to aid visualisation of a problem being investigated. We know that GDB at least can be
customised with Python to create application-specific pretty printers
, but perhaps [Jim] has bigger plans?
Anyway, Uscope currently supports only C and Zig, but work is in progress to add C++ and Go support, with plans for Rust, Odin and Jai. Time will tell whether they can gather enough interest to really drive development to support the more esoteric languages fully. Still, Rust at least has a strong support base, which might help get other people involved. It looks like early doors for this project, so time will tell whether it gets traction. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it in the future!
If you wish to play along at home, you’ll want to start with the
GitHub page
, read on from there, and maybe join
this discord.
If you’re new to debugging on Linux, we’ve got a
quick guide to GUI frontends to ease you in
. If you’re less interested in code and more of a script junkie,
here’s how to
debug BASH script
or
even SED
. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8095383",
"author": "Gardoni",
"timestamp": "2025-02-08T00:08:05",
"content": "I’ll bet that as the code is developed it’ll converge into becoming a GDB clone.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8095464",
"author": "shinsukke",... | 1,760,371,643.0753 |
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