url
stringlengths 37
208
| title
stringlengths 4
148
| author
stringclasses 173
values | publish_date
stringclasses 1
value | categories
listlengths 0
12
| tags
listlengths 0
27
| featured_image
stringlengths 0
272
| content
stringlengths 0
56.1k
| comments_count
int64 0
900
| scraped_comments_count
int64 0
50
| comments
listlengths 0
50
| scraped_at
float64 1.76B
1.76B
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/mandrel-magic-small-box-assembly-with-3d-printing/
|
Mandrel Magic: Small Box Assembly With 3D Printing
|
Matt Varian
|
[
"Tool Hacks"
] |
[
"3d printed tool",
"mandrel"
] |
Often, we face tedious tasks with no way around them. Sometimes, you just have to grit your teeth and push through. But small tweaks can make the onerous task a bit easier to handle. [James Bowman] sent in his latest quick project that helps him
fold small boxes
more efficiently.
To fulfill orders on his previously covered
TermDriver2
, [James Bowman] is faced with folding thousands of small boxes. To aid in this daunting task, he had the idea of making a tool to streamline the process — every second saved adds up when you’re repeating a task thousands of times. He designed a 3D printed mandrel that pops the flat box blank open as it’s slid over the tapered top, shaping it into a perfect rectangle for easy folding of the top flaps.
The nice thing about 3D printng is how easy it is to iterate on a design. Once James had the first version printed and verified it worked as hoped, he had ideas to improve it, such as adding a second mandrel to twist the box from both the inside and outside and adding a guide on one side to enhance rigidity.
While we often think of 3D printers producing ready-to-use parts,
but printed tooling holds
great
potential for repetitive tasks
, and is a huge cost saver compared to traditional methods.
| 2
| 1
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182992",
"author": "Cory Johnson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T17:39:28",
"content": "I’m more interested about where he can get a low volume of custom boxes assembled and printed without adding a ton of cost to the end product.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183039",
"author": "EuphoricPenguin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T19:13:11",
"content": "If you have a cutting machine, you can use fairly inexpensive cardstock and print them with an ordinary printer. The cost would probably be 25-50¢ per box or less.",
"parent_id": "8182992",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,421.665405
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/first-transistor-computer-reborn/
|
First Transistor Computer Reborn
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"Big Iron",
"mainframe",
"metrovick",
"retrocomputing",
"university of manchester"
] |
Ok, we’ll admit it. If you asked us what the first transistorized computer was, we would have guessed it was the TC from the University of Manchester. After all, Dr. Wilkes and company were at the forefront and had built Baby and EDSAC, which, of course, didn’t use transistors. To be clear, we would have been guessing, but what we didn’t know at all was that the TC, with its magnetic drums and transistors in 1955, had a second life as a commercial product from Metropolitan-Vickers, called the Metrovick 950. [Nina Kalinina] has a
simulator inspired by the old machine
.
The code is in Python, and you can find several programs to run on the faux machine, including the venerable lunar lander. If you haven’t heard of the Metrovick, don’t feel bad. Oral histories say that only six or seven were ever built, and they were used internally within the company.
It seems hard to imagine now, but in the 1950s, transistors for computing were actually a disadvantage. The devices were slow. The TC, for example, used old point-contact transistors (200 of them) and 1,300 point diodes. The Metrovick 950, mercifully, used more modern junction devices. You might think that transistors would be more robust, but the early devices often failed.
The Metrovick wasn’t totally transistor-based. Like the somewhat newer TRADIC from Bell Labs, it used a vacuum tube to produce a clock signal with enough oomph to feed the whole machine. The first fully transistorized machine is a bit of a moving target, but is probably either the Harwell CADET, the IBM 604, or an ICBM guidance computer from Burroughs. Want to know more? You can read the
original engineering report
(which included the title picture).
We have long been fascinated with the
EDSAC
and often wonder if we’d have been as smart as
David Wheeler
and invented the subroutine.
| 15
| 7
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182862",
"author": "Pheebe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:59:44",
"content": "Nina Kalinina wrote up some history over on the fediverse athttps://tech.lgbt/@nina_kali_nina/115242939849102943, and it’s worth a read if you want a bit more info on the background and some other info",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182909",
"author": "Ale",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:26:29",
"content": "I thought they rebuild it using some modern parts…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182939",
"author": "James W Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T13:52:21",
"content": "Another possible “first fully transistorized computer” would be the TX-0 (“tix-oh”) at MIT, built in 1955-56. This computer eventually became an important part of the early hacker culture at MIT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183009",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T18:15:21",
"content": "That is the computer I thought of. Used to hang around MIT on Saturdays when I was in high school, and it was in the next room to THE PDP-1. Played Spacewar! on the PDP-1, but the TX-0 was never powered on when I was there. IIRC, power supply and clock still used tubes.And the logic racks had what looked like small tubes, but they had plastic envelopes and contained a transistor and maybe resistor or other components – and they did use sockets.",
"parent_id": "8182939",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183016",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T18:32:17",
"content": "https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/subject/288",
"parent_id": "8183009",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8184489",
"author": "Marc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T05:45:31",
"content": "Oh, we do know each other, mostly from WPI. TGR",
"parent_id": "8183016",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8184486",
"author": "Marc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T05:39:18",
"content": "Do I know you? I used to do the same thing 70 to 71, started hanging out while taking an APL class taught by Guy Steele, who was then a student at Boston Latin.",
"parent_id": "8183009",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183239",
"author": "candace",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T13:03:28",
"content": "TX-0 is the one I was thinking of as a possible first.",
"parent_id": "8182939",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183397",
"author": "hartl",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T20:00:17",
"content": "Don’t forget the Mailüfterl, the first fully transistorized computer on the European continent.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail%C3%BCfterlBuilt by Heinz Zemanek and friends at the Vienna Technical University without any state or military research grants!",
"parent_id": "8182939",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183441",
"author": "Gerhard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T21:47:24",
"content": "Interesting, thank you!",
"parent_id": "8183397",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183010",
"author": "Arthur Libin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T18:18:53",
"content": "What about the IBM 7090 (709T)?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183110",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T02:06:16",
"content": "Not sure about its age. I do have a 709 manual. I need to scan it and the other old computer manuals I have. Maniac II anyone?",
"parent_id": "8183010",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183012",
"author": "Dennis Ernst",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T18:26:48",
"content": "And I always the RPC-4000 from Royal Precision Computer",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183084",
"author": "hackadave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T23:08:42",
"content": "The first computer I used was a Stantec Zebra dating from around 1961. It used a combination of transistors and tubes. Our grammar school was given it by a local business that was upgrading to an ICL machine. I think we may have been the first grammar (high) school in the UK to have our own computer. It was little used as it consumed a lot of power and was hard to keep operational.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183465",
"author": "scruss2",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T22:54:50",
"content": "“The Metrovick wasn’t totally transistor-based”Hey, neither was any computer until we stopped using CRTs.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.343536
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/hackaday-links-september-21-2025/
|
Hackaday Links: September 21, 2025
|
Dan Maloney
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] |
[
"3d printing",
"amateur",
"AOL",
"bookbinding",
"cd",
"hackaday links",
"hacking",
"ham",
"Harrison Ford",
"Jay Leno",
"license",
"Pacific",
"plastic",
"radio",
"security",
"toilet",
"washing machine"
] |
Remember AOL? For a lot of folks, America Online was their first ISP, the place where they got their first exposure to the Internet, or at least a highly curated version of it. Remembered by the cool kids mainly as the place that the normies used as their ISP and for the mark of shame an “@aol.com” email address bore, the company nevertheless became a media juggernaut, to the point that “AOL Time Warner” was a thing in the early 2000s. We’d have thought the company was long gone by now, but it turns out it’s still around and powerful enough of a brand that
it’s being shopped around for $1.5 billion
. We’d imagine a large part of that value comes from Yahoo!, which previous owner Verizon merged with AOL before selling most of the combined entity off in 2021, but either way, it’s not chump change.
For our part, the most memorable aspect of AOL was the endless number of CDs they stuffed into mailboxes in the 90s. There was barely a day that went by that one of those things didn’t cross your path, either through the mail or in free bins at store checkouts, or even inside magazines. They were everywhere, and unless you were tempted by the whole “You’ve got mail!” kitsch, they were utterly useless; they didn’t even make good coasters thanks to the hole in the middle. So most of the estimated 2 billion CDs just ended up in the trash, which got us thinking: How much plastic was that? A bit of poking around indicates that a CD contains about 15 grams of polycarbonate, so that’s something like 30,000 metric tonnes! To put that into perspective, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is said to contain “only”
around 80,000 metric tonnes of plastic
. Clearly the patch isn’t 37% AOL CDs, but it still gives one pause to consider how many resources AOL put into marketing.
You want lice? Because
hacking a network of smart washing machines on a college campus
is how you get lice. Or at least that’s the somewhat overwrought fear after someone broke into the smart washing machines at a housing complex serving Amsterdam college students earlier in the year. The hack, which disabled the electronic payment system on the washers, was discovered in July, which seems like a strange time of year for students to be doing laundry, but whatever. The company that owns the machines finally disabled them, leaving 1,250 residents with only a couple of old coin-op machines, most of which they report are chronically out of order. That fits well with our college laundry experience, which more often than not was a waste of time and quarters, enough so that it was worth the drive home to use Mom’s machines. But what about the lice? It seems that some students are complaining that their unclean clothes are leaving them itchy and in fear of an outbreak of lice unless the laundry situation improves. So much for the hacker’s attempt to become a folk
Being an amateur radio operator, we’re always on the lookout for ham-adjacent stories, especially the increasing number where amateur allocations are being infringed upon or worse, privileges are being outright revoked. That’s why we were alarmed to see a story about
amateur radio licenses being suspended in Equatorial Guinea
, but it turns out that there’s a little more to the story than just anti-ham sentiment. All existing amateur licenses in the African nation were temporarily suspended thanks to the discovery of a foreign citizen who apparently illegally purchased a license and then accessed “sensitive areas” of the country. It sounds like Equatorial Guinea is pretty strict, requiring inspection of equipment and proper licensing prior to allowing radios into the country. The suspension of all licenses seems like overkill to us, especially since no apparent timeline for restoring privileges has been communicated. Separately, we’d also like to call out the article’s graphic designer for one of the worst examples of
map gore
we’ve ever seen.
If you write a column like this and you see a story with a title like “
Jay Leno 3D prints toilet seat for Harrison Ford
,” it’s really hard to resist writing it up. But as it turns out, there’s not a lot to the story, at least to those of us used to printing unobtanium parts. Jay Leno, famed for his amazing collection of antique and rare motor vehicles, has gotten into additive manufacturing in a big way, often printing parts for his restorations. Harrison Ford, on the other hand, isn’t much into 3D printing, but he does have a toilet he’s especially fond of — we can absolutely relate to this — but whose seat has seen better days. Being out of production, he couldn’t source a replacement until he remembered a visit to Jay’s garage, where he was first introduced to 3D printing. So Harrison sent the seat to Jay (eww) for reverse engineering and printing. We’d love to know a few details, such as what plastic was deemed fit for Indiana Jones’ tush. We’d also like to know which printing modality was used; we hope it wasn’t FDM, because layer lines would be pretty gross on a toilet seat.
And finally, clear your viewing calendar for
this four-part series on custom bookbinding
. We know, we know; bookbinding isn’t really the kind of tech we usually feature around here. But watching Dennis over at Four Keys Book Arts take a cheap book-club edition of Frank Herbert’s classic
Dune
and turn it into a work of art is absolutely mesmerizing. From disassembly and restoration of the original to tooling the new leather cover and applying gold leaf, every step along the way is absolute craftsmanship. Check it out; we doubt you’ll be disappointed. Enjoy!
| 7
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182804",
"author": "Jeff Wright",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T00:59:37",
"content": "I loved Umberto Eco’s take on the vanity press community:https://wanderinglibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/publisher-schemes-foucault%E2%80%99s-pendulum%E2%80%A6-the-continued-wanderings/Still—things look bleakhttps://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/rip-air-international-a-british-aviation-magazine-from-1971-to-2025.49508/#post-832551There was a beautiful line from Foucault’s Pendulum where unsold copies of the biographies of nobodies were donated to hospitals and jails, explaining why the sick don’t heal and prisoners don’t redeem.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182809",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:33:32",
"content": "How much stash and small parts went into those AOL tins, they still working today. I have some vintage stickers in one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182938",
"author": "Christopher de Vidal",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T13:51:57",
"content": "I still have many of my AOL CDs and disks, hoping they gain in value some day. My first IT job was AOL tech support—just after they went unlimited, and every call was about busy signals. It was a nightmare.",
"parent_id": "8182809",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182973",
"author": "asheets",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:12:22",
"content": "Me too. My collection has a still sealed German v.7 (700 free hours) and a still sealed Americal v.8 (1000 free hours).",
"parent_id": "8182938",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182818",
"author": "KE9BPC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T02:36:18",
"content": "There is an update on the 3C0W/3C3W expedition from the perspective of the hams involved:https://www.dx-world.net/story-of-3c3w-and-3c0w-dxpedition/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183123",
"author": "Awgunner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T03:19:39",
"content": "i remember when the aol trial came on floppy disk. i started to spam the trial to get free floppies then put a piece of tape over the write protect hole so i could reuse them",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183504",
"author": "Lord Kimbote",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T02:02:39",
"content": "Cantcha go laundry somewhere else?? When I got hired at one job back in ’94 and had to leave town 4 months for training (just married to boot) first order of business was where to wash my clothes. People there in the laundromat were so nice they took care of my stuff while I went for lunch.Lice, yikes, and all for not looking for another laundromat. You all need to win Nobels to atone for such abandon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.868477
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/a-serial-mouse-for-a-homebrew-8-bit-computer/
|
A Serial Mouse For A Homebrew 8-bit Computer
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"8-bit computers",
"Ben Eater",
"mouse",
"serial mouse"
] |
[Too Many Wires] has a custom computer he’s building. He wanted a mouse, but USB is a bit of a stretch for the fledgling computer. We might have opted for PS/2, but he went for something even older:
a serial mouse connected with a DE-9
(colloquially, a DB-9). Check it out in his recent video update on the project below.
Don’t remember serial mice? They were very common many years ago, and apparently, you can still buy new ones, which makes you wonder what people are doing with them. If you are an old hand at serial, you’ll immediately know why he couldn’t get it to work at first. If you haven’t worked with RS-232 gear before, you’ll learn a lot.
The protocol
is simple enough
, and you can read the code or find plenty of old documents. He’s using a UART chip, which offloads the CPU. However, the PS/2 mice are very easy to work with directly, and you could skip the +/- 12V RS-232 and other issues.
Either way, however, using an RS-232 or PS/2 mouse in a project is relatively straightforward. You might not think you need a mouse, but don’t forget, they are really accurate two-axis sensors. An optical mouse on a motion table, for example, could be worth something.
The computer is based on
[Ben Eater]’s design
, if you want more details on that. Can’t decide between RS-232 and PS/2?
You don’t have to
.
| 2
| 2
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182786",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T22:33:12",
"content": "Besides the mouse, a big benefit of implementing a basic, widely supported serial interface on a basic computer is having a basic, widely supported serial interface on a basic computer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182864",
"author": "IanS",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T09:14:52",
"content": "“… connected with a DE-9 (colloquially, a DB-9). ”Well done for knowing the difference!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.705858
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/welding-with-natural-gas-and-oxygen/
|
Welding With Natural Gas And Oxygen
|
Aaron Beckendorf
|
[
"Misc Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] |
[
"acetylene",
"diy torch",
"natural gas",
"oxygen",
"oxygen concentrator"
] |
By virtue of its triple bond, acetylene burns hotter than any other common hydrocarbon when mixed with oxygen, but it isn’t the only flame hot enough for welding. With the assistance of a homemade oxygen concentrator,
[Hyperspace Pirate] was able to make a natural gas torch
that melts steel, even if welding with the torch remains difficult.
[Hyperspace Pirate] built his oxygen concentrator around a
pressure-swing adsorption system
, which uses two tanks of a molecular sieve to selectively adsorb and purge nitrogen, leaving behind mostly oxygen. [Hyperspace Pirate] used reverse-osmosis membrane casings as the tanks, solenoid valves to control gas flow, and an Arduino with some MOSFETs to control the timing. For fuel, he used a convenient source of natural gas, already installed in his garage: the water heater’s gas supply. Since the house’s meter regulates the gas down to a fairly low pressure, and the oxygen concentrator doesn’t produce high pressures, the torch didn’t need any inline regulators.
Inline check valves, on the other hand, were very much necessary, a mixture of oxygen and natural gas propagating back along the lines being undesirable for obvious reasons, and flashback arrestors would have been a good addition. [Hyperspace Pirate] built the torch itself out of copper tubing and needle valves, with a 0.9 mm MIG welder tip as the nozzle. Adjusting the gas mixture was mostly a matter of trial and error. With an oxygen-rich flame, it could cut thin metal decently well, but it tended to melt thick pieces more than it cut. On the other hand, even with a neutral flame, the water vapor in the exhaust oxidized steel, which made welding quite difficult, but not impossible.
The oxygen supply by itself was an entertaining tool, turning smoldering pieces of charcoal or steel wool violently incandescent. With the assistance of some steel wool, [Hyperspace Pirate] set a steel tube on fire. With a bit more oxygen, it would probably make an effective
thermic lance
. If you still want to do your welding with acetylene, he’s also
made that before
.
| 15
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182719",
"author": "Albert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:22:14",
"content": "Gonna eat plenty of kebabs to produce enough natural ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) gas for any serious welding project.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182770",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T21:27:18",
"content": "lmao",
"parent_id": "8182719",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182947",
"author": "lj",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T15:18:19",
"content": "Might require a pressure regulator in that application.",
"parent_id": "8182719",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182812",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:47:34",
"content": "What about brazing? Not meat but steel with brass.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182849",
"author": "Jeff NME",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:01:43",
"content": "The slightly oxidising flame of natural gas (or LPG) with oxygen should be ideal for brazing, but only a “suck it and see” approach would confirm this.",
"parent_id": "8182812",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182853",
"author": "Victor",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:25:08",
"content": "This dude (hyperspace pirate) constantly brazes copper, I bet he will tell us. Probably an input to his refrigerant shenanigans.",
"parent_id": "8182812",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182856",
"author": "coyoteboyjames",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:37:21",
"content": "Meat would be braising but you made me chuckle all the same.",
"parent_id": "8182812",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182914",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:39:36",
"content": "Hi we did that at school when I was around 15 or so (64 now) we used natural gas and air from a compressor for brazing screw drivers together that we made in metal work class",
"parent_id": "8182812",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182958",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T15:51:44",
"content": "Home service natural gas has all kinds of additives that might mess up a weld.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183021",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T18:44:34",
"content": "Hydrogen also burns pretty hot, and it’s easy to make from water, together with the right amount of oxygen to burn it. You can even buy commercial units which do this. They are used for flame polishing plastics. I don’t know if these things have enough power to make a big enough flame to weld steel. Saving up and storing the (separated) oxygen and hydrogen seems doable, but it’s not straight forward (research hydrogen brittleness).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183095",
"author": "anon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T00:56:05",
"content": "watch the video and see that he addresses this point.",
"parent_id": "8183021",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183106",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T01:52:09",
"content": "So I pressed the play button, and it annoys me in the first second with some (probably unrelated) advertisement. And I did not get beyond that.",
"parent_id": "8183095",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183285",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T15:36:07",
"content": "Answer: He’s already done a video making an Oxi-Hydrogen torch and he goes over issues with it that make it harder to weld with but easy to cut with.",
"parent_id": "8183106",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184325",
"author": "anon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T20:11:52",
"content": "in the year 2025, you should probably not be browsing the internet without an adblocker.",
"parent_id": "8183106",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183100",
"author": "SpillsDirt",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T01:10:27",
"content": "I have a hydroflux brand jewelers torch, one of the commercial units youre talking about, that I use to do welded repairs on cast metal partial dentures. The melting point of the cobalt chrome alloy is 1315-1440 °C (2399-2624 °F). 316: stainless steel melts at 1,371–1,399 °C (2,500–2,550 °F).Its torch uses hypodermic needles to deliver a very small and tight but VERY hot flame. A HydroFlux torch’s maximum temperature is 4850°F (2675°C). Im not sure if/how that scales up with a larger torch size, but for the work I do it gets the job done.",
"parent_id": "8183021",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,421.401215
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/low-cost-high-gain-a-smart-electronic-eyepiece-for-capturing-the-cosmos/
|
Low-Cost, High-Gain: A Smart Electronic Eyepiece For Capturing The Cosmos
|
Matt Varian
|
[
"Space"
] |
[
"eyepiece",
"imx307",
"night vision camera",
"telescope"
] |
We’ve all seen spectacular pictures of space, and it’s easy to assume that’s how it looks to the naked eye through a nice telescope. But in most cases, that’s simply not true. Space is rather dark, so to make out dim objects, you’ll need to amplify the available light. This can be done with a larger telescope, but that’s an expensive route. Alternatively, you can observe objects for longer periods. This second approach is what [Jordan Blanchard] chose, creating a
budget electronic eyepiece
for his telescope.
This eyepiece is housed in a 3D printed enclosure designed to fit a standard 1.25″ telescope focuser. The sleek, ergonomic enclosure resembles a night vision device, with a 0.39″ screen for real-time observation of what the camera captures through the telescope. The screen isn’t the only way to view — a USB-C video capture module lets you connect a phone or computer to save images as if you were peering through the viewfinder.
The star of this project is the IMX307 camera module, which supports sense-up mode for 1.2-second exposures and increased gain to capture dim objects without post-processing. This sensor, commonly used in low-light security cameras and dash cams, excels at revealing faint celestial details. All combined, this project cost under 200 Euros, an absolute steal in the often pricey world of astronomy.
Don’t have a telescope? Don’t worry, you can
build one of those as well
.
| 18
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182693",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:08:33",
"content": "Great shot of Saturn! Can it take a peek at Uranus?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182707",
"author": "LookAtDaShinyShiny",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:34:58",
"content": "as long as there are no klingons around, probably…",
"parent_id": "8182693",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182766",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T20:58:16",
"content": "You may not have heard that the Astronomical Union has petitioned to have that name changed due to all the foul jokes. The new name? Urectum.",
"parent_id": "8182693",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183050",
"author": "Pablo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T19:41:36",
"content": "preposterous!",
"parent_id": "8182766",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183159",
"author": "Kandin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T06:40:12",
"content": "They never changed the name bruh, its still Uranus. BUT its actually pronounced Ur-a-nus😁🙂",
"parent_id": "8182766",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182734",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T18:04:09",
"content": "Hmm so the software basically makes the exposure time longer and this lets us capture images of faint sky objects? Very cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182769",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T21:10:09",
"content": "We live in amazing times that such hardware is so readily available and inexpensive.It was not so long ago that civilian possession of equipment of this capability was either science fiction, or would invite the curiosity of three-letter agencies.Though, at the rate we’re going, we might be revisiting that situation soon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182800",
"author": "Cruel_world",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T00:22:27",
"content": "I hate to be the guy in the room to say this. But we’ve been doing this for about 30 years now. There’s an entire unsung amateur astronomy community. Making your own crap long before GitHub.. check out cloudynights.com if you want to get a feel for the community.Cruel_world",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182813",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:56:27",
"content": "Please point us to where the article claimed this was a new idea. I can’t find it.",
"parent_id": "8182800",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182817",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T02:19:49",
"content": "True, Cruel, we have been doing this for a while, and longer than 30 years. A friend of mine made a DIY digital sensor star image through a telescope in 1985. I was a late bloomer and didn’t get around to it until 1989 with a crummy used Fairchild 100×100 CCD that still cost more than a good SLR. Noisy, low-sensitivity webcams followed, then better dedicated cameras with progressively better quantum efficiency and lower dark noise, but they were not cheap — I still have an Apogee camera that has a quantum efficiency exceeding 90% and can integrate for more than an hour, but it cost as much as a decent car and is now obsolete.And we still didn’t have OK electronic viewfinders until recently. Some folks used camcorder viewfinders, but they didn’t match the (decent) sensor readout rates, so you might as well do the whole thing at the computer anyway.Now you can get a high quality (for 2010) sensor and a good EVF for (comparatively) chump change. That’s the amazing part.But now, sadly, there are no more dark skies in a lot of places. It’s nice to see increasing interest in dark sky preserves, where a camera/viewer like this will, er, shine.",
"parent_id": "8182800",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182890",
"author": "Stephen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T11:08:10",
"content": "Cloudynights are a great community",
"parent_id": "8182800",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183109",
"author": "Jordan Blanchard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T02:04:57",
"content": "Yes, I know well, I was doing the same between modifying the USB webcam for the planetary and then for the deep sky. Even retrieve a image intensification tube in an old night vision binocular to precisely make an eyepiece more suitable for the deep sky. But it was a long time ago. Today I bother myself more with that, I have a camera dedicated to astronomy behind my C11 and that is quite enough for me.But I also host astronomy night open to the public several times a year, generally focused on the planetary because the deep sky is too complicated and quite disappointing for the unexperienced eye.Since then, I’ve had a Seestar S50 to accompany the observation, to easily make deep skies, it’s great, but it still lacked the nostalgia to look into the eyepiece and see in real time.That’s why I decided to make this electronic eyepiece. Buying an off-the-shelf one at nearly €2000 was really not on the program; I’m already doing the astronomy night voluntarily, so I don’t have the budget for that.So I tried to make one with passable quality. I knew that there were analog video cameras where you could slightly modify the exposure to have just what it takes to see something. The hardest part was precisely finding a CCTV camera with that cheaply; it took me ordering 3 camera modules to finally come across the right one",
"parent_id": "8182800",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182912",
"author": "Marty",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:33:48",
"content": "This kind of project/article is the perfect candidate for a before/after set of pictures. As someone that’s starting to look into getting a telescope, knowing just how benefit there is to something like this (and especially compared to its cost) would be very helpful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183113",
"author": "Jordan Blanchard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T02:13:38",
"content": "It’s difficult to make a comparison between what we see visually, and what we can see through a camera, but there is this site that allows you to simulate what you are capable of seeing visually through a telescope. This allows you to get an idea of what you should expect visually:https://www.stelvision.com/astro/simulateur-de-telescope/",
"parent_id": "8182912",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183220",
"author": "Marty",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T12:38:05",
"content": "That was great, thanks!Now if I could see what any of those would look like after using a device such as the one in this article….",
"parent_id": "8183113",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183128",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T03:51:30",
"content": "Why does the HD 1920×1080 camera with H.265 only have a CVBS output?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183133",
"author": "Jordan Blanchard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T04:16:55",
"content": "You can setup the camera to output CVBS analogic video or HD Digital Video (AHD/TVI/CVI), but the Viewfinder and Capture card in this case only support CVBS analogic video",
"parent_id": "8183128",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183523",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T03:27:40",
"content": "Interesting. I was unfamiliar with AHD (analog HD) or TVI or CVI (competing systems for sending digital HD video over coax, kind of like SDI). It seems like the security camera market developed its own solutions to allow for upgrading the video quality cameras and recorders while keeping the same cable infrastructure in place.",
"parent_id": "8183133",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,421.758279
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/for-a-robot-claw-the-eyes-have-it/
|
For A Robot Claw, The Eyes Have It
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Robots Hacks"
] |
[
"claw",
"ESP32"
] |
Have you ever wished your hand had an extra feature? Like, maybe, a second thumb? A scope probe pinky maybe? Well, if you are building a robot effector, you get to pick what extra features it has.
[Gokux] has the aptly named Cam Claw
, which is a 3D printed claw with a built-in camera so you can see exactly what it is doing.
The brains are an ESP32-S3 and the eyes — well, the eye technically — uses an OV3660 camera. There’s even a light in case you are in a dark space. A servo drives it, and the printed gear train is pretty fun to watch, as you can see in the video below.
This project is all about the mechanics. The electronic hardware is trivial. A battery, a power controller, and a servo complement the ESP32 and camera. Six LEDs for light, and the job is done.
Obviously, the gripping power will only be as good as the servo. However, we really liked the idea of putting eyes on a robot hand where they count. Of course, the claw you really want a camera on
is in the arcade
. We’d like to see cameras on some other
robot appendages
.
| 3
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182704",
"author": "Piecutter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:32:27",
"content": "I just got a surprisingly affordable drug store otoscope that pairs with my smart phone screen to retrieve a large, impacted cerumen. I immediately started planning to take it apart, extend it, and combine it with a manual retrieval claw tool. Should be handy for working inside engines, wall cavities, etc. !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182710",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:48:32",
"content": "I like the design a lot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182802",
"author": "Jeff Wright",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T00:46:27",
"content": "What I would like to see is a “flying jig.”You would wear a pair of clawed arms to say, hold model parts.You speak the word “release” and the arms freeze in place—and you detach.Repeat",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.440015
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/21/building-a-not-very-portable-xbox/
|
Building A (Not Very) Portable Xbox
|
Fenix Guthrie
|
[
"handhelds hacks",
"Xbox Hacks"
] |
[
"diy handheld",
"portable",
"xbox"
] |
Modern handheld game consoles are impressive feats of engineering, featuring full fledged computers in near pocket-sized packages. So what happens if you take an original Xbox and sprinkle on some modern electronics and create a handheld? Well, if you’re [James] of
James Channel
, you end up with this
sandwich of PCBs held together with hot glue and duck tape.
The first order of miniaturization in this Xbox was replacing the hard drive. Because a
CompactFlash card uses parallel ATA, that could be a simple drop in replacement. However, the Xbox locks the hard drive to the system requiring a mod chip for the CF card to work. Fortunately, the sacrificial Xbox came with a mod chip installed. After using an arcade machine to flash the card and copy over the contents of the drive, the CF card install was a breeze.
For the screen and batteries, a portable DVD player that had remained unused since 2006 was repurposed. The battery cells were rather unhappy, but managed to get resurrected with some careful charging. As it turns out, the iPod 30 pin connector inside the portable screen contains an
S-Video line
. By tapping into that and adding in some power management for the batteries, the Xbox became a pile of PCBs that could maybe be taken places.
Wiring up the two halves of the controller.
However, the form factor was not yet complete. With some careful angle grinder work, the controller got split in half, with jumper wires going between the two sides. By cutting slots into the housing, the Xbox mainboard could now rest between the two controller halves, along with some hot glue for good measure. By using hot glue as an insulating layer, the PCB sandwich started to resemble a handheld console.
A few gremlins still lurked inside, namely, inside the optical drive. The first issue was the mainboard supplied 2.5 V where 5 V is needed, so instead of debugging the issue, [James] simply tapped directly into a 5 V line. But the drive was still uncooperative. As it turned out, the hastily refurbished unit was broken, so a fresh one replaced it. Yet that still proved unsuccessful. Eventually, after testing eight drives, it turned out seven were broken, and the IDE cable needed to be re-crimped.
But at last, the portable Xbox could be used, so the build was finished off with a bit more hot glue and a case made of duck tape. While certainly not pretty, it does, in fact, work, with nearly 10 minutes of battery life. It’s not very handheld, or very portable, but it does meet the definitions of both while maintaining a CD drive, something likely never done before. Just keep your fingers clear of the spinning disc.
Looking for something that might actually fit in your pocket? Turns out the
Wii can be turned into an incredibly compact handheld
with some careful cutting.
| 24
| 9
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182609",
"author": "The ink-srsined wretcg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T09:16:35",
"content": "Please, the language is going to hell, don’t make it worse. Do we tape ducks with ductape? No, we tape(d) flat foam replacements for thin steel hemorrhage-causing HVAC ducts! The only problem was the original tape proved great for everything except what it was designed for (radical temp changes from 140^F heat to 60^F air destroyed the adhesive in half a trice. One company paid their fees and trademarked Duck Tape, warning users not to use it for its stated purposes. – retitle or the makers may sue – haven’t tried it for I don’t want to hurt my fine feathered friends, but ducks are oil- feather beasts, and I doubt any tape would stick. Which won’t stop dukfriends to having you in court in a 60th of a second, a “US Jiffy (@ 50th of a sec in much of Europe.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182776",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T21:59:42",
"content": "I’ve heard that the name “duck tape” from it’s use with duck cloth. I didn’t know what duck cloth was until then.While I have always called it duct tape, if there’s one thing that I’ve found that it’s terrible for that one thing is duct work. It dries up, goes flaky and falls off. There are much better tapes for that purpose.",
"parent_id": "8182609",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8184327",
"author": "wazdakkaz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T20:14:42",
"content": "Ducktape is a brand of duct tape in the UK.This oz? Bet Thry sell thier too.",
"parent_id": "8182776",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182990",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T17:34:16",
"content": "This is one of those midwit halfway-to-the-truth things. It actually is duck tape, but named after the fabric, not the waterfowl. It is absolutely terrible for taping ductwork because it was not designed for it, that’s actually a very different type of tape. That kind is like sticky tinfoil.",
"parent_id": "8182609",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182613",
"author": "Gardoni",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T09:26:24",
"content": "Modern handheld game consoles are impressive feats of engineeringThey are just ARM smartphones with some buttons and analog sticks. Nuffin’ to ‘rite home ’bout.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182621",
"author": "Clara Hobbs",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T10:44:06",
"content": "Some are full-on x86_64 PCs with some buttons and analog sticks. Kid me would’ve been pretty excited about that.",
"parent_id": "8182613",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182622",
"author": "Gardoni",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T10:51:19",
"content": "Actually, under the hood most Intel x86 CPUs translate CISC instructions to ARM-like code because it’s faster to run 10-15 ARM instructions than a single x86 one. AMD does similar thing, but differently because of patents.",
"parent_id": "8182621",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182649",
"author": "Clara Hobbs",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T13:28:22",
"content": "I too know what microcode is.",
"parent_id": "8182622",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182656",
"author": "Gardoni",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:21:42",
"content": "O RLY?",
"parent_id": "8182649",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182865",
"author": "stan423321",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T09:18:37",
"content": "This isn’t really true in regards to currently made Intel processors, unless you really stretch the meaning of “ARM-like”. See:https://fanael.github.io/is-x86-risc-internally.html",
"parent_id": "8182622",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182648",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T13:26:33",
"content": "Both this video and the Raspi waste of money server have happily polluted my youtube feed for the past week lol. Didn’t watch either of them and now I know why :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182664",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:34:21",
"content": "This one at least is made with good humor and fun.As much as it sounds like someone failing until they succeed at a hackjob, it’s more watching a goof magically Frankenstein a portable while winging it.The hack is still educational in how it helps one understand how hard it is to completely mess up and how shockingly naturally some bits will fit together.",
"parent_id": "8182648",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182803",
"author": "NIK282000",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T00:47:41",
"content": "Jame’s hacks are an absolute marvel. They are hair brained, half baked and maybe only 1/3 assed but it is very rare to see a person take an angle grinder to a PCB and then have it work.",
"parent_id": "8182664",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182665",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:39:29",
"content": "The Xbox does not require a modchip for HDD replacement, you can extract the original key and lock the new drive with it, or simply reflash the original BIOS with one that doesn’t require the lock. You can also enable VGA output for increased visual fidelity with BIOS mods.Most people will just use a SATA to parallel IDE drove adapter and an SSD, also copying the games to run off the internal storage removes the requirement for an optical drive.I didn’t have a DankPods HackADay crossover on my bingo card today 😂. (James is ‘DankPods’ brother-in-law IIRC)Typo taping -> tapping (oddly the word tapped is used later in the article).This is an excellent hack. The original Xbox is a hack on its own, mashing up a fairly capable GeForce inside a Northbridge chip, and shipping the DirectX runtimes (and NT Kernel?)on each game DVD it never needed updates to support new games AFAIK. Pretty amazing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182670",
"author": "dremu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:52:05",
"content": "Duck Tape = brand name.Duct tape = tape for ducts, ie silver stuff used in HVAC.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182699",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:21:09",
"content": "From my experience working in EU construction (mostly France and Germany), ventilation ducts are sealed using Sikalastomer sealants.",
"parent_id": "8182670",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182833",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T04:45:30",
"content": "Duct tape is worthless for sealing ducts. Use the aluminum HVAC tape if you want it to last.",
"parent_id": "8182670",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182676",
"author": "Danin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:12:08",
"content": "So, Compact Flash uses PARALLEL ATA. Not serial ATA. That’s convenient since if it was Serial ATA, they would’ve had to use an adapter, which is why they used CF, which is why it’s both noteworthy and important to be correct. Also in the first paragraph; You’re instead of your.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182683",
"author": "WTF Detector",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:37:16",
"content": "Well, if your [James] ofJames Channelyou’re",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182767",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T21:01:09",
"content": "Relax, the typos mean we know the article is still written by a human and not AI",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182815",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:58:43",
"content": "Comments are 50% “this was written by AI because of the typos” and 50% “stupid human can’t write good”.",
"parent_id": "8182767",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182861",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:55:09",
"content": "This is nothing new and rather raw. If you want to do it the clean way, follow millomakerhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuGE2JL-V4Emj5jz-w4KQMGRUYEmEIApc",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183286",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T15:37:19",
"content": "The main thing this video is for is comedy and showing people how much abuse stuff can actually take and still work.",
"parent_id": "8182861",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183473",
"author": "xeoe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T23:44:02",
"content": "He (James) used an angle grinder to make cuts, duck taped it all together instead of building a 3D-printed case, sat the CD Reader flat on the top of the beast to spin freely… Yes. You’re right. it’s rather raw. He doesn’t do these as instructionals, he does these raw hacks by design. It’s the point of the whole thing, to be honest. Thanks for the link though, I’ll definitely be watching the more sedate method :)",
"parent_id": "8182861",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,421.58281
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/march-to-the-beat-of-your-own-piezoelectric-drum/
|
March To The Beat Of Your Own Piezoelectric Drum
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Musical Hacks"
] |
[
"drum",
"piezo disk",
"piezoelectric generator",
"technically successful"
] |
Drums! You hit them, and they vibrate. It’s kind of fun. Piezoelectric elements can create electric current when they vibrate. [Will Dana] put two and
two together to try and charge his phone
on his YouTube channel
WillsBuilds
embedded below.
It worked… about as well as you might expect. Which is to say: not very well. The random piezo elements [Will] glues to his drum almost certainly aren’t optimized for this use case. Adding weight helps, but it doesn’t look like a tuned system. Even if it was, piezoelectric generators aren’t terribly efficient by nature, and the (small) losses from the required bridge rectifiers aren’t helping. An energy-harvesting chip might have worked
better
, but it probably wouldn’t have worked
well
.
Since he cannot produce enough voltage in real time, [Will] opts to charge a capacitor bank that he can dump into the phone once it gets enough charge in it to register with the phone’s circuitry. It takes about 30 minutes drumming to charge the capacitors in parallel, before switching to series to get the voltage up to discharge. The capacitors drain in about a quarter second, probably to no measurable result– but the phone does read as “charging”, which was the goal.
Did it work? Technically, yes. The phone was “charging”. Is it practical? Certainly not. Is it a hack? Undeniably so.
| 7
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182642",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T12:52:30",
"content": "Goofy clickbait for the hard of thinking, but I’ll bite.Piezo elementscanbe fairly efficient, but it’s all about impedance matching: bothmechanicalandelectrical.That’s the purpose of that brass disk: it’s a mechanical impedance transformer from the extremely high impedance ceramic to the much lower impedance air. Think of it like a lever: a high force but short distance at one end (the ceramic at the middle) translates to a small force over a long distance (in air), with reasonable conservation of energy.Same with the electric impedance. Electrically, a piezo element is a small, high voltage ceramic capacitor that produces pulses of charge when deformed. Trying to run that through a diode rectifier will lose much of that charge through the diode capacitance and recovery charge: Careful selection of a diode is needed, or an impedance transformer.So, randomly sticking a bunch of elements on a drum head without considering the coupling (mechanical impedance matching) to the piezo likely won’t lead to success. (Even if glomming a few nutweights is a step in the right direction).You’ll also need to ensure they are all mechanically and electrically in phase so the outputs will add up.Likewise, putting a low impedance load (capacitors in parallel) to collect the charge won’t be the best way to harvest energy from the high impedance source.It’s especially bad when rectified by a diode bridge like the one he used, which might be close to the worst type of diode to use due to its high capacitance, high leakage current and large recovery charge.It’s too bad — engineered adequately thiscouldactually work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182660",
"author": "Homer10",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:30:49",
"content": "Oh, there are so many that are hard of thinking.",
"parent_id": "8182642",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182667",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:45:47",
"content": "Thanks toDoug and the Slugsfor introducing me to that turn of phrase.",
"parent_id": "8182660",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182808",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:22:16",
"content": "Thanks for the response! This is Will, the guy who made the project. Factoring in impedance isn’t something I had thought of, and there are some super interesting factors at play here! Thanks for the info, as it lead me down a research rabbit hole to implement in future projects. I am curious, though, why does the impedance in the capacitor circuitry matter? The caps are connected to the output of the rectifiers, so wouldn’t they be charged with only DC current? I’m confused as to what role impedance plays in that part of the circuit.-Will",
"parent_id": "8182642",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182916",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:42:41",
"content": "Hey Will, sorry if that all came off a bit harsh. It’s just dismaying to see a great idea spoiled by taking a few wrong directions due to simple unawareness of key issues.Piezo elements are high impedance: High voltage at low current. By putting a low-impedance load (the caps) on them, you might be collecting most of the charge (well, except for the considerable amount soaked up in the power rectifier recovery charge). But you’re losing all the power in that current (or energy in that charge) because you’re damping it by the low impedance load. Energy in a cap is 0.5CV^2. That V^2 term is important! You don’t want to leave all that voltage on the table.To learn more, study datasheets and application notes for devices specifically designed for piezoelectric energy harvesting, like the LTC3588",
"parent_id": "8182808",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182717",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:09:39",
"content": "I tried using a piezo disc that was a tweeter as an under the bridge pickup for my steel guitar. It worked fine it seemed under that triangle of wood pressed against the neck board. The feedback setup I was creating quit when I tuned down, and went up when I tuned up. I figured pressure on the wafer had something to do with it. Sure enough I pressed down on the bridge the tone went into fuller sound as if I dialed a low pass filter down to deeper bass. I figure the disc was operating in a more linear range.I changed to an electret mic buried in the piece of wood and no pressure changes of tone or gain, full tone.During the experiments with the disc pickup I could get at higher pressure enough actual power to hook up a speaker with no amp and hear sound at acoustic level not like a spruce sound board but sound none the less. A passive electric guitar! A search showed that there is a practice electric guitar with this setup and a switch for output or built in speaker with no battery.So I see where the small mass on the discs come from. Try putting the discs into a practice pad with a mass backing it up. It should up things a bit, try a big cone speaker on it.Did I catch something about charging gear from a soldiers boots? Maybe it didn’t work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182887",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:20:24",
"content": "piezoelectric generators aren’t terribly efficient by natureCould they be used to send signal to switch smart lamps on/off .",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.627667
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/when-low-sram-keeps-the-doom-off-your-vape/
|
When Low SRAM Keeps TheDOOMOff Your Vape
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Games",
"Reverse Engineering"
] |
[
"does it run doom",
"vape"
] |
The PIXO Aspire is a roughly $35 USD vape that can almost play
DOOM
, with [Aaron Christophel]
finding that the only thing
that realistically stops it from doing so is that the Cortex-M4-based Puya
PY32F403XC
MCU only has 64 kB of SRAM. CPU-wise it would be more than capable, with a roomy 16 MB of external SPI Flash and a 323×173 pixel LC touch screen display covering the other needs. It even has a vibration motor to give you some force feedback. Interestingly, this vape has a Bluetooth Low-Energy chip built-in, but this does not seem to be used by the original Aspire firmware.
What [Aaron] did to still get some
DOOM
vapors on the device was to implement
a screenshare firmware
, allowing a PC to use the device as a secondary display via its USB interface. This way you can use the regular PC mouse and keyboard inputs to play
DOOM
, while squinting at the small screen.
Although not as completely overpowered as a
recent Anker charging station
that [Aaron] played
DOOM
on, we fully expect vapes in a few years to be perfectly usable for some casual gaming, with this potentially even becoming an original manufacturer’s function, if it isn’t already.
| 28
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182549",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:53:43",
"content": "Why the hell does a vape need a Coretex M4 CPU and an LCD screen?An 8 bit OTP microcontroller and a couple of LEDs should be more than sufficient.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182552",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:58:38",
"content": "Microcontroller????just use a 555 and call it a day",
"parent_id": "8182549",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182577",
"author": "Matias Gonzalez",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T06:39:47",
"content": "555???Just use a couple of transistors and you’re done",
"parent_id": "8182552",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182595",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:58:09",
"content": "A 555, how about a coconut radio ala the professor on Gilligan’s island?",
"parent_id": "8182577",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182596",
"author": "Mause",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T08:03:19",
"content": "Use MEMS relay logic and ditch silicon entirely.",
"parent_id": "8182577",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182599",
"author": "NaH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T08:19:24",
"content": "most MEMS devices, including relays, are built on a silicon wafer. This wafer serves as the foundational substrate for the device.",
"parent_id": "8182596",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182610",
"author": "Hugo Oran",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T09:16:49",
"content": "Roll some tobacco leaves and light one end. Hydrogencarbon magic instead silicon magic. Play doom with stick on heads of your opponents. Bwahaha.",
"parent_id": "8182596",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182620",
"author": "zamorano",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T10:38:36",
"content": "Add Wi-Fi and it will be able to run ads. Literally stick them up your nose and be the envy of the modern corporate world.",
"parent_id": "8182549",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182759",
"author": "ZamboniTromboni",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:49:34",
"content": "Now that would be something. Cheap ones got a wait a couple seconds to hit it. Like the ads at a gas station.",
"parent_id": "8182620",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182839",
"author": "salmon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T05:52:27",
"content": "Some ones you can get in AUS already do that, they don’t network but just have a bunch of preloaded ads, just selling more vapes though. They let you put your own image on it if you get the app (which probably does network/update it with anything at that point)Needless to say, I didn’t buy/use or do any of that but my friend has a bunch of them lying around I’ve been wanting to mess with. Everything but the display module is single use but you can only buy both together lol.",
"parent_id": "8182620",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182626",
"author": "Bastet",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T11:24:38",
"content": "Because they can. I expect the BOM to come out to an equal price, and someone in marketing wanted colors and that newfangled multimedia that’s all the rage now.As the device uses pods and hence isn’t single-use you can have at least some fun with the holder itself.",
"parent_id": "8182549",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182850",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:11:21",
"content": "The Puya chips are probably very nearly as cheap as the OTP 8 bitters these days and they really are overkill, especially with unused Bluetooth and the screen but, weirdly, I think it might actually have a positive effect on the e-waste problem because the screen etc adds perceived value to a product which might just mean people hang on to them longer.",
"parent_id": "8182549",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182597",
"author": "helge",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T08:05:50",
"content": "If the LCD controller is ST7789 (I probably missed that detail) supporting 320x240x18 bit, there’s an extra 50 kB available through RAMWRC, RAMRDC commands, and perhaps some more when dropping to 8 bit or monochrome.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182611",
"author": "Jeff Wright",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T09:18:15",
"content": "I think this lends itself to use as a prop for a dystopian movie.An asthma inhaler that only gives a puff or two before a character pops up on screen wanting your credit card number.That or a Trek style isolinear chip.Plug in into a row of receptacles.Plug into one socket, it shows an image of someone’s soul that has been captured.Remove it and vape…as the vape dissipates, the image on the screen seems pulled towards the mouthpiece.Sound of screaming added in post.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182616",
"author": "shinusukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T10:10:33",
"content": "Interestingly, this vape has a Bluetooth Low-Energy chip built-in, but this does not seem to be used by the original Aspire firmware.Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? Cortex M4 with FPU and DSP features and a colour LCD wasn’t enough, they put a BLE chip but didn’t even bother using it…And my boss tells me we can’t put a reverse polarity diode because the BoM is already too expensive",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182780",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T22:03:56",
"content": "A reverse polarity diode doesn’t increase sales.",
"parent_id": "8182616",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182641",
"author": "Joe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T12:51:20",
"content": "This looks like a potentially very interesting IOT platform device with a lot of features for lower cost than I can build one myself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182681",
"author": "Alex Taradov",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:28:57",
"content": "We should really stop promoting running anything on vapes. This just encourages more waste.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182746",
"author": "JT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:12:36",
"content": "It’s a reusable vape, not the disposable kind. You think they’re putting color screens on disposable ones?",
"parent_id": "8182681",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182758",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:49:09",
"content": "Yes.Unfortunately I’ve seen at least one.",
"parent_id": "8182746",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182781",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T22:04:20",
"content": "Yes.",
"parent_id": "8182746",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183266",
"author": "Scott",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T14:44:40",
"content": "Most of the disposable vapes that have “xl” capacity have a screen now, some have more than one. Some of the info on it is charge, puffs etc.. but they also usually have an animation (often of space, oddly) when you draw. My coworker smokes them constantly and I’ve torn a few apart to salvage batteries.",
"parent_id": "8182746",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182694",
"author": "Misley",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:16:38",
"content": "Just quit vaping",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182805",
"author": "Jeff Wright",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:04:30",
"content": "They can make nice greebles.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182845",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T07:08:21",
"content": "Since vapes usually rely on a condenser microphone to sense air movement, I wonder if the Bluetooth could be used to turn the vape into a listening bug.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183253",
"author": "Wolf",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T13:45:48",
"content": "There are no microphones in vapes. It’s just a pressure sensor in a similar package to the ones typically used for electret microphones.",
"parent_id": "8182845",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183312",
"author": "ElectroPaint",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T16:36:47",
"content": "We have found a new common misconception!",
"parent_id": "8183253",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8184689",
"author": "jonkangasJon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T16:27:29",
"content": "First one’s free kidTurns intoWant us to share the cost of this puff? Watch this ad for a new car!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.822561
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/a-ruggedized-raspberry-pi-for-sailors/
|
A Ruggedized Raspberry Pi For Sailors
|
Aaron Beckendorf
|
[
"Raspberry Pi",
"Transportation Hacks"
] |
[
"Autopilot",
"nmea 0183",
"NMEA 2000",
"Raspberry Pi Compute Module",
"supercapacitor",
"waterproof",
"waterproofing"
] |
Nautical navigation has a long history of innovation, from the compass and chronometer to today’s computer-driven autopilot systems. That said, the poor compatibility of electronics with saltwater has consequently created a need for rugged, waterproof computers, a category to which
[Matti Airas] of Hat Labs has contributed with the open-source HALPI2
.
Powered by the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, the electronics are housed in a heavy duty enclosure made of aluminium, which also serves as a heat sink, and closes with a waterproof seal. It has a wide variety of external connectors, all likewise waterproofed: power, HDMI, NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183, Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, and an external WiFi or Bluetooth antenna. The external ports are plugged into the carrier board by short extension cables, and there are even more ports on the carrier board, including two HDMI connectors, two MIPI connectors, four USB ports, and a full GPIO header. The case has plugs to install additional PG7 or SP13 waterproof connectors, so if the existing external connectors aren’t enough, you can add your own.
Besides physical ruggedness, the design is also resistant to electrical damage. It can run on power in the 10-32 volt range, and is protected by a fuse. A supercapacitor bank preserves operation during a power glitch, and if the outage lasts for more than five seconds, can keep the system powered for 30-60 seconds while the operating system shuts down safely. The HALPI2 can also accept power over NMEA 2000, in which case it has the option to limit current draw to 0.9 amps.
The design was originally created to handle navigation, data logging, and other boating tasks, so it’s been configured for and tested with OpenPlotter. Its potential uses are broader than that, however, and it’s also been tested with Raspberry Pi OS for more general projects. Reading through its website, the most striking thing is how thoroughly this is documented: the site describes everything from the LED status indicators to the screws that close the housing – even a template for drilling mounting holes.
Given the quality of this project, it probably won’t surprise you to hear this isn’t [Matti]’s first piece of nautical electronics, having previously made Sailor HATs for the
ESP32
and the
Raspberry Pi
.
| 33
| 9
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182498",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:26:01",
"content": "So,What happens to the Ethernet, USB and HDMI connections once their made up?I spent a goodly parts of my professional life putting electronics in less than hospitable conditions.These connects are going to have a very short life in a marine environment.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182503",
"author": "ThoriumBR",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:49:52",
"content": "They are replaceable… The Pi stays safe inside, plugged to the box, and the box have a set of connectors plugged to the Pi and to itself.",
"parent_id": "8182498",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182527",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T01:29:57",
"content": "So,You’re 200 miles out at sea and your guidance device dies because water got into one or more of your connections.Better hope you have spares and you are not in the middle of a life threatening weather situation.Mother Nature is a cruel mistress.BTDT.Put some real waterproof connectors on this thing. Even they will fail, but not anywhere near a often as there’s open to the site connections.",
"parent_id": "8182503",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182543",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:30:31",
"content": "Ethernet, usb and hdmi are used all over the place on boats and they last just fine. Every modern chart plotter and display uses these connections.",
"parent_id": "8182527",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182544",
"author": "Cory",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:40:26",
"content": "So,Actual sailor here. I’ve got 25,000 miles of pacific ocean experience that was all packed into 3 years, with half that in the tropics.You are wrong. The ports will be fine. Most of the connectors you speak of are gold plated anyways and will see basically 1-5 connection cycles. They will not corroded.You don’t store this stuff on deck where it can get wet, you store it inside next to the rest of the nav equipment.We always had spares, because there were many times where land was 500-1500 miles away (sailboat). We had two laptops, one desktop.What actually fails are the silver colored metal traces around ic’s or anywhere else you might see an exposed silver trace. Anything near forced airflow will get damaged much more quickly.So while they may fail, it’s not going to fail quickly. They will last year’s.",
"parent_id": "8182527",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182652",
"author": "Carl Breen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:00:55",
"content": "Are all of these posts written by AI?",
"parent_id": "8182544",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184813",
"author": "Ar",
"timestamp": "2025-09-27T01:05:06",
"content": "Where you in the South Pacific or you are full of shit. Point Nemo is 1670 miles, the next furthest is 1211nm.Also “will not corrode” shows how little you know or have been at sea. Absolutely every metal gets corroded at sea, and I guarantee you that a cheap PCB will corrode.FFS another sailor want to be expert.",
"parent_id": "8182544",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184845",
"author": "Cory",
"timestamp": "2025-09-27T06:19:53",
"content": "Yes little keyboard warrior, you are the technically right there. I just tend not to count islands that don’t offer anything useful other than maybe a place to anchor. They are islands all over the place, but they are uninhabited. Therefore, any useful port with actual replacement parts is easily 500-1500 miles away.You can believe what you want. I have lived experience. Its gonna take a long time for gold plated connectors to corrod. So long that it’s not a concern really. Various pieces of equipment on board were decades old and still work today. The car stereo we used for music still works 25 years later, but I did finally replace it to get Bluetooth capabilit a couple years back.Some things did corrod. Speaker grills a bit. Plenty of soda cans did as well and we’re empty when we went to get them.You should try sailing, it’s better than Internet trolling. Maybe you can take this Union 36 off my hands when I put it on the market next year.",
"parent_id": "8182544",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182553",
"author": "Courtney Kimball",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:58:57",
"content": "So,Actual sailor here. I’ve got 25,000 miles of pacific ocean experience that was all packed into 3 years, with half that in the tropics.You are wrong. The ports will be fine. Most of the connectors you speak of are gold plated anyways and will see basically 1-5 connection cycles. They will not corroded.You don’t store this stuff on deck where it can get wet, you store it inside next to the rest of the nav equipment.We always had spares, because there were many times where land was 500-1500 miles away (sailboat). We had two laptops, one desktop.What actually fails are the silver colored metal traces around ic’s or anywhere else you might see an exposed silver trace. Anything near forced airflow will get damaged much more quickly.So while they may fail, it’s not going to fail quickly. They will last years",
"parent_id": "8182527",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182636",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T12:37:07",
"content": "If those caps for the connector are waterproof (or even just splash proof) those connectors won’t get exposed to the air/water mix in normal use, as they are covered. And go one better you just drill a hole in them and use a rubber grommet or print/over mould one with a print onto your cable so they are similarly very well protected while populated. With the added bonus it will hold the non latching connectors in place so they can’t fall out too…I’d expect them to have pretty good lifespan.",
"parent_id": "8182498",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182908",
"author": "GEO",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:16:54",
"content": "You can get HDMI and USB overmolded connnectors that will screw into the connectors on the box to provide a water proof seal around the actual connection. But like others have said. This equipment would be mounted in the protected cabin anyway, so it’s mostly a non-issue.",
"parent_id": "8182498",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182507",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:10:05",
"content": "$360 + shipping is too expensive for my taste but if it really solves the problem then I’m sure it’s worth it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182526",
"author": "Scooter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T01:15:45",
"content": "When you compare that to the cost of standard nav units, it’s economical. This would easily cost $250 to build. The price seems very fair to me.",
"parent_id": "8182507",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182650",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T13:47:24",
"content": "I usually put a coat of dielectric grease on connections that are exposed to the elements if they’re not going to be unplugged often. Sure it can be messy, but it’s easier to wipe off than replace a rusty connctor.",
"parent_id": "8182526",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182675",
"author": "Joe Merchant",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:11:38",
"content": "The article doesn’t mention it but I would assume that the connectors are all marine (salt air) rated, which also drives the price up.I have been using a Pi Zero on my sailboat for some time and rusting USB connectors have been a problem.",
"parent_id": "8182526",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182859",
"author": "Luis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:44:53",
"content": "You can solve the issue with some coat of dielectric grease.",
"parent_id": "8182675",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182688",
"author": "chris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:00:36",
"content": "This is perfect. It compares almost identically to everything I needed for a signal k server build for my racing sailboat. Plus more! I don’t think I could have put it together cheaper frankly. All those nice external connectors that are sealed off, fuses super capacitor. It’s exactly what I need. This is truly a shut up and take my money moment for me.",
"parent_id": "8182526",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182858",
"author": "Luis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T08:41:55",
"content": "I got one and believe me it’s not that expensive compare to others.",
"parent_id": "8182507",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182521",
"author": "Barefoot mechanic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:45:15",
"content": "Aluminum is the bad choice for salt water use, plastic is a far better option.Since you are in salt water you can use a heat exchange like what is used in IO And inboard vessel made for this purpose.My last 2 cents have been spent!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182701",
"author": "Yanni Nikopoulos",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:25:05",
"content": "Alodyne treated aluminum is highly salt resistant",
"parent_id": "8182521",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182705",
"author": "Winters",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:32:36",
"content": "5083 aluminum alloy would actually be my choice for this.",
"parent_id": "8182521",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182530",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T02:26:37",
"content": "It’s true that “Water corrodes — Salt water corrodes absolutely.” (Steven K. Roberts)But the negative comments here seem overwrought. The designers look like they thought carefully about water ingress and corrosion.For the belts-and-suspenders crowd for whom powder coating isn’t enough, there are a variety of nifty corrosion inhibitor products, e.g.https://www.hammfg.com/electrical/products/accessories/hvpciHoffman is another supplier. Boeshield T-9 is a popular one too, but in my experience it is expensive (maybe because of its pedigree) and not effective.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182576",
"author": "Another Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T06:31:46",
"content": "Iridite NCP or Surtec 650 makes a reasonable job of corrosion inhibition, not perfect but used on MIL.",
"parent_id": "8182530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182690",
"author": "chris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:06:12",
"content": "I agree, I have aluminum stuff all over the boat. yes it’s not going to last as long as the stainless but honestly by the time it’s a problem It’s probably 10 years and there’s going to be time for an overhaul of everything anyways. Plastic has its own problems, it just gets brittle over time unless you’re really careful about sourcing really nice UV stable plastic maybe even with a little bit of fiber. Boats move around… Some more than others… Durability from mechanical forces is important.",
"parent_id": "8182530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182629",
"author": "EB4FBZ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T11:30:58",
"content": "Galvanic corrosion will quickly mess up the aluminum enclosure around the bulkhead connectors made of brass.SMA connectors are not a good choice either.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182735",
"author": "Mr Nobody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T18:11:58",
"content": "+1 ….. yep, the SMA connectors will get corroded very quickly. They’re not water tight either :(",
"parent_id": "8182629",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182633",
"author": "Log",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T12:04:00",
"content": "supercapacitor bank for power outages to shutdown system safety??lmao its a pi… it doesn’t care about unsafe shutdowns…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182820",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T02:41:38",
"content": "Yeah they do, to the extent that I stopped using them in enviroments where the power could go out. I got tired of constantly reflashing linux to the sd as the power outage would corrupt them",
"parent_id": "8182633",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182904",
"author": "Anonymous Poster",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T11:41:34",
"content": "Depending on what you are doing with the pi, some pi “appliance” images will put the SD card in read-only mode.I’ve had multiple SD cards corrupted from improper shutdowns. Those situations all had write mode enabled.",
"parent_id": "8182820",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182936",
"author": "mordae",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T13:42:57",
"content": "This one sports NVMe… They have write ordering and other niceties SD cards lack.",
"parent_id": "8182820",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182706",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:32:58",
"content": "This reminds me of “BoatControl”. That one also has a Raspi on a very big PCB and it controlls 32 latched relays and has 32 fuses. It’s in the “Made with KiCad” section on KiCad’s websitehttps://www.kicad.org/made-with-kicad/and has a link to github with the full project.It does not have an enclosure on it’s own, so you’ll have to take care of that yourself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182713",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:50:26",
"content": "Interestingly there are commercial enclosures for wet areas that use a clamshell full of gel. While not the same as being able to hot plug it would be vastly simpler for a hobbyist, not to mention cheaper to use anregular Raspberry Pi instead of a module and carrier board (of course you could always run the wet-rated extensions through the gel for any that need unplugged frequently).This project is in a funny area where it is 10x less than commercial solutions, but still 2-5x more expensive than hobby solutions.I’m looking around for something like this, but it could possibly work if the Pi fits inside:https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Splice-Splice-Cover-Main-Range/dp/B00CUNN17ECool project for those with need of it (yacht racing teams? Long distance sailboats?). In the world of boats I am sure this is cheap.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182825",
"author": "Brad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T03:17:30",
"content": "IP65 is water resistant. Use IP68 case and glands for waterproof. Aside from that, nice tool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,421.944734
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/venus-climate-orbiter-akatsukis-mission-has-ended/
|
Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki’s Mission Has Ended
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Space"
] |
[
"JAXA",
"venus"
] |
Japan’s Venus Climate Orbiter
Akatsuki
was launched on May 21, 2010, and started its active mission in 2015 after an initial orbital insertion failure. Since that time,
Akatsuki
has continuously observed Venus from orbit until issues began to crop up in 2024 when contact was lost in April of that year due to attitude control issues. Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has
now announced
that the mission has officially ended on September 18, 2025, after a period of trying to coax the spacecraft back into some level of functionality again.
The Akatsuki spacecraft in 2010 before its launch. (Credit:
JAXA
)
The
Akatsuki
spacecraft had six instruments, consisting of cameras covering the visible spectrum, ultraviolet and infrared spectra, as well as an oscillator for radio occultation experiments.
All primary mission goals were successfully completed in April of 2018, but engineers determined
Akatsuki
was capable of lasting at least another few years. This puts it well past its original design lifespan, and has provided us with much more scientific data than we could have hoped for.
Unfortunately, the shutdown of
Akatsuki
represents the end of the last active Venus mission, with much uncertainty surrounding any
potential upcoming mission
to Earth’s near-twin planet. The next potential mission is the
Venus Life Finder
, as an atmospheric mission penciled in for a 2026 launch. It would take at least until 2028 for a potential orbiter mission to launch, so for the foreseeable future Venus will be left alone, without its artificial moon that has kept it company for a decade.
| 5
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182515",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:21:47",
"content": "10 years of data from Venus is still amazing. I’m sure plenty was learned about the planet and how to make the next orbiter more robust. Maybe next time they’ll use rope memory. :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182682",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:34:17",
"content": "Mission accomplished! Data collected. What more can you ask.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182685",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:54:03",
"content": "Venus is such an enigmatic place. At some height above the surface is a band of gas that is a reasonable temperature. On Earth bacteria is found in the atmosphere higher than you would assume. Venus has a small sliver of habitability in that regard, a better chance for life than say Titan.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182994",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T17:44:01",
"content": "It’s almost too convenient.. At about fifty kilometers up, pressure and temperature are about the same as Earth, and also our breathable air is a lifting gas. And of course with no pressure differential, a leak is very slow and manageable. All you’d need to go outside is an oxygen bottle. It’s like Venus is daring us to come over and build cloud cities.",
"parent_id": "8182685",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182997",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T17:45:47",
"content": "I wonder they solved the mystery of whether Venus actually has lightning or if the lightning-like radio signals from deep under the clouds are some other phenomenon. Venus is the only planet where supposedly there is lightning without a significant planetary magnetic field, but it’s not definitively proven.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.04732
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/regretfully-3000-worth-of-raspberry-pis/
|
Regretfully: $3,000 Worth Of Raspberry Pi Boards
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Raspberry Pi"
] |
[
"hpc",
"Pi",
"Pi Cluster"
] |
We feel for [Jeff Geerling]. He spent a lot of effort building an
AI cluster out of Raspberry PI boards
and $3,000 later, he’s a bit regretful. As you can see in the video below, it is a neat build. As Jeff points out, it is relatively low power and dense. But dollar for dollar, it isn’t much of a supercomputer.
Of course, the most obvious thing is that there’s plenty of CPU, but no GPU. We can sympathize, too, with the fact that he had to strip it down twice and rebuild it for a total of three rebuilds. One time, he decided to homogenize the SSDs for each board. The second time was to affix the heatsinks. It is always something.
With ten “blades” — otherwise known as compute modules — the plucky little computer turned in about 325 gigaflops on tests. That sounds pretty good, but a Framework Desktop x4 manages 1,180 gigaflops. What’s more is that the Framework turned out cheaper per gigaflop, too. Each dollar bought about 110 megaflops for the Pis, but about 140 for the Framework.
So was it good for AI anyway? Predictably, no. While the Pi 5 does have an integrated GPU, llama can’t use the version of Vulkan for speedups. Even a cheap consumer PC can turn in better performance. The Framework without its GPU did about six or seven times better. With the GPU? Around 14X compared to the Pi cluster.
Should you build it? [Jeff] says no, unless you have a very special use case for it. However, we build plenty of things that aren’t super practical. If you have a use for the beast, let us know in the comments.
Even if your cluster isn’t as powerful as this one, you can still
pretend it is a Cray
. We wonder if
ten Pi 5s can beat 1,060 Pi 3s
?
| 53
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182383",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:25:25",
"content": "most home computer users dont have a need for vector compute beyond perhaps rendering. besides if you did need light parallel compute you would find your gpu has you covered. been programming for years and never had a problem that i could just throw all the cores at. if you find you need a lot, its probibly cheaper just to rent time on a real supercomputer than cobble something together out of pis or gpus or whatnot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182534",
"author": "David S.",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T02:40:01",
"content": "Never found a case? I’ve certainly found it useful several times. xz will use all cores when compressing. Optimization problems and analyzing games are slightly esoteric, but I’ve written code for those several times. Image processing also can be done massively parallel, things like old school ray tracing or fractals.Also compilation can often be done in parallel, compiling many files at once.I think Jeff Geerling found that Pis weren’t cost effective. Renting cloud space can be cost-effective, but buying the right equipment means you can always call upon it, sometimes without noticing it, and it’s a sunk cost, not something you have to worry about or set up. No data leaves your system, and there’s zero chance of a huge unexpected cloud bill.",
"parent_id": "8182383",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182692",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:08:23",
"content": "im talking more parallel capabilities beyond consumer accessible hardware.",
"parent_id": "8182534",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182583",
"author": "El Gru",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:10:25",
"content": "Haven’t watched THIS video, but Jeff’s videos are often named with a little tongue in cheek. His variant of being over the top to feed the algorithm.I would guess he knew EXACTLY that RPis are not good at AI – cluster or not.",
"parent_id": "8182383",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182646",
"author": "rasz_pl",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T13:05:39",
"content": "This.YT creators job is making content (bleh). The only reason for building “$3K pee cluster” was clickbait, and it worked.",
"parent_id": "8182583",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182407",
"author": "Zachary Gorman",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:11:13",
"content": "Forget AI. For $3,000 I would turn this into a DIY planetary ground station mesh. Strap SDR dongles on the nodes, scatter antennas, and suddenly your Pi cluster is listening to weather sats, ham traffic, ADSB, even deep space signals. Not a failed AI box, a personal window into the universe",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182437",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:35:36",
"content": "What an imaginative, positive and lovely thought. Thanks Zachary.",
"parent_id": "8182407",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182441",
"author": "CM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:41:01",
"content": "I was thinking about a dedicated area repeater traffic recorder, but I suspect that spinning rust would be better suited for the task than SSDs. Your idea definitely expounds on it with other with other cool ideas.",
"parent_id": "8182407",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182451",
"author": "Zachary Gorman",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:08:33",
"content": "Appreciate that. Picture this cluster pulling in faint whispers from weather sats and old probes while also scanning today’s traffic. It would be part cosmic archive, part live stream. For $3000 you did not buy hardware, you bought a personal backstage pass to the universe.",
"parent_id": "8182441",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182608",
"author": "abb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T09:15:59",
"content": "Can you synchronise cheap SDR dongles?If not, you might not get much gain from having multiple antennas. But if you can sample synchronously, you can do some really cool things.",
"parent_id": "8182451",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182712",
"author": "CodeToad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:50:11",
"content": "Yes you can. You need to things. First, give each SDR a common clock. Add some RF switches so each SDR can either connect to its antenna or a common noise source. After powering the SDRs on, you switch to receive the noise source and use the cross correlation of the signals to determine what delays need to be applied to the signal from each SDR to make them coherent.I spent some fun in grad school laying out this sort of system for some RTL-SDRs before I found a cache of Ettus Research SDRs that where better suited for the task. Now days, you can just buy a KrakenSDR off the shelf!",
"parent_id": "8182608",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182541",
"author": "fuzzyfuzzyfungus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:12:08",
"content": "Aside from being less bleak, RF is also a place where having this many distinct nodes is potentially rewarded architecturally. Unless you’ve got a particularly cooperative signal or just loads of top shelf coax on hand you will probably have a better time if the receiver can be right next to the antenna and then whatever-IP back to you; rather than RF cabling all the way from the antenna to a receiver right next to you; for which purpose little compute modules with enough punch to do some SDR can be quite helpful.",
"parent_id": "8182407",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182614",
"author": "g",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T09:37:17",
"content": "indeed that seems a better application of rPIs… for 3k i’d rather buy a card suitable for ai…still could write an article about it….",
"parent_id": "8182407",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182748",
"author": "observant8e6788e118",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:17:52",
"content": "For $600 you can pick up a 4070 Super with 365 AI TERA ops.I don’t know what this person was expecting without a GPU",
"parent_id": "8182407",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182459",
"author": "Jose",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:40:10",
"content": "I guy in our local linux group put together a pi cluster to help solve GM’s east coast parts ordering division. There was horrible lag in the order system, their it staff kept throwing more hardware at the issue without actually looking into the problem. first issue was you would enter a part query and it would return 50mb of data. the majority wasnt needed. He cleaned that up and got better responce.. but added the pi cluster as the gpu’s could process more requests of the part numbers and get the right info to those making the request.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182466",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:30:15",
"content": "“IT staff kept throwing more hardware at the issue…”Ah, a common solution that is self-serving.– More hardware, more staff;– More staff, bigger budget.",
"parent_id": "8182459",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182514",
"author": "fonz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:21:38",
"content": "in reality just stick a few more boxes in the server rack you are already maintaining and it will have paid itself in no time, hardware is cheap",
"parent_id": "8182466",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182601",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T08:25:37",
"content": "“IT staff kept throwing more hardware at the issue…”And yet we are still running DOS software at work. No Joke!!",
"parent_id": "8182466",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182475",
"author": "D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T22:11:11",
"content": "I’m a confused how Raspberry Pi was the correct solution to a business-critical web server at one of the largest companies on the planet.At a company that size, one person should be responsible for writing the software and people with a totally different job title should be managing the hardware (in the form of a private cloud). Otherwise you get situations like this where a software engineer at the 19th largest company in America decides to run a critical system on some less-than-consumer-grade hardware hidden in a closet where it will sit (without security patches) until the default Raspberry Pi OS logging settings wear out the SSD a year or two later.",
"parent_id": "8182459",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182497",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:22:16",
"content": "I’m confused by this. Even the latest Pi’s have pretty limited GPU’s.IT at GM should have more than enough bare metal and VM licenses to be able to spin up 1000 rPi’s in about 10 minutes.I’m not up on the latest for Pi clusters — it’s been a few years, , but it used to require lots of manual copy and config – once you got an image working, you still had a relatively slow flash, even with SSD, then take the Pi out of the cluster, change name, address, etc., test, then add back to the cluster, test some more. Not exactly Chef or whatever.Maybe this was some garage or warehouse someone built a hobby solution for?",
"parent_id": "8182459",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182669",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:51:09",
"content": "This story sounds wrong. Even a thin client from 5 generations ago (Like Dell Micro, Lenov Tiny, HP Mini) has much more compute than a Pi Cluster. Why they wouldn’t use a desktop already in the recycle pile, or more realistically a server they already had powered on, makes this story sound fake.If there was more details, like they used a Pi to test the implementation before moving it to the server, or maybe the Pi was used for the parts department ordering screens it would make a little more sense.",
"parent_id": "8182459",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182686",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:57:20",
"content": "At first read, this sounds like BS.Then I recall that EDS (now HP Enterprise) was GM’s IT solutions vendor of choice for decades.ANYTHING is possible, except a competently implemented solution.If you ever wonder where Tata and Infosys got the business model of ‘Never deliver anything good or hire anyone technically competent’ it was EDS who did it first.They were/are good at selling services to fortune 500s and government agencies.Once the BJs are over, just a bottomless money pit of incompetent recent CS 2.0 students who don’t actually know how to code or admin a network.Foreigners don’t laugh, I also ran into EDS at ETSA.The south Australian power company.At the timeallETSA servers were in Victoria, ETSA’s offices were running on one ISDN class line.They were ready to setup a shadow network in the office, cat5 on walls.But scared of rules cops, got paid to sit ass/drink tea waiting for network instead.Apparently the fear was justified, building full of rats, only one floor of engineers.Apparently some twit had contracted EDS to do all SA state IT.Which included the power company.Bet the BJ was great.",
"parent_id": "8182459",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182824",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T03:13:46",
"content": "Last I heard Boeing, GM, GE, etc etc where heavily “investing” into SAP and Six Sigma Black Belts to address this exact need, company-wide inventory of parts that can be shared among its many divisions.I am guessing, quarter century later, and billions spent on managers’ salaries didn’t not produce the results wanted and a group of non-SAP-trained contractors could accomplish the same without the hefty budgets.First time I’ve heard “SAP will fix ALL the warehousing issues” was mid-1990s. Entire departments were corporate-restructured into “SAP EVERYTHING” and those who didn’t were let go. Late 1990s, early 2000s if I’d mention “SAP” the response would be “managers’ toy”.Rewind to present and find AI in place of SAP. Oh, well, the more things change, the more they stay the same.",
"parent_id": "8182459",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182494",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:13:10",
"content": "I’m from Belarus but all my family moved to US 4 years ago and I still find it disgusting how people there are allowed to waste money on things and projects that benefit no one and just waste available resources. In my country if someone tried to buy 10 R-Pis for a joke video they’d probably get asked some serious questions by tax authorities and militsya. For reference, when I found work after finishing school, I saved money for 2 years to buy my first e-bike. Here people buy them like it’s nothing. Why?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182501",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:33:12",
"content": "Because despite significant stressors, the US is still basically a democracy, unlike Belarus, which is basically a military dictatorship.Because while the US has many problems and inequities, it is still ranked by independent NGOs in the top quartile in the world for human rights, whereas Belarus is ranked in the bottom quartile.Because US culture, right or wrong, values individual hegemony and autonomy, especially with respect to personal financial behaviors, as one of its most important values and Belarus does not.I could go on but you are comparing a small former bloc country which did not embrace either democracy or capitalism with a relatively large country that did.It’s like asking why education or health care or gun control is so poor in the US relative to Japan or Germany or Sweden or Denmark.Answer – it just is. If it was like those countries it would be a very very different US.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182511",
"author": "tecknight",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:14:26",
"content": "Agreed 100 per cent !!",
"parent_id": "8182501",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182516",
"author": "Zygo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:27:38",
"content": "Do you also got mad when a studio buys a car to crash it in a movie?This is no where near as bad, Jeff made his video and now the pis will be retooled for other projects. They’re not going into the dumpster.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182540",
"author": "David s.",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:05:04",
"content": "Because capitalism works. Jeff had 3000 dollars, and made a choice about how to spend that. Letting individuals control their own wealth and make their own choices has been economically successful. Besides the deeper economics, paying people to worry about what every middle class individual is buying costs a lot, and it discourages people from buying things, which drives the economy.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182560",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T04:10:09",
"content": "Glad I live here in USA. If I want to spend $3000 or more on electronics ‘for fun’…. That’s my business. Called freedom. Freedom to spend your disposable income any way you please. Looking around my home office I have 8 RPIs running ‘fun’ projects. A couple more Pico 2s running, and current working with a Adafruit Fruit Jam board…. Not counting desktops, servers, printers, networking hardware and such scattered around….",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182561",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T04:13:32",
"content": "That said, Jeff can turn around and reuse the cluster for other uses than silly AI projects. It’s a hobby. Good stuff.",
"parent_id": "8182560",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182569",
"author": "NaH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T05:02:41",
"content": "In your country the tax authority questions 10 R-pis because only oligarchs, drug dealers, and terrorists have that kind of money to spare.The average monthly salary in Belarus as of May 2025 was approximately 2,718 BYN (Belarusian Rubles), which is around $925 USDThe U.S. average monthly salary is about $5,200.You need to save for 2 years to buy an ebike.We just need to skip McDs and Starbucks for a couple of weeks.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182603",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T08:34:22",
"content": "“The U.S. average monthly salary is about $5,200.”In my area of the USA it’s more like $1,700If you make $10 hr you are doing well.When I started as a 911 dispatcher 26 years ago I made $7.85hr…Ihad to work 2 jobs just to keep a roof over our heads.Not that much better today. The agency I started at is still only ~$12.00hr !!!(Today)",
"parent_id": "8182569",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182689",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:01:35",
"content": "Move or stop bitching.Your choice.",
"parent_id": "8182603",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182736",
"author": "Jeremy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T18:22:38",
"content": "Spoken like a true neoliberal capitalist.The two holy tenets of neoliberalism:1) Because markets !2) Go die !",
"parent_id": "8182689",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182757",
"author": "Jeremy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:48:41",
"content": "Username checks out. LOL ! Apparently the neoliberal capitalist world is so delicate that any criticism of it must be shouted down. Not exactly a defensible position…",
"parent_id": "8182689",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182702",
"author": "NaH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:27:50",
"content": "WHERE????Mississippi consistently ranks as the state with the lowest average monthly salary, with average annual salaries in 2024 around $47,570, which translates to approximately $3,964 per month.Rallys burgers in New Orleans is paying $15/hr 27 hours a week is more than you claim is average in your area.Walmart pays $19/hr to people who shop orders for delivery. 21 hours a week would exceed your claimed average.So seriously, WHERE????",
"parent_id": "8182603",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182588",
"author": "PPJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:22:31",
"content": "“How people there are allowed to waste money on things and projects that benefit no one and just waste available resources.”Apart from politics and economy you make a 2 significant mistakes assuming there is no benefit and only waste.Benefit here is knowledge and skills gained during making and running the project. For his 3000$ we have now learned it’s not worth it in most practical applications.And since his resources are not unlimited he will probably reuse all the parts – there are comments here that already give ideas how (bonus: social points). Not much waste.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182668",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:46:19",
"content": "Ironically he gets the money from people watching the video. You watched the video, so you helped him make projects. I did not watch the video. So it is an odd situation. I personally feel that a better result would be obtained with a single CPU machine, and he does indeed have a 128-Core ARM desktop. I don’t know if he compared the two.I assume he wanted to learn about building supercomputing clusters, the problems and inefficiencies of multiple systems working on a singular task. This platform has plenty of both.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182750",
"author": "observant8e6788e118",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:23:29",
"content": "Belarus GDP per Capita $8,316US GDP per Capita $85,809That’s why.",
"parent_id": "8182494",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182753",
"author": "NaH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:44:20",
"content": "Beyond that…..Belarus GDP $75.96 billionNearly 500XUS GDP $30.35 TRILLIONThe CITY of Minneapolis, Minnesota has a GDP of $297 Billion almost 4X that of the NATION of Belarus, and its only our 15th wealthiest city by GDP.There are only 5 STATES in the US with lower GDP than Belarus.",
"parent_id": "8182750",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182755",
"author": "NaH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:46:05",
"content": "edit:Belarus GDP $75.96 billionAt nearly 500X thatthe US GDP is $30.35 TRILLION",
"parent_id": "8182753",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182756",
"author": "NaH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:47:48",
"content": "GRR Edit of Edit:I meant to sayBelarus GDP $75.96 billionAt nearly 400X thatthe US GDP is $30.35 TRILLIONSeriously HAD get an edit button",
"parent_id": "8182755",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182537",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T02:52:48",
"content": "I feel like I regret most Jeff Geerling Pi videos.Outside of the ones that gave him recompile the kernel and upstreaming patches.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183521",
"author": "nope",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T03:22:07",
"content": "That’s quite harsh. He’s pretty entertaining.",
"parent_id": "8182537",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182618",
"author": "Jonathan A Duncan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T10:16:46",
"content": "Should I be surprised? The Raspberry Pi by itself isn’t very powerful, a whole bunch of them? Still not very powerful.Are they super tiny and save a lot of space? Yup!I have no idea how those different AI software platforms operate, but I’m curious if the ones built for ARM processors will work on those tiny Nvidia SBCs that come with their own GPUs? The guy spent $3k on that project, probably could have bought a couple of Nvidia Jetsons with that budget, depending on the model that is, the higher end ones are pricey af…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182674",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:00:17",
"content": "You can build a desktop of standard parts for half the price and include several options for AI. Either AMD iGPU with 64GB of GPU VRAM allocation, or a 16GB or better nVidia GPU, probably both.Also the PS5 CPU blade servers exist, with 16GB shared RAM, (6-cores on the CPU and 20 of the 24 GPU slices are active compared to a PS5) I assume you can do AI on them. The price fluctuates between $50-100 for a single blade, but you could probably get 2 of the (12-blade?) boxes with cooling fans and power supplies for less than $3k.I did not watch the video because the very idea was dumb, but I am assuming he bought the marked up 8GB models. Not sure if he could have bought the 1GB/2GB model and reflowed the RAM chips for significant savings. Some models are easier than others to do that.",
"parent_id": "8182618",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182960",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T15:57:33",
"content": "I don’t know of any ‘AI’ that isn’t a RAM hog above all else – the architecture is always going to fall far below that in importance. So this cluster of Pi was never going to be good at these ‘AI’, and Jeff doubtless knew that, but got the chance to run models a Pi couldn’t hope to run at all thanks to clustering them.These Pi clusters and racks can have practical uses, but that was never one of them – Tasks that can be broken up to many parallel jobs where the performance of the task is probably more limited by the bulk storage speed or network resources, or when you need uptime/scalability more than performance. And once you stop worrying about clustering them the reliability/security of dedicated separate hardware trumps any faux isolation provided by virtualisation and creates a system tolerant of multiple node failures. You can’t build a more compact and performant group of isolated computers than a CM5 in one of those blade concepts right now as far as I’m aware. You can have more performant nodes obviously, but packing 20 of them into a single 1U rack slot not a chance.",
"parent_id": "8182618",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182627",
"author": "Daniel Scott Matthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T11:26:07",
"content": "You can get a far more powerful machine that will happily run a reasoning LLM such as Qwen3-ST-The-Next-Generation-II-E32-v1-256k-ctx-6B.i1-Q4_K_M.gguf via llama.cpp for half of what he spent.AMD AM5 Ryzen 7 8700G AI 8 Core CPUGigabyte AM5 MicroATX B650M Gaming WIFI DDR5 Motherboard256GB DDR5 (4x64GB)2TB Kingston NV3 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDThat is it, not even a dedicated GPU card.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182684",
"author": "Larry Bank",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:38:55",
"content": "Mac mini M4 is about 10x faster than the RPi5, so that could have been a more economical option.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182752",
"author": "Ton",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:43:52",
"content": "So bored of Jeff Geerling’s bad takes on Rpis. Underpowered? What did he want? A mining computer. Loads of good use cases for that system, but $3k would have been better spent elsewhere anyway. Luckily he has hundreds of free Rpis to waste on projects.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182762",
"author": "geoff campbell",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T20:31:48",
"content": "These have value for the learning experience 🤠",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182906",
"author": "rasz_pl",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T11:55:58",
"content": "pi clusters are great for learning how to make pi clusters and not much else. Its fun to build sure, but everything you could do with one can be done better faster cheaper with random laptop and a bunch of VMs.",
"parent_id": "8182762",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183334",
"author": "teh stig",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T17:47:45",
"content": "I legit don’t understand the fascination with RPis. Yes, they have their use cases but some of this stuff is just… Pointless?I made my father a photo picture frame with one which allowed him to easily put photos from his phone on the picture frame as a non-technical person. Also added a Pi to my Ender 3 pro printer to get it connected to the network, which was another good use case…. but people running virtual machines, servers, services, home assistant, et al off these things is just dumb. For what a Pi5 costs, I bought a 65-watt HP 800 mini G4 with an i7 processor, 32gb of ram, 1tb nvme.. a machine that is orders of magnitude more powerful than a Pi5.",
"parent_id": "8182906",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,422.134434
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/computer-has-one-instruction-many-transistors/
|
Computer Has One Instruction, Many Transistors
|
Bryan Cockfield
|
[
"computer hacks"
] |
[
"architecture",
"assembler",
"computer",
"instruction set",
"isa",
"lcd",
"subleq"
] |
There’s always some debate around what style of architecture is best for certain computing applications, with some on the RISC side citing performance per watt and some on the CISC side citing performance per line of code. But when looking at instruction sets it’s actually possible to eliminate every instruction except one and still have a working, Turing-complete computer. This instruction is called
subleq
or “
subtract and branch if less-than or equal to zero
“.
[Michael] has built a computer that does this out of discrete components from scratch
.
We’ll save a lot of the details of the computer science for [Michael]
or others
to explain, but at its core this is a computer running with a 1 kHz clock with around 700 transistors total. Since the goal of a single-instruction computer like this is simplicity, the tradeoff is that many more instructions need to be executed for equivalent operations. For this computer it takes six clock cycles to execute one instruction, for a total of about 170 instructions per second. [Michael] also created an assembler for this computer, so with an LCD screen connected and mapped to memory he can write and execute a simple “hello world” program just like any other computer.
[Michael] does note that since he was building this from Logisim directly he doesn’t have a circuit schematic, but due to some intermittent wiring issues might have something in the future if he decides to make PCBs for this instead of using wire on a cardboard substrate. There’s plenty of other information on
his GitHub page
though. It’s a unique project that gets to the core of what’s truly needed for a working computer.
There are a few programming languages out there that are built on a similar idea
.
| 22
| 9
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182336",
"author": "AndreN",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:39:26",
"content": "Anyone crazy enough to want to try writing code for a single instruction computer can go try the free Steam game called SIC-1. (Disclaimer: I’m in no way affiliated with the game, just tried to play it a while back.) Doing the simplest of things using only subleq rapidly becomes painful. Just adding two numbers involves subtracting from zero twice. Any kind of useful loop (for/while) involves self-modifying code.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182353",
"author": "ziggurat29",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:22:01",
"content": "I suppose a compiler can help with the drudgery.",
"parent_id": "8182336",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182379",
"author": "TomB",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:17:36",
"content": "A macro assembler helps a lot, and is much simpler than a full blown compiler. Once you’ve contained all the ridiculous self modifying stack pointers and whatnot, you can write fairly normal and comprehensible assembly.",
"parent_id": "8182353",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182816",
"author": "Yaroslav Sterkhov",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T02:03:12",
"content": "One could start with Shenzhen IO, same devs as SIC and a funnier game. SIC is way more complex. Also there was android version of SIC, iirc",
"parent_id": "8182336",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182355",
"author": "ziggurat29",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:23:08",
"content": "I wonder if an single-instruction execution unit could be realized as an enzyme acting on a program that is a polypeptide sequence…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182360",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:37:02",
"content": "Since I don’t know much CS having used Fortran a tiny amount ages ago I can see this “computer” running on an array of disc valve and diaphragm “transistors” like a player piano of which I have rebuilt many. It would be desk or bed sized and a little suction of ambient air would power it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182398",
"author": "Tito Ferreira Figueiredo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:55:20",
"content": "Nice job, is there a way of importing the logisim file into kicad, I want to make a 74xxx logic version of this…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182456",
"author": "Gösta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:19:41",
"content": "I love this, so inspiring simple yet complex :-)",
"parent_id": "8182398",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182447",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:48:10",
"content": "Next-level challenge: now build a 1-bit subleq computer. :DAnd then build it with electron tubes!But I’d guess that you would need a serious amount of ram with a 1-bit subleq cpu, because the number of instructions you would need for even the simplest little program would already run in the hundreds.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182448",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:52:22",
"content": "Just for fun I asked ChatGPT if it could estimate the length of a program for a 1-bit subleq computer, that calculates 20-10 and stores the result in memory. ChatGPT estimated about 100 instructions for readable code (using no tricks). It also told me that it could probably get it down to 70-80 instructions using a few tricks.",
"parent_id": "8182447",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182718",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:13:12",
"content": "decades ago, i read that the new hotness in power efficiency was a subleq cpu. If you want to challenge yourself make a one instruction trinary computer, because a trit is even more power efficient. it’s right at the cutting edge of coding, and if you’re going to make a useless albatross, that you don’t know how to code then why not aim high.",
"parent_id": "8182448",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182885",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:16:01",
"content": "Well, I would know how to code it. But I would not have the patience. At all. :PThe main idea is to minimize the number of transistors and diodes. An MC14500 1-bit cpu has about 500 transistors. But it has 4-bit instructions. And if it would only have 1 instruction, that would mean fewer transistors.The tradeoff is memory. And memory is a bunch of transistors as well.A subleq computer can’t run from rom, because it needs to be able to modify its own code, if you want to do useful things like looping. You could preload ram from rom, at start of your program.Self-modifying code presents another problem: after running, the code is different than before running. So if you want to run again, you’ll need to load the whole program into memory again.So if you want to use it as a controller, with one task that needs to be run repeatedly, you have to take into consideration that every time you want to repeat the task, there will be the delay of reloading memory fresh.Like you said, it’s a useless Albatros. Which is why I ChatGPT’d it instead of actually doing research to try to understand it. ;)",
"parent_id": "8182718",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182911",
"author": "TARIK M HOSHAN",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:30:06",
"content": "The Soviet Union had a working trinary computer but did not pursue it. It’s now back on the table as I read in a recent article.",
"parent_id": "8182718",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183923",
"author": "TedTX",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T00:50:41",
"content": "I developed a uniary logic simulator in 1994, in binary with k&r C. Runs fast. Not Turning complete but fully usable",
"parent_id": "8182911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182654",
"author": "Miroslav",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:08:41",
"content": "Wonderful work and persistence! I always wondered what is the minimum number of transistors needed for a viable computer. Now we know, about 700.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182724",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:41:13",
"content": "Iirc you can make a Turin complete single instruction CPUConditional jumps, that can flip a bit or jump base on the conditional",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182726",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:42:22",
"content": "Yea port doom using only conditional jump logic",
"parent_id": "8182724",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182729",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:43:41",
"content": "That’s about as Risc as you probably could get",
"parent_id": "8182726",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182741",
"author": "George",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T18:53:47",
"content": "What is that single instruction. It must be some sort of conditional instruction but it also has to alter memory in some fission.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183075",
"author": "CleverHandle",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T21:53:25",
"content": "[This instruction is called subleq or “subtract and branch if less-than or equal to zero“.] -above",
"parent_id": "8182741",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182742",
"author": "Antti Kangasvieri",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T18:54:31",
"content": "Would you not also need interrupt or similar mechanism to have computer that can react to events and exchange data with outside world?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182886",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:18:04",
"content": "It can read and write from/to memory. So it can read and write from/to registers. So it can write to output registers and poll from input registers. That is your I/O.",
"parent_id": "8182742",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,422.000372
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/simplest-oscilloscope-is-a-cunning-vector-display/
|
“Simplest” Oscilloscope Is A Cunning Vector Display
|
Tyler August
|
[
"clock hacks"
] |
[
"crt hacks",
"diy oscilloscope",
"oscilloscope clock"
] |
Superlatives are tricky things. [mircemk]’s guide “
How to make Simplest ever Oscilloscope Clock
” falls into that category. It’s that word, simplest. Certainly, this is an oscilloscope clock, and a nice one. But is it simple?
There’s a nice oscilloscope circuit with a cute 2″ 5LO38I CRT and EF80 tubes for horizontal and vertical deflection that we’d say is pretty simple. (It’s based on an earlier DIY oscilloscope project [mircemk] did.) The bill of materials is remarkably sparse– but it’s modules that do it. One entry is a DC-DC step up supply to get the needed HV. Another is a LM317 to get 6.3 V to heat the tubes. The modules make for a very simple BOM, but on another level, there’s quite a bit of complex engineering in those little modules.
When we get to the “clock” part of the oscilloscope clock, that quandary goes into overdrive. There’s only one line on the BOM, so that’s very simple. On the other hand, it’s an ESP32. Depending on your perspective, that’s not simple at all. It’s a microcomputer, or at least
something that can play at emulating one
.
Oh, in the ways that matter to a maker — parts count, time, and effort, this oscilloscope clock is very simple. The fact that its actually a vector display for a powerful little micro just adds to the versatility of the build. We absolutely love it, to be honest. Still, the idea that you can have millions of transistors in a simple project — never mind the “simplest ever” — well, it just seems weird on some level when you think about it.
It all comes back to what counts as “simple”. If we’re taking lines on a BOM, arguably this would be even simpler if you
used an existing oscilloscope.
| 18
| 8
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182279",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:19:00",
"content": "A 555 or even a single transistor is horribly complex in itself and a product of thousands of years of technological development.I think a project is simple when the work done for that particular project is simple, no matter how giant shoulders it stands on.This is just my simply posted comment.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182356",
"author": "AZdave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:23:22",
"content": "Agree. We have those cool complex things precisely for the purpose of making our projects simpler. I could argue that the processes that give us multilayer printed circuit boards are pretty damn complex but nobody adds a qualifier to simple projects that use them.",
"parent_id": "8182279",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182442",
"author": "wishu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:41:22",
"content": "It’s just Tyler, aka the approximate, inaccurate guy who is trying to possible text fester thanks the Aussie generator",
"parent_id": "8182279",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182481",
"author": "Sean OBoyle",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T22:44:31",
"content": "Thousands?",
"parent_id": "8182279",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182582",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:08:15",
"content": "Actually, single transistor is not that complicated. You can make one using crucible and manually adding P and N layers. Then such layered casting is allowed to cool and is cut into individual dies. That’s how Japanese started their electronics industry in 1950s.Sure they won’t be as uniform as a roll of 2N2222s downloaded from Digikey or TME, but it will work.",
"parent_id": "8182279",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182295",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T12:01:05",
"content": "nice project, but that schematic…. yikes!it took ke a full 5 minutes to convert it in my head to something i understand.may i suggest putting the input tubes to the left so the signal path is traversing from left to right on the schematic. then putting the +350v line on top would also help. now the tube. it has numbered pins, does it has corresponding signal input james as well? i think they are positioned from left to right as the electrons go from cathode to anode and beyond though the deflection plates, but that’s just a guess.a clear ground line is also handy. look at the capacitor with the ef80 tubes. the ground can go directly to the ground line, in stead of the cluttering way through the cathode resistor. ps. no decoupling there?just my 2 cents",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182309",
"author": "Felix Domestica",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T12:45:04",
"content": "“Simplest-ever o’scope clockbuild” is probably defensible…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182322",
"author": "Hugo Oran",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T13:53:59",
"content": "Simply nice. Love it. My garage hides similar CRT too, beside some magic eye tubes. I am on the quest to dig it out and make it alive with some HV stuff. Carpe diem, tempus fugit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182338",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:59:46",
"content": "“First I will focus on the signal generation part. It is extremely simple and uses only an ESP32 Microcontroller board without any external components”Oh, so it’s just Tyler we have to scold for this.“On the other hand, it’s an ESP32. Depending on your perspective, that’s not simple at all. It’s a microcomputer”Sigh.If you add a keyboard, external IO, including a display, maybe.. otherwise can we avoid confusing the microcontroller vs microcomputer categories? Thanks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182439",
"author": "Frenchgeek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:38:40",
"content": "https://www.instructables.com/ESP32-Basic-PC-With-VGA-Output/?",
"parent_id": "8182338",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182455",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:19:24",
"content": "Now the question is, how would you draw the clock facewithouta microprocessor?Making a circle is fairly simple. You make a sin-cos oscillator and the dot goes around in a circle. This is two op-amps, some capacitors and resistors. You can then scale the voltage up or down to get a bigger or a smaller circle.Then the hour lines: a short duty cycle square wave oscillator that beats 12 times for each revolution and switches a transistor. The transistor switches the scaling factor of the circle oscillator, resulting in radial lines or notches towards the center.The clock hands can be drawn in a similar fashion using more oscillators and comparators etc. The output signal of all of these oscillators is then switched in and out, so we draw the clock dial, then hands, then dial… etc. repeatedly.Not difficult in principle, but I wouldn’t want to tune all of that to run right.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182523",
"author": "reg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:47:03",
"content": "Have a look at the technology in the original Tektronix 7D01 Digital Readout Plug-In",
"parent_id": "8182455",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182532",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T02:37:04",
"content": "Here’s an interesting article from 1971 on using an oscilloscope as a multi-line character display terminal, using just TTL, a few op-amps and discrete parts. It pre-dates the TV Typewriter by a few years:https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ElectronicignV19N2319711111_83573468/page/n75/mode/2upI would love to see someone recreate this as it was, NOT using a microprocessor (or even a 555).",
"parent_id": "8182455",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182589",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:23:13",
"content": "The circular oscillator I described is a very basic version of the starburst character generator. As far as I can tell, they were shift registers or masked ROMs, and controlling them would require some sort of a microprocessor to dynamically address the patterns.",
"parent_id": "8182532",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182632",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T12:00:05",
"content": "The article says ‘any D type flip flop can be used for the shift register and timing control circuits’. No ROMs at all. Yes a processor is required to run the interrupt-driven driver; they likely had a small minicomputer given the university setting and timeframe. But it is not drawing the vectors directly but just turning the appropriate stroke segments on and off.",
"parent_id": "8182589",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183143",
"author": "MinorHavoc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T05:32:54",
"content": "I shouldn’t think you’d need more than a pretty simple state machine to address a ROM and issue the correct vectors in the correct sequence to draw a clock. No microprocessor needed.",
"parent_id": "8182589",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183037",
"author": "Michael Ardai",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T19:12:01",
"content": "http://cathodecorner.com/sc200theory.htmlused Lissajous to create the face and numbers (but it did have a processor).https://www.sgitheach.org.uk/scope4.htmlhas no processor (only TTL logic) but displays the time as a 7-segment display on the CRT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184303",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T19:33:47",
"content": "I’ve seen several variants of this available in kit form from a Chinese and Russian sellers. That is definitely not as cool as rolling your own and the build cited here is very nice. A kit would be a an easy way to get the display tube and socket. It looked like most of the ones I saw were using 1970s era Russian display tubes.The biggest downside is the electrostatic deflection tubes ususally didn’t have a large beam deflection angle and hence had a fairly long neck versus a given screen size.I’ve got an old Sony/Tektronix logic analyzer kicking around in my basement. If I recall, it had a 110 degree magnetic deflection tube with five inch screen for its raster display. It has a rather short neck. That might be able to be interestingly repurposed.I’ve also got an MB Vectrex video game console kicking around. That’s curiously a magnetic deflection CRT, but a vector display. It is about a 12 inch almost 2:1 aspect portrait mode CRT. Back in the late 1980s I bought a dozen Vectrexes to use as waveform displays in a biology lab. We simply bypassed the 6809 CPU board and jumperd around the beam blanking so that we could draw on the screen more slowly. They actually worked out very nicely and they were only 39 bucks each at Children’s Palace.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.189628
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/20/fnirsi-ips3608-a-bench-power-supply-with-serious-flaws/
|
Fnirsi IPS3608: A Bench Power Supply With Serious Flaws
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Reviews"
] |
[
"bench power supply",
"review",
"teardown"
] |
Fnirsi is one of those brands that seem to pop up more and more often, usually for portable oscilloscopes and kin. Their IPS3608 bench power supply is a bit of a departure from that, offering a mains-powered PSU that can deliver up to 36 VDC and 8 A in a fairly compact, metal enclosure.
Recently [Joftec] purchased one of these units
in order to review it and ended up finding a few worrying flaws in the process.
One of the claims made on
the product page
is that it is ‘much more intelligent than traditional power supplies’, which is quite something to start off with. The visual impression of this PSU is that it’s somewhat compromised already, with no earth point on the front next to the positive and negative banana plug points, along with a tilting screen that has trouble staying put. The USB-C and -A ports on the front support USB-PD 3.0 and a range of fast charge protocols
The ‘intelligence’ claim seems to come mostly from the rather extensive user interface, including a graphing function. Where things begin to fall apart is when the unit locks up during load testing presumably due to an overheating event. After hooking up an oscilloscope, the ripple at 1 VDC was determined to be about 200 mV peak-to-peak at 91 kHz. Ripple increased at higher voltages, belying the ’10 mV ultra-low ripple’ claim.
A quick teardown revealed the cause for the most egregious flaw of the unit struggling to maintain even 144 Watt output: a very undersized heatsink on the SMPS board. The retention issues with the tilting issue seemed to be due to a design choice that prevents the screen from rotating without breaking plastic. While this latter issue could be fixed, the buggy firmware and high ripple on the DC output make this €124 ‘285 Watt’ into a hard pass.
| 16
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182209",
"author": "Stephen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:07:02",
"content": "200mv = 0.2V. When supplying 1V. That is TWENTY PERCENT RIPPLE.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182219",
"author": "Johan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:41:48",
"content": "But-but-but…if you lie under your bench with a mirror to see the top of your bench, with your left arm behind your back, and your right foot behind your head, just look how good the display looks?Agreed…form over function.",
"parent_id": "8182209",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182225",
"author": "daid303",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:50:34",
"content": "FNIRSI generally greatly overstates their product capabilities. But the real question is, how does it compare to other products in the same price range? My guess is still pretty bad (20% ripple is no joke) and looks like you can get slightly lower specs for a comparable price from a good brand. But it’s good to compare with other products at the price range when you state “don’t buy this”For example, I have a 1013D scope from them, while their 100Mhz claim is just wrong, it’s only usable for things up to 10Mhz. It is perfect for what I need and better then anything else I could find at that price range. Yes, a Rigol is quite a bit better, but also at least double the price. And depending on what you do, the 1013D could be just good enough.This might be the case for this power supply as well, but I doubt it…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182884",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:14:37",
"content": "TBH for a lot of hobbyists this stuff coming from China is “good enough” and at 1/2 to 1/10th of the price – or compared to used gear, 1/2 to 1/5th of the bench-space.As long as you keep your eyes open and take all the marketing claims with a large dose of salt / 50% de-rating, there are useful tools to be had.Also – a lot of this stuff does have better features, better usability/interface, open serial ports or BT control etc. where the established players either lock stuff down or charge extra.",
"parent_id": "8182225",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182232",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T09:00:52",
"content": "I’ve so far managed to avoid the cheap garbag and Fnirsi has always given me that vibe.there are good reasons why name brand test gear costs more but is worth paying for even when buying second hand",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182248",
"author": "Suppressed Carrier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:00:21",
"content": "This is one example where you get just a little less than you pay for.I miss the days when Olson Electronics was around the corner, and a 35W4 was only $1.25.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182364",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:47:31",
"content": "And diodes were 10 cents but you still needed the tube diode for the heater string.",
"parent_id": "8182248",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182282",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:28:32",
"content": "I do like low cost tools, and accept lower performance from them in a lot of situations, but fnirsi is both lying though their teeth in the datasheets, and attempting to hide serious flaws in their hardware (For example by always turning averaging on in their scope to hide a faulty (overly simplistic?) front end design) that it is not worth buying.Positive reviews about fnirsi stuff are only maid by paid “reviewers” and beginners who are already happy that the thing sort of works at all. While many other reviewers are report having “difficulties” with the flaws in fnirsi stuff. The whole brand is a sour joke. Please don’t buy it. Save up a bit more money, and then buy something that probably looks a bit less flashy on your desk, but you’ll have something that actually works.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182314",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T13:05:25",
"content": "It’s not that hard to make a GOOD bench supply at a low cost. I just don’t understand why the choice seems to be between poorly designed ones at ridiculous prices (OK, tariffs), and good ones at astronomical prices.I suppose it’s the low volume…still, it’s annoying enough that when I wanted a 5A, 13.8V analog supply for my HF QRP rigs, I built my own.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182334",
"author": "mjrippe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:37:33",
"content": "Ripple at 90kHz really sounds like absolutely zero filtering. A simple R-C filter would wipe that out. Perhaps the unit tested was defective.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182345",
"author": "Kevin Fowke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T15:39:08",
"content": "Well if the ripple appears as common mode as it does on some isolating DC to DC modules getting rid of the ripple to compare with analog standard power supplies can prove challenging.",
"parent_id": "8182334",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182361",
"author": "George Graves",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:42:55",
"content": "I never would have watched this video. All the youtubers figured out to all “Watch This Before YOu Buy” to their titles to get more clicks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182482",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T22:46:18",
"content": "This says “don’t buy” though, with no qualifier.",
"parent_id": "8182361",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182528",
"author": "prosper",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T01:44:53",
"content": "I typically am ok with low cost Chinese tools, and a lot of them truly do punch above their weight class offering excellent value for dollar. But, every fnirsi product I’ve ever tried has been utter garbage. Scam products that only barely ‘work’ at all, with outright lies on the spec sheets and fire hazards in the product. Power supplies that overshoot by tens of volts for a couple hundred milliseconds on startup and on entering protection, for example. Made in China doesn’t automatically mean ‘crap’ to me, but ‘fnirsi’ does.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182807",
"author": "Przemek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:09:44",
"content": "I gotta say, I disagree with FNIRSI haters. I ran into FNIRSI when I bought their USB power monitor, because it is computer readable. It works ok, and allows me to monitor low power microcontroller projects.Since that, I bought few other specialty products: battery meter, spot welder, radiation monitor, moisture meter, and their new compact scope. They are reasonably made, and good value for the money.The battery meter is a workhorse, it shows the voltage under load and internal resistance, measured by four contacts method. I don’t know anything comparable for less than few thou.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182837",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T05:28:38",
"content": "Put a levelled sinewave generator on the FNIRSI scope inputs and wind the frequency up.You’ll probably find that as the scope reaches its real physical frequency limit, just as the amplitude on the display starts to drop, it will jump back up again as you continue to increase the input frequency.FNIRSI are playing dirty tricks in software to artificially increase the amplitude of the displayed sinewave to fake a higher bandwidth limit.This has been verified by decompiling the firmware on some scopes.I’ve verified this using my Tektronix SG5030 levelled sinewave generator on an FNIRSI 2C23T.Apparently this is only done with sinewaves, as they are what is most often used to determine the -3dB point.On the other hand, their HRM-10 Battery Voltage Internal Resistance Tester lined up pretty well with my HP 4338A Milliohm Meter, so there’s that.",
"parent_id": "8182807",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,422.253094
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/fire-extinguishers-optical-density-ratings-and-safely-using-home-lasers/
|
Fire Extinguishers, Optical Density Ratings And Safely Using Home Lasers
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Laser Hacks"
] |
[
"laser engraving",
"laser safety",
"PSA"
] |
Ski goggle type laser safety lenses may look dorky, but they leave no gaps and fit around glasses. (Credit:
FauxHammer
, YouTube)
After [Ross] from
FauxHammer
miniature model fame got lured into reviewing laser engravers and similar via the Bambu Lab H2D’s laser module, he
found himself getting slightly nervous
about the whole ‘safety’ aspect of these lasers. After all, lasers can not only light stuff on fire, but it’s a well-known fact that even reflected laser light can be sufficient to cause permanent damage to your retinas. Or worse.
Since your eyes generally do not regenerate, it makes sense to get caught up on laser safety before turning on one of those plentiful-and-increasingly-affordable home laser systems for engraving and/or cutting.
While the issue of stuff catching on fire is readily solved by having a good CO2 extinguisher – and plan B options – at the ready, for safety glasses it’s significantly more complex. There’s not just the issue of finding glasses that block the wavelength of the laser system that you are using, but also with the right
optical density
(OD) rating. Every mm of the safety lens material can attenuate a certain amount of laser light at the given wavelength, so the OD rating of your laser safety goggles need to match the laser’s power output level, or you might be living with a false sense of security.
Finally, there is the issue of the smoke and fumes produced by these lasers as they obliterate the target material. Much of what is in this smoke you do not want to breathe in, even ignoring long-term dust and VOC exposure issues, so having a solid fume extraction setup and PPE as necessary are absolute necessities. As [Ross] puts it, you don’t want to breathe in the smell of regret today, for your future self to reflect on a decade from now.
Work safe, work smart, don’t become the
subject of a laser safety PSA
.
| 25
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182182",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T06:48:55",
"content": "The lack of knowledge of laser safety by the general public is staggering.I ran across someone with an open-frame laser engraver operating it out in the open at a booth in a local mall. There were people standing around it watching the guy engrave jewelry trinkets.It was one of the MOPAR fiber ones. 40-50w. It’s not even legal to sell those without an enclosure here, let alone operate it outside an enclosed space. But you can get them shipped cheaply from overseas…I got into an argument with the guy when he didn’t want to hear about “safety garbage”. And he called security when I started telling the customers that he was literally blinding their kids who were like 2 feet from the machine.I called the mall admin and they told me it wasn’t a problem.I called the local police and they said there was nothing they could do.The people I talked to clearly had no idea of how dangerous these things can be when operated wrong.I called the state police, even though I didn’t think they could do anything, but the desk sergeant knew EXACTLY what I was talking about and immediately had her captain call the local chief to explain the situation.The stall was empty the next time I was there.According to a clerk, the guy was only there for 2 days total.I hope he didn’t cause too much damage, but at least it didn’t make national news by blinding dozens of kids.On the one hand, it is AWESOME that I can go buy a useful laser for under a grand nowadays.On the other hand, it is TERRIFYING that any ignorant rando can do the same thing, and no one will realize there is a problem until a bunch of people get hurt.Also, it is incredibly frustrating to see someone doing something dangerous and illegal like this, and have no way to stop it because everyone is ignorant to the danger.If that state cop hadn’t HAPPENED to know exactly why it was a problem AND hadn’t gone out of their way to fix it, what then?Call some news shop and see it they want to bite on a story?Try to get in touch with a critically underfunded/gutted federal safety agency?Hope the guy blinds himself before he blinds too many kids?Vigilante?What then?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182201",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T07:39:23",
"content": "I agree. I bought an enclosed machine from a reputable manufacturer. I probably expressed too much concern to two friends who bought open frame lasers, but they actually built enclosures before running them, which I was relieved about.",
"parent_id": "8182182",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182234",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T09:08:04",
"content": "One of the very first mods I did to my K40 (after I’d sorted out all the electrical safety issues) were safety interlocks on the lid and an extra, thick sheet of polycarbonate on the window, it’s scary to think anyone can buy these things without any idea of the safety issues",
"parent_id": "8182201",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182242",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T09:35:55",
"content": "Adding interlocks is a good idea, but the plastic window in them is fine. What did you do, install the laser head upside down?",
"parent_id": "8182234",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182301",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T12:08:42",
"content": "no a mirroring surface under an angle is enough. way easier to do than to completely rebuild the projection head.",
"parent_id": "8182242",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182287",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:39:29",
"content": "Polycarbonate (Lexan) is good for mechanical protection, not so much for blocking the laser light. Plexiglass (acrylic, PMMA) absorbs CO2 light much better: essentially total extinction in 0.1 mm.Whatever you do, don’t use polyethylene: it’s basically transparent to CO2 light.",
"parent_id": "8182234",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182349",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T15:55:56",
"content": "I’m in the process of replacing a window on the console laser at the local middle school.Rabbit Laser, the original manufacturer of the machine, told me with no uncertain words that the window should be made of acrylic, and that it’s cheaper to use a local source rather than ordering one from them.I thought the top window was polycarbonate as well, until recently.As far as beam safety, once it leaves the focusing lens it focuses to a point and then expands. if you try to laser a mirror or something, by the time the beam goes more than 4 inches beyond the focal point it’s already expanded and generally safe.That’s for CO2 laser cutters. My understanding is that the fiber laser beams are tiny and don’t expand all that much.Can anyone fact check that last statement?",
"parent_id": "8182287",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182403",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:08:03",
"content": "Ah, yes, good point. Acrylic is specifically very good against the10 micron CO2wavelength, and their usual divergence means they are unconditionally safe beyond a meter or so even without the plastic absorber, because the 10 micron wavelength also doesn’t get through your cornea to get focused on the retina.A very important EXCEPTION is when doing mirror alignment: the power density in the collimated 10 um CO2 beam will happily give you permanent scars very quickly.But afiber laseris a completely different beast. Pretty much any common transparent plastic will be useless for blocking the light from 1-micron fiber lasers, the beam does not diverge nearly as much, and enough energy can get through your cornea and lens to do retinal damage without you even noticing.If you can’t enclose a fiber laser completely, with interlocks, then you MUST use gogglesspecificallyrated for the wavelength of laser you are using. Be prepared to spend $200 or more for quality glasses with a trustable pedigree.",
"parent_id": "8182287",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182265",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:37:47",
"content": "While the enclosed machine is a really good idea when its a production machine, or for use by the ignorant I have no objection to machines being used without for the folks like the HAD audience who should understand and treat it with the respect deserved – no enclosure opens up extra possibilities in how you use them, so in your personal home lab or other controlled condition so properly controlled it is fine. The important bit is being sure they are aware of the level of danger posed – building your own enclosure sounds good an all, but if the laser you are using will burn right through it its probably actively more dangerous as you will think its safe etc.Lasers are very similar problem to the arc welders really, you need to pay attention to the safety of those around you as well as you own, and I really wish there was a greater awareness of that with how dangerous to innocent bystanders it can be so mandate something other than just the little yellow ‘I’m a dangerous laser’ triangle that is put on everything including stuff that is basically eye safe – when the only danger marker ever used is shared across such a wide range it just makes it easy to fall into the trap of thinking they are all as dangerous as each other, even if you are relatively well educated.",
"parent_id": "8182201",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182268",
"author": "G-man",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:49:00",
"content": "Well done on finding someone to take you seriously. I’m surprised that mall admin didn’t listen to “This laser is going to blind someone and poison others who will all sue you”",
"parent_id": "8182182",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182351",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:09:09",
"content": "When dealing with uninterested authorities, you have to frame your problem in a way that will affect them. Personally.A local tree was rubbing along the power lines and throwing the occasional spark (and the wood was hot and burning). I suggested that the police officer block off the road in case the powerline wire snapped and came down on someone’s car. He refused, saying essentially that it’s his decision and her didn’t think it would be a problem.I looked at his name tag and said “Officer Marshall decided not to block off the street at 1:30 PM. Good enough for me.” and walked off. Ten minutes later we had cones blocking off the area.When reporting this problem, get the name of the mall admin, and say “John Jones authorized the merchant to use an unshielded laser out in public. Good enough for me, I’ll make a note of that.” It puts the hint of fear in his decision, he’ll probably ask around about the dangers, and then do something about it.This, by the way, is a standard sales technique. You can’t just say “would you like to by a photocopy machine”, you have to say something like “a photocopy machine will reduce your costs by $500 a month” or similar.It’s how you get peoples’ attention.",
"parent_id": "8182268",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182344",
"author": "prfesser",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T15:33:30",
"content": "A call to the local TV news station is likely the best bet for quick action. Have other examples of items that are illegal, toxic, potentially highly dangerous, etc., yet can be purchased with a click and a CC number. Need a catchy title: “Dangerous or Illegal Items; Buy With Just A Click”. If possible, have a rough first draft at hand for the story; would be a big plus.",
"parent_id": "8182182",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182230",
"author": "Jan-Willem",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:52:07",
"content": "As a maker I’ve used many different lasers, where my most used is a home build CO2 at hackerspace Bitlair. Designing bits to then have the machine cut them out remains magical. For my work I also use diode/fiber/dpss lasers. These live in a laser safety enclosure, and you can’t turn them on without closing the box. The laser then does its thing for weeks on end.The laxness on safety is quite curious to me, and discussional always leave people annoyed. They don’t want to be pointed out that the stuff they laser is actually toxic for them and destroys the machine. ‘The laser cuts it, therefore it is allowed’, is not too uncommon as an answer, sadly.As for content, I would have preferred a link to the text based source he has the information from. For example, a list of materials and their fumes would be nice to have for future reference. Looking at all his screenshots with text, while it may not be wrong, it still may all chatGPT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182266",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:41:00",
"content": "‘The laser cuts it, therefore it is allowed’, is not too uncommon as an answer, sadly.Similar to using abrasives on your lathe etc – not best practice but if it works it works. The machine isn’t these days expected to last decade after decade so damage to it isn’t a big deal it seems, so cheap just get a new one! Though dealing with the cutting gas and particles so you don’t breath them certainly should be.",
"parent_id": "8182230",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182333",
"author": "Jan-Willem",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:34:00",
"content": "Maybe I can agree, if it is your own machine. But a large format laser cutter is a significant investment for a hackerspace, and no-one is looking forward to rebuilding it. Furthermore, the same nasty fumes are also the corrosive ones.",
"parent_id": "8182266",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182390",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:34:51",
"content": "Yeah that is a good point if it isn’t your machine you better be treating it properly, including following any rules the owners put on, even when they are not really defensible.",
"parent_id": "8182333",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182357",
"author": "Azzy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:26:50",
"content": "Leave it to Bambu, who makes printers that are very difficult to service or repair, to put a laser inside of one that’s going to gunk up the insides with fumes and residue.Maybe with tdi minimus removed from law, these won’t sneak through as easily and customs will actually stop the unshielded ones from getting into the hands of makers who are going to lose their eyesight.Don’t get me started on people who think it’s perfectly okay to slap one on their CNC router and run it open.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182522",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:46:59",
"content": "Don’t get me started on people who think it’s perfectly okay to slap one on their CNC router and run it open.Well that can be perfectly OK, even required to actually be able to do the tasks you do as any enclosure limits the maximum object size you can work on – its all about how you do it. Though obviously an enclosure with decent lockouts so you can’t run it open is safer and idiot proofs the machine a fair bit it isn’t required to operate the tool safely – all that is required to operate a laser in the open safely is control of the space, actually very similar problem to arc welding – keep everyone else away, and have nothing that burns too easily in the danger zone.",
"parent_id": "8182357",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182365",
"author": "mayhem",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:55:19",
"content": "“While the issue of stuff catching on fire is readily solved by having a good CO2 extinguisher – and plan B options – at the ready, for safety glasses it’s significantly more complex.” Whenver I use anything that generates heat (welder, cutting torches, ETC.) I use a water fire extinguisher because it gets the heat out fast. Just my two cents.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182375",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:14:38",
"content": "water fire extinguisherThat’s good (and in some cases, best) as long as there’s nothing around that interacts badly with water or which keeps burning even when submerged.",
"parent_id": "8182365",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182397",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:52:11",
"content": "” having a good CO2 extinguisher ”CO2 extinguishers are great, but I can buy five dry-powder extinguishers for the price of a single CO2 one, and I don’t have to treat them like the hazardous container a CO2 is.Mine are located near the risky equipment and along the exit routes.Sure, the powder will make a huge mess when they get fired off, and that might be disincentive to use them when needed, but that’s a price I’m willing to accept.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182452",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:13:12",
"content": "Ski goggles look cool and you can’t change my mind. Those are the kind of goggles you wear when doing dangerous activities, so it’s cool by association.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182678",
"author": "Mayhem",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:20:59",
"content": "Ski goggles are cool, but, if you want to hang with the really cool kids you have to do the safety squint. Just close your eyes enough to barely see what your doing;) /s",
"parent_id": "8182452",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182691",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:06:14",
"content": "Packing tape’s only downside is taking off your eyebrows.",
"parent_id": "8182678",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182950",
"author": "pauldaoust",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T15:20:59",
"content": "Best comment on the internet this morning.",
"parent_id": "8182691",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,422.38406
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/the-inside-story-of-the-uks-great-cb-petrol-scam/
|
The Inside Story Of The UK’s Great CB Petrol Scam
|
Dan Maloney
|
[
"Radio Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] |
[
"burner",
"cb",
"exploit",
"gasoline",
"linear",
"petrol scam",
"theft",
"uk"
] |
Looking at gasoline prices today, it’s hard to believe that there was a time when 75 cents a gallon seemed outrageous. But that’s the way it was in the 70s, and when it tripped over a dollar, things got pretty dicey. Fuel theft was rampant, both from car fuel tanks — remember lockable gas caps? — and even from gas stations, where drive-offs became common, and unscrupulous employees found ways to trick the system into dispensing free gas.
But one method of fuel theft that escaped our attention was
the use of CB radios to spoof petrol pumps
, which [Ringway Manchester] details in his new video. The scam happened in the early 80s, only a few years after CB became legal in the UK but quite a while since illegal use had exploded. The trick involved a CB transceiver equipped with a so-called “burner,” a high-power and highly illegal linear amplifier used to boost the radiated power of the signal. When keyed up in the vicinity of dispensers with digital controls, the dispensing rate on the display would appear to slow down markedly, while the pump itself stayed at the same speed. The result was more fuel dispensed than the amount reported to the cashier.
If this sounds apocryphal, [Ringway] assures us that it wasn’t. When the spoofing was reported, authorities up to and including Scotland Yard investigated and found that it was indeed plausible. The problem appeared to be the powerful RF signal interfering with the pulses from the flowmeter on the dispenser. The UK had both 27 MHz and 934 MHz CB at the time; [Ringway] isn’t clear which CB band was used for the exploit, but we’d guess it was the former, in which case we can see how the signals would interfere. Another thing to keep in mind is that CB radios in the UK were FM, as opposed to AM and SSB in the United States. So we wonder if the same trick would have worked here.
At the end of the day, no matter how clever you are about it, theft is theft, and things probably aren’t going to go well for you if you try to pull this off today. Besides, it’s not likely that pumps haven’t been hardened against these sorts of attacks. Still, if you want a look inside a modern pump to see if you can find any weaknesses,
have at it
. Just don’t tell them where you heard about it.
| 28
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181642",
"author": "alloydog",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:06:54",
"content": "Did it really work?I heard many times of the owner of a dog who lived next door to someone’s uncle’s third-cousin twice removed who used a CB with boots to reset the pump price to zero.Never knew if it was true or not, but it apparently lead to the banning the use of radio transmitters on the forecourts of petrol ststions under the guise of “safety”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181653",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:32:14",
"content": "It’s entirely feasible given the technology of the time – note that this isn’t a sophisticated attack, and the pumps aren’t complex. All you needed to do is jam the signal on the single wire carrying the pulses from the flow sensor, and blasting RF at it is something well within the reach of a ham, but not so common that manufacturers were defending against it yet.And it didn’t have to be an inherent issue in every pump – there could have been particular models that were more vulnerable than others.",
"parent_id": "8181642",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182151",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T05:13:30",
"content": "Especially since the (illegal) linear amplifiers they would add were extremely crude and created all kinds of EMI",
"parent_id": "8181653",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182874",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T09:54:10",
"content": "They’re still sold, I’ve got a couple claiming to be 150W and 300W respectively, even if they’re a fraction of that they’re very cheaply made (they were cheap to buy too) and with no concessions to EMI or other niceties.",
"parent_id": "8182151",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182070",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T00:41:39",
"content": "It is possible. People got free long distance calls on phone starting in the 60s. A whistle toy from cereal box made this very easy and popular before telephone changed the system which made 2600Hz signal obsolete and ineffective",
"parent_id": "8181642",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181643",
"author": "Phil",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:08:21",
"content": "There’s no difference between an AM and FM signal when not modulated, shouldn’t make a difference.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181685",
"author": "ca_heckler",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:14:45",
"content": "But SSB would be basically “nothing” unmodulated, not carrying any audio (if the carrier is properly filtered out), or am I missing something?",
"parent_id": "8181643",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182562",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T04:24:05",
"content": "Ideally, a SSB transmitter will not output any power without audio. In reality, the carrier won’t be perfectly suppressed and there will be some amount of noise in the audio circuitry.",
"parent_id": "8181685",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181714",
"author": "Ken de AC3DH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:22:41",
"content": "AM has half the carrier of FM on a transceiver. But otherwise very plausible!I am a ham, and have tripped off a pump while transmitting on 2m with 50w. No free gas, just the pump stopped pumping. I had to tell the guy to keep going because it wasn’t full. (NJ still has full service) The pump was in the near field of the antenna which likely induced many volts into the electronics.",
"parent_id": "8181643",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181779",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:40:42",
"content": "Likely the pump electrically coupled with the ground plane by contact with the vehicle. Those nozzles are grounded through the hose to prevent static arcing – or to at least eliminate potentials between the pump and vehicle.",
"parent_id": "8181714",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182388",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:33:24",
"content": "50 W RF around gasoline fumes makes me nervous. It might be safe, but I’m still nervous. If you or someone else with more knowledge and skill has done the math on it and feel safe about it, let me know.A decade or two back, gas stations had signs telling people not to use their cell phones while pumping gas. I assume that was for a good reason, not just OMG-hysteria or a lawyer’s making them do it because of a 1 in a billlion chance of starting a small fire.",
"parent_id": "8181714",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182875",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T09:56:03",
"content": "Given how many people buy fuel every day, and the fact there’s no such thing as a small fire at a gas station, it’s entirely plausible they’d worry about a 1-in-a-billion chance.There’s enough videos on youtube of people setting things off from static electricity and other “minor” things around fuel pumps or tankers.",
"parent_id": "8182388",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181742",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:31:32",
"content": "In FM, the signal is at max. output all time when pressing PTT.In AM, the signal is modulated only if there’s an audio signal on the source (when pressing PTT).However, modulation can be positive or negative, in principle.I would assume that louder audio signal=bigger RF, though.Also, a carrier wave is sent both in AM and FM.On SSB, the carrier wave is missing.That’s why some linears have a switch for SSB and AM.The AM circuit detects the carrier and goes into transmit mode, it’s working like a crystal radio. Also works for FM.In SSB “mode”, the linear amp must detect the RF signal otherwise orrequires the transceiver to have a PTT line that goes to the linear amp.",
"parent_id": "8181643",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182307",
"author": "OH3MVV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T12:37:53",
"content": "Doesn’t matter whether the AM uses positive or negative modulation. Unmodulated carrier level is always set to half of maximum. With positive modulation, input signal then raises the carrier level at positive half-cycles, and lowers it at negative half-cycles. Vice versa with neg. modulation. FM carrier is always full power, modulation just changes its phase/frequency.",
"parent_id": "8181742",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181743",
"author": "bstriggo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:34:09",
"content": "I was a paramedic in the 80’s and crashed many a POS terminal and even a bank computer with a 5w handheld (154mhz FM). Late 80’s we got a Chevy truck ambulance where transmitting on the 100W radio would shift the transmission to neutral, zero the speedometer needle, and turn on the windshield wipers. Motorola and Chevy helped us work through the problem, but the Motorola engineers noted that the car companies were uninterested in the problems until they discovered that they could occur on the highway in vehicles NEXT to the one with the transmitter. Of particular note, they said they could lock up anti-lock brakes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181837",
"author": "Jared",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:18:43",
"content": "I would guess that the EMF was messing with variable-reluctance sensors. VR would drive the speedo so the needle zeroing makes sense. The neutral shift is odd but older transmissions would have overdrive triggered by the speedo so not totally impossible. Windshield wipers kicking on is a weird one, but perhaps VR was used as a precursor to LIM. ABS again would be driven by a set of VR sensors on each wheel, so that disruption makes sense too.",
"parent_id": "8181743",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182877",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T09:59:15",
"content": "I think the TL;DR is that many early electronics were really not built with any robustness to EMI or other real-world problems as they either weren’t well understood or weren’t really considered an issue (especially vs price) – it took a fair while for people to really realise and understand that ESD was a real problem with these new-fangled integrated circuits and you had to take it seriously – and it took longer for manufacturers to bite the bullet and integrate basic ESD protection into the chips and other devices rather than just telling everyone to handle with care.",
"parent_id": "8181837",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182004",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:05:59",
"content": "That’s nuts. The details about how many things the 100W radio screwed up in your car is comical if taken from a proper distance. With how low-power all radios have gotten since those times, I wonder how many problems one could cause to crop up in modern cars and other hardware if one, say, fired up an illegal 100W spark gap transmitter next to them. Just as a test of course.",
"parent_id": "8181743",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182878",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:00:22",
"content": "Likely it wouldn’t care, EMI and ESD protection and resilience has come a huge way since the 70’s and modern stuff is very well protected at multiple levels.",
"parent_id": "8182004",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181748",
"author": "east",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:36:36",
"content": "The big scam back in the 2000s, if I recall correctly from a hazy dream, was blocking the pumps internet access then using any non-valid credit or gift visa because it would pre-auth just fine. Might still work",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181768",
"author": "Andy Stallard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:10:57",
"content": "We too used AM (Aunty Mary as we referred to it!) in the UK, through the early eighties. So had access to SSB too. We had one fun night where we convinced a gullible soul that we were on the Space Shuttle, just passing over his car and could see what he was up to. The story got embellished somewhat the next night in the pub… If we’d have known about that scam/hack, we’d have made use of it (possibly).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181773",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:34:59",
"content": "I once observed someone with a linear on their CB have the ability to make the lights at an intersection change by keying up, when the intersection was in “demand” mode in the middle of the night. The buried inductors picked up the signal, apparently, and the control logic interpreted it as the presence of a vehicle.It worked out to about 100 yards from the intersection.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181795",
"author": "alloydog",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:09:18",
"content": "Ah, the good old days of bugger-all EMC requirements! :’D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181864",
"author": "RichC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:13:11",
"content": "I briefly worked for Matsushita Communication Industries, they send me on a training course covering GSM. The tutor mentioned that phone use at petrol stations is supposedly due to concerns that phones if dropped may start sparking and explode the petrol. He said the real reason is gen-1 phones were analogue and interfered with the radio link from pump to till.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181875",
"author": "alloydog",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:28:46",
"content": "I worked at MCUK (Matsushita Communication UK) aka Panasonic Mobilephones. Dealth with the F- and I-series ETACS phones and the EU2000 GSM phone. Greetsing fellow Matsushitite! OK, I’m sure there is a better description, but I can’t think of one yet :-D",
"parent_id": "8181864",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181886",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:41:02",
"content": "You should each pick different brands and pretend to compete.",
"parent_id": "8181875",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182032",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:11:12",
"content": "More of a software bug than hardware – In the mid 70’s, while working for Q1, I was overseas hardware/software support, and would travel several times a year to our distributor in Frankfurt, Germany. The local transit system had installed automated ticket vending machines that, it was discovered [by local school children], that if you pressed all the buttons, the machine would pay out all the coins in the unit.I don’t know how long it was till that bug was fixed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182828",
"author": "Ct Hinn",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T04:02:09",
"content": "A buddy of mine had one of these devices connected to his CB radio in his truck. We pulled up to a Burger King and he keyed it up. Immediately all of their registers rebooted.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.581072
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/dirty-pots-meet-power-tools/
|
Dirty Pots, Meet Power Tools!
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Tool Hacks"
] |
[
"3d print",
"oscillating tool",
"polishing"
] |
Let’s face it, nobody likes scrubbing, but what option do you have? You can’t exactly break out the grinder to clean off the remains of last nights dinner… right? Well, maybe not a grinder, but thanks to this hack by [Markus Opitz],
you can use an oscillating tool
.
It’s a simple enough hack: [Markus] modeled the attachment for his Bosch oscillating tool in Tinkercad, and created a bracket to hold a large metal binder clip. The clip attaches with a screw, and can hold whatever scrubbing pad your carpel-tunnel afflicted hands can’t bear to hold on to. He’s using a self-cleaning stainless-steel sponge.
One nice touch is a pair of protective lips on the jaws of the metal clip, to keep it from accidentally scratching the delicate surface under care. Of course if you have a drill or a Dremel handy you
can
buy attachments for polishing disks of various grits, but what’s the fun in that? Doing the dishes with a hacked-together oscillating tool just somehow seems more fun. Plus this way you can’t accidentally produce
an engine-turning pattern.
We don’t seem to have featured many hacks for these fun, buzzing, multi-purpose tools, so if you’ve got one
send us a tip.
We did feature an
oscillating cutter for CNC once
, but that was fully DIY.
| 26
| 13
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181597",
"author": "Stephen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:33:26",
"content": "I’m not sure this would be good for non-stick surfaces…Also I was amused to find that the headline made me think it was about deoxidising variable resistors! I think I’ve been watching too much Big Clive…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181603",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:56:58",
"content": "… think it was about deoxidising variable resistors!Nope, totally normal to think that – especially on this site.Even more so if your kitchen equipment isn’t called with English terms.(I thought the same and/but the articles image made no sense…)",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181724",
"author": "Bob the builder",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:58:53",
"content": "The article linked here doesn’t show him use it on a “non-stick” pan, but on a steel baking tray. It’s totally fine to use this. I can’t remember the last time I used a “non-stick” pan. I usually use carbon steel, cast iron or stainless steel (for boiling) None of them come with a chemical coating.",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181770",
"author": "Tyler August",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:13:29",
"content": "That’s a heck of a potentiometer if it can withstand being cleaned with power tools.",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181890",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:41:58",
"content": "My thought exactly. The beginning of the article was a bit perplexing for me.",
"parent_id": "8181770",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182873",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T09:51:27",
"content": "Same here too – in the context of this site “pots” would be more likely to mean variable resistors or perhaps legacy telephone service rather than cookware…",
"parent_id": "8181890",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181821",
"author": "OH3MVV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:45:12",
"content": "I thought exactly the same!",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181833",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:10:53",
"content": "I knew it was ‘HackADay’ dumb clickbait.An article about rehabbing old potentiometers would be rejected.We all know why.They are deleting all the comments where I defend their business practices.Bandwidth ain’t free.",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181901",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:01:19",
"content": "haha thank you i made it all the way to your comment without figuring it outi was just like “wouldn’t you just scratch the resist layer off entirely?”",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182580",
"author": "Steve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T06:51:59",
"content": "I see I have found my people. 🤣",
"parent_id": "8181597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181598",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:42:00",
"content": "I once had toilet brush of which the handle unscrewed. I put the broom part in my drill, which really quickly cleaned up the toilet in a new-bought house.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181619",
"author": "ramzi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:34:18",
"content": "I had the same genius idea back in 2010. Except in my case I simply got sprayed with bits of feces and toilet water. Disgusting.Chemical toilet cleaner is good enough for most stains.",
"parent_id": "8181598",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181850",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:51:05",
"content": "There are some nice video’s of using a drilladized toilet brush in a bucket with potatoes and just enough water, to scrub off the skin of the potatoes. I tried it myself and it works, but to work efficiently it all has to add up just right, from the form of the bucket to the amount of water. Too much water and the potatoes don’t move, (so you’ll just grind away a few of them), and too much water, and the potatoes bounce around without much abrasion / peeling.",
"parent_id": "8181598",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181897",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:57:11",
"content": "You washed the brush first?",
"parent_id": "8181850",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183319",
"author": "ElectroPaint",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T16:55:00",
"content": "Anyone in their right mind would use a new brush.",
"parent_id": "8181897",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181601",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:48:10",
"content": "I use a pad (or wire brush for stubborn bits) in the grinder to clean up my cast iron pan when it needs a deep clean. I’ve also used a pad in the grinder on stainless steel occasionally (though the drill usually works better for the angles to get inside it).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181648",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:17:23",
"content": "I’ll stick with the good old Kitchen Gun.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181692",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:32:51",
"content": "My favorite oscillating tool hack (which I’ve yet to try) is using it with a razor blade to cut apart old tires. The video I saw made it look like a hot knife going through butter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181922",
"author": "cplamb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:43:01",
"content": "Is the Bosch oscillating tool water resistant? I expect that no matter how carefully used some water would splash on the body of the tool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181931",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:59:01",
"content": "I do not want to spoil somebody, but if I put cookware in my dishwasher and use the 3.5h low&slow eco washing program, everything comes out like new. I have a plastc scraper card for handling dough, which I use to scratch away any loose stuff and then just give it a go!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181983",
"author": "Stuart Hancock",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:18:23",
"content": "I’ve used a battery-powered Dremel with these cool little brushes (came in a bag) on stainless steel to get incredibly burned-on crap off the bottom of a large pot. Worked like a damn. Still took time, but about 1/50th of what it would have taken by hand. I tell my friend and CTO about this. We visit his house. What’s all over his stainless steel pan? The same artsy pattern that’s now all over my large pot, from the same little brushes and a Dremel…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182080",
"author": "Piecutter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T01:22:01",
"content": "I just use my plumbus.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182155",
"author": "captnmike",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T05:21:04",
"content": "I have always had good results putting hot water with soap in the pan cover and letting it sit overnight, for really big oops I put water and soap in the pan, cover the pan (I have glass covers) put it on the stove and heat it to just starts to boil and turn the heat off and let it sit overnight, again works nice for me",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182393",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:43:09",
"content": "Am I the only one that saw “dirty pots” and thought “grimy circuit boards?”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182637",
"author": "Manuel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T12:44:23",
"content": "This is great! A few months ago I designed something similar, with the same purpose, but to be used with a driller instead of an oscillator.https://www.printables.com/model/1321828-pots-and-pans-cleaner",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184510",
"author": "Garrut",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T07:11:04",
"content": "There is some brush made for drill like these onehttps://media.adeo.com/media/4375074/media.png?width=650&height=650&format=jpg&quality=80&fit=boundsJust put a pad on it and voilà ! The pad “scratch” itself on the brush …I use this since years…. I’ve though of sewing some pads together to fit better but it’s works like this. I’ve though of making a motorized brush holder with central water injection and soap distribution…. But my wireless drill work just fine…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.514728
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/a-gem-of-a-desktop-environment/
|
A GEM Of A Desktop Environment
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"atari st",
"digital research",
"GEM"
] |
Desktop environments are the norm as computer interfaces these days, but there was once a time when they were a futuristic novelty whose mere presence on a computer marked it out as something special. In the early 1980s you could buy an expensive but very fancy Mac from Apple, while on the PC there were early Windows versions, and GEM from Digital Research. It’s something of a footnote here in 2025, and some insight as to why comes from [Programming at the right level]
with a retrospective on the software
.
Coming from the perspective of an Atari user whose ST shipped with a version of GEM, it tracks the projects from its earliest roots with a Xerox employee, through development to launch on the PC and Atari ST. We learn about an Apple legal threat that resulted in the hobbled interface many of us remember from later GEM versions, and about the twists and turns in its path before the final dissolution of DR in the early 1990s.
From 2025 it’s clear that Windows won the PC desktop battle not by being special but by being the default; when GEM was an add-on extra it would have been a tough sell. The software was eventually made open-source by the eventual owner of the DR assets, Caldera (when they weren’t trying to torpedo Linux, presumably), and can be run today on
FreeDOS
.
GEM header image: Rolf Hartmann,
CC BY-SA 3.0
.
| 25
| 12
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181580",
"author": "James Honey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T06:29:27",
"content": "Yep, remember GEM. I used to draw ‘mouse draw’ pictures in 16 shades of grey scale in GEM Paint. It felt like being in the future as a young boy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181877",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:30:30",
"content": "Great memories! ^^Btw, this is funny: GEM had offered nearly 1:1 counterpart applications of the popular Macintosh.MacPaint.. GEM Paint / MacDraw.. GEM Draw / MacWrite.. GEM WriteSo GEM really brought the Macintosh feeling to the PC.To the user, it made PC use way more comfortable while not missing any DOS application.",
"parent_id": "8181580",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181590",
"author": "gebhardmMarkus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T07:43:37",
"content": "It worked from a single DS/DD 5 1/4″ floppy disk! Plus an extra one for apps. Not Exabytes of memory needed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181593",
"author": "lproven",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:08:06",
"content": "I felt this missed out on a lot of the later development, so I wrote a short sequel:https://liam-on-linux.dreamwidth.org/96552.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181618",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:29:56",
"content": "Thank you very much! ^_^There’s so much still to be found out here and there, I think.For example, that it’s possible to run earlyGEM Desktopon later GEM releases. :DWhat also comes to my mind, by the way,there even was a third-party prototype web browser calledGEMWeb.It will run on DR’s x86 GEM from the 1980s, as well.A screenshot can be seen over here:https://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/dispss?image=images/gemweb.gif&text=gemwebSo in principle it’s totally possible to go online with an authenticAmstrad PC1512/1640, for example.(In early 2000s, HTTP 1.0 compatible servers hosting simple HTML websites were still around.)",
"parent_id": "8181593",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181608",
"author": "Shawn H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:12:19",
"content": "I’m such a nerd I named the family dog after GEM",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181647",
"author": "Michael Engel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:16:11",
"content": "As the linked article mentions, GEM and GEMDOS for the Atari ST were developed on Apple Lisa machines – here are more details on this port (sources are available):https://oldbytes.space/@Seg/109729498250762718",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181749",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:36:43",
"content": "Windows won the PC desktop battle not by being special but by being the default; when GEM was an add-on extra it would have been a tough sell.Microsoft Windows would probably still win head-to-head because it looked nicer and had more features than the hobbled GEM.Also:DRI originally designed GEM for DOS so that it would check for and only run on IBM computers, and not PC compatibles like those from Compaq, as the company hoped to receive license fees from compatible makersSo they kinda shot themselves in the foot right at the starting line. Perhaps that’s why OEMs decided to go with Windows, which released at the same time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181853",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:53:19",
"content": "The PC1512/PC1640 “port” of GEM ran on PC compatibles, though.The Atari PC release maybe was similar, not sure.About GEM vs Windows..The comparison merely was fair between GEM and Windows 1.x, I think.I’m saying this, because there’s this false idea that people often think thatGEM was some sort of David (of David vs Goliath) or Underdog that fought a giant (Windows).These people see Windows as the big, evil guy when in reality MS Windows 1.x and 2.x were still largely unknown in the 1980s.GEM also had limits, such as simultanous windows at screen.It were about 4 or 6, including dialog windows, if memory serves.That and other details made Windows 2.03, especially in the Windows/386 version, more advanced than GEM 1 and 2.The later GEM 3 or GEM/XM with multitasking was closer to them in terms of features.If only ViewMax didn’t happen and instead GEM had been supported otherwise.Let’s just imagine what a nice network OS it could have been,if it had been extended from a plain GUI.It could have made DR DOS stand out even more, maybe.Anywqys, what GEM couldn’t do was multitasking DOS applications.Here, Windows 2.x (all versions) was more capable, I think.Even plain Windows 2.x (no /286 no /386) could run DOS text-mode applications in a window,even on an PC/XT with 808x CPU.Enough to play Zork on desktop while running Terminal..The /386 version of Windows could run CGA graphics applications in a window, even.Along with providing EMS simulation to DOS and Windows applications.GEM couldn’t do anything like this yet.What was very good in GEM was font-handling, though, if memory serves.That’s why it was used in Ventura Publisher and other DTP programs.GEM had very good capabilities, but it was very limited as an OS as such.Speaking under correction, though.",
"parent_id": "8181749",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181861",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:08:08",
"content": "Perhaps that’s why OEMs decided to go with Windows, which released at the same time.Siemens did support GEM for the Siemens PC-D, an 80186 based DOS compatible PC.The hardware differed to “generic”, IBM PC compatible hardware.Siemens (of this era) knew what quality is, so GEM couldn’t have been that bad.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_PC-DUsing GEM for applications also provided a level of hardware abstraction.Similar to Windows 1.x and 2.x which also existed as runtime versions.Balance of Power and Aldus PageMaker 3 were known to ship with a limited Windows run-time edition, for example.Again, speaking under correction.",
"parent_id": "8181749",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181865",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:16:12",
"content": "Which windows?It’s been a LONG time, but I recall GEM well before Windows 3.Dedicated page layout GEM machine w a paper ratio monitor.I tried to get some games of the day to run on it, but none recognized the hardware.I also recall a MS less alternate universe SF…We’re all running GEM on top of DESQview…spit.",
"parent_id": "8181749",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182045",
"author": "Wayne P Rodrigue",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:39:36",
"content": "Hey, that’s how we ran our BBS, GEM in. desqview! Ran 4 modems with that setup… It was a painful setup",
"parent_id": "8181865",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182743",
"author": "Dean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T18:55:32",
"content": "My first gui was AmigaOS 😍http://www.chiptune.com/",
"parent_id": "8181749",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181817",
"author": "Steve Bearden",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:40:36",
"content": "The GEM desktop was also available on the Commodore 64. I even bought a mouse to use with it (not that it was very useful on the C64). I never had any programs that didn’t come with the desktop. It was my first foray into the GUI world. A bit later I started using Excel on my work PC. It came with a stub of Windows 1.0 that I later upgraded to Windows 286 so I could task switch my DOS programs. That was when it became useful (but not much of a GUI). Windows 3.0 in 1990 is when the GUI world really took off for me. I even went back to the GEM desktop on the C64 to see if I missed something when I first tried it. Nope. Still glad that I got to be there “in the day”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182196",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T07:25:15",
"content": "I suspect you’re thinking of GEOs, a remarkable achievement for 8-bit.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system)",
"parent_id": "8181817",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181840",
"author": "fast",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:20:16",
"content": "I need this in SDL3small, working , fast",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181847",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:46:58",
"content": "Atari ST, Amiga, and windows 1.0 were all released in 1985 and within a few months of each other.Both Atari and Amiga ran on a 68k while the 80386 was also released in 1985 (But was quite expensive back then). Those were stormy times for PC’s, and you started saving for a new PC the day you bought a new one. Last time I bought a new PC, it was because I wanted a big 4k monitor, and that was not going to work with my (then) 14 year old dualcore.Sometimes I dream of porting a GUI framework to run on an STM32 (Or other ARM) for output to a small(ish) TFT LCD and combine it with FreeRTOS. These modern uC’s have much more brain power then those old processors. (Atari and Amiga only ran at 8MHz) and it’s plenty to make a nice GUI for, for example a graphical multimeter, weather station or some other gadget. Maybe an emulator for the older game consoles has decent code to start such a project. There are graphic libraries for embedded uC’s but I’m not aware of much in the FOSS world.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181855",
"author": "Kim Schulz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:00:12",
"content": "I loved GEM desktop on my second PC back around 1986. It was long ahead of many of the competitors, but unfortunately it seemed like development mostly died by 1990. Windows 1.1 and 2.0 came around and could do multutasking dos and many other nice things.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181869",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:23:04",
"content": "Multitasking DOS?Really ‽",
"parent_id": "8181855",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182170",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T06:11:45",
"content": "Hi! Yes, Windows 2.x could run DOS applications in a window.The normal Windows 2.x and the /286 edition could run text-mode applications, while the /386 edition could run CGA applications too.However, often a PIF file for a DOS application had to be created first, using PIF-Editor.The /386 edition also provided Expanded Memory (EMS) to DOS and Windows applications.More information (not affiliated):Windows, Windows/286https://virtuallyfun.com/2011/06/24/pushing-windows386-out-the-door/Windows/386https://virtuallyfun.com/2018/08/07/windows-386-v2-03/Running Zork on Windows 2.x in a DOS windowhttps://tinyurl.com/5bhj2sjf(White on black DOS prompt usually is Windows/386, black on white prompt is regular Windows 2.x)",
"parent_id": "8181869",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182413",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:18:22",
"content": "With all due respect, your statement that—“…Windows 2.x could run DOS applications in a window.The normal Windows 2.x and the /286 edition could run text-mode applications, while the /386 edition could run CGA applications too…”…quite simply does NOT answer the (implied) question as to DOS’s being able to ‘multitask’.It does not, and cannot multitask.DOS was written as a single-tasking operating system.‘Windows’ does NOT / DID not change that.Kindly awaiting your response…",
"parent_id": "8182170",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182435",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:28:24",
"content": "Hm? It was about “do multutasking dos” originally.I understood this as “do multitasking DOS applications”.Anyway, even DOS itself can’t multitask doesn’t mean that you can’t run DOS applications in a multitasking fashion.DOS doesn’t support it, but also doesn’t prevent it, I mean.It gives full access to all applications, so they can do whatever they want.For example, there are DOS compatible OSes such as PC-MOS/386, Concurrent DOS or Wendin DOS which can run multiple DOS applications same time.In real preemptive multitasking. Even on 8088 PC, but then limited to conventional memory (RAM within first Megabyte).Then there are utilities such as DESQView, Caroussel, Double DOS etc which can multitask DOS applications on ordinary DOS.DESQView provided real preemptive multitasking,otherwise multiple copies of BBS software couldn’t run same time.IBM itself sold TopView years before, which was simpler though.DR DOS and Novell DOS contain both a simple DOS taskswitcher and a real taskmanager, I remember.The latter can run multiple DOS applications – on a 386 PC, I think.A simple task-switcher is part of MS-DOS Shell, too.It’s the one being part of MS-DOS 5 and up, I think.Only a few people know this. It swaps out inactive DOS applications, I think.Just like Windows 3.x on a 286 PC in Standard-Mode would.About Windows.. Windows/386 does use the 386’s virtual 8086 mode (V86) to create several DOS VMs in which DOS programs run separately.As if individual 8086 PCs were running a copy of DOS and the application.The result seems like preemptive multitasking, because each V86 VM runs side by side.Merely Windows applications all run in a single V86 VM, in cooperative multitasking.You can think that Windows/386 is like Windows 3.x in 386 Enhanced-Mode –in some ways, at least.Windows 3.x in 386 Enhanced-Mode on a 386 can multitask DOS applications, just like Windows 95/98 can.And Windows 2.x sinply is special here because it can run someDOS text-mode applications in a window – on an PC/XT class system!If it’s preemptive multitasking I don’t know..But Windows 3.x lost this ability. It merely can do DOS applications windosed in 386 Enhanced-Mode (where it makes the most sense though).In Real-Mode and Standard-Mode it can merely switch between DOS applications, and only in fullscreen.Anyway, the memory limitations in Real-Mode made really limited the usefulness of Windows 2.x here.DOS programs ate almost all memory below 640 KB and Windows applications ran out of memory, too.Thus it was really important that a PC had Expanded Memory (EMS) and that both DOS and Windows applications supported it.Commercial Windows applications such as PageMaker 3 or MS WinWord and Excel did support EMS.Speaking under correction, I make mistakes too.",
"parent_id": "8182413",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182443",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:41:50",
"content": "There also was a “Multitasking DOS” in mid-80s that Microsoft wrote: MS-DOS 4.It was used in Europe for special purposes (Siemens etc) and required special application support to utilize multitasking.It was like a prototype to OS/2 in some ways.It’s not to be confused with ordinary MS-DOS 4 from 1988.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS_4.0_(multitasking)",
"parent_id": "8182413",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182587",
"author": "Jonathan A Duncan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:17:41",
"content": "This takes me back to the days when MS-DOS only needed two floppy disks to install, but as the years went on and Microsoft kept releasing new versions, the amount of disks went up, until we finally hit Windows 95 and then we eventually got Microsoft Office and they still came on floppy disks, but you had an actual mountain of floppy disks to install from… Getting my first CD-ROM drive never felt so good.I still have vivid memories of helping my computer lab teacher in middle school to install Microsoft Office from floppy disks to the schools shiny new Macs. Good times. Those Macs seemed so high tech back then with all of the thousands of colors they had on them…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182672",
"author": "John Atherton",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:56:21",
"content": "I ran GEM and Win1.1 on a 286 and then a 386. GEM ran Corel draw, the only PC vector font application at the time. Aldus PageMaker ran in Windows. I would expert emf files from Corel draw, then reboot and run Windows to place vector generated headlines in PageMaker. Happy Happy days.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.31605
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/think-you-need-a-new-pc-for-windows-11-think-again/
|
Think You Need A New PC For Windows 11? Think Again
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Software Hacks"
] |
[
"operating system",
"Windows 11"
] |
As the sun sets on Windows 10 support, many venues online decry the tsunami of e-waste Windows 11’s nonsensical hardware requirements are expected to create. Still more will offer advice: which Linux distribution is best for your aging PC? [Sean] from Action Retro has an alternate solution:
get a 20 year old Sun Workstation, and run Windows 11 on that.
The Workstation in question from 2005 is apparently among the first Sun made using AMD’s shiny new 64-bit Opteron processor. Since Windows has no legacy 32-bit support– something it shares with certain Linux distributions– this is amongst the oldest hardware that could conceivably install and run Redmond’s latest.
And it can! Not in unaltered form, of course– the real hack here is courtesy of [ntdevlabs], whose “Tiny11” project strips all the cruft from Windows 11, including its hardware compatibility checker. [ntdevlabs] has produced a Tiny11Builder script
that is available on GitHub
, but the specific version [Sean] used is
available on Archive.org.
[Sean] needed the archived version of Tiny11 because Windows 11 builds newer than 22H2 use the POPCNT operation, which was not present in AMD’s first revision of the x86_64 instruction set. POPCNT is part of Intel’s SSE4 extension from 2007, a couple years after this workstation shipped.
If you’re sick of being told to switch to Linux, but can’t stomach staying with Windows either, maybe check out Haiku,
which we reported as ready for daily driving early last year
.
| 25
| 12
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181551",
"author": "scott_tx",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:39:16",
"content": "Win10 LTSC. There, fixed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181592",
"author": "volt-k",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:05:56",
"content": "As a Win10 user that’s not planning to go Win11, what’s the difference between Win10 LTSC and the “regular” one? Would I need to reinstall the whole system to switch?",
"parent_id": "8181551",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181766",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:05:08",
"content": "It’s windows with a lot of stuff stripped out by default, so no windows store, cortana, and other things, it also only gets security updates not feature updates, so it stays more static. This is why LTSC is meant for environments where stability is more important than features. I’ve used it for several years now with no issues, so you aren’t missing out on much.Microsoft don’t advertise it, but you can just download Win 10 LTSC and Win 11 IoT LTSC ISOs directly from them, so you don’t need to look in sketchy places for it, fire them up in a VM and have a go. You can even look into tiny10 or tiny11 if you really want to try barebones stripped out versions, but I’ve not personally done it.",
"parent_id": "8181592",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182293",
"author": "marco",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:58:35",
"content": "Then just opt in ESU with normal Win10, instead of using LTSC:https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol",
"parent_id": "8181766",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182359",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:29:12",
"content": "ten ltsc is awesome, but haven’t evaluated 11 ltsc yet. it might be the stopgap if i dont find a linux distro i like. but i got till 10 ltsc reaches the end of its service life.",
"parent_id": "8181551",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181564",
"author": "Garth Bock",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T03:43:48",
"content": "Great article showing Win11 on some unusual vintage hardware. Using Tiny11 is kind of a work around but it is too stripped down to be useful or safe for a regular user. I have told friends that over bought into the M$ hype that their computers will not shutdown. They will however get some peace from the updates that bork things. If they want 11…RUFUS or Flyoobe… problem fixed",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181649",
"author": "Richard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:20:20",
"content": "RUFUS, for anyone who isn’t familiar, is a tool for creating bootable disks & installation media on USB sticks. It has some options for creating Windows 11 media that allow you to install it on PCs that don’t meet some of the minimum requirements, like TPM 2.I recently did a fresh install of Windows 11 on an older HP Elitebook 840 G3 (6th gen i5, no TPM 2). RUFUS made bypassing the TPM 2 requirement easier than I’d thought.1) Download the Windows 11 ISO here:https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows112) Use the Rufus bootable USB tool to create a USB installer. Rufus will present you with options to remove TPM 2 and other checks:https://rufus.ie/en/So far, so good",
"parent_id": "8181564",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181697",
"author": "Garth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:44:19",
"content": "Thank you. I didn’t elaborate because I thought both utilities were common knowledge in the PC world. These utilities allow you to set up an install pen drive for either 10 or 11. I have used RUFUS for the past year to set up over 25 pc’s with no problems and they all receive updates. One main reason to use this if your computer doesn’t meet the high hardware specifications, mainly TPM (Trusted Platform Module). This is used for Bitlocker which encrypts your hard drive for security. Bitlocker has been shown to slow down a computer. Some of the other advantages to the utilities is the ability to disable or reduce M$ telemetry-spying and the setup of a local account instead a M$ login account ( it’s your PC, why do you need to let them know you’re using it ). There is also a list of Powershell scripts that remove bloatware that run in background because removing the app doesn’t do the job. Instead of pitching a good working computer… recycle/repurpose/reuse/extend its life….kind of the mantra here.",
"parent_id": "8181649",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181632",
"author": "Al…",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T10:20:17",
"content": "As an ex-Sun Systems Engineer, I am horrified by the desecration suggested here.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181884",
"author": "Tyler August",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:40:08",
"content": "It’s almost October, so we decided to start in on horror early. ;)",
"parent_id": "8181632",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181665",
"author": "mikimouse111",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:42:25",
"content": "You think i’ll install windows11… Think again…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181693",
"author": "Joseph Bertrand",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:33:39",
"content": "i use rufus to dual boot my dell 5577 64 bit win and linux mint",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181778",
"author": "David Morrison",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:39:41",
"content": "my win 10 has been extended free to oct 2026, its free now, also has dual boot win 11 24h2 used rufus.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181930",
"author": "Agammamon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:57:55",
"content": "Still more will offer advice: which Linux distribution is best for your aging PC? [Sean] from Action Retro has an alternate solution: get a 20 year old Sun Workstation, and run Windows 11 on that.That’s . . . that’s not asolution to what to do with my old hardware;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181934",
"author": "Benjamin Henrion",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:00:58",
"content": "Antitrust laws do not work, those kind of companies should have been dissolved long ago.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181996",
"author": "rc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:44:37",
"content": "I would prefer something like “Think You Need Windows 11 for a new PC? Think Again” as title.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182395",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:50:35",
"content": "22H2 “doesn’t count” if you are looking for a version that will keep getting security updates. But it’s good to see the tips and tricks in the comments section to bypass the hardware-checks so if you have POPCNT-compatible hardware you can do the up-to-date version of Windows 11.[Sean] from Action Retro: If you find a way to virtualize POPCNT so you can get the current version of Windows 11 or its successor running on that ancient hardware, please do another HaD post.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182836",
"author": "Jack H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T05:26:41",
"content": "Is it possible to run Win11 withOUT OneDrive? System ran fine, I was just tired of seeing it. Deleted the OneDrive folder and rhe whole system runs terribly slow now. And files were lost. Again. Despite never consenting to having confidential client files automatically moved to the cloud, for ease of hacking by malicious actors.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182838",
"author": "Jack H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T05:30:29",
"content": "Is there any way to remove their OneDrive garbage? I deleted the folder, lost some confidential files (again) and the sytem just seems to run a lot slower now too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.634739
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/a-deep-dive-on-creepy-cameras/
|
A Deep Dive On Creepy Cameras
|
Navarre Bartz
|
[
"Artificial Intelligence",
"digital cameras hacks"
] |
[
"ai",
"AI countermeasure",
"AI poison",
"ALPR",
"automated license plate reader",
"computer vision",
"law enforcement",
"raspberry pi"
] |
George Orwell might’ve predicted the surveillance state, but it’s still surprising how many entities took 1984 as a how-to manual instead of a cautionary tale. [Benn Jordan] decided to take a closer look at the creepy cameras invading our public spaces and
how to circumvent them
.
[Jordan] starts us off with an overview of how machine learning “AI” is used Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras and some of the history behind their usage in the United States. Basically, when you drive by one of these cameras, an ” image segmentation model or something similar” detects the license plate and then runs optical character recognition (OCR) on the plate contents. It will also catalog any bumper stickers with the make and model of the car for a pretty good guess of it being your vehicle, even if the OCR isn’t 100% on the exact plate sequence.
Where the video gets really interesting is when [Jordan] starts disassembling, building, and designing countermeasures to these systems. We get a teardown of a Motorola ALPR for in-vehicle use that is better at being closed hardware than it is at reading license plates, and [Jordan] uses a Raspberry Pi 5, a Halo AI board, and You Only Look Once (YOLO) recognition software to build a “computer vision system that’s much more accurate than anything on the market for law enforcement” for $250.
[Jordan] was able to develop a transparent sticker that renders a license plate unreadable to the ALPR but still plainly visible to a human observer. What’s interesting is that depending on the pattern, the system could read it as either an incorrect alphanumeric sequence or miss detecting the license plate entirely. It turns out, filtering all the rectangles in the world to find just license plates is a tricky problem if you’re a computer. You can
find the code on his Github
, if you want to take a gander.
You’ve probably heard about using
IR LEDs to confuse security cameras
, but
what about yarn
? If you’re looking for more artistic uses for AI image processing, how about this
camera that only takes nudes
or this one that
generates a picture based on geographic data
?
| 33
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181530",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:08:58",
"content": "We should set up decoys that use screens that project wanted criminals faces in from of the cameras with new ones every day.So many false positives and the police start ignoring the cameras.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181543",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:59:43",
"content": "I kind of want them to catch those guys instead of ignoring them… But just spitballing here, what if we take a photo of the license plate of somebody in parliament, print it out, staple it on a drone, and run it by every one of London’s speed and emissions zone cameras at extreme velocity on a continuous circuit several times a day?",
"parent_id": "8181530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181561",
"author": "Gareth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T03:21:55",
"content": "Was done..in Stockholm a few years back. Someone copied the plates of the CEO of the company operating a toll road in the city and posted it online. Folks pasted it over their own plates and used the toll road all day. The ALPR dutifully generated an humongous bill…",
"parent_id": "8181543",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181700",
"author": "Menno",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:51:55",
"content": "Which, at least in this jurisdiction, is an actual crime, not just an offence.",
"parent_id": "8181561",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182903",
"author": "Cogidubnus Rex",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T11:39:47",
"content": "Well hardly a humongous bill given that the charge has a daily cap of ca €12.",
"parent_id": "8181561",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181594",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:16:01",
"content": "There already had been a few false positive with AI leading to lawsuit for false arrest and imprisonment. Like that one case in Detroithttps://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2024/06/28/man-wrongfully-arrested-with-facial-recognition-tech-settles-lawsuit/74243839007/I searched, there seems to have been a lot of false ID leading police to the wrong person instead. As it is, the AI technology is costing cities a lot of money settling lawsuits and leading some to ban police from using AI to find wanted suspects.",
"parent_id": "8181530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181791",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:03:51",
"content": "False positives are the bane of neural networks.Weather it’s a LLM ‘hallucinating’, you thinking you hear the phone ring when it’s loud, same bug.Humans need to be taught not to just pull pure BS from a dark smelly place when they don’t have an answer.Kids do it naturally.We’ve all known adults that lie like a 5 year old.Completely unaware that literally everybody knows they are lying.e.g. Jimmy Kimmel.",
"parent_id": "8181594",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181641",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:05:35",
"content": "Nah, I’d sooner they catch rapists and DV perps and OCGs. And find my car if it gets nicked. In the Uk certainly ANPR is used extensively and really helps police catch people with very few side effects – The false positive rate on car plates is also very low.Surveillance generally isn’t great, but the benefits of ANPR are huge.Facial recognition on the other hand, I’d guess has a much higher error rate, and is not really ready for use. And what we need is not tracking of every person, but flagging of specific individuals, with the rest of the data deleted.What we need is good oversight and robust pushback against this beingmisused.",
"parent_id": "8181530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181737",
"author": "Nonen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:19:00",
"content": "Good to hear they solved crime in the UK through ANPR. They didn’t? Oh dear.Your line about misuse is the whole problem. Misuse is inevitable. Sometimes it’s a bad execution of a good idea, oftentimes it’s just plain old power corrupting, and sometimes it’s a new regime gleefully using the tools left be their predecessors. Governments can inherently not be trusted with the power they’re given, and checks and balances and free press should prevent the worst of it, but sometimes can’t.Any system you implement for good should be presumed to eventually be used for bad. If that scenario leads to unacceptable results, don’t implement that system.",
"parent_id": "8181641",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182223",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:45:04",
"content": "Sorry Dan, you’re flat out wrong there mate.ANPR use in the UK has exploded but it’s also why false plate, cloned plate, disguised plate, mis-spaced plates have also exploded.Plus it’s not like the police are noticing some kid in a 1.3L ford escort then hunting them down in their senator.The tables have turned. There is (if you’re in on the fringes) a massive (comparatively) culture of people in very high powered cars which are affordable on credit, PCP, etc running around with just flat out fake plates, who the police stand zero chance of catching.Watch a few youtube dashcam videos and run the plates through the DVLA (hey, you can even script it…) and see how many false plates you get when it’s a blacked out German marque involved.Boots on the ground: when you’ve seen one black on black Audi you’ve potentially seen 10 of them with the same plate in the same town. Why do you think there is this crazy her now for petrol in water style windscreen wraps? That’s very illegal, but hides the driver very well and little is being done about it.This attitude is all part of the break down in general law and order in the UK – if you dont enforce X then Y is also fair game. Different rant.ANPR itself isn’t any better on average than 99% accurate either. Dwell on that one next time you go to a supermarket car park with charging for overstaying. So what if you rectify the mistake. How much time and effort did it cost you with no compensation for proving yourself innocent when automatically considered guilty by the technology ?Dont fall victim to shilling this tech as being beyond reproach – that’s exactly what they want you to think.As for the author of this study.Smart guy.But also dont overestimate what the GDPR means in practise. it’s not some magic white knight protecting us in the UK it’s far from it.It’s also blatantly being ignored by many tech companies. Who is going to find out and how huh?Sure the big ones will be almost squeeky clean, but that cheap cloud cam you bought off amazon from China ? lol sure thing.And whilst it’s fun to rag on China (because they really dont care about external laws, no really, they dont until caught) , plenty of European and US companies do it too.Sit inside the circle see what goes on.",
"parent_id": "8181641",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182509",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:12:22",
"content": "it’s fun to rag on China (because they really dont care about external laws, no really, they dont until caught)History says they don’t care even then 99.999% of the time, as those external laws they broke nothing will happen to them, worst case they suddenly have a new brand to sell the same crap under, and most likely they just tweak the product to be ‘clean’ in these external markets for bugger all cost. As when their trading partner nations generally won’t put in any real effort to prevent or punish it…",
"parent_id": "8182223",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181544",
"author": "Chr Ez",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:00:29",
"content": "Flock cameras have been going up all over the place near me, Cambridge MA is in the middle of a huge deployment, of all places…. Not cool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181793",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:06:25",
"content": "Get a hat with bright UV and IR LEDs in the rim.They’ve finally found a way to solve the ‘People aren’t wearing enough hats’ problem.",
"parent_id": "8181544",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181557",
"author": "HACKER",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:58:03",
"content": "FFFDRB^& 988GHJGHG &&&&&((bghjbjXC GBJvKJK33JJ*** ***8B **** ***8 8ihb 888888888888888 Sorry we are unactive at this time please try again later.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181572",
"author": "clind",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T04:40:37",
"content": "Chat ? No si injection on the plates storzge and tirage plateforme though a especially crafted license plate?I’m disapointed :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181616",
"author": "ALX_skater",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:27:56",
"content": "FAIL!Now instead of being just a random data point you’re drawing attention to yourself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181829",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:01:49",
"content": "What do you think:Their % ‘successful’ read is?Their % accurate read is?I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘successful’ was 150% (it finds 15 of 10 license plates in a test image) but accurate was sub 50`%I doubt it’s high enough to warrant attention for any single fail and doubt they could coordinate the fails in real time.They might keep the fail images, for subsequent analysis…bumper stickers could give them a thread to pull.Is any image without a license plate in it a fail that needs examination?But these aren’t the FBI’s computer smart floor.These are local cops, work interferes with their nap time.I suggest small windmills with license plate/back of car images on the blades.Put them in front of traffic cams, (poison the well).Angled so it can only image one blade at a time, perhaps engineer in a little drag to slow the turn.Trick them into programming the system to ignore specific plate #s.Sell those plates to criminals (including cops).Profit!Also:De-badge your car, not just to make things harder, on principle.I’ve gone so far as to put a V6 bumper cover on the back of my ‘half race’ Mustang…It won’t fool anybody with ears.Maybe if their engine was loud.But why would I be lined up right next to another fast car and be trying to convince them I had a V6?That makes no sense.",
"parent_id": "8181616",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181679",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:01:03",
"content": "I ride my bike most places I need to go on a daily basis. I usually wear dark glasses and a helmet, so I don’t think facial recognition can follow me. If I want to eliminate automated tracking (for now, anyway), I can leave my phone at home. I can use cash to buy things when I’m out.Some genius will probably program bicycle recognition into the automated surveillance systems eventually. In the meantime it’s pretty easy to spot my bike on video and track it from one camera to another visually.The billionaires are going to win. That’s what they do.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181740",
"author": "Nonen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:29:08",
"content": "Facial recognition is only a small part of surveillance tracking, in no small part due to the limitations of even modern cameras and resolutions. Often it is your posture or gait and other properties that are tracked, so even with top to bottom cover different observations can be tied together.Attaching an identity to those observations is at that point not too hard, especially when you combine data sources like Bluetooth, WiFi or payment data.",
"parent_id": "8181679",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181825",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:53:11",
"content": "Or they’ll simply start requiring license plates on bicycles with hefty fines and jail time for noncompliance.",
"parent_id": "8181679",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181688",
"author": "Elvinas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:19:54",
"content": "Anything covering your license plate is up to 600€ and transport road worthiness certificate invalidation. Even a bolt that is holding the plate must not be in the vicinity of letter or digit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181720",
"author": "Rock Erickson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:52:13",
"content": "PROTIP: not every place in the world is a neo-fascist dictatorship like EU. Curiously enough people in China enjoy more freedom than netizens in Europe.",
"parent_id": "8181688",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181731",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:08:55",
"content": "Why in earth would you think he’s talking about the EU? The comments so far referenced the US and the UK.Oops, sorry, I keep forgetting he renamed it, it’s not ‘US’ anymore but ‘New Belarus” now if I’m not mistaken. So make that ‘NB and the UK’",
"parent_id": "8181720",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181815",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:37:08",
"content": "Rent free in your head!You think the EU is less of a panopticon?I’d say the UK has a clear lead, but other than that, it’s regional.Cities w too much money are installing cameras literally everywhere.The poorer ones are only putting them in profitable locations.This is generally true on the planet earth in 2025.China is another thing, they’re government has ‘too much money’ at a national level.Completely typical ‘late stage leftism’: ‘NAZI fascist’ (means nothing now, so throwing in), authoritarian, crony economy dressed as market, police state.There is going to be some culture factor…I expecteverysquare cm of Switzerland (Including mountains) is videoed from 3 angles, but it’s a crime for anyone except the cops to access it.Every toilet in Berlin has a bowlcam aimed up. (e.g. Simpsons in Tokyo…Ahhhhh. Also ‘The Boys’, Herogasm IIRC.), Of the ones being used, a rando is broadcast from their big old antenna at all times.",
"parent_id": "8181731",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182139",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T04:34:52",
"content": "Maybe because he referenced 600 euros…",
"parent_id": "8181731",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181799",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:12:35",
"content": "Don’t cover it.Illuminate the F out of it, w IR and UV light.Real shame what that does to big brother cameras, they should install better filters.",
"parent_id": "8181688",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182401",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:00:29",
"content": "UV can hurt people and eyes. Check the wavelength and power levels and how it reflects off the license plate to make sure a child or large pet that gets close to the plate while the car is stopped doesn’t get eye damage.",
"parent_id": "8181799",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181746",
"author": "Ubaldo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:35:39",
"content": "We should start placing black garbage bags over the cameras. If not that, then at least affix a large sign tp the poles that says “SPY CAMERA” with an arrow pointing up at it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181904",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:11:46",
"content": "it was the comment about bicycling that helped me put my finger on the psychology of what’s going on here…i mean, people say they care about privacy, but what they really care about is their own personal privileges…they want to use the toll road for free. they want to speed and run red lights without concern for the effects of that on other people.but why is privacy such a big bugaboo? why do people believe there is such a thing?and it’s because of the dehumanizing effect of the car. when you’re in the car, you don’t see all the people around you. t’ve got some gear-head friends, they know everyone by what car they drive. so if i’m going around town with them, they’re like “oh, there’s jim”. but for most of us, we get in our cars and do our morning commute in complete anonymity. everyone around you is a stranger.that’s an absolutely nuts perspective. if you leave the house at 8:32am every morning and turn into the parking garage by your office at 8:57am every morning, you are not anonymous at all! those “strangers” in the other cars are the same strangers you saw every other day. the steel box you’re in gives an illusion of an unfamiliarity that isn’t reflective of what used to be an obvious social reality. you are travelling with a group of people that you see every morning, and you have no idea that’s happening. they aren’t strangers at all.there’s some scale factors — a freeway vs a highway vs a neighborhood street, you will have different mixes of strangers. a big city vs a small city. but if you have a daily routine — and most of us do — you are seeing the same people over and over again, even if you don’t know it.which is just a long way of saying, i bike. and even though my bike isn’t very distinctive and i’m not very distinctive, i’m seen. everyone sees me. and after a while, the people i interact with every day in traffic learn to recognize me. just being on a bike without a number plate doesn’t make me anonymous at all. if you go somewhere popular, you’re part of a crowd but you’re seen by many. if you go somewhere unpopular, you stand out as the only bike in hours.we live in a society, and people in cars can just forget that sometimes",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182015",
"author": "Zai1208",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:38:38",
"content": "Funnily enough, I feel the opposite, I recognise many cars on the road because of their number plates, and bicycles are recognisable by the person and (possible)modification or accessories on the bicycle.Also, a lot of cars look the same, thus without number plates they would be unrecognisable, but when you see a familiar number plate, it gives you a sense of familiarity that like “I know this car”.I know think I’m just adding fluff to this comment, but I felt obliged to respond to this comment (as you said“we live in a society”)",
"parent_id": "8181904",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182017",
"author": "Zai1208",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:39:34",
"content": "I meant “I now think”HaD needs an edit button",
"parent_id": "8182015",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182229",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:51:58",
"content": "I guess your country doesn’t have the phenomena of people riding around on illegal e-scooters and e-bikes capable of 40mph+, up to some ridiculous speed, riding around with their faces cover like they are part of a seal team raid because they know 100% what they are doing is illegal and they are either 1) trying to avoid getting identified 2) also here illegally.I totally agree with you that people want to have their own special excuses.but guess what, society has enforced that wholly.Through pulling back on the concept of shameful behaviour, actually encouraging it.Celebrating criminality in culture and media.Pulling back on law enforcement for petty crime.Blaming others and promoting victimhood.With people not held accountable for their actions AND others seeing them get away with it, what do you expect ??",
"parent_id": "8181904",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182402",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:03:37",
"content": "That picture looks like everyone’s front license plate duringlove bug season. “Bug splats” all over the plate.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.792807
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/enhanced-definition-tv-a-poor-mans-high-def/
|
Enhanced Definition TV: “A Poor Man’s High-Def”
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"History"
] |
[
"EDTV",
"hdtv"
] |
Although to many of us the progression from ‘standard definition’ TV and various levels of high-definition at 720p or better seemed to happen smoothly around the turn of the new century, there was a far messier technological battle that led up to this. One of these contenders was Enhanced Definition TV (EDTV), which was 480p in either 4:3 or 16:9, as a step up from Standard Definition TV (SDTV) traditional TV quality. The convoluted history of EDTV and the long transition to proper HDTV is the subject of
a recent video
by [VWestlife].
One reason why many people aren’t aware of EDTV is because of marketing. With HDTV being the hot new bullet point to slap on a product, a TV being widescreen was often enough to market an EDTV with 480p as ‘HD’, not to mention the ‘HD-compatible’ bullet point that you could see everywhere.
That said, the support for digital 480p and ‘simplified 1080i’ signals of EDTV makes these displays still quite usable today, more than SDTV CRTs and LCDs that are usually limited to analog signals-only at regular NTSC, PAL or SECAM. It may not be HD, but at least it’s enhanced.
| 14
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181481",
"author": "Nikolai",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:28:46",
"content": "I had a Sony Trinitron Wega CRT TV 4×3 with 1080i and DVI Input. The playback quality from DVD via DVI port was significantly better that common RCA back then.The model was similar to KV-30XBR910. The specs don’t mention “EDTV”, but HDTV and 1080i.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181483",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:31:18",
"content": "So it’s basically the same as standard definition PAL but with progressive scanning?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181541",
"author": "JD.Pants",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:49:10",
"content": "SD PAL is 576. This would be SD NTSC.",
"parent_id": "8181483",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181761",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:00:32",
"content": "Yes, but in the video the proposed standard, or one version of it, would have been 525 lines progressive.Which puts it very close to what became standard DVB-T, which wasn’t an improvement over standard analog PAL because the broadcasting system was privatized and the new owner removed “redundant” transmitters to save money, making the signals weaker. Then they started charging money for bandwidth instead of fixed allocations, so the channel operators choked the channels so tight the picture went to mush and the error correction started skipping even in areas with good reception.",
"parent_id": "8181541",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181607",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:11:17",
"content": "And 5.1 audio, yes.",
"parent_id": "8181483",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181486",
"author": "Ed Callway",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:38:41",
"content": "As @mrallinwonder at ATI, I spent most of the 2000s working on chips for the transition from full analog to full digital TV. It was far messier than just EDTV. TV vendors would market a TV as “HDTV” if it did even one of these tasks: accepted 480p or 1280p or 1080i input (analog yprpb or VGA, or digital HDMI or DVI or MPEG2 ATSC ), put it through multiple digital<>analig conversions for processing, and finally displayed that HD input on anything from 480i CRTs to 800×480 plasma to 1080i LCDs. For giant rear projection TVs where signals had to travel many feet inside the cabinet, digital RGB was often converted to analog to limit RFI from the cables, then back to digital on the next board. It took quite a few years before it all settled down. Fun times.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181504",
"author": "Cap",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:45:44",
"content": "I had an Plasma EDTV.. Sucker weighed in at about 150 Lbs.. Some Super Off. OFF Brand.. Picture was great, as I was Big Ugly Satellite Dish, Cable, and DVD’s.. The Part I did not like about it was the Software was Sctchey.. You had to Re-Select your Input for Vid and Audio each time. I had to Build my own Corner Wall Mount, and Strengthen my Wall with Plywood for Anchor Points..Finally when TV’s got Cheaper and Lighter, I settled in on the Sony Quarto.. That machine is Likely 10 to 14 years old.. It was a PAIN to get that Plasma off the Corner.. Three People to get it off..Beautiful Picture.. Not a Smart Set.. But the DVD/Blue Ray hooked to it is.. as well as the ROKU Box..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181591",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:05:51",
"content": "Would love an article on AHD which is still a thing for cheap analogue CCTV cameras:https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/326659062693for example claims to be AHD and 1920 x 1080 resolution for 16 monies.I looked at AHD a while back but sourcing chips or any real info seemed to be quite hard.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182567",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T04:51:51",
"content": "AHD is the lowest quality of the 3 HD analog CCTV formats. It crams the 1080p video into 33 MHz of bandwidth. HD-TVI looks much better with almost double the bandwidth. Most cameras these days can be switched between all 3 formats.",
"parent_id": "8181591",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181783",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:54:18",
"content": "There was a proposal for some analog HD TV system here in Europe. And this got blocked by “government”. The argument was that it would just be an intermediate standard, and that everybody would have to switch to digital a few years later. “Industry” itself would “of course” be perfectly happy with changing TV standards every 5 years. So industry had to take on the task of making a “future proof” digital TV standard.I think this was in the early ’90-iesI’ve never had cable (nor satellite) TV in the place I live now (for over 20 years). Internet has completely displaced tv for me, and I have never had a “digital TV”, so I don’t know when the switch finally happened.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181913",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:28:33",
"content": "here’s a related complication that really drives me crazy if i think about it too much1366×768. it’s the norm for budget laptop displays (i finally got 1920×1080 for the first time a few months ago). to my considerable surprise, it’s also the norm for 720p LCD TVs!?? but 768 isn’t 720!i had no idea, until i hooked up a raspberry pi to my livingroom TV. with regular TV-style content, it isn’t perceptible to me. but i still use the default classic X11 background (it doesn’t seem to be default anymore), a mesh kind of like chain link fence. and the moire pattern is very stark. to make it worse, HDMI does allow custom resolutions to some extent, but (IIRC) the X dimension has to be divisible by 8 or 16, which 1366 isn’t. so it seems to be impossible to actually get the TV to render in its native resolution.it upsets me when i think about how many times my content was re-sampled, including one completely non-negotiable resampling in the TV itself. ridiculous. i try not to think about. i try to tell myself that above pathetic resolutions, for moving pictures, resampling is free in time/energy/complexity, and quality. i know it’s a lie butanyone know why the TV manufacturers don’t make 720p panels?? given the enormous volume of like 32″ 720p TVs that have been manufactured, i’m just astonished that they don’t make a panel that’s actually suited exactly to that purpose?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181968",
"author": "cplamb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:53:30",
"content": "I’m confused by the statement that EDTV doubled the lines of NTSC from 525 to 1050 lines. NTSC does have 525 lines but only 480 (digital) or 485 (analog) have picture information on them. The remainder are used for such things as sync, closed captioning, and teletext. Did EDTV sets really double the composite lines signal before extracting the the picture information or did the writer assume that all 525 lines contained picture information?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182088",
"author": "Jose",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T01:52:04",
"content": "I thought this was going to be about a special channel for ads about viagra and cialis…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182831",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T04:32:54",
"content": "And hen they moved on to the trainwreck of “4k” nonsense.Sure, let’s take a standard name that already exists within the realm, and just use it with a different meaning anyway…But let’s ALSO use it inconsistently, because confusing people will make us more money.Then let’s rename the old standard…The DCI 4k standard is WAY older, and actually 4k (4096×2160).There is also a 2k standard, which makes perfect logical sense at 2048×1080.If they are going to make a 16×9 resolution from DCI 4k and call it “4k” then they need to call the 16×9 1080p “2k”.1440p is NOT 2k.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.845303
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/worst-clock-ever-teaches-you-qr-codes/
|
Worst Clock Ever Teaches You QR Codes
|
Elliot Williams
|
[
"Arduino Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] |
[
"arduino",
"library",
"qr code"
] |
[WhiskeyTangoHotel]
wrote in with his newest clock build
— and he did warn us that it was minimalist and maybe less than useful. Indeed, it is nothing more than a super-cheap ESP32-C3 breakout board with an OLED screen and some code. Worse, you can’t even tell the time on it without pointing your cell phone at the QR code it generates. Plot twist: you skip the QR code and check the time on your phone.
But then we got to thinking, and there is actually a lot to learn from here on the software side. This thing pulls the time down from an NTP server, formats it into a nice human-readable string using
strftime
, throws that string into a QR code that’s generated on the fly, and then pushes the bits out to the screen. All in a handful of lines of code.
As always, the secret is in the libraries and how you use them, and we wanted to check out the QR code generator, but we couldn’t find an exact match for
QRCodeGenerator.h
. Probably the most popular library is the
Arduino QRCode library
by [ricmoo]. It’s bundled with Arduino, but labelled version 0.0.1, which we find a little bit modest given how widely it’s used. It also hasn’t been updated in eight years: proof that it just works?
That library drew from [nayuki]’s fantastically documented multi-language
QR-Code-generator library
, which should have you covered on any platform you can imagine, with additional third-party ports to languages you haven’t even heard of. That’s where we’d go for a non-Arduino project.
What library did [WTH] use? We hope to find out soon, but at least we found a couple good candidates, and it appears to be a version of one or the other.
We’ve seen a lot of projects where the hacker generates a QR code using some online tool, packs the bits into a C header array, and displays that. That’s fine when you only need a single static QR code, but absolutely limiting when you want to make something dynamic. You know, like an unreadable clock.
You will not be surprised to know that this isn’t the first
unreadable QR-code clock
we’ve featured here. But it’s definitely the smallest and most instructive.
| 9
| 8
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181489",
"author": "El Gru",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:41:30",
"content": "This could have been a paper printout of a QR code to a time website? Doesn’t even need a 555. /grinThe changing QR code is a neat thing, though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181502",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:42:17",
"content": "If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. A properly done v0.1 will not need a bug fix forever.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181518",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T23:58:54",
"content": "Thanks to Google Chrome, we’re all conditioned to think that version numbers must be at least 3 digits and increment on a near-daily basis!This is a neat design, though, and has planted a seed in my own imagination… 🤔",
"parent_id": "8181502",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181707",
"author": "Garth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:02:43",
"content": "Now this is a really neat spin on the usual clock builds here. This is a real surprise. The display could be bigger but I think it is cool. One suggestion for fun…If you made it into a wall clock you might want it to slip in occasionally the QR code for “Rick Roll”. One thing though QR’s have a bad rap due to the stickers that send people to fake or hacking websites. My favorite though is the TV employment ad that the announcer says ” to apply for a position just scan the QR code on the screen”…like someone is so desperate they are going to get off their arse to scan a code on a TV screen.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181728",
"author": "Pio",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:01:49",
"content": "ch00f’s original work still rules:https://hackaday.com/2012/10/29/qr-clock-is-unreadable-by-humans-and-computers-alike/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181843",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:31:16",
"content": "Star Wars ASCII via QR code when?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181883",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:39:48",
"content": "This reminds me of those watches in the ’80-ies and ’90-ies that got data (such as appointments) out of a PC by holding it in front of a few blinking pixels on your monitor.The shaky out of focus video is quite horrible though.Can you also play checkers on a QR code board?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182568",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T04:57:13",
"content": "You don’t even need a phone to read it. Just use another esp32 with a QR scanner module.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183496",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T01:19:57",
"content": "Why would they use a full sized QR code?The standard includes MUCH smaller matrixes, down to an 11×11 which is still more than enough to store the time in ASCII, let alone a numeric time.If they had made it the smallest version, a dedicated user could ACTUALLY learn to tell time on it.They chose to forgo actual geek cred for ‘art cred’ by making it intentionally unreadable.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.894261
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/bcachefs-is-now-a-dkms-module-after-exile-from-the-linux-kernel/
|
BCacheFS Is Now A DKMS Module After Exile From The Linux Kernel
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Linux Hacks"
] |
[
"BcacheFS",
"filesystem",
"linux kernel"
] |
It’s been a tense few months for users of the BCacheFS filesystem, as amidst the occasional terse arguments and flowery self-praise on the Linux Kernel mailing list the future of this filesystem within the Linux kernel hung very much in the balance. After some initial confusion about what ‘externally maintained’ means in Linux parlance, it’s now clear that this means that BCacheFS has effectively been kicked out of the kernel as [Linus] promised and will ship as a DKMS module instead. The gory details of this change are discussed
in a recent video
by [Brodie Robertson].
We covered
the BCacheFS controversy
in the Linux world a few months ago, amidst reports of data loss and filesystem corruption among its users. Its lead developer, [Kent Overstreet], came to blows with [Linus Torvalds] on the LKML after [Kent] insisted on repeatedly pushing new features into kernel release candidate branches along with rather haughty statements on why he should be able to do this.
To make a long story short, [Linus] didn’t like this and froze BCacheFS support in the current kernel release with all future in-kernel development ceased. Distributions like SuSE have initially said that will disable BCacheFS starting in kernel version 6.17, meaning that users of BCacheFS may now have to install the DKMS module themselves. Some distributions like Arch are likely to include this DKMS module by default, which is something you want to check if you use this filesystem.
| 46
| 8
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182145",
"author": "V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T04:52:52",
"content": "Finally. Nothings gonna teach this guy a lesson on testing, production and maturity. I normally do not like or brown nose Linus but this guy pushed the envelope too much, I don’t care how many people rely on it, if you keep pushing broken rushed out code and expecting people to pull willy nilly you’re no different than Microsoft.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182160",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T05:38:46",
"content": "Trying to push out a new feature in an RC is dumb. Once is a mistake but doing this repeatedly is simply a disregarding the rules for contributions which exist to ensure stability. Contributors that are potentially destabilizing the the kernel in RC are not helping Linux.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182324",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T13:59:01",
"content": "Hmm. I think this is a lesson for everyone, and I don’t mean to say that this Overstreet guy was wrong.This tragedy shows us what happens when people’s egos clash, what a power play this Linux is, etc.The removal of BCacheFS is sad because it’s one of the few promising file systems.Comparable to ReiserFS (where the removal was admittedly due to valid ethical concerns).The removal was also a kind of public execution, to set an example.And the major Linux distributions are acting accordingly, acting submissive to Mr. Torwald’s political message.Their decisions (or lack thereof) demonstrate a worrying lack of integrity.They are essentially following a leader without question, and perhaps even trying to please him that way.Patches. What people seem to forget about kernel patches is that “experimental” support in the kernelisn’t really experimental in the traditional sense.A component like BCacheFS isn’t as “experimental” as it seems at first glance.Rather, such code needs to prove itself over an extended period of time before its experimental status is removed.That’s why experimental code sometimes retains that status for years.Sometimes it’s also overlooked that these additional patches had a good reason, as it’s afilesystem,a critical component of any operating system (nobody likes data loss).Another story that comes to mind is that of the C++ developer who refused to provide additional Rust support for critical DMA-related code a few months ago.This developer, too, was “removed,” despite acting reasonably and telling both Mr. Torwalds and the Rust folks that he didn’t have time for Rust.Direct-Memory-Access (DMA) code is just as delicate as file system code and can’t be rushed.It is therefore wrong to expect an experienced C++ developer to devote all of its free time to learning Rust programming and quickly become as proficient in it as he is with C++ now.The right decision would have been to provide him with a helping assistant (person)or the Rust fans should have provided him with a C++ <> Rust translation wrapper.Many people seem to forget that developers sacrifice their free time and are not paid for it.Speaking under correction here, I’m not a Linux fan.",
"parent_id": "8182160",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182329",
"author": "mrb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:16:21",
"content": "Reiserfs was not removed for any ethical concerns. It was removed due to bitrot from lack of a maintenance, and keeping it working against the ever evolving common kernel APIs was a major pain point for filesystem developers.",
"parent_id": "8182324",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182331",
"author": "walmart_newton",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:31:08",
"content": "“They are essentially following a leader without question, and perhaps even trying to please him that way.”What reason could distros possibly have for “pleasing” Linus, given he cannot in any way affect their operation?And you are twisting the Rust driver saga into something it was not. The developer did not want to admit rust code which was maintained byothers",
"parent_id": "8182324",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182342",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T15:23:34",
"content": "And you are twisting the Rust driver saga into something it was not. The developer did not want to admit rust code which was maintained by othersReally? My bad. But there’s still the matter about responsibility.Even if others wrote code, it’s him who must carry the responsibility.And to do so, he must invest time to become proficient in programming in Rust.My point was that it’s not as simple as it looks.",
"parent_id": "8182331",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182380",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:18:19",
"content": "“Even if others wrote code, it’s him who must carry the responsibility.”No, that’s not what was going on at all. He just didn’t want the code in the kernel at all. It wouldn’t have been his responsibility in the slightest. It wasn’t part of his code at all, it justcalledhis code.",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182389",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:33:55",
"content": "That is explicitly NOT how it works.The deal is, if C programmers want to help out, cool, they’re taking on that responsibility. If they don’t want to help out, cool, it’s not their responsibility at all. They can do whatever they want and not worry about the rust code.But the thing that Linus made clear was that they can’t have it both ways. They can’t BOTH not have to deal with/touch the rust code, AND dictate what it can do, how it works, and what it can touch. If C programmers in the kernel wash their hands of dealing with rust code (as is their right) then they’re also giving up their say in how it interacts with their code.",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182500",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:31:24",
"content": "@Pat @M By “responsibility” I didn’t mean liability in a legal sense.It’s about how critical the matter is and whether or not it is compatible with one’s own conscience.Personally, I couldn’t spontanously come up with much else than DMA if I was trying to find something “dangerous” and crucial as an example.And I do understand if he is reserved against letting the Rust “kids” play with it through “learning by doing”.Because I remember for example how tricky it sometimes was to call C code from Pascal and vice versa.There’s a lot that can go wrong, the different calling conventions etc.About C++ vs Rust, I think it’s like asking a veteran Fortran programmer to learn Logo and be good at it.I’d decline, too and try to protect my work, for the well being of everyone. ;)",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182508",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:11:17",
"content": "No, you really don’t understand. He was trying to dictate who could call his functions and that’s totally not OK.It would be like saying “no, this Nvidia driver is not OK, it calls my function and I don’t like Nvidia.”It had nothing to do with him whatsoever.",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182788",
"author": "MattM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T22:55:54",
"content": "Your comment in reply to the others in this one is a perfect demonstration of why you clearly don’t understand the matter. I hate Rust, but you are treating rust developers as if they are not real developers, and acting as if they have no idea what they are doing and just committing bad code without looking into what happened at all. That is not what was happening, you are incredibly disingenuous and if this was anything but random code rubbish, you would be defaming them to boot.That is an issue. That is a problem.",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182966",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:04:07",
"content": "@Pat If it’s clearly “his” code and he has no saying about it, then why has Mr Torwalds a say about both his own code (Linux) and the code of said C++ developer?Do rules merely apply to some people here and not to others? 🤨",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182972",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:09:06",
"content": "@MattM Maybe we don’t understand because it’s simply unlogical or unreasonable?Shouldn’t maintainers of something have a say about how something is properly used?It’s their code, they wrote it, they spent time on it.Back in the 1980s, authors of public domain software sometimes noted in their readme filesthat their software is free, except that it shouldn’t be used for military purposes or to harm others.",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182977",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:27:28",
"content": "@MattM What is to expect if languages are named like a damage?Rust, Brain*ck etcRust literally is named after a corrosion. Who wants corroded code?I’m no fan of either C++ or Rust, but I can totally understand hesitation to support a language that seems like a shortlived fad.Especially if it’s about serious matters like DMA.No matter if DMA is just being used as a lame excuse for a reason by said C+@ developer.",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183240",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T13:03:30",
"content": "“then why has Mr Torwalds a say about both his own code (Linux) and the code of said C++ developer?”He isn’t saying anything about the DMA maintainer’s code! At all! Zip. Nothing. The maintainer does not need to do anything. At all.Linus is the project maintainer. He accepts patches. If the patches were in the DMA subsystem, the maintainer would have a say. They are not, And so he does not.Do you not understand the “this Nvidia driver is not okay because I don’t like Nvidia and it calls my code” analogy?",
"parent_id": "8182342",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182381",
"author": "Narwal",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:22:39",
"content": "The issue is not that the code was written by others. It is that he would be forced to maintain compatibility with their code. He didn’t want to take on that commitment for a language he doesn’t know.",
"parent_id": "8182331",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182425",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:48:04",
"content": "That was the stated reason. It’s bogus. It has been an explicit part of the deal since the beginning that C devs can do whatever the hell they like and not give a damn about breaking the rust code. The rust devs will just have to adapt.His real motivation (explicitly admitted to!) was to sabotage rust-linux work by blocking access to the critical DMA API. Linus came down hard on this, ending the discussion by stating that C devs can learn rust and participate, or they can ignore it and get no say how rust code interacts with their stuff. They don’t get to block code they also don’t want to be involved in maintaining.",
"parent_id": "8182381",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182485",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T22:53:38",
"content": "What reason could distros possibly have for “pleasing” Linus, given he cannot in any way affect their operation?Hm, I don’t know for sure. Maybe religious ones, among others? Or for PR?Why did certain users “follow” and worship Mr. Jobs back then?I’ve stopped trying to understand the Linux community or makers of distros, it’s beyond my abilities I’m afraid.Like why they constantly change everything each release so that printed books have no chance. Etc pp.It’s just worrying when distributions simply seemingly follow the decision of a celebrity, and silently, without giving good reason why they do so.In an extra ordinary situation like this, they should at least communicate why they keep or remove something.Or them trying to find or discuss a compromise,also to support users who already rely on something like BCacheFS.Instead of just cutting off life-support prematurely, basically. IMHO.An external kernel module would be such an interim solution, maybe.The drop for RaiserFS a long time ago was at least understandable because of all the circumstances of its creator.",
"parent_id": "8182331",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182370",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:05:57",
"content": "“This tragedy shows us what happens when people’s egos clash, what a power play this Linux is, etc.The removal of BCacheFS is sad because it’s one of the few promising file systems.”This wasn’t a power play.Linus is the kernel’s supervisor. He’s one person. Obviously you have to match his workflow to yours, because everyone else is too.This is like some guy overseeing a minor part of a huge factory bothering the supervisor constantly over every thing he finds. And then when the supervisor says “not now, bring it up next week at the meeting when I have time” the guy says “but my stuff is awesome and Jim over in Section D sucks!”He’s painting it as a power play because Linus is saying “dude you have to follow my submission rules, or else I’m just going to stop taking submissions from you.” But that’s not a power play. That’s Linus being self protective. He has to. He’s human, and he doesn’t have infinite time to review stuff.Those schedules and rules are there for a reason. They have to be. It doesn’t matter that Kent’s stuff was great. If it threatens the whole development process, it doesn’t work. This doesn’t have anything to do with Linus. It’s all Kent.If you think I’m exaggerating anything here, go read the LKML. It’s all there.",
"parent_id": "8182324",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182490",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:05:26",
"content": "This wasn’t a power play.It wasn’t? Hm. To me, the whole message basically was like:“okay, fine, you get what you want – this time. but in the next release I’ll kill your entire life work. good bye and have a nice day.”If you think I’m exaggerating anything here, go read the LKML. It’s all there.I don’t, I believe you. I’m aware how harsh these mailing lists can turn out.I didn’t mean to part with any side here.I just think it’s sad and worrying how things have turned out.In this day and age, good filesystems matter more than ever.Everything is digital and masses of data must be stored every time.",
"parent_id": "8182370",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182510",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:13:30",
"content": "“To me, the whole message basically was like:”The message was “I can’t continue to take these patches because it makes my work harder since I have to work differently just for you, are you going to change?” “No.” “Okay bye.”",
"parent_id": "8182490",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182978",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:29:36",
"content": "@Pat If the poor guy is so overworked, how about a new job?He could hand over the job to someone else.",
"parent_id": "8182490",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183242",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T13:07:23",
"content": "If you think anyone else would do Linus’s job differently than he does, I’m sorry, you don’t understand large-scale distributed development.",
"parent_id": "8182490",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182754",
"author": "1111",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T19:45:19",
"content": "There’s no C++ code in the Linux kennel btw.",
"parent_id": "8182324",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182787",
"author": "MattM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T22:50:35",
"content": "I’m pretty sure Finnish doesn’t use “w”. I can only find one reference to Torwalds. Are you misspelling his name in spite? That seems childish.",
"parent_id": "8182324",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182363",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:46:13",
"content": "You way over simplified. pleaseactuallyread the discussion before bringing up the hot take you came up with after reading a very short summary.He was booted by the CoC for being “insulting” while he was also insulted. Only one got hit by the CoC though.If the patches would have been the reason for his and the codes ouster I wouldn’t care, but the CoC was absolutely weaponized against him.Meanwhile Linus insults people often.",
"parent_id": "8182160",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182374",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:12:28",
"content": "No, he was booted for ignoring the normal development process, responding to it with behavior outside the code of conduct, and refusing to acknowledge anything. Any time someone tried to explain to him what he was doing, he responded with rants about Btrfs. He just. Kept. Doubling. Down. In fact he kept arguing that the development process for Linux itself was bad. Its like he was trying to demonstrate a law was bad by repeatedly violating it even when everyone else in a community supported it. And then he was surprised he was thrown in jail.It’s not the violations that were the issue, it’s the fact that he never even acknowledged he was doing anything wrong. Not the same in any way.",
"parent_id": "8182363",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182461",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:44:08",
"content": "Uh no.",
"parent_id": "8182374",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182469",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:41:31",
"content": "Go read what the excuses he gave for his behaviour were, they are all ridiculous. Despite specific warnings that he can’t do the things he is doing his response was always too do it again and blame others first not understanding why he should do whatever he wants.",
"parent_id": "8182461",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182512",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T00:14:49",
"content": "He never even addressedanyof the points people were making, he literally just kept saying how crap Btrfs was and how great his stuff was. It was crazy.",
"parent_id": "8182461",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182584",
"author": "Jumping Jack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:12:10",
"content": "I personally messaged with Kent several times, as well as read conversations with countless other people who tried to very patiently explain to him why, when his product is part of a bigger system, his development and integration process needs to be compatible with said system (and that includes not just the technical part, but also processes and people). His response was always “I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m just doing what makes sense for me and my users. I’m the only competent person. The process is stupid and everyone else is stupid.” Not once did he even acknowledge that he could have done anything differently.I mean, really? If you were the person in charge of anything, would you want to work with a person like that? Or, if you were developing a product for a certain market (say a car for the US), would you deliberately and repeatedly ignore requests from regulators and call them stupid? Do you think that’s a good way to launch your product?Seriously, Kent never even acknowledged thathisusers are significantly hurt by BCacheFS getting kicked out of the kernel. His famous last words were “I don’t want to be part of Linux kernel anyway.” I have never in my life seen anybody so self-sabotaging.",
"parent_id": "8182461",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182399",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:55:56",
"content": "As someone who follows Linux news, Linus has been magnitudes more considerate in his responses than say 10 years ago. He is stern and too the point, still prone to controllee outbursts with potential expletives. It reminds me of my 1st guitar teacher, his teaching style left so much to be desired I quit his tutelage promptly. However, both he and I went on to be talented and well practiced guitarists. Chemistry is everything.",
"parent_id": "8182363",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182460",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T20:43:29",
"content": "Yes he has been more moderate ever since his “hiatus”, but stillregularlyviolates the CoC. Which I take issue with. Its literally “Rules for thee, but not for me”They are either rules that apply for everyone or they don’t apply to anyone.",
"parent_id": "8182399",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182471",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:44:41",
"content": "Not at all, do you think calling out someone for doing something wrong repeatedly is against the CoC? It isn’t. Now, trampling over other projects? Breaking things in RC? Those are actual problems.",
"parent_id": "8182460",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182468",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:38:03",
"content": "This has nothing to do with the CoC. A developer unwilling to work under the same rules as others in there project got many warnings and eventually got himself kicked out, that’s all.",
"parent_id": "8182363",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182574",
"author": "Ryan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T06:19:38",
"content": "So Linus should not approve the merge on current branch, request it on next branch or whatever but drop the ego crap. Feature freeze should be taken seriously but development doesn’t always follow release schedules, at times fixing a bug requires a module rewrite that you’ve already added features to and undoing that to not add features is dumb, just push for next merge window.",
"parent_id": "8182160",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182840",
"author": "Geert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T06:08:31",
"content": "If your bugfix is this big you either should have branched to a new feature branch, after which you should be able to backport the fix to any other branch. If the fix is this biganddepends on things in your new feature branch, surprise surprise, your fix is actually a feature addition, and you should live with this bug not being fixed in this release, so you can follow the release process strictly and at leastknowwhat bugs you are releasing into the wild.Linus dropping the ego crap, sure, but also: this developer knowingly pulls this crap over and over again and does not listen to anyone, believing each and every time they are right and should be exempted. At some point, a line must be drawn. With constant pressure on the wrong spot like this developer is applying, if not excluded, it takes one small mistake or oversight for it to cause bigger issues.",
"parent_id": "8182574",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182341",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T15:18:23",
"content": "I can see both sides, but I acknowledge that the Linux kernel stable branch is not a good place to make frequent changes. In this case the new file system being developed is not ready for deployment by the kernels standards. The move to a dkms module makes perfect sense.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182376",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:16:30",
"content": "Kent’s development process was rapid fire, which is fine for him. But the rest of the kernel developers don’t want to work that way, and not only did he refuse to follow their process he actively kept attacking it and other people, taking up more of everyone’s time.As I said above it was really weird. People would point out to him “hey our problem is you keep ignoring our process and responding to it by attacking unrelated things” and he would respond by doing theexact same thing. Again.",
"parent_id": "8182341",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182585",
"author": "Timo P",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:16:43",
"content": "In general promising robust file system and making frequent changes because of features breaking in frigging “robust” file system causing data loss to users is pretty absurd mess and one needs to make certain decisions in order to end up in such situation in the first place.Imagine if Linux kernel worked like that.",
"parent_id": "8182341",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182386",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:32:23",
"content": "Kent should have just accepted the rules for pushing features to the kernel after it was explained to him but he thought he was more important than any of the other thousands of people contributing code to the kernel.The other main drivers of the kernel agreed with the decision as well. And I think it really was the best decision because I don’t want unstable code in the kernel just because some hot shot think he’s above everyone else. They have set these rules for pushing to the kernel, the RC will only accept bug fixes.Now he can fix what he need, then he can try and get back into the kernel again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182431",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:20:12",
"content": "It’s because he disagreed with the rules and openly stated so. It was like he was trying to pull a power play against all the other developers and tried to justify it by shaming a filesystem. Sooo weird.",
"parent_id": "8182386",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182434",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:27:20",
"content": "Hopefully Kent will cool down, come to his senses, make amends, and not basically kill his own child by being stupid stubborn.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182467",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:33:33",
"content": "Stating this as something “Linus didn’t like” is underestimating the problem. When a developer who fights with anyone and everyone about what policies they can ignore it is a problem for the entire community. Linus was simply the final word after repeated failures to abide by basic provisions for inclusion.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182771",
"author": "El Gru",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T21:29:30",
"content": "For me the whole BCacheFS saga falls into the category “you had one job and all you did was fail”.When your process for developing a file system looks more like a script kiddies first website instead of SLOW AND BORING then even getting into the linux kernel is a crazy coup.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182910",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:29:54",
"content": "i’m kind of dismayed by the comments above acting like Linus is enforcing a release policy out of ego or selfishness.but the thing that i think people are misunderstanding is that this doesn’t kill bcachefs. anecdote:i have a knockoff temu laptop with an intel chipset with integrated wifi. so far as i can tell, the chipset is genuine, but the included ROM is missing the “regulatory” section. Linux has a hack for that, /lib/firmware/regulatory.db. a device-independent way to provide the regulatory information. but the iwlwifi driver rejects a ROM without the regulatory section, even though the ROM is nice and modular and unambiguously shows that it doesn’t have it. so i made a least-effort hack to simply fail gracefully (instead of refusing to load), and then it automatically falls back to regulatory.db. a 20-line patch.i submitted it and the iwlwifi maintainer rejected it. i’m convinced he rejected it because he’s an intel employee and he is trying to sabotage the kernel so that it only works with ‘official’ hardware. i think that’s a garbage attitude and a demonstration of a moral hazard caused by allowing the intel employees to not only submit, but also to gatekeep.but he didn’t kill my work, and he didn’t kill my laptop. it just means i’m using a custom kernel for a while.if you want to use your unstable eats-your-data filesystem, you have to go off the beaten path. since it was never the default for any mainstream distro, you were already going off the beaten path. say la vee.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,422.722906
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/test-pattern-generator-for-scart-and-rgb-tvs/
|
Test Pattern Generator For SCART And RGB TVs
|
Tyler August
|
[
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] |
[
"analog tv",
"crt",
"pattern generator",
"rp2040",
"test pattern"
] |
CRTs don’t last forever, and neither do the electronics that drive them. When you have a screen starting to go wonky, then you need a way to troubleshoot which is at fault. A great tool for that is a pattern generator, but they’re not the easiest to come by these days. [baritonomarchetto] needed a pattern generator to help repair his favourite arcade machine, and decided to make his own
DIY Portable RGB CRT Test Pattern Generator.
One of the test patterns available from the device. This TV appears to be in good working order.
While he does cite [Nicholas Murray]’s
RP2040 test pattern generator
as a starting point (which itself builds on the
PicoVGA library once featured here
), he couldn’t just build one. That worthy project only outputs VGA and because [baritonomarchetto] is in Europe, he needed a SCART connector. Since he’s working on arcade machines, he needed non-SCART RGB signals, too. The arcade signals need to be at higher voltages (TLL level) than the RGB signal you’d find in SCART and VGA.
The upshot is while he’s using [Nicholas]’s code for the RP2040, he’s rolled his own PCB, including a different resistor ladders to provide the correct voltages depending on if he’s dealing with a home TV or arcade CRT. To make life easier, the whole thing runs off a 9V battery.
If you’re wondering what the point of these test patterns is, check out this
1981-vintage pattern generator
for some context from the era. If a digital replica doesn’t float your boat, it is possible to recreate
the original analog circuitry
that generated these patterns back when the CRT was king.
| 3
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8182064",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T00:28:52",
"content": "Fascinating project, and it reminded me of how huge and bulky SCART was. Truly an interface designed by a committee of bureaucrats :)As far as test patterns go, to those of us who are British and of a certain age there is only one true test card, of course: Carole Hersee with Bubbles the clown.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Card_F",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182647",
"author": "mr3",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T13:25:53",
"content": "There’s a sort of slowly still-accumulating collection of patterns out there that we use for testing various flavors of display. Thanks for this one, I’m adding it to mine. I’ll probably be running it through some beefy SCART as well ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184221",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T16:29:28",
"content": "I did this in BASIC in 1985 on my Sinclair Spectrum when I was fixing up secondhand TV’s for resale.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.049196
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/haasoscope-pro-open-everything-2-ghz-usb-oscilloscope/
|
Haasoscope Pro: Open-Everything 2 GHz USB Oscilloscope
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"hardware"
] |
[
"Haasoscope Pro",
"Open-Everything",
"usb oscilloscope"
] |
Our hacker [haas] is at it again with the
Haasoscope Pro
, a full redesign of the original Haasoscope, which was a successful Crowd Supply campaign back in 2018.
This new Pro version was funded on Crowd Supply in April this year and increases the bandwidth from 60 MHz to 2 GHz, the vertical resolution from 8 to 12 bits, and the sample rate from 125 MS/s to 3.2 GS/s. Selling for $999 it claims to be the first open-everything, affordable, high-bandwidth, real-time sampling USB oscilloscope.
The firmware and software are under active development and
a new version was released yesterday
.
The hardware has an impressive array of features packed into a slick aluminum case with quiet 40 mm internal fan and 220 x 165 x 35 mm (8.66 x 6.5 x 1.38 in) form-factor weighing in at 0.9 kg (1.98 lbs). Also available is an active probe supporting up to 2 GHz analog bandwidth.
The Haasoscope Pro is miles ahead of alternatives such as
this USB oscilloscope
from back in 2010 and you can find a bunch of support material on GitHub:
drandyhaas/HaasoscopePro
.
| 34
| 11
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181946",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:22:04",
"content": "In what universe is a 3.2 GS/s scope a 2 GHz scope?Credibility spent.Nyquist to the head.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181958",
"author": "AC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:46:55",
"content": "https://www.eevblog.com/forum/crowd-funded-projects/haasoscopepro-open-source-2-ghz-oscilloscope!/msg5722779/#msg5722779",
"parent_id": "8181946",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181963",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:49:26",
"content": "Ha – yes! Got there 3.2×10^-9 seconds before me.",
"parent_id": "8181958",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181959",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:48:06",
"content": "It allows you to daisy-chain two together via a CAT5 to get 6.4, so maybe that’s the reason behind the claim? Still a lot less than the “equivalent” Siglent. Otherwise, totally agree :)",
"parent_id": "8181946",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181965",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:50:02",
"content": "A lot less $$, I meant to say",
"parent_id": "8181959",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181964",
"author": "David Palmer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:49:26",
"content": "When “ you can flexibly combine and sync multiple Haasoscope Pros to interleave ADCs for a sample rate of 6.4 GS/s”.",
"parent_id": "8181946",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181971",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:58:54",
"content": "HaHa never fails to disappoint. At least he’s consistent.",
"parent_id": "8181964",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181982",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:16:59",
"content": "Consistently right.",
"parent_id": "8181971",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181981",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:16:39",
"content": "No.Doesn’t matter what you can do with two of them.That’s not a qualified claim.It’s BS.",
"parent_id": "8181964",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182000",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:55:04",
"content": "Whoops, accidentally clicked report instead of reply.Agreed. Saw this a few days ago, and while it’s a really cool project/product, click baiting capability runs me the wrong way.",
"parent_id": "8181981",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182298",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T12:04:30",
"content": "What the heck are you talking about? You can verify the analog bandwidth of a scope beyond Nyquist. The signal just aliases down, but it’s still there.",
"parent_id": "8181981",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182366",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:55:47",
"content": "The analog bandwidth is higher, BNC is typically rated to 4.Makes no difference.You don’t report a digital scopes analog bandwidth.That’s like rating a speaker at peak to peak, clear scammer territory.Also Nyquist is theoreticalmaximum.At 2x frequency sample rate you are getting 2 points per cycle (duh).Could be square, could be sawtooth, you have no idea.You don’t know the peak to peak voltage for sure, enough samples should get you there, unless syncpulse or similar.In the real world practical scope bandwidth is sample rate / 3.Some will argue for 2.6.Nobodythinks 2 samples/cycle is a good rate.",
"parent_id": "8182298",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182491",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T23:05:32",
"content": "Yeah. No. That’s not at all right.First: every scope I own and every ADC I’ve ever worked with reports both analog bandwidth and sampling rate. This is totally normal.It may seem odd to you to have a scope with a bandwidth higher than Nyquist, but it’s totally normal. Scopes normally are heavily oversampled to be user friendly, but it does limit their functionality (and Ihaveripped out filters to get closer to the analog chain’s max bandwidth). The ADC I’m using now has 4 GHz 3 dB analog bandwidth and 5 GSa/s sampling., which allows you to easily work in the second Nyquist zone of the converter.You’re clearly used to working with scopes and not signal converters directly. Saying things like “you don’t know if it’s square or sawtooth” – yeah, if I have a signal that only has frequency components up to Nyquist in analog bandwidth it by definition is not a square wave.",
"parent_id": "8182298",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182697",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:19:02",
"content": "Analog bandwidth is reported, but not first line, large font.First line is useable bandwidth.",
"parent_id": "8182298",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182180",
"author": "Chris Maple",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T06:36:21",
"content": "Sampling oscilloscopes have been around for more than half a century. They require repetitive signals, so you can’t record a one-time burst at the claimed frequency response.",
"parent_id": "8181946",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182220",
"author": "Tom G",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:42:09",
"content": "The same universe in which a 40MS/s HP54100D can have a bandwidth of 1GHz. Or a Tek1502 ~30kS/s with a bandwidth of ~4GHz.Hint: you don’t understand Nyquist’s theorem.Plus, as others have pointed out, you can parallel two of the Haasocopes to increase the sampling rate.",
"parent_id": "8181946",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182246",
"author": "Slartibart",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T09:48:05",
"content": "The creator also experimented a bit with overdriving the ADC sample (and FPGA) and achieved 6(ish) GS/s…",
"parent_id": "8182220",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182297",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T12:01:55",
"content": "Plenty of ADCs have analog bandwidth above Nyquist. There are lots of uses for it, so long as you can isolate the aliasing.",
"parent_id": "8181946",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181962",
"author": "nereye",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:49:19",
"content": "According to the crowdsupply page linked above, the 2 GHz is ‘unlocked’ when using two scopes:“You can combine two Haasoscope Pro units to achieve 6.4 GS/s on a single channel (unlocking the full 2 GHz bandwidth) or distribute the bandwidth across multiple channels (two channels at 3.2 GS/s each, one at 3.2 GS/s and two at 1.6 GS/s, or four at 1.6 GS/s).”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181967",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:52:23",
"content": "Still blows my mind that a 3.2 GHz 12 bit ADC can exist.But Digikey is listing them for $2k (onesies, retail). How can the whole ‘scope come in at half that?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182033",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:15:50",
"content": "I did a: git clonehttps://github.com/drandyhaas/HaasoscopePro.gitand looked at the pdf of the schematic (I am still using KiCad V8 so can’t open the schematic itself right now) ADC used is: ADC12DL2500For 10+, Digikey lists them as USD 575, and mouser for USD494https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/ADC12DL2500ACF/22462685https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/ADC12DL2500ACF?qs=dbcCsuKDzFVNM4pXaT3ETg%3D%3DBut for me, putting in an ADC12DL500 (Listed as USD 168 and USD 145) would already be overkill.For the rest, I wanted to have a closer look at the frontend, and what’s actually in it, but the schematic is drawn completely atrocious, with relays presented as an 18 pin dip in the schematic and opamps as rectangular blocs with pins at weird locations. Relays seem to be around bypassable Chebychev filters, but at a glance I can’t even find any gain stage in the signal path.I am not sure what the target market of this thing is. Best guess is that it’s not intended as an general purpose oscilloscope, but as a special purpose instrument for some specific purpose, but that is not mentioned in the documentation for as far as I could see it (just gave it around 10 minutes of reading).But still, Mouser lists the whole thing for USD860, and that does seem quite low considering the cost of the ADC alone. There may be a market for this thing, (but it’s not for me).https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Crowd-Supply/HAASOSCOPE-PRO-01?qs=bN4HulGPsrGuOKJv67xg8Q%3D%3D",
"parent_id": "8181967",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182325",
"author": "Andy Haas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T13:59:58",
"content": "I’m not sure why you think this isn’t a general purpose scope. That’s definitely the goal – although clearly specialized for high bandwidth.I wrote lots of project logs here on Hackaday.io…https://hackaday.io/project/200773/logsThere’s one in particular on the front end so you can understand the signal chain there…https://hackaday.io/project/200773-haasoscope-pro/log/236963-walkthrough-of-the-front-end-designFeel free to reach out on there if you have any questions!",
"parent_id": "8182033",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182043",
"author": "Andy Haas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:35:21",
"content": "Yes, this amazingly affordable ADC was key:https://www.ti.com/product/ADC12DL1500",
"parent_id": "8181967",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182016",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:39:21",
"content": "It would be nice if the video actually showed anything.And again, still without a decent analog frontend (max 3V input in 1MOhm input mode, according to the hackaday project. And an 8mV/div sensitivity is also pretty abysmal.I liked the part of the “Haasoscope Pro v29 Updates” video(Released today) where he shifts the data a bit to compensate for sampling inaccuracies, but then, when the oversampled sine is jumping around with around 30 degree phase jitter and he calls it “pretty acceptable” (@11:00) I lost my last bit of interest. His approximation algorithm is completely failing in that case. That can still be improved in software later, but the too simplistic analog frontend can not.Overall, I would be more interested in a relatively simple scope myself, as long as both the hardware and software is “pretty good”. Something comparable to the Owon VDS1022I (EUR 110, 100Msps, 25MHz bandwidth, 8-bit), but with good Linux support, as a companion to my Siglent SDS1104X-E (Which is quite good, but has a far too loud fan). A few months ago I had a brief look at the picoscopes, but they have made a very weird user interface, and prices go up extremely quickly for anything but their simplest model.Also had a look at the Labnation Smart scope. (Also Open source Software), but it’s relatively expensive for the hardware, also has a very limited front end, and there does not seem to be much development going on over there for quite a few years now, and that also made me hesitant.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182239",
"author": "Carl Farrington",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T09:35:00",
"content": "Batronix Magnova baby!",
"parent_id": "8182016",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182288",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:42:50",
"content": "Ah, yes, Impressive specifications, doesn’t have a fan so it’s silent and probably a decent performance to price ratio, Nice big screen, impressive user interface, both touch and buttons… But it’s much more scope then I can justify for the work I do. These things start at EUR 3500. I paid EUR 450 for my Siglent, and it’s already more capable then what I need. (But I would like a bigger screen and quieter fan).",
"parent_id": "8182239",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182027",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:00:08",
"content": "…afforda… BWAHAHAHAHA! At one grand?!? I can get 3-4 VERY usable scopes for that. No matter how huge of an open-everything nutjob I might be, first I gotta EAT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182047",
"author": "Andy Haas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:44:39",
"content": "To clarify, it’s +-30V in 1 MOhm mode with a 10:1 probe. Also, since it’s 12-bits, that’s equivalent to a 16x better sensitivity than an 8-bit scope, so 8 mV/div is really more like 500 uV/div since you can zoom in digitally. These are pretty standard specs, I think.Thanks for your thoughts about the software trigger stabilizer. I’ll consider updating it soon to be even more precise when sinc upsampling is being done.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182586",
"author": "Bernd das Brot",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:16:44",
"content": "Well, no, “digitally zoom in” does not cut it, sorry. The sparkle of 12B ADCs just isn’t there in an old 8B ADC. It’s not the same. While it’s OK to not support higher input voltages at the scope itself, as they are unviable at high bandwidths, I find it odd to pair this with a High-Z input. It’s either High-Z and High-Voltage or none of them. High-Z + Low-Voltage is just begging for people to break the input.Also, there is no separate trigger circuit with time-to-digital conversion. So the sub-sample time of the trigger is lost, so the sample that matched the trigger will jump around, and so will the whole captured signal. That’s only OK in a streaming architecture or maybe in a single-shot architecture. Yet usually a scope overlays many captures to capture rare effects. You’ll have to bend over backwards to support this, and play tricks like correlate the captures to overlay them properly (yet, that’s just a guess about the signal and nothing real).Also, I see USB 2.0 I/O – USB 4.x is the way to go. So that you can actually sample often or even stream samples into the computer. You can actually buy laptops with Thunderbolt 5 which offers 120 Gbps in one direction.Finally, I still consider this schematic a rage bait. You got so much helpful in the EEVBlog forum.",
"parent_id": "8182047",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182135",
"author": "nereye",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T04:21:19",
"content": "According to the crowdsupply page linked above, the 2 GHz is ‘unlocked’ when using two scopes:“You can combine two Haasoscope Pro units to achieve 6.4 GS/s on a single channel (unlocking the full 2 GHz bandwidth) or distribute the bandwidth across multiple channels (two channels at 3.2 GS/s each, one at 3.2 GS/s and two at 1.6 GS/s, or four at 1.6 GS/s).”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182432",
"author": "L_oled",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:22:49",
"content": "2Ghz scope as this price is a pretty nice achievement.However I would backed funding if it had a better memory spec, or ability to stream samples to PC at high speed (as Thunderscope does)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182834",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T05:11:39",
"content": "Oh wow, those schematics are horiffic…. I’d be embarrassed to release something like that with my name on it.I don’t have much confidence in the project with those schematics, doesn’t bode well for the rest of the design…. They need a complete redraw.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182915",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:41:14",
"content": "i keep looking at these USB scopes and every time i’m impressed by the price and then absolutely repelled by the fact that it doesn’t have a decent analog frontend. i need my test equipment to accept the largest voltage on my bench (roughly 20V) without complaint or pre-configuration, and i’d really like it to accept 240VAC just as easily. i.e., i want auto-ranging. a scope without auto-ranging would only be attractive if i didn’t have any choice, but the $500 cheapo scopes are great these days.and this one isn’t even cheap. i’m sure someone will appreciate it on bandwidth alone but not me.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183274",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T15:03:15",
"content": "The Nyquist theorem says you must sample at Greater Than twice the highest frequency. If you sample at a little more than Nyquist, it will take a little less than an infinite number of samples to know the signal is present. If you sample at exactly twice you will get zero or a pair of oscillating constants. One sees various rules like sample at 3 times or at 5 times, etc. Realistically, oversample as much as you can. I like numbers that are both powers of 2 and have an integer square root. Like 4 and 16 and 64. This makes the arithmetic easier.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.120671
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/unobtanium-no-more-perhaps-we-already-have-all-the-elements-we-need/
|
Unobtanium No More; Perhaps We Already Have All The Elements We Need
|
Jenny List
|
[
"chemistry hacks"
] |
[
"mining",
"rare earth metals"
] |
It’s been a trope of the news cycle over the past decade or so, that there’s some element which we all need but which someone else has the sole supply, and that’s a Bad Thing. It’s been variously lithium, or rare earth elements, and the someone else is usually China, which makes the perfect mix of ingredients for a good media scare story. Sometimes these things cross from the financial pages to the geopolitical stage, even at times being cited in bellicose language. But is there really a shortage?
The Colorado School of Mines say perhaps not, as
they’ve released a paper from an American perspective pointing out that the USA already has everything it needs
but perhaps doesn’t realize it. We’re surprised it seems to have passed unnoticed in a world preoccupied with such matters.
We’ve covered a few stories about mineral shortages ourselves, and
some of them even point to the same conclusion
reached by the School of Mines, that those mineral riches lie not in the mines of China but in the waste products closer to American industry. In particular they point to the tailings from existing mines, a waste product of which there is a huge quantity to hand, and which once stripped of the metal they were mined for still contain enough of the sought-after ones to more than satisfy need.
The history of mining from medieval lead miners processing Roman tailings to 19th century gold miners discovering that their tailings were silver ore and on to the present day, includes many similar stories. Perhaps the real story is economic both in the publicity side and the mining side, a good scare story sells papers, and it’s just cheaper to buy your molybdenum from China rather than make your own. We’ll keep you posted if we see news of a tailings bonanza in the Rockies.
| 81
| 12
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181889",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:41:38",
"content": "The stories are a wake up call, or an attempt at least, to point out that you shouldn’t lean on foreign powers such as China for your basic sustenance.One of the reasons why such basic resources aren’t sourced at home is that it allows people to push away the responsibility of the outcomes and pretend they don’t exist – such as mining for rare earth minerals which means dealing with radioactive waste as side products. These mines were protested against, the companies harassed, litigated, or outright banned in the west because of environmentalist pressures, but the need for the materials didn’t go away so the problems were outsourced to… guess where.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181892",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:49:09",
"content": "And one of the reasons why China IS cheaper is that if the process was implemented in the west, “little green men” would instantly pop up and demand measures to control the contamination that would make the process uneconomical.Measures which then do not take place when the materials are sourced cheaper from China, because they don’t care. They have vast areas of land populated by people they don’t care about, or at least the administration doesn’t, which means you end up with literal mountains of radioactive soil, or rivers and fields polluted by silicon tetrachloride and the ozone layer getting damaged from banned-in-west solvents due to westerners pretending to be “green” by buying imported solar panels.",
"parent_id": "8181889",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181976",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:09:40",
"content": "The administration cares deeply about those people! They’re the forced labour – ah, sorry, re-education – for the mines.",
"parent_id": "8181892",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181906",
"author": "J. Samson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:16:40",
"content": "You bring up a point that, while probably valid, is incorrectly attributed to the article. Please show me where the hackaday article or the referenced article mention “leaning on foreign powers such as China…”. Nothing I read (besides maybe this: “The benefits of enhanced recovery are not only economic and geopolitical but also environmental”) sounds like a “wake-up call”, or even an attempt. You’re reading your own preconceptions and opinions into the source. (Also, I don’t think yttrium or cobalt can be classified as “basic sustenance”).",
"parent_id": "8181889",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181907",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:19:08",
"content": "No, that was my comment on the point of the stories, not attributed to the article.",
"parent_id": "8181906",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181910",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:22:28",
"content": "I don’t think yttrium or cobalt can be classified as “basic sustenance”Insofar as you want television screens and high strength steel as a basic element of modern society, they are.",
"parent_id": "8181906",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181911",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:23:40",
"content": "Or electric cars, motors, and batteries (cobalt).",
"parent_id": "8181910",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181918",
"author": "J. Samson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:42:01",
"content": "None of which qualify as “sustenance”.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181926",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:52:39",
"content": "We had electric cars in the early 1900s, though? Same with high-strength steel, and televisions (to an extent). Believing that rare earths are necessary just means you’ve fallen for industry propaganda. With a modest efficiency hit, you can make technology work with far more limited materials than what we have access to today.Letting industry guide foreign policy is a failure of leadership. Someone needs to tell these people “no”.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181950",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:30:33",
"content": "None of which qualify as “sustenance”.Well, we could go back to earlier technologies to run our societies, and abandon goals like getting rid of the internal combustion engine, but if that’s your answer then others might disagree.We had electric cars in the early 1900s, though? Same with high-strength steelHardly useful in the broader scheme of things, and we had cobalt back then. Cobalt is used in “high-speed steel”, which is used for making machining tools, or tool steel in general.The development of hard-wearing strong magnets in the modern sense started with cobalt-samarium in the 1960’s. It’s the reason why we got high fidelity audio devices, miniaturized electric motors, smaller computer hard drives etc. Then we transitioned to neodymium magnets, which carry the same supply problems as cobalt does – that it comes mainly from China.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181957",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:45:45",
"content": "and televisions (to an extent)Yes, tube televisions. Although yttrium was used in those as well, since it’s part of the phosphor coatings that emit light at the tube surface. Likewise, it’s part of the LED lights we use instead of the now-banned incandescent tubes. Fluorescent tubes also use it. Though if you’re thinking about reviving the halogen bulb, guess who produces the most Tungsten? That’s right: China – by a vast margin.If you give up on yttrium, you would have to go quite a way back in time and technology. Not just a “a modest efficiency hit”.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181975",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:07:10",
"content": "The point of China in all of this is to produce everything that everyone needs at such low prices, regardless of the cost to themselves and their own people or environment, that other countries would lose the market, the infrastructure and the know-how, to replace China as a supplier – which would then give them the leverage to raise prices and demand (geo)political concessions any way they want.It’s an economic war of attrition.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182116",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T03:24:23",
"content": "@DudeYou genuinely don’t seem to know what you’re talking about. You don’t need rare earths or cobalt for “high fidelity audio devices”; you made that up. Speaker cones (being paper) contain no rare earths, and an electromagnet (made of iron and copper) can produce the exact same field as a permanent magnet.Same goes for tool steel. There are plenty of alloys (that I myself use!) which contain no cobalt whatsoever, and they cut steel just fine. Resharpening a drill after 90 holes instead of 100 holes is really not a big deal.Likewise for yttrium (of all elements, why yttrium?). There are plenty of other ways to get a red subpixel on your TV, and if for some reason those are too difficult, we can just use amber instead. It’s not far off. And while we’re talking about vacuum tubes, even tungsten can be replaced! Tantalum, osmium, and even carbon can do the same thing!I don’t know where this mentality comes from, where a lack of ingenuity causes one to despair so thoroughly that they crawl back to reinforcing the status quo, but it needs to end! Be capable! Be creative!",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182165",
"author": "Chris Maple",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T05:51:10",
"content": "The main use of magnets in hifi is in speakers. Those magnets are mostly ferrites which are weak magnets, chosen for their cheapness. Ferrites are iron oxide ceramics with other metals added to enhance properties.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182228",
"author": "Giin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:51:31",
"content": "Lotta people here seem to be missing the fact that “sustenance” is a fancy word for food. As noted, rare earth minerals do not count as food :p",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182835",
"author": "Timo P",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T05:11:50",
"content": "A lot of commenters seem to fail to realise that marginal cost for getting fossil fuels gets higher and higher every year. Meaning that it is required to spend more and more energy per one barrel pumped.Meanwhile societies get more and more complex every year. More complex meaning requiring more and more energy to handle bookkeeping and tracking everything.And when things don’t match, societies have historically collapsed. Meaning rapid change to less complex society. If that happens with old technology being used, odds are pretty high that humankind is never going to be able to achieve current level of progress ever again.",
"parent_id": "8181911",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182001",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:57:36",
"content": "It’s crazy that such common sense ideas have been twisted and their denial justified through diverging ideological lenses in the past thirty years. Of course actual, concrete industrial production is better than a nation of 300 million email/zoom or doordash jobs. Of course we should make our own stuff instead of outsourcing it. Of course that was all done for selfish and myopic reasons. Of course it’s eventually going to destroy us if we can’t reel it in. And of course we should prioritize our own people, whom we have the power to help, instead of pretending we’re perfect universalists with magically equal responsibility and power owed to every single being in the universe.Anybody should be able to admit these things, but about half can’t. Or they’ll refuse to face it head-on and instead deflect into trite “it’s the corporations, maaaaan” cliches, which feel satisfying to say, but in reality they paralyze any possible action here and now.",
"parent_id": "8181889",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182034",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:16:44",
"content": "we’re perfect universalists with magically equal responsibility and power owed to every single being in the universe.I believe there are some people who are “too good”, who have to adhere to universalist principles no matter how contrived or counter-productive because they cannot handle the idea that nothing fundamentally demands us to be good to everybody. The fact that we try is about being good to others in order for others to be good to us – a fundamentally selfish instrumental motive, not a moral law of nature. In doing so, in a twisted sense of irony, they end up hurting everybody.They become absolute pacifists, or animal rights activists, environmentalists, etc. because through too much empathy, the idea of some other being hurt is the same as themselves being hurt. Any injustice to the other is injustice to the self, and the failure to act on it, and the failure of others to care as much, turns into frustration and anger, and blame projected onto the society around.So it becomes good to throw a million of “us privileged” under the bus, or even just one, except you personally of course; to demand sacrifices from others to save one starving child in Africa, because we are collectively guilty of ignoring your sensibilities. When many such people come to exercise social power together, it becomes a plague of saints.",
"parent_id": "8182001",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182061",
"author": "J. Samson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T00:18:59",
"content": "Wow, show us on the doll where altruism touched you… Can’t contemplate a world where people actually care about others? That’s a limitation of your own perspective, not the indictment of religion you think it is.",
"parent_id": "8182034",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8188192",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-10-06T10:39:17",
"content": "I wouldn’t call it altruism. It’s a sort of sentimental hypocritical obsession and moral licensing to be terrible to millions of other people you don’t care about, who you may even actively hate, to save that one kid and feel like you’re saving the world.It’s not care. It just sounds like it.",
"parent_id": "8182061",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182619",
"author": "Chambles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T10:17:37",
"content": "Your blood, brain, balls and broccoli are all full of microplastics but it’s those myopic environmentalists who are harming everyone.",
"parent_id": "8182034",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8188198",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-10-06T11:10:23",
"content": "Two wrongs make a right, eh?",
"parent_id": "8182619",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182029",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:06:17",
"content": "Lets not forget about what might be one of our greatest resource. Land fills.Between electronic wastes, plastics and biomass, we have the fule and elements for a revolution",
"parent_id": "8181889",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182937",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T13:48:08",
"content": "Isn’t is sad that there are things stopping America somewhat from walking all over everybody in the rest of the world like they would like to. – say only Americans (and the insane).",
"parent_id": "8181889",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181896",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:53:23",
"content": "Lots of sources, no willingness to accept the mess inherent in processing it.It will end up somewhere poor, but outside China’s control.I’d hope, multiple places.Tucson Arizona?Gary Indiana?Troy NewYork?East St Louis Illinois?All shitholes that would be improved by jobs.AlsoDecatur Illinois.Which already has jobs, but needs something to cut the smell.Whole town smells like tofu eater has puked in all 4 corners of room.I digress.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181914",
"author": "dlcarrier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:30:16",
"content": "It’s unlikely that it will be anywhere within the US. Just because someone lives in Marin County California, it doesn’t mean that he or she isn’t going to try and stop all mining or processing that happens anywhere in Arizona or Indiana. The Sierra Club tries to stop green even energy projects nationwide, and has no tolerance for mining.",
"parent_id": "8181896",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181989",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:27:23",
"content": "The Sierra Club is an interesting piece of work. They oppose coal, nuclear, hydro, oil, gas… and when renewable energy projects were proposed they realized that it would transform vast areas into industrial wind or solar farms – so they started opposing those too, even on agricultural land that wasn’t wilderness. They also oppose housing projects and urban expansion, yet they’ve turned their coats on immigration and population growth under pressure from other progressive groups to not seem racist.It’s a “build nothing nowhere never” club that seems to have no proper solutions to anything.",
"parent_id": "8181914",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181928",
"author": "Agammamon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:53:57",
"content": "Only people who have never been to Tucson would consider Tucson a shithole.",
"parent_id": "8181896",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181948",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:24:02",
"content": "9 out of 10 junkies agree!",
"parent_id": "8181928",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182372",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:10:48",
"content": "phoenix was a shithole last time i was there. used to be nice at one point. i can only imagine how run down tuscon is, though i dont think ive ever been there.",
"parent_id": "8181928",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181974",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:04:27",
"content": "Is “tofu eater” some kind of racist epithet?",
"parent_id": "8181896",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181980",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:15:08",
"content": "I’d assume it means a vegan?, so no, veganism isn’t a racial group.",
"parent_id": "8181974",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181986",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:21:09",
"content": "No.It’s a small city where 90% of American Soy beans are processed by ADM.Itliterallysmells like a tofu eater puked in the corner of every room in the city.",
"parent_id": "8181974",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181999",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:50:03",
"content": "Gross! Glad I haven’t driven through there",
"parent_id": "8181986",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182369",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:01:13",
"content": "When the wind is just wrong, they can smell Decatur in Chicago or St Louis.",
"parent_id": "8181999",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182008",
"author": "YoDrTentacles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:16:27",
"content": "One of the reasons I don’t grow mung beans. I’ll sprout some root microgreens on my own but eff that smell.",
"parent_id": "8181986",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182535",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T02:42:24",
"content": "If you have multiple reasons to not grow mung beans there is something wrong with you.“I don’t want to” usually suffices for most purposes.",
"parent_id": "8182008",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181899",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:58:25",
"content": "at the moment, who gets the profits from mining and production is more important than the production itself",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181903",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:11:20",
"content": "Or from buying and selling – someone has to handle the logistics.That’s the modern way: you make money not by producing or refining stuff, but by placing yourself in the middle of the value chain as a “service”. The longer you make the value chain from the producer to the consumer, the more extra steps you demand, the more opportunities you have to extract money from the middle.",
"parent_id": "8181899",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181924",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:50:27",
"content": "Are you living in 1960?Many fortunes have been made by ‘cutting out the middleman’ since.The chain is generally longer, but I’d bet fewer hands by far.",
"parent_id": "8181903",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181991",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:33:00",
"content": "A longer chain literally means there’s more middle steps – which means more middle-men.Though they might be in the hands of the same corporation, I admit, but that sort of “vertical integration” hasn’t been in vogue for a long time.",
"parent_id": "8181924",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182002",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:58:35",
"content": "Though in terms of the service economy proper, the chain tends to grow longer at the other end.In simple terms, think of “coffee as a service”. Instead of you buying beans from the closest supply in bulk, you have an intermediate company that that grinds and packages it up to sell it to you. Except, they sell it to a distributor that serves a retail chain which sells it to you. This would be the point where we were at 50 years ago. You buy coffee from the supermarket and brew it yourself.Except, the distributor sells it to a vendor who brews the coffee and then sells it to you. Alright, we’re getting into Starbucks territory. Except, they sell it to a delivery business that brings coffee to your front door or office as a service. Now we’re starting to grow the service chain.The delivery business sells the service to a business that sells subscriptions to bring you coffee. Except, they sell the subscription service through an online platform that offers you choice among different delivery services including coffee, fast food, other deliverables…Each step adds cost by having another layer of business with expenses, taxes and wages paid. What’s the next level? I don’t know, but I’m sure they’ll invent it and ask money for it. That then demands that the original price of coffee beans must go down, or the price becomes unaffordable to the end consumer, which means coffee cannot be obtained unless the original producer is making it at dirt-cheap prices under slave-like conditions in some developing country.When people no longer have jobs in basic production and industry, this is what they come up with instead.",
"parent_id": "8181991",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182006",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:09:26",
"content": "Plus the jobs in media, content producers, and advertisers, and agencies who produce the adverts, who try to convince you that you must subscribe to coffee as a service instead of just buying the damn coffee beans and brewing it yourself, which also reflects in the cost of doing business through these intermediaries, which you end up paying,And that is the meaning of the service economy. From producer to consumer, add as many steps and middle-men as possible to dig into the value of any basic commodity or fundamental service that consumers desire, and convince consumers that this is the “right price” that they should be paying.",
"parent_id": "8181991",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182101",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T02:26:52",
"content": "100% – excellent posts! Explain the parasites in the shortest paragraphs possible.Parasites are literally what they sound like, entities that do NOT add value to the product, but need long distribution chain.Parasites like mosquitoes do serve some role in the ecosystems – they provide food for lacewings, dragonflies/damselflies, bats, etc etc. Not very useful to humans for sure, but they exist nonetheless. Similarly, endless chains of hidden entities, suck the value out, but there are other entities feeding off them, hence, they are needed (though, not by the average Sam who’s paying $10 per bag of ground coffee instead of the nominal ~$4 it costs to make, bag and ship).BTW, unrelated, but related – years and years back I was doing research on the lower limit of sustainable petrol (oil in the US) pricing, obviously, not WTI Crude, the Brent Crude. My calculations came between $25 and $35 per barrel. Local. US drill/refine/deliver, not overseas shipped-just-in-time. The trouble was, most of it was locked inside Permian Basin, inside closed wells, some with their pumpjacks attached, but stopped. The issue was with the owners selling the rights to drill to the networks. Same difference. Reselling the drill rights to the highest bidder who usually happens to be the oil-making companies under gazillion different names. It is as if a cartel keeps those competing pumpjacks turned off so they can sell their stuffs. Crafty imitation of a free market, because why would one sell drilling rights to the lowest bidder, right?Kinda makes me think there is similar broken “free market” with the average Sam;s car (and parts), and it is not the unions or their workers who cause average “cheap” car in the US sold for no less than $28K (usually more because dealers’ jackup plus sales tax plus all kinds of hidden gotchas – say, delivery fee? I HAVE to pay for the car delivered to the dealer? Why I can’t drive to the factory and pick it myself? Also, just WHY can’t I ORDER car at the same factory myself? What value dealer adds?) Since average car dealer NEVER has the car I need sold for the price I can afford, then what is it they we have – planned profits socialism for the car dealers?",
"parent_id": "8181991",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182382",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:25:06",
"content": "Length in miles is not going to correlate directly (or at all) with length in ownership steps.JIT delivery and direct ordering has drastically reduced the need for middlemen/warehousing.Durable goods retail comes direct from the manufacturer in the 21st century.If the retail step isn’t a manufacturer web site.Who buys coffee as a service?You’re hanging your argument on a tiny market.What % of coffee do you think is ‘coffee as a service’?I doubt it’s 1%, in the densest city core.Even if doing math in $.Closest you’ll find in a big market is stupid K-cups and Charbucks.Still bet there is much more old school home/office drip than Kurig or all coffee shops.I will admit I live in a bubble of French press vs espresso and green beans direct from farmer coop for cheap.I know some people that drink Starbucks, but I think less of them because of it.Enough about coffee.It doesn’t support your argument.Also: Look at who’s agreeing with you ^^^^^Remember the Henry Rollins method of checking your thinking…I bet Morrisey and Gee agree with you.Sure sign you arewrong.",
"parent_id": "8181991",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182377",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:16:48",
"content": "this is also why health care costs so much. they have placed so many bureaucrats in the works that its impossible to get anything done. you can make money cutting out the middle man yes. but others are hellbent to add more. its great for the middle men. thats why so many government agencies are staffed by the friends of congressmen im gonna make this 3 letter agency so you can consume the entire budget every year while the reason the agency exists (how it was sold to the public) gets scraps.",
"parent_id": "8181924",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181995",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:43:03",
"content": "see spotify and accompanied organisations…",
"parent_id": "8181903",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181917",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:39:34",
"content": "This is kind of misrepresenting the issue here.The problem isn’t that these elements are only found in China or other places, and it never has ever been that.The problem IS that we do not have the infrastructure to process these kinds of elements from a mine, and setting that up is prohibitively expensive.Like so many other things that we have outsourced, the cost differential is orders of magnitude at this point, and it makes no sense to consider opening up these kinds of industries in the US, even if one considers new tariffs, etc into the cost.The correct time to do this was the 1980s, but corporations wanted to maximize their profits, and outsourcing the US’s industrial infrastructure was fair game to them. They could lower their prices and make a higher profit margin. Child labor is cheap. And they are children very far away were our consumers can’t see them.The rise of Private Equity has strip mined our economy and we have little left. We don’t even have Sears anymore. Please look into that if you don’t know the history of Sears and the man who destroyed a profitable company because it was easier and quicker to turn it into a fire sale.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181936",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:02:53",
"content": "Like so many other things that we have outsourced, the cost differential is orders of magnitude at this point, and it makes no sense to consider opening up these kinds of industries in the US, even if one considers new tariffs, etc into the cost.It’s almost like critical industries shouldn’t be left to the whim of the free market, or something. China understands this at least, even if we don’t.",
"parent_id": "8181917",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181984",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:18:53",
"content": "It’s not a free market. All these Chinese industries are state owned, in practice if not officially, and their government subsidises their exports, and clears up their mess (with PR, by arresting journalists, not actually clearing it up), and provides ethnic and religious minorities who need “re-education” or “deradicalisation” to work as slave labour.",
"parent_id": "8181936",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181992",
"author": "perilousapricot",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:34:56",
"content": "It’s not a free market.Wow you extremely missed the point",
"parent_id": "8181984",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182013",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:33:38",
"content": "Not really. The free market can be broken by powerful actors like a country and a state which does not play by the rules of free market and throws it around by its sheer size.The solution is not to abandon the free market and play the same command economy game, but to exclude the offending player.",
"parent_id": "8181992",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182014",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:36:22",
"content": "“but to exclude the offending player”After all, that’s why we have rules like anti-trust laws to stop powerful entities from taking over and turning a free market into a non-free market.",
"parent_id": "8181992",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182122",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T03:38:25",
"content": "The solution is not to abandon the free market and play the same command economy game, but to exclude the offending player.The command economy game seems to work really well, though. And if it’s capable of breaking our game (while we can’t do the same in return), isn’t it justbetter? Doesn’t that mean welost?",
"parent_id": "8181992",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182411",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:15:53",
"content": "Anon:What nation do you claim is doing ‘really well’ with a command economy?China?The one on the brink of financial collapse?Bubbles everywhere?Broken banking system?People paying mortgages on bits of abandoned construction sites?The problem with command economies is they get shit wrong.Are run by people at their level of incompetence, who refuse to correct.For example, China recently built out car production for the world, expecting to dominate, especially electric cars.They are currently dumping cars below cost to any nation foolish enough to allow it.They will fail, the cars are junk.It would only work if they could accomplish it in less time then it becomes apparent the cars are falling apart.The other half of the problem is the Chinese car companies are largely owned by children of central committee members, so they aren’t allowed to fail.Even Russians don’t want Chinese cars anymore, they were among the first outside to get them and are poor enough.Problem is, they drive like Russians, on Russian roads, tough on cars.Your statement is an echo of the 1950s and Russia.Lefties said it then, it was wrong then, it’s wrong now.‘Inevitably lose’Let me guess?You believe in ‘social evolution’ leading us inevitably to communism?It’s OK to admit it.",
"parent_id": "8181992",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182120",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T03:29:39",
"content": "Yes, that’s the point! The Chinese know better than to put their national security up for sale. We should be learning from them, not whining when we inevitably lose to them. We should be nationalizing our production capacity so it doesn’t get sold out from under us!",
"parent_id": "8181984",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181940",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:11:37",
"content": "Sears died because it was old and everybody in the hierarchy was operating at their level of incompetence (confidently maintaining exactly 0.10 BAC).1950 Sears was like Pepsi, they promoted from within, managers HAD to play their ‘executive games’.Only modern corporation I can think that was similar was ‘Arthur Anderson’, before it shit the bed. Their partner candidates got financially sodomized like few others.Of course, all metrics are gamed.In that era metrics lived for decades, hierarchies got filled by generations of metric gamers and things got weird.Early in my working life, I crossed paths with a ‘Sears alum’.Empty suit, but ‘executive style hair’.Constant cigar smoke almost covered scotch smell.His ‘advice’ on women:“You have to stalk them! They always say ‘no’ 50 times before you eventually convince them. Be persistent. Show up in their life where they don’t expect it and ask again.”Sad thing, in his zip code when he was 20, it was true.Digressing again.",
"parent_id": "8181917",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182387",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:32:39",
"content": "IMHO, Sears started as a printed mail catalog company; it failed to compete with its only worthy competitor, not the other mail catalog companies (Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, Macy’s, etc), but the largest mail/online catalog on Earth, internet. In very real sense, it could not compete with its own business model that moved away from the printed catalog.",
"parent_id": "8181940",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182394",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:44:09",
"content": "Because it was old, it’s management was operating at their level of incompetence.This is not a controversial statement.Happens to all hierarchical organizations: companies, governments, militaries, religions, political parties.The peter principle is an observed fact.There is room to disagree on why and how but the principle is supported by all the data.",
"parent_id": "8182387",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182172",
"author": "Chris Maple",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T06:13:24",
"content": "Sears was already doomed when Lampert took over. The right person might have saved the company, but he wasn’t the right person. He sold off the company piecemeal to raise money to keep what was left afloat. There are those those claim he personally profited from the dissolution; I’m in no position to judge the truth of that.",
"parent_id": "8181917",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182371",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:06:24",
"content": "Agree that: “…we do not have the infrastructure to process these kinds of elements from a mine, and setting that up is prohibitively expensive…” because the “entrance fees”, ie, investing in such infrastructure, is so high, it is ONLY possible with the Uncle Sam’s moneys to start with, ie, our taxes (because most corporations pay close to zero taxes).Makes me think it is high time for all the banksters who sucked in our TARP bailout moneys to now step up to the challenge and invest into such infrastructure. $443.5 billion was given to the US “financial institutions”, now it is time they help out, profit or not, investing into such infrastructure.But of course, banks are black holes, moneys come in, never come out. Hotel California for greenbucks.",
"parent_id": "8181917",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181927",
"author": "Agammamon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:52:44",
"content": "The Colorado School of Mines say perhaps not, as they’ve released a paper from an American perspective pointing out that the USA already has everything it needs but perhaps doesn’t realize it. We’re surprised it seems to have passed unnoticed in a world preoccupied with such matters.It hasn’t. Its been known for longer than any of us have been alive that rare earths (and lithium) are not rare. The issue has always been the cost of extraction is too high to make it profitable in the US. Because concentrations of whatever mineral-du-jour the press is freaking out about are too diffuse or US regulatory and labor costs make it unprofitable.China closes off rare earth exports and we could have a new mine and extraction plant opened inside of two years.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182320",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T13:41:34",
"content": "Well this is about extraction from something other than mines. Things might work out for the better.",
"parent_id": "8181927",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181997",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:48:25",
"content": "We’ve always known that we have superior deposits of those rare earths. We’ve known that since the 1950s. It isn’t a problem of nobody knowing where to mine them, it’s a problem of a certain lawmaker having a husband who owned a huge number of shares in some Chinese rare earth mine and so she decided to use her power to aggressively shut down American mines for entirely fake and cynical environmental reasons so that her family would make a fortune in insider trading. Which is legal for them, for some reason.And guess how the Chinese mine’s environmental track record compares to ours? Just absolute and utter betrayal, history is full of these.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182040",
"author": "David Hoskins",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:28:23",
"content": "If foreigners were allowed direct investment in Chinese companies your fairy tail might almost make sense.Instead it just sounds like you swallowed the brown stinky pill without question.",
"parent_id": "8181997",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182042",
"author": "mathman",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:33:01",
"content": "“We”, like in US americans?Even if this page is primarily visited by people living in the usa, I’d have appreciated a more precise title selection.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182210",
"author": "lj",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:07:45",
"content": "From over here, “only the US and China have the stuff we need” does not sound a whole lot better then “no one but China has it”.Both nation’s leader will not hesitate using rare materials as just another lever to twist everyone’s arms into submission with.",
"parent_id": "8182042",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182391",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:36:03",
"content": "If they keep their financial commitments to NATO, in about 20 years Germany will have it’s own aircraft carrier attack group.If those are clearly obsolete by then, the ‘next big thing’.Which means France, England and Poland will also have a one or more each, because Germans.Have you seen Germans dance?It looks like marching.The French surrender.",
"parent_id": "8182210",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182059",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T00:18:06",
"content": "“Making” molybdenum would be worthy of a Nobel Prize.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182176",
"author": "Chris Maple",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T06:26:46",
"content": "Making molybdenum has already been done in many ways. Probably the most common is the breakdown of uranium-235 into molybdenum-99, which has a half-life of 66 hours.",
"parent_id": "8182059",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182284",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:34:35",
"content": "Wall Street simply wants short term profits and doesn’t take into account national interests or long term outcomes. That’s why the basic message of a much longer quote by Lenin is so true: “A capitalist will sell you the rope you hang him with” to which I will add, “when corporate owned governments allow that.”Much of the US problems with respect to mining come from unnecessarily ANAL environmental regulations which is why it’s cheaper to ship ore to China for processing where they don’t care about such things.Since rare earths aren’t actually rare, here’s an informative conference on what the US could do about mining and processing them, describing in detail why China has a near monopoly, how it ruthlessly maintains it mainly via dumping to destroy foreign startups, and how we could fix that problem:S. 2093 Rare Earth Cooperative 21st Century Manufacturing Act introduced by Senator Marco Rubio – 29 Aug 2019S. 2093 is a bill to establish a Thorium-Bearing Rare Earth Refinery Cooperative. Introduced by Senator Marco Rubio, this Senate Staffer briefing shows the legislation being argued in favor by U.S. Army Brigadier General John Adams (Retired), the senior geoscientist Dr. Ned Mamula (USGS, DoE, CIA), James Kennedy (expert on Rare Earths), and Mark Noga who’s spent 25 years sourcing Rare Earths for automotive, medical, aerospace and defense systems.https://youtu.be/8mO6hZFGnA8Last status of the bill:07/11/2019 Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.The end. Never went anywhere from there.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182367",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T16:56:49",
"content": "the only thing that keeps us from having rare earth mines, nuclear power or anything mind you is nimbyism.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182539",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T03:01:18",
"content": "The Country should move aggressively to lock down sources and supplies of nimbyism for national security reasons. Our precious nimbyism stores must be protected. Wait, what? Oh, not an element? Nevermind.",
"parent_id": "8182367",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182883",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:07:17",
"content": "I quite like BANANA – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.",
"parent_id": "8182539",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182882",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T10:06:23",
"content": "We walked up to Bonanza & Jumbo copper mines in Alaska, the copper mined there was so pure sometimes they didn’t need to run it through any of the purification processes before shipping it to the smelters.Many decades later some folks came back with the intent of mining what was left because (I forget the exact numbers) even the leftovers were 5-20x richer than what was considered viable by modern standards. For whatever reason that fell through, perhaps there was not enough left to be really viable, but the idea stuck with me – back then they were likely throwing away stuff that would be considered pretty valuable now.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182970",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:06:38",
"content": "The crummy little town where I spent half my childhood was originally a gold mining town, and the people working the mines had a lot of problems with this thick black mineral that kept contaminating all the gold concentration systems. Finally some bright guy realized oh hey wait that means it’s really heavy and probably also worth something, so he got a whole bunch, did some work on it, and realized that it was a mixed silver lead carbonate, and was worth a lot of money, so he quietly went around and bought up the surface rights to all the enormous tailings piles all over town, and then set up a cupellation refinery that managed to get the silver out, and made an absolutely enormous amount of money sifting tailings.People still (very rarely) find giant chunks of gold in the tailings piles, that were so big they got sifted out as gangue because the crusher sifters were built with the assumption that the gold would be mostly fines.",
"parent_id": "8182882",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182961",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T15:58:21",
"content": "Photo, apparently not identified anywhere, is of the Amex-owned Climax molybdenum mine at the top of Fremont Pass, Lake County, Colorado, with Mount Democrat in the background.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.005879
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/hackaday-podcast-episode-338-smoothing-3d-prints-reading-cnc-joints-and-detecting-spicy-shrimp/
|
Hackaday Podcast Episode 338: Smoothing 3D Prints, Reading CNC Joints, And Detecting Spicy Shrimp
|
Kristina Panos
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] |
[
"Hackaday Podcast"
] |
This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over the tubes to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous seven days or so.
In Hackaday news, we’ve got a new contest running!
Read all about the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge
, sponsored by DigiKey, and
check out the contest page
for all the details. In sad news,
American Science & Surplus are shuttering online sales
, leaving just the brick and mortar stores in Wisconsin and Illinois.
On What’s That Sound, it’s a results show, which means Kristina gets to take a stab at it. She missed the mark, but that’s okay, because [Montana Mike] knew that it was the theme music for the show
Beakman’s World
, which was described by one contestant as “Bill Nye on crack”.
After that, it’s on to the hacks and such, beginning with a really cool way to smooth your 3D prints in situ. JWe take a much closer look at that talking robot’s typewriter-inspired mouth from about a month ago. Then we discuss several awesome technological feats such as running code on a PAX credit card payment machine, using the alphabet as joinery, and the invention of UTF-8 in general. Finally, we discuss the detection of spicy shrimp, and marvel at the history of email.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download in
DRM-free MP3
and savor at your leisure.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 338 Show Notes:
News:
2025 Hackaday Component Abuse Challenge: Let The Games Begin!
Hackaday.IO — Component Abuse Challenge
American Science And Surplus Ends Online Sales
What’s that Sound?
Congratulations to [Montana Mike], the Beakmaniest of them all!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Smooth! Non-Planar 3D Ironing
A Closer Look Inside A Robot’s Typewriter-Inspired Mouth
Running Code On A PAX Credit Card Payment Machine
Jointly Is A Typeface Designed For CNC Joinery
Complex Wood Joints, Thanks To New Software’s Interactive Features
50 Digital Wood Joints by Jochen Gros – WINTERDIENST
Original Mac Limitations Can’t Stop You From Running AI Models
UTF-8 Is Beautiful
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Oil-Based Sprengel Pump Really Sucks
Reverse-Engineering The Milwaukee M18 Diagnostics Protocol
A 10″ Telescope, Because You Only Live Once
USB-C PD Decoded: A DIY Meter And Logger For Power Insights
Kristina’s Picks:
Making A Laptop With A Mechanical Keyboard
Hosting A Website On A Disposable Vape
When Is Your Pyrex Not The Pyrex You Expect?
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Naturally Radioactive Food And Safe Food Radiation Levels
Forgotten Internet: The Story Of Email
Wikipedia — Juno Online Services
| 8
| 1
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181867",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:19:04",
"content": "Regarding radiation damage: “Statistically speaking, it is the right thing to do”.This is assuming that the means to mitigate the problem are themselves problem free – that you can only do good. Over-reacting on a minor problem and/or implementing ineffective remedies causes economic harm, public perception harm, political harm choosing worse solutions over better, etc. which causes other problems.If the original problem was small, then even small unintended consequences of the remedy are likely to be statistically equal or worse than the problem you were originally trying to solve – an imperceptibly small number of cancer cases or birth defects where radioactive contamination may have been a contributing factor.For example, the issue of suicides and abortions peaking after a nuclear event, because people are driven to a panic, or become destitute because of heavy-handed attempts at “controlling” the aftermath, driving people homeless, jobless, etc. where no such measures would have been necessary.If you’re trying to smite a fly with an axe, be careful where you swing it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181879",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:31:11",
"content": "Or, if proportional response is called for, a problem which is hard to prove to even exist should command an action in equal measure.In ethics, we consider the principle: “First do no harm.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere",
"parent_id": "8181867",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181932",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:59:54",
"content": "Absolutely! But keeping some shrimp out of the country isnotthat case. When setting standards for food safety, it’s probably much better to err on the side of caution. In the case of an event like Fukushima, you have to take atonof other factors into account, like uprooting entire populations, etc. That case is much harder.But what I meant, but didn’t want to get too deep into the weeds in the podcast:Testing for harm from low levels of radioactivity is hard. What we have are statistical / epidemiological studies where they try to correlate small exposures with tiny increases in a probability of getting the disease in the population. When they “test” for this, they are looking for significant results — that is they are looking for a value in some kind of regression coefficient (or some other stat) that exceeds some threshold. That threshold is set by saying that they want to be 95% sure that if there weren’t an effect, they would not say there were. That is, they set the threshold to regulate the false positive rate.How often does the test actually pick up an effect when there is one? That is called the “power” of the test, and it’s not something under experimental control — it’s a fact of the data generating process and the stats used. As you slide the significance threshold up, you decrease the chance of a false positive, but also decrease the power — the chance of detecting a true effect, and vice-versa.What matters for setting the threshold for consumer radiation safety, though, is finding a level below which there is no (or little) disease. So using evidence from studies where they control the false positive rate at the traditional 95% is the wrong thing to do.The result of not doing so is that you get this nice linear relationship at high doses, where it’s easy to reach significant harm at the 95% confidence level, but when the harm gets small enough, it falls out due to the low power of the tests used, and you get something thatlookslike a thresholding effect — nosignificantdisease at low doses — but it’s actually a side effect of controlling the level of the statistical tests in the face of potentially existant, but smaller effects.What you care about from a public health standpoint is that there isnoeffect at a given low enough exposure level. But you can’t test for “no effect” because you don’t know what the power of the test is. You can only test for “there is an effect”. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, right? And because of that, the entire low-exposure regime is a big “we dunno”, statistically.So then the regulators are in this position of making a threshold for safe levels of radiation, but theyhaveto draw the threshold down in the region where the studies don’t provide any reliable guidance. So they take a stab, and draw a straight line down from what they do see. I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but if you asked me, I would say that the linear extrapolation is probably the best you can do without further evidence.If you had a biological model where you showed the mechanisms that the body uses to more effectively combat the damage from lower levels of radiation, then that would be convincing in the threshold-model direction, but the regulators still have the problem of locating this kink in the curve down where they have no data, and they’re understandably unwilling to just guess because lives are on the line. (My read is that this is exactly where we are, both biology and public-health-wise.)Still, if the linear model is a bit conservative, it’s probably the way you’d go if you’re trying to prevent people from getting cancer due to eating radioactive food. First do no harm, right?But not “go ahead and do harm as long as it’s small enough that it’s hard to test for it with enough confidence to show up on a population epidemiological study at the 95% level.”Anyway, that’s what I mean by “statistically sketchy” or whatever. There’s actually a branch of bayesian hypothesis testing that aims to handle this loss of power in the low end of the spectrum, but we’ll save that for my next TedX talk…",
"parent_id": "8181879",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182249",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:03:30",
"content": "But keeping some shrimp out of the country is not that caseDepends. It may cost someone their job, and just the panic that rises makes people collectively throw away food and money.If the damage caused by the shrimp would be something like 1-2 potential cases of cancer over the next 50 years, then this action, which seems completely insignificant or trivial, nevertheless ends up costing people millions of dollars, and does more harm overall.That is why it’s sometimes better to do nothing even when you could do something, because even a tiny tiny misstep would be worse.",
"parent_id": "8181932",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182251",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:09:05",
"content": "For example, the average cost of treating a cancer patient is between $100-200kSo if the whole hoopla around the shrimp starts costing more than a few hundred grand, the reaction to it would cause damage to the society at the same scale as the radioactive shrimp itself.",
"parent_id": "8182249",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182252",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:12:41",
"content": "go ahead and do harmThat’s a different argument entirely. That’s permitting future harm, whereas we’re talking about reacting to something which already happened, which we just have to deal with.It’s like the trolley problem – whichever way you choose, someone’s going to get hurt. Do you pick the least harm?",
"parent_id": "8181932",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182263",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:36:57",
"content": "Or, since we have to accept that doing something is inevitably risking and causing other harm, we’re really talking about theredistribution of harmto reduce the outcomes to the individuals affected the worst.In doing so, the ethical concern becomes about whether the total harm is reduced, and whether the people who we harminsteadconsent to being harmed in this manner.",
"parent_id": "8182252",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182258",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:24:18",
"content": "What I’m getting at is – this question is not simply about whether you can show there is an effect. That is not the deciding factor. It’s that not being able to confidently show an effect despite strong attemptssuggeststhat the effect, whether it exists, is not much of an effect in the first place.So even if it exists, do we really have to put so much effort into deal with it, or just let it be?Another similar case is cellphones and cancer. People suspect it, there is some evidence of it, but multi-decade studies and meta-studies have never been able to show it conclusively happening in humans. People pour millions of man-hours and dollars into the problem, which ends up consuming more resources than simply saying “Okay, it might cause cancer, but we’re going to risk it anyways, because obviously we’re spending more effort here than whatever problems it is causing.” That’s basically what we’re doing in regards of RF exposure and permissible limits anyhow – the main concern is EMI with other devices and spectrum congestion rather than human safety.",
"parent_id": "8181932",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.213922
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/imagining-the-cps-1-an-early-70s-4-bit-microcomputer-from-canada/
|
Imagining The CPS-1: An Early 70s 4-bit Microcomputer From Canada
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"Raspberry Pi",
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"4-bit Microcomputer",
"CPS-1",
"Microsystems International Ltd",
"MIL 7114",
"York University Computer Museum"
] |
[Michael Gardi] wrote in to let us know about his project:
CPS-1: Imagining An Early 70s 4-bit Microcomputer
.
The CPS-1 was the first Canadian microprocessor-based computer. It was built by Microsystems International Ltd. (MIL) in Ottawa between 1972 and 1973 and it is unknown how many were made and in what configurations. The CPS-1 supported a 12-bit address bus and a 4-bit data bus. MIL also developed the supporting hardware including RAM. The processor was called the MIL 7114.
[Michael] worked in collaboration with [Zbigniew Stachniak] from York University Computer Museum. [Zbigniew] had developed a
MIL CPS-1 Emulator
and [Michael]’s job was to implement a front panel hardware interface for the emulator which runs on a Raspberry Pi. The only complication: there are no remaining CPS-1 computers, and no known photographs, so no one can say for sure what a real front panel might have looked like!
With a bit of guess work and 3D printing, as well as some inspiration from contemporaneous hardware such as the DEC PDP-11, [Michael] came up with an implementation. He used an IO extender HAT which adds 32 IO pins to the existing Pi GPIO pins that are accessible via an 3-wire I2C interface. This was enough hardware to support the 26 switches and 29 LEDs on the panel. There’s a brief demo of the custom printed switches in the video embedded below.
If you’re interested in old school 4-bit tech you might also like to check out
4-bit Single Board Computer Based On The Intel 4004 Microprocessor
.
| 4
| 2
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181942",
"author": "regent",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:13:30",
"content": "I love the look of this faceplate. Now I want to build one, but use the interface for something like home automation!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182112",
"author": "Michael Gardi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T03:12:04",
"content": "Cool idea.",
"parent_id": "8181942",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182222",
"author": "Bastet",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:44:20",
"content": "The datasheet to the MF7114 would be cool, but it seems that one has been lost to time, at least i can’t find a PDF.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182465",
"author": "Stephen Keller",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:28:28",
"content": "There is some interesting history of MIL, the MF7114 and CPS/1 here:https://studio2.org.uk/mf7114/MF7114.pdf",
"parent_id": "8182222",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.162474
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/19/this-week-in-security-the-shai-hulud-worm-shadowleak-and-inside-the-great-firewall/
|
This Week In Security: The Shai-Hulud Worm, ShadowLeak, And Inside The Great Firewall
|
Jonathan Bennett
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] |
[
"Ad Fraud",
"NPM",
"prompt injection",
"This Week in Security"
] |
Hardly a week goes by that there isn’t a story to cover about malware getting published to a repository. Last week it was millions of downloads on NPM, but this week it’s something much more concerning. Malware published on NPM is now
looking for NPM tokens, and propagating to other NPM packages when found
. Yes, it’s a worm, jumping from one NPM package to another, via installs on developer machines.
It does other things too, like grabbing all the secrets it can find when installed on a machine. If the compromised machine has access to a Github account, a new repo is created named
Shai-Hulud
, borrowed from the name of the sandworms from Dune. The collected secrets and machine info gets uploaded here, and a workflow also uploads any available GitHub secrets to the
webhook.site
domain.
How many packages are we talking about? At least 187, with some reports of over 500 packages compromised. The immediate attack has been contained, as NPM has worked to remove the compromised packages, and apparently has added filtering code that blocks the upload of compromised packages.
So far there hasn’t been an official statement on the worm from NPM or its parent companies, GitHub or Microsoft. Malicious packages uploaded to NPM is definitely nothing new. But this is the first time we’ve seen a worm that specializes in NPM packages. It’s not a good step for the trustworthiness of NPM or the direct package distribution model.
Token Impersonation in Azure
There’s an interesting write-up from [Dirk-jan Mollema] detailing
his findings regarding Azure impersonation tokens and how to abuse them
. This is about the Entra ID service, the identity and access management component of the Azure cloud. Azure has a function that allows a service like Exchange to generate an actor token, allowing the service to interact with the rest of Azure on behalf of a user.
These tokens are just signed JSON Web Tokens (JWTs). For a service to actually use one of these tokens, it’s embedded inside yet another, unsigned JWT. This outer token container has multiple fields indicating the the tenant that signed the inner token and the tenant the request is intended for. You may already wonder, what happens if we could get our hands on one of these double-wrapped tokens, and manipulate the target tenant field?
If an attacker can discover the tenant ID and a valid
netId
for a user in the victim tenant, one of these impersonation tokens could be generated from the attacker-owned tenant, and then manipulated to point to the victim tenant. From there, the attacker could perform any action as that user. It was an extremely significant flaw, and Microsoft pushed an immediate patch within days. The CVE scores a perfect 10 base score in the CVSS 3.1 scale.
ShadowLeak and Prompt Injection, the Attack That Won’t Go Away
There’s yet another example of weaponizing prompt injections against LLMs, in the form of
ShadowLeak
. And again, it’s the case where agentic AI can fall to social engineering.
The setup is that the AI is handling incoming emails, and the prompt is hidden inside an incoming email, perhaps as white text on a white background. The real challenge here isn’t sneaking the prompt in, but how to exfiltrate data afterwards. OpenAI’s Deep Research agent includes
browser.open
, to allow the AI to interact with the Internet. And of course, this gives the agent the ability to send data to a remote endpoint.
Firewall Warnings
SonicWall has announced that their MySonicWall
systems were breached
, and customers have been warned that their firewall configuration backups may have been compromised. These backups appear to include passwords.
Watchguard Firebox firewalls have an
out-of-bounds write that can allow Remote Code Execution (RCE)
on firewalls running VPNs with IKEv2. A fix is available for the units that are still actively supported, and it’s possible to mitigate against the flaw.
Inside The Great Wall
There was a huge, 600 GB leak last week, of
source code and information about the Great Firewall of China
. If you click through, the 600 GB leak is available to download, but it’s not something to download and interact with lightly. Put simply, it’s a lot of data produced by level state-sponsored actors, dealing with rather sensitive capabilities.
Among the non-source files, there are some interesting details, such as how the Chinese firewall has been exported to multiple other countries. The source code itself is still being analyzed, and so far it’s an interesting look into the cat and mouse game that has been long played between the Chinese government and VPN technologies. This leak will likely take quite some time to fully analyze, but promises to provide a significant look into the internals of the Great Firewall.
Bits and Bytes
LG TVs running WebOS had a fun issue,
where plugging in a USB drive exposed the files on a web endpoint
. The filename to download is specified via a parameter to that url, and that parameter doesn’t do path traversal filtering. This gives arbitrary read access to the whole device filesystem.
Google has
uncovered and then squashed the SlopAds advertising fraud campaign
. This campaign was a collection of apps that presented themselves as hastily made, “AI slop” apps. But when installed, these apps clicked as fast as they could on ads that paid out for the attackers. This represents 224 malicious applications removed, and was resulting in 2.3 billion ad hits per day.
| 7
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181809",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:31:41",
"content": "FYI, from a search : Npm stands for Node Package Manager, which is a tool used to manage JavaScript packages…I didn’t have a clue what that stood for or what it applied too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181919",
"author": "dremu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:42:18",
"content": "Or you can ride the worm using maker hooks. Yet another example how the same set of words means entirely different things in different contexts. Personally, I’ll stick with Arrakis.",
"parent_id": "8181809",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183147",
"author": "laowai",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T05:50:54",
"content": "May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people.But I get a small feeling that it won’t be like that.",
"parent_id": "8181919",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181923",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T19:49:25",
"content": "This comments section is probably gonna get a laugh from this…When I heard about the data leak, I went to the server where it was stored. I was just mildly curious, so I downloaded one of the docx files and opened it.Just then, I realized. Probably should have used a VM.Wiping my computer and reinstalling Windows 11 right now. I ran the file through virustotal and even used 7-zip to inspect the xml itself, didn’t reveal anything too suspicious. Better safe than sorry though.Yeah it was stupid. Yeah my curiosity got the better of me.Don’t do what I did guys.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182026",
"author": "Zai1208",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T22:59:37",
"content": "From the linked site if you scroll down a bit:Due to the highly sensitive nature of these leaked materials, we strongly advise anyone who chooses to download and analyze them to take proper operational security precautions. It may be possible that these files may contain potentially risky content and accessing them in an insecure environment could expose you to surveillance or malware.Please consider analyzing these files only in an isolated (virtual) machine without internet access.",
"parent_id": "8181923",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182069",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T00:38:01",
"content": "” If you click through, the 600 GB leak is available to download, but it’s not something to download and interact with lightly.” Tec Bundy’s laundry might be pretty creepy but it’s not going to make the house which contains my washing machine inedible. “Your autopsy report is trying to kill you!”Of course it would be a shame if a clever fellow had embedded child porn in it. You checked for that before providing the link, right? Akismet?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182438",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:36:45",
"content": "Should be “Ted” of course. Deeply, deeply ashamed.",
"parent_id": "8182069",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.259025
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/its-a-variable-capacitor-but-not-as-we-know-it/
|
It’s A Variable Capacitor, But Not As We Know It
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] |
[
"capacitor",
"radio",
"variable capacitor"
] |
Radio experimenters often need a variable capacitor to tune their circuits, as the saying goes, for maximum smoke. In decades past these were readily available from almost any scrap radio, but the varicap diode and then the PLL have removed the need for them in consumer electronics. There have been various attempts at building variable capacitors, and here’s [radiofun232]
with a novel approach
.
A traditional tuning capacitor has a set of meshed semicircular plates that have more of their surface facing each other depending on how far their shaft is turned. The capacitor presented in the first video below has two plates joined by a hinge in a similar manner to the covers of a book. It’s made of tinplate, and the plates can be opened or closed by means of a screw.
The result is a capacitor with a range from 50 to 150 picofarads, and in the second video we can see it used with a simple transistor oscillator to make a variable frequency oscillator. This can form the basis of a simple direct conversion receiver.
We like this device, it’s simple and a bit rough and ready, but it’s a very effective. If you’d like to see another unusual take on a variable capacitor,
take a look at this one using drinks cans
.
| 22
| 7
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181163",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:06:22",
"content": "Mann-Russell Electronics of Tacoma, WA made RF gluing machines for wood glues. Hand held and also very large for things like their continuous beam presses that made architectural wood beams. The wood was fed continuously, squeezed and passed between long aluminum plates. It took about 4 minutes to pass through and the glue was cured. There were small units of a few kw and large ones of a Mw. The company made their own RF transformers and had a side-market for commercial radio stations. The gluing machines ran at around 1MHz and had a problem with variations due to water content of wood, etc. The capacitors in the transmitter were large aluminum plates at least 60x60cm. The problem was solved with a hinge on one side and a stepper motor driving a rod at the other side to vary the gap, around 1978, with a digital frequency counter circuit.Mr. Mann, a shop teacher, and Mr. Russell, the business man (and uncle of the Russell 2000), were convinced they were making microwaves. I’m sure it was a Maxwell Induction Current.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181388",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:26:26",
"content": "Closer to microwave operating principle than induction: It’s dielectric loss tangent in action.",
"parent_id": "8181163",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182326",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:11:04",
"content": "I don’t recall the E&M derivation but induction as in the water molecules are induced to move back and forth, not rotate like a microwave. Maybe it was “Maxwell Displacement Current”. At the time my E&M course was only 2 or 3 years previous.",
"parent_id": "8181388",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181179",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:59:49",
"content": "I still need to make a variable capacitor for my magnetic loop antenna; the capacitor I have for it works, but it’s a tuning capacitor and takes too many turns to adjust when I want to change the band.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181237",
"author": "alanrcam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T04:50:50",
"content": "Some receive loops use servomotors & gears to allow fine tuning.On transmit, most loop owners focus on the high voltages those capacitors need to withstand. Even if your capacitor can handle it, remote tuning keeps your fingers away from the Ouchie stuff.",
"parent_id": "8181179",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181257",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:18:00",
"content": "You also don’t want to be sitting within arms reach of the tuning capacitor on a transmitting loop antenna if you’re running more than QRP. Remote tuning will save a lot of going back and forth.",
"parent_id": "8181237",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181472",
"author": "Yet Another Robert Smith",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:24:02",
"content": "Have you seen the tuning capacitor made of circuit board scraps and pot scrubbers, courtesy of Harry SM0VPO?https://swling.com/blog/tag/homebrew-tuning-capacitor/",
"parent_id": "8181179",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181183",
"author": "Greg Gallacci",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:12:26",
"content": "DC bias on dielectric causes change in dielectric thickness…higher voltage makes for thicker dielectric, lower capacitance.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181189",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:48:02",
"content": "What dielectric behaves in this unusual fashion?",
"parent_id": "8181183",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181233",
"author": "alanrcam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T04:43:33",
"content": "A reversed bias PN Junction in a varicap diode.",
"parent_id": "8181189",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181391",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:31:06",
"content": "True, the depletion zone changes apparent thickness, but I’m guessing that’s not what Gallacci had in mind.I can’t see into that mind, but maybe conflating electrolytic caps oxide layer with cheap ceramic cap performance?",
"parent_id": "8181233",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181238",
"author": "Samuel Ginsberg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T04:55:31",
"content": "Sounds like a Y5V ceramic. Take a look at Barium Titanate as a great example of unusualness.",
"parent_id": "8181189",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181389",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:28:21",
"content": "That cheap ceramic changes dielectric constant, true, but doesn’t change thickness…",
"parent_id": "8181238",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182327",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:14:03",
"content": "Isn’t it used for SONAR transducers?",
"parent_id": "8181389",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181196",
"author": "AZdave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T02:15:19",
"content": "Oh come on … there is no way this is “a novel approach”. This is almost exactly how variable capacitors were first made for radios over 100 years ago. I’ve owned antique radios that had this kind of tuning capacitor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181316",
"author": "Jenny List",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T11:50:57",
"content": "It’s novel to radio constructors here in 2025.",
"parent_id": "8181196",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181399",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:27:08",
"content": "http://c8.alamy.com/comp/ED4AW0/this-variable-capacitor-once-used-at-the-lahti-broadcasting-station-ED4AW0.jpg— BUT —Young(er) readers will likely have little ‘old’ knowledge of such devices, so there is value in posting articles that involve novel and non-traditional approaches to the physics surrounding radio engineering.",
"parent_id": "8181196",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182328",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T14:15:52",
"content": "Hmmm. A working miniature of some Krell technology?",
"parent_id": "8181399",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181318",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T11:57:04",
"content": "Anyone come up with an OpenSCAD script to create various sized rotor/stator plates for a DIY air variable capacitor with both sides of each plate being covered with copper or aluminum tape and threaded rod used for assembly?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181320",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T11:58:36",
"content": "Forgot to mention that the rotors/stators would be 3D printed.",
"parent_id": "8181318",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181395",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:09:18",
"content": "Ol’ folk may remember the term “gimmick” for a capacitor made by twisting insulated wires. In reality, the term can be extended to represent any DIY capacitor as seen in my hackster.io project for creating a 2-component 16MHz Arduino barebone.http://hackaday.io/project/204063-gimmick-on-barebones-arduino-16mhz",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181420",
"author": "Old_timer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:09:17",
"content": "The phrase is “Tune for least smoke” for adjusting a transmitter tank circuit to resonance.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.578713
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/smooth-non-planar-3d-ironing/
|
Smooth! Non-Planar 3D Ironing
|
Elliot Williams
|
[
"3d Printer hacks"
] |
[
"3d printer",
"ironing",
"non-planar"
] |
Is 2025 finally the year of non-planar 3D printing? Maybe it won’t have to be if [Ten Tech] gets his way!
Ironing is the act of going over the top surface of your print again with the nozzle, re-melting it flat. Usually, this is limited to working on boring horizontal surfaces, but no more!
This post-processing script from [Tenger Technologies]
, coupled with a heated, ball-shaped attachment, lets you iron the top of arbitrary surfaces.
At first, [Ten Tech] tried out non-planar ironing with a normal nozzle. Indeed,
we’ve seen exactly this approach taken last year
. But that approach fails at moderate angles because the edge on the nozzle digs in, and the surrounding hot-end parts drag.
[Ten Tech]’s special sauce is taking inspiration from the ball-end mill finishing step in subtractive CNC work: he affixed the round tip of a rivet on the end of a nozzle, and insulating that new tool turned it into an iron that could smooth arbitrary curvy top layers.
One post-processing script later, and the proof of concept is working.
Check out the video below
to see it in action. As it stands, this requires a toolhead swap and the calibration of a whole bunch of new parameters, but it’s a very promising new idea for the community to iterate on. We love the idea of a dedicated tool and post-processing smoother script working together in concert.
Will 2025 be the year of non-planar 3DP? We’ve seen not one but two superb multi-axis non-planar printer designs so far this year:
one from [Joshua Bird]
and
the other from [Daniel] of [Fractal Robotics]
. In both cases, they are not just new machines, but are also supported with novel open-source slicers to make them work. Now [Ten Tech]’s ironer throws its hat in the ring. What will we see next?
Thanks to [Gustav Persson] for the tip!
| 25
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181092",
"author": "George Graves",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:54:22",
"content": "The more I 3d print, the less enamored I am with it. It’s great for somethings, and sucks at others. The problem is that people are using it for everything under the sun. Did that happen with outher new mediums? Was bakelite used in places it never should have? Fiberglass?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181095",
"author": "matt",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:59:15",
"content": "You can say that about anything. For what it’s great at, it’s irreplaceable. For what it sucks at, don’t use it for that. Learning which is which is part of the fun.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181106",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:21:27",
"content": "‘Learn to MIG and TIG weld you 3d printing freaks.’Now get off my lawn.There is a bright future in typewriter repair!",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181118",
"author": "SimonF",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:35:35",
"content": "It’s funny, I have a filament-based 3D printer and it has worked well for me in the (limited) applications I have come up with.But I have been spending a bunch of time looking at various ‘starter’ welding rigs more recently, for the things the printer can’t do well :)",
"parent_id": "8181106",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181142",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T22:40:15",
"content": "Find something that can do aluminum, or can be extended to do aluminum with the addition of a gas bottle, in my opinion, because it’s just so nice to work with other than that it’s hard to weld.",
"parent_id": "8181118",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181552",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:46:03",
"content": "You are obviously not a welder! You dont just stick a gas bottle on and any welder that doesnt give the option is likely garbage. For aimply farting around the house the titanium ones from harbor freight work wonders because Lincoln helped with designing in collaboration with another large company to fill a void in the market for affordable but quality welders. Oh yeah, good luck using shield gas in the middle of a field somewhere with the wind howling!!",
"parent_id": "8181142",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181150",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T23:00:40",
"content": "Get a gas bottle, which gas will depend on which metal.It will cost as much as a cheapy MIG.On the cheapy, skip that step.The Miller 120V MIG/TIG convertible is just a much better welder.But much more than the $200 used craigslist MIG I started with.IIRC it’s $1000 without the TIG parts, or a tank.But you’re spending $500 the cheap way, half of which you will regret.It’s not $200 vs $1000 it’s $500 vs $1300.Best bought where ever you get your gas bottle filled.Miller is good about keeping welders off Amazon.They are there, but are being sold by someone who bought them at retail.Problem with all 120V welders is they are underpowered.The Miller is inverter based, much more efficient.Less waiting for the welder to cool off.My cheapy was good for 10% duty cycle at high power setting.Also the miller is properly adjustable, cheapies just suck.Also: get some good gloves, the cheap ones kill your touch.And don’t go too cheap on the hat.I started getting headaches, so took a second to look at the sun, helmet was strobing.If you’ve really got to go cheap, get a stick welder.They’re not terrible, if you learn on one of those, MIG will be easy later.",
"parent_id": "8181118",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181722",
"author": "Cassie Lam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:55:53",
"content": "3d Mig and Tig been done, too slow, too expensive. That is why nobody is on your lawn.",
"parent_id": "8181106",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181108",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:26:51",
"content": "Was bakelite used in places it never should have? Fiberglass?The answer to both is likely ‘yes’.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181110",
"author": "SimonF",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:30:28",
"content": "The example of inappropriate uses that immediately jumps to my mind is radioactive material. Some of the earliest (mis)applications are truly horrifying with the benefit of time and knowledge.I think asbestos has kinda had the worst of both ends of the spectrum- was used in some questionable applications, and is now considered almost magically evil…",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181349",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T13:43:53",
"content": "It kinda is. Asbestos fibers never leave your body once they get in, because they don’t dissolve and they kill the macrophages that try to eat them and transport them away. They’re sharp, so they pierce membranes, migrate and lodge themselves in tissues and stay there. They’re also nanometers thin, so they can physically slice through cells.The body tries to get rid of them by inflammation, but it can’t, so they either get encapsulated by scar tissue in the worst possible place to have scarring (lungs, intestines) and/or you get cancer from the constant mechanical irritation and inflammation 20-40 years later.It’s worse than radionuclides because human cells have not developed any means to deal with the damage, like DNA repair against ionizing radiation. The ways in which your body tries to isolate and remove the asbestos fibers itself causes damage.According to OSHA,[11] “there is no ‘safe’ level of asbestos exposure for any type of asbestos fiber.[12][13] Asbestos exposures as short in duration as a few days have caused mesothelioma in humans. Every occupational exposure to asbestos can cause injury or disease; every occupational exposure to asbestos contributes to the risk of getting an asbestos related disease.”Back in the day people used to make a point by eating asbestos to say “See, this is completely harmless”, and then die of bowel cancer in their 50’s.",
"parent_id": "8181110",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181155",
"author": "dremu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T23:34:59",
"content": "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I firmly believe a 3D printer should be ONE of the tools in a maker’s arsenal, but not ALL of them. I own hammers, but I own lots of other traditional tools as well.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181191",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:58:31",
"content": "Sucks at others is probably too strong – there is very little if anything a good 3d printer really can’t do that can be done in plastic (or if you have the budget powdered metal) adequately. The only real downside is minor quibbles like your cheap FDM printer requires you to design for the method (though so does everything really), mostly to compensate for anisotropic nature of FDM, and be very very patient if you want a really pretty end result.Don’t get me wrong though its not the most efficient option in a vast number of cases – you need a few holes to put switches in on your otherwise rather blank front panel a 3d print (at least off a well calibrated printer) is a perfectly good end result. But you’d get a result that is probably even better looking, and vastly quicker using a regular paper printer guide to let you know where to drill etc.is that people are using it for everything under the sun.The real reason I think we are seeing 3d printing get everywhere is it really is the one tool that can do a decent enough job at everything – I have a variety of tools all rather packing my tiny workshop, but nothing I’ve made on any of them absolutely HAD to be made on them, minor design compromise or two at times and the 3d printer (which also lives out there) could have done the job, eventually. Or in one case did in fact do the job over a decade ago, and the only reason that speaker mount is getting replaced in metal now(ish – got to get to that project) is because a clumsy giant (me) broke the printed one and at some point in the decade since has misplaced the 3d printer files… If I had those I’d probably just print another one, as I don’t its a great excuse to play (or perhaps I should say practice) with the lathe and mill, and the end result should be a slightly improved version as the design can be tweaked a bit with the more capable and not at all creep prone material.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181265",
"author": "Adrie",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:49:55",
"content": "3D printing is very accessible: anyone can use it, so there will be more ‘abuse’. Not many people have access to a nuclear powerplant or a Multi-Stage Batch Distillation installation (or have the knowledge to do something useful with it).3D printers are abundant, relative cheap and very easy to get started with (require very little knowledge)Bakelite and fiberglass are less accessible for laymen.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181335",
"author": "H Hack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:57:49",
"content": "It’s great for somethings, and sucks at others.That’s the nature of tools. Try grating cheese with a body massager.3d printing is used and abused because never in history has there been a manufacturing tool like it.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181568",
"author": "John B",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T04:24:07",
"content": "You could say the same with electricity when it was first invented. Most people thought it was just a gimmick, but others thought it would change the world. 3D printing is a game changer for prototyping. I went from getting my printer to build cases for charcoal BBQ controllers, building and prototyping Bearing caps for conveyors for UPS.",
"parent_id": "8181092",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181101",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:12:26",
"content": "‘arbitrary curvy top layers’Obviously false.The benchy shown has corners too tight for the tool to reach.Doesn’t necessarily need a tool change.Mount multiple ‘ball irons’ at nozzle height around the nozzle.Should clear during regular layer print.Tapered copper rods threaded into edges of heat block, user picks the number, end radius, rod diameter, offset, shape etc.Covered in thermal insulator, except at ends.Putting them on the model top and sides becomes a software problem.Not every spot will be reachable, but most will, at one layer or another.Point is, no tool change required, runs at end of every layer.Might require part cooling be turned off, or irons will get cold.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181104",
"author": "Lol",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:19:11",
"content": "Tell me you haven’t watched the video without telling me you haven’t watched the video lol",
"parent_id": "8181101",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181129",
"author": "Thopter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:58:35",
"content": "“Is 2025 finally the year of non-planar 3D printing? Maybe it won’t have to be…”This bit confuses me. The first question implies that non-planar 3D printing is something being hoped for, but then the next sentence implies the opposite. Which is it? Is non-planar 3D printing something to look forward to, or to avoid?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181136",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T22:17:18",
"content": "I believe he was saying something to the effect that non-planar ironing could achieve some of the anticipated attributes of non-planar printing. Sincemaybenon-planar ironing is here now, that it may satisfy some of the appetite for non-planar printing (which may or may not be set to arrive on the same inbound train as cold fusion).",
"parent_id": "8181129",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181167",
"author": "LookAtDaShinyShiny",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:16:52",
"content": "non-planar is already here, there are slicers for it, it’s just not widely adopted for the reasons stated in the video, namely that the model and the nozzle will have paths that clash because of the nozzle geometry being short, wide and stubby, hence him using a ball tip on the end of a long rod for non-planar ironing.Interestingly, his ball tip for ironing, might just be a solution for non-planar printing, once someone can figure out how to wrap enough nichrome or an induction heater etc. around a long thin bar shaped nozzle :-)Some of the newer hotends like creality unicorn or bambu could also be a reasonable method, if someone can move the model cooling fan ducts out of the way.",
"parent_id": "8181136",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181385",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:15:35",
"content": "The long thin bar like nozzle heating wouldn’t be a problem, not going to be quite as energy efficient no doubt but actually get hot enough is easy. The tricky bits are going to be that long thin to fit when ironing into more spaces is going to lead to a more flexible nozzle that is likely to have terrible positional accuracy as the filament path probably does have enough force to pull it out of shape, it likely rings all on its own with the printer movements for rather artifact covered prints, and being such a long melt zone the control of the filament to extrusion effect is going to be very wonky, with lots of drips as you can’t retract all the melty stuff etc.I think if you really wanted to make that concept work you have to be getting into the 1.2mm or larger nozzle sizes and appropriately large prints – so perhaps good for printing a large object like a kayak with really fantastic surface finish that might just be watertight on your treadmill based printer, but in general a separate ironing tool just has to be the best option.",
"parent_id": "8181167",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181263",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:38:24",
"content": "Maybe hot fusion, but yeah. Still ten years out.Indeed, experiments in non-planar 3D printing have been going on for almost a decade now. (https://hackaday.com/2016/07/27/3d-printering-non-planar-layer-fdm/) But 99.99% of prints don’t take advantage of it.Your point about the appetite is probaby it, though. If 90% of everything you’d want to do can be done with normal 2.5D printing, there’s little incentive to push for that extra bit. Still, once slicers and printers catch up, I believe that we’ll all be doing actually-3D prints in the future.And we’ll be able to throw our old prints in the Mr. Fusion to power it all. :)",
"parent_id": "8181136",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181652",
"author": "CSR",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:31:47",
"content": "I think we sometimes miss the value of efforts like this. It may be that many people push 3DP into use cases that are useless. But, often these cul-de-sacs result in enhancements or new use cases that weren’t concieved of or seemed impossible before. Experimentation and failure are critical to innovation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181796",
"author": "Ali",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:10:05",
"content": "Make the nozzle tip rounded. A slight torus shape around the nozzle tip could make this possible without a tool swap.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.519208
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/floss-weekly-episode-847-this-is-networking/
|
FLOSS Weekly Episode 847: This Is Networking
|
Jonathan Bennett
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] |
[
"FLOSS Weekly",
"networking"
] |
This week
Jonathan
and
Rob
chat with Tom Herbert about XDP2! It’s the brand new framework for making networking really fast, making parsers really simple, and making hardware network acceleration actually useful with Linux.
https://medium.com/@tom_84912/xdp2-this-changes-everything-at-least-for-ai-ml-infrastructure-850c1ba82771
https://medium.com/@tom_84912/programming-a-parser-in-xdp2-is-as-easy-as-pie-8f26c8b3e704
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
| 0
| 0
|
[] | 1,760,371,423.45637
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/forgotten-internet-the-story-of-email/
|
Forgotten Internet: The Story Of Email
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] |
[
"AOL",
"arpanet",
"email",
"imap",
"pop",
"smtp"
] |
It is a common occurrence in old movies: Our hero checks in at a hotel in some exotic locale, and the desk clerk says, “Ah, Mr. Barker, there’s a letter for you.” Or maybe a telegram. Either way, since humans learned to write, they’ve been obsessed with getting their writing in the hands of someone else. Back when we were wondering what people would do if they had a computer in their homes, most of us never guessed it would be: write to each other. Yet that turned out to be the killer app, or, at least, one of them.
What’s interesting about the hotel mail was that you had to plan ahead and know when your recipient would be there. Otherwise, you had to send your note to their home address, and it would have to wait. Telegrams were a little better because they were fast, but you still had to know where to send the message.
Early Days
An ad from the 1970s with a prominent Telex number
In addition to visiting a telegraph office, or post office, to send a note somewhere, commercial users started wanting something better at the early part of the twentieth century. This led to dedicated teletype lines. By 1933, though, a network of Teletype machines — Telex — arose. Before the Internet, it was very common for a company to advertise its Telex number — or TWX number, a competing network from the phone company and, later, Western Union — if they dealt with business accounts.
Fax machines came later, and the hardware was cheap enough that the average person was slightly more likely to have a fax machine or the use of one than a Telex.
Computers
It is hard to remember, but through much of this time, you were probably more likely to have access to a fax machine than a computer that was connected to anyone outside of your immediate office. In 1962, MIT’s Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) had a way for users to share files, and, of course, they did. By 1962, the IBM 1440 could send messages from terminal to terminal. Not really email, but it was a start.
People sharing files on CTSS led to a MAIL command by 1965. Each user had a local file called, in a fit of originality, MAIL BOX. Anyone could append messages to the file, but only the owner could read or edit it. Other early systems got the idea quickly.
By 1971, ARPANET — the granddaddy of the Internet — got SNDMSG to handle mail between networked computers. It could also transfer files. Each address had a local part and a remote hostname. In between? The “@” sign. The first message went between two PDP-10 machines that were in sight of each other. The developer, Ray Tomlinson, is often credited with inventing modern email. He would continue to drive mail innovation as part of the International Network Working Group.
Tomlinson’s program caused an explosion of similar mail programs. Unix had one. IBM was developing what would eventually become its office suite for mainframe computers. The University of Illinois had
PLATO
IV, which offered, among other things, mail.
The Rest of the World
In 1978, CompuServe started offering mail, primarily aimed at commercial customers. In the next year, they’d launch MicroNET, allowing people to dial into a computer to, among other things, send and receive mail.
By 1981, Compuserve rebranded its mail service as EMAIL, although it probably wasn’t the first to coin that term. That same year, IBM rolled out its internal system to the rest of the world. PROFS was widely used in the business world, and it wasn’t uncommon to hear people say they “sent you a PROFS.”
The biggest differentiator, of course, was if you could send mail to other people using your (presumably big) computer, other people on your network, or anywhere. There were plenty of schemes to get local mail off the local machine, like
UUCP
, for example.
The 1980s saw an explosion of LANs that had their own servers, and these usually offered, at least, local mail services. Of course, you could also buy software from Microsoft, Lotus, or others to provide mail.
The Internet
Back then, normal people didn’t have access to the Internet. That’s how companies like CompuServe, and their main competitor The Source, managed to entice people to sign up for services. They would often have gateways to other mail systems and, eventually, the Internet, too. But 1985 would see the formation of Quantum Link. Never heard of them? Maybe you’ll remember in 1989 when they changed their name to America Online and, later, AOL.
For whatever reason, AOL took over that market. By 1995, AOL had around three million active users, and its signature “You’ve got mail!” audio clip, voiced by the late Elwood Edwards, was a cultural icon. In addition to email, it pioneered instant messaging and flooded the market with free trial disks.
Of course, people started getting access to the actual Internet, so all the specialized mail providers suffered.
Milestones
The first head of state to send an email? Queen Elizabeth II, back in 1976. Jimmy Carter was the first known presidential candidate to use email in 1976. Astronauts on the Space Shuttle (STS-43 in 1991) were the first to send email from space. It was pretty complicated, as Scott Manley discusses in the video below.
Less inspiring, Gary Thuerk sent the first spam message over ARPANET in 1978. The topic? A new product for DEC.
Modern Mail
Modern mail primarily relies on SMTP, IMAP, and, sometimes POP. Surprisingly, these protocols date back to the early 1980s, but were mostly part of the ARPANET until the Internet opened up.
Of course, the protocols have changed with time. E-mail needed to adapt to TCP/IP and DNS. Today, the protocols have provisions for validating senders to help stop spam, as well as to encrypt messages. But at the core, the technology that moves mail around the Internet is mostly unchanged. The nice thing: you can send to someone without knowing where they’ll be and when they’ll be there. Mr. Barker doesn’t have to get a packet from the front desk anymore.
| 25
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181018",
"author": "Hariedo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:10:23",
"content": "Glossed right over the pre-DNS considerations of how mail got routed. Before you had a phonebook of IP addresses to know ‘prep.ai.mit.edu’ by its number, you had to give your data a route. Instead ofjoe@theirserver.comyou had myserver!nearbyserver!anotherserver!servernearthem!theirserver!joe and each machine had a list of known host connections in /etc/hosts which could form a viable next step in a route.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181078",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:14:17",
"content": "Heh, I remember using that trick in the early 1990s to get ‘extra’ disk space on the university system (we got 1MB iirc). Uuencode a file and send it to yourself via a list of geographically diverse sites. Delete the file, do what you needed, and then wait for it to come back. Normally took 30 mins or so!",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181090",
"author": "cliff claven",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:53:40",
"content": "Did similar on an IBM370 (MVS, IIRC) in the 80’s. Mail, as well as several other classes, was spooled in the system spool space until claimed by the recipient (printer channel, outgoing mail client for BITNET, user mail client, UUCP bridge channel, system user, whatever). The spool space was publicly indexed but had varied lifetimes, based on the recipient.The space wasn’t charged to the recipient, so, in the end, the administrators added classes for source and recipient being tied to the same user and set the lifetime to very short, as so many people were kiting files to get past the user limits that the spool space was not sufficient for its actual job. The commercial clients really didn’t like it when their overnight jobs failed on print due to fully committed spool allocation.IIRC, the spool space was a bunch of 3350’s, which were also the general allocation for VSAM and other block formatted files.",
"parent_id": "8181078",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181089",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:52:59",
"content": "1984 I worked at DEC, so the routes would usually include DECWRL, a well-known host (DEC Western Research Labs)And the early days of email lists, like “SF-lovers”I do remember the PDP-10 as an undergrad where you could send email to another person on the same computer.Grad school and a System/370 (VM/CMS), you would “punch” virtual cards on your virtual card punch and send them to the recipient’s virtual card reader.",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183386",
"author": "FeRDNYC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T19:40:01",
"content": "A… VIRTUAL… Card. Punch. Holy balls, if that isn’t a perfect metaphor for our cultural inclination to cling to old technology out of pure familiarity/inertia.",
"parent_id": "8181089",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181093",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:55:10",
"content": "and if you messed it up and sent personal email through a satellite link you got very pissed off email from one of the sysops on one or the other end of the satellite link about how bandwidth was too precious to be used on personal email. (This was me trying to schedule my flight home from college with my dad who was going to be picking me up at the airport, mid 1980’s.)",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181120",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:37:10",
"content": "Ahh! the old bang! separated email routing. It got quite interesting to figure out the route, and if one of the intervening computers was down, your email might get stuck in limbo.Back in the day I used to read “the internet” in the morning, and get my work done after lunch. Yes, read the whole internet. Well, it was just newsgroups back then.",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181223",
"author": "mythoughts62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T03:54:26",
"content": "I miss Usenet newsgroups. Technically, they’re still in existence, but the last time I looked at Usenet, it was a pale shadow of what it used to be. Reddit is not ahorriblesucessor, but it’s just not the same.",
"parent_id": "8181120",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183389",
"author": "FeRDNYC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T19:44:44",
"content": "Sadly, 4chan is probably a closer successor than Reddit.",
"parent_id": "8181223",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181178",
"author": "Al Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:51:57",
"content": "You have to click the second link:https://hackaday.com/2025/01/16/forgotten-internet-uucp/",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181393",
"author": "NQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:01:18",
"content": "I remember seeing that in FIDOnet headers.",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181505",
"author": "William Westfield",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:56:14",
"content": "The Internet, and the ARPANet before it, has “always” had the “user@host” syntax, without the need to specify a path (as long as the host was “directly connected.” Prior to DNS, there were static host tables that were downloaded that provided the translation from a hostname to an IP or HOST/IMP (in pre-IP days) address. The “specify the full path of hosts separated by “!”s was a UUCP/Usenet thing, which relied (originally) on point-to-point dialup connections, so there were significant cost advantages to hack the routing to avoid long distance charges…",
"parent_id": "8181018",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183339",
"author": "Kenson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T17:53:08",
"content": "Uucp was used to transport mail because only very large organizations were on the internet per se (had an asn)",
"parent_id": "8181505",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181086",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:39:20",
"content": "“…about the hotel mail was that you had to plan ahead and know when your recipient would be there.”I did quite a bit of work in the backwoods/bush/boonies (pick your slang for ‘far away from any paved road’) back in the pre-email era. Bush camps, no hotels, no fixed address. The “hack” around that at the time was to send the letter to General Delivery at a specific post office. You walk in and ask for your mail or packages. Worked great. No fuss.By the ’80s we were doing wireless email over VHF radiotelephone, using Silent 700 terminals and acoustic couplers. Worked not so great, when we found that most of us field grunts couldn’t type. :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181303",
"author": "Itsatthepostoffice",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T09:42:52",
"content": "I send everybody’s mail to general delivery. It’s great for sending a surprise birthday/Christmas package without tipping off the recipient by asking for there address. Also my ID says general delivery on it, my address stays the same so I don’t have to inform the DMV of an address change. I originally had it put on there when I was homeless due to the daily harassment cops always asking “what happened at this address why can’t you go back there”",
"parent_id": "8181086",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181197",
"author": "Dom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T02:15:32",
"content": "Best be careful about naming the inventor of email.Shiva Ayyadurai is well-known for claiming that title……Oh, that was EMAIL. Carry on./jk, in case it’s needed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182661",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:31:50",
"content": "Just as I thought, of course Shiva Ayyadurai named his program email, and also send email in 1978, but Tomlinson already send email from one computer to another computer in 1971. Even though Shiva Ayyadurai named his program EMAIL, but he was not the first to use that word email. It was already used many years earlier.",
"parent_id": "8181197",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181283",
"author": "Simon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T08:25:14",
"content": "There’s all the other non-Internet email systems to consider. Not just uucp, there was BITNET, EARN and DECNET, FIDONET and JANET coloured book addressing schemes for email. Before a lot of places were connected by the TCP/IP protocols, there were other protocols used to exchange email, each with their own take of what an email address should look like. The sendmail.cf back in the day could recognise all these different transfer protocols and direct traffic to the appropriate transport, which may be X.25, may be all sort sorts of vendor-proprietary stuff. I distinctly remember chaining together multiple addressing schemes through mail relays to get an email to a contact who received it in-flight over the South Atlantic in the back of a Hercules transport plane over a very slow shortwave radio data link.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181376",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:41:33",
"content": "don’t forget WWIVnet! :)for a while i ran a bespoke gateway between SMTP email and WWIV. yeah a ton of address translation was going on..layers of explicit routing in the address.",
"parent_id": "8181283",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181307",
"author": "Nikolai",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T10:19:21",
"content": "I believe the original email protocol allowed to send email to all recipients in domain by sending to @domain.com (skipping the username) and was hardly used by users.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181371",
"author": "Bryan W",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:24:53",
"content": "“in a fit of originality”I have never met a good programmer who was also good at naming things.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181377",
"author": "Snarkenstein",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:41:46",
"content": "The four hardest problems in programming:CachingNamingOff-by-one errors",
"parent_id": "8181371",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181623",
"author": "El Gru",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:59:00",
"content": "There are only two hard problems. ;-)",
"parent_id": "8181377",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181413",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:54:50",
"content": "Quite possibly the inspiration for the running joke in theDiscworldnovels that Leonard of Quirm, despite being a genius in just about every other way, was a bit inept when it came to naming things.“I call it the ‘Make Words With Letters That Have All Been Mixed Up Game,’ my lord.”and so on.",
"parent_id": "8181371",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182721",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T17:27:04",
"content": "“The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.”—Donald Knuth",
"parent_id": "8181371",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.331709
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/american-science-and-surplus-ends-online-sales/
|
American Science And Surplus Ends Online Sales
|
Tom Nardi
|
[
"News"
] |
[
"mail order",
"store closing",
"surplus"
] |
For nearly 90 years, American Science and Surplus has been shipping out weird and wonderful stuff to customers far and wide. In the pre-Internet days, getting their latest catalog in the mail — notable for its hand-drawn illustrations and whimsical style — was always exciting. From Romanian gas masks to odd-ball components, there was no telling what new wonders each issue would bring. In time, the printed catalog gave way to a website, but the eclectic offerings and hand-drawn images remained.
Unfortunately, those days are officially no more. Earlier this week, American Science and Surplus had to make
the difficult decision to shutter their entire mail order division
. It’s no secret that the company as a whole had been struggling over the last few years. Like many small businesses they were hit hard during the COVID-19 years, and while they made it through that particular storm, they faced skyrocketing operational costs.
Earlier this year, the company turned to crowd funding to help stay afloat.
That they were able to raise almost $200,000
speaks to how much support they had from their community of customers, but while it put the company in a better position, the writing was on the wall. The warehouse space required to support their mail order operations was simply too expensive to remain viable.
But it’s not all bad news. At least two of the company’s physical storefronts, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Geneva, Illinois will remain open and operate under the ownership of the employees themselves. The fate of the third store in Park Ridge, Illinois is less clear. They currently don’t have a buyer, but it sounds like they haven’t given up hope of selling it yet.
Anyone in the Illinois area feel like getting some buddies together and buying a turn-key surplus business?
| 29
| 15
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180963",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:39:21",
"content": "Apropos of this, the Marlin P. Jones company also recently went out of business.Electronic Goldmine is still operating.Anyone have a more electronics surplus outfits that do mail order?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180991",
"author": "ChipMaster",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:23:26",
"content": "And All Electronics the year before. :~(",
"parent_id": "8180963",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180998",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:30:58",
"content": "Former employees of All Electronics have launched Aretronics. Not much offering, though.https://aretronics.com/dipmicro was my go-to, but also closed.",
"parent_id": "8180991",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181048",
"author": "Roland",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:40:14",
"content": "I remember wandering around All Electronics in the Koreatown district of LA as a kid, really helped kick start my sense of wonderment and embedded development career, was just a palace of electronic nirvana back in the day staffed by knowledgable and patient electronics nerds. The one in the San Fernando Valley paled in comparison but has been sorely missed.",
"parent_id": "8180991",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180997",
"author": "TimT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:30:18",
"content": "Well dang. I never heard of this company, but I’ve ordered stuff from MPJ before.",
"parent_id": "8180963",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181050",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:54:00",
"content": "They used to go under the name “Jerryco”.",
"parent_id": "8180997",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181128",
"author": "localroger",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:52:53",
"content": "They rebranded from Jerryco to AmSciSurp about the time things started to drift away from print catalogs, rendering their signature catalog moot and unfortunately inviting the acronym AS&S which they jokingly explained why they were not using in one of their last print JerryCo catalogs.Also victims of the transition: Loompanics (“first amendment” bookstore, RIP) and House of Onyx (amazing selection of gemstones, still in business but RIP their ditinctive catalog and founder Fred Rowe)",
"parent_id": "8181050",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181040",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:29:05",
"content": "I know of other surplus operations online but probably not actual “mail order”.Aptly enough: electronicsurplus.com",
"parent_id": "8180963",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181117",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:33:51",
"content": "Oh shoot, I used to work down the street from MPJ and would stop in on my way home. It was like going to a candy store.Sad to see them go.",
"parent_id": "8180963",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180967",
"author": "Snarkenstein",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:50:54",
"content": "I feel so guilty. I haven’t ordered from AS&S for several years.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180980",
"author": "That's on a need to know basis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:13:00",
"content": "I remember when All Electronics went out of business. I bought a whole bunch of stuff from them over the years, it was so sad because their prices were absolutely excellent.They opened up as an employee run deal, but I still miss the old All Electronics.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181070",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T19:56:38",
"content": "Wish we had such surplus stores in The Netherlands. Although I do know of one:https://www.baco-army-goods.nl",
"parent_id": "8180980",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181166",
"author": "That's on a need to know basis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:15:16",
"content": "I honestly love small surplus stores. Especially after visiting the Am. Sci and Surplus website to see what I’d missed out on, I am really disappointed these sites are failing. One of my favorites was Saturn Surplus. I ordered some parts for a military genset from them (for a very reasonable price) and now they are gone too. They always seem to have good customer service and great prices, but that just can’t seem to compete with Amazon.",
"parent_id": "8181070",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181507",
"author": "Ma Flodder",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T23:03:50",
"content": "They used to exist. Maastricht, for example, had De Regenboog on the Brusselsestraat. And there was Grootaers in the Mariastraat, although the latter was less of a surplus store, and more of an electronic parts store.",
"parent_id": "8181070",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180983",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:15:42",
"content": "After all these years…. I didn’t know they existed out on the web. Sounds like they had interesting stuff. I wonder how many other electronic/science shops exist out there.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180985",
"author": "Jay",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:16:49",
"content": "Dammit. I’m ashamed to say that as much as I’ve wanted to order something, the lack of physical space and money has prevented me from doing so. It’s sad to see this place finally go under.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181012",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:57:29",
"content": "I have no idea if they do mail order – I suspect not – but any AS&S enthusiasts who are in the Portland Oregon area should also check out Surplus Gizmos, my neighborhood surplus store (www.surplusgizmos.com) in Hillsboro. A veritable Aladdin’s Cave of electronics and hardware. The fact that it’s within wafer-throwing distance of various Intel and other campuses lends a certain flavor to much of the stock. Standard disclaimer: I’m not affiliated, just a happy customer, etc etc :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181041",
"author": "ymerejo42",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:31:41",
"content": "Don’t know about “mail order”, but they do ship! Just tried placing an item in my cart, and there’s a section to calculate shipping.",
"parent_id": "8181012",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181057",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T19:18:07",
"content": "Thanks for checking. I’ve always just gone into the store to shop in-person; tbh I’ve never even used their website, Luddite that I am.",
"parent_id": "8181041",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181016",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:07:38",
"content": "Original name was American Lens & Photo. Bought my first mirror grinding kit back in 1955. Made a 6″ telescope. It was a cool place to visit. It is sad to see these places disappear.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181020",
"author": "Pete",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:20:12",
"content": "This is sad but not surprising, I’ve been going to the Chicago store since the early 1990s, the present owner in Park Ridge used to sweep the floors at the first location in Chicago in the beginning, I remember seeing the original owners often back in the day, but that’s how it works in that big city, eventually the taxes and fees and the changes in the residents(politics) bring an end to a business like that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181039",
"author": "Giake",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:25:45",
"content": "My kids and I spend a lot of money in their store. I guess we have to step up our game!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181187",
"author": "Eugene Nine",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:21:20",
"content": "I ordered stuff from them way back in the late 80’s to early 90’s and then in the early 2010’s for stuff when i had kids, sad to see them go.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181235",
"author": "John D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T04:49:33",
"content": "I grew up right nearby, maybe 20 minutes from the geneva store, still go there every time I visit home!At one of their summer tent sales, almost twenty years ago now, and bought some fans, wire, alligator clips, and speakers – playing with those (and soon after, trying to make lasers with parts from radioshack, rip :/ ) is how I got into the electronics hobby in the first place!Made a makeshift scuba/snorkel thing in like fourth grade from some plastic pipes, rubber corks glue, a latex glove and some rubber tubing (and it like, even kind of worked! Kind of want to revisit that, now I think about it … And I even managed not to drown! 🙃) Got my first oscilloscope, first three or four multimeters there, probably filled four or five of their punch cards during high school. My life would certainly look completely different without that little storeWhat a placeDeeply disappointing to see such an icon going this way :( I really hope the physical stores survive. This was my single favorite place in the world until about high school. Even their catalog was great, it’s the one, single mailer, email or print, that I have ever signed up for",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181308",
"author": "Dexter Meira",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T10:25:52",
"content": "Yep, Brazil went down this same lane and that’s sad.Nowadays you can’t trust a transistor you buy in Brazil, because all the trustworthy companies was vanished due to bad political decisions…But they’ll tell us it’s because of internet, of course.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181326",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:19:28",
"content": "MPJA.com used to be THE place to buy quality toggle and other switches of many types and sizes cheaply. Just checked and they’re closed. Just checked other, similar, small-time electronic outfits in my favorites and they’re also closed. Jameco.com is still around although I don’t think they’re in the “small-time” category,",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181684",
"author": "Davis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:13:50",
"content": "Skycraft Surplus (skycraftsurplus.com) bought out MPJA’s inventory, so at least for a while, there’s that.",
"parent_id": "8181326",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181330",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:40:36",
"content": "Aw man I will indeed miss those catalogs but I fail to understand how a mail order (primarily) company went under during and post covid. How does almost every other business improve sales online during the pandemic and yet these lovable folks fall behind. It feels like some key decisions were not made and some contracts they had for warehouse space and logistics/delivery probably should have been renegotiated. Thirdly lol I never never never see an ad for them. People cant shop there if they cant find you to give you money. My guess is someone will buy it and flip it. Keeping the brand and quirky ads is a no brainer but figure out sales outlets for ebay and amazon and maybe even a curated store on etsy. I dunno I have a mix of feelings. It reminds me of when a friend was brought onboard for a similar in zany nature musical site and tried to explain to the owner that there were too many comics and goofy graphics cluttering up the page, the information provided was comical and not related to the product, and worst of all the actual order page was buried and only used one payment method… The owner doubled down on the garbage and broke their order page for almost 3 months without figuring it out… I really hope ASS finds a way to stay open or even relaunch with more of a presence in the marketplace and a giant cheap warehouse closer to where their magical goods arrive, and a business account or better with a national shipper or logistics company with modern results in that area. Maybe even some demo videos of the items. It sounds like there is a ton of good energy from the current employees (bless them) and others online who could band together and get the heavy lifting done so that operating it just means dealing with supply and watching the reports on sales and the warehouse. It seems very doable even from “me sitting with gpt for three hours” kind of thing. I hope someone can do it :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181686",
"author": "Davis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:16:04",
"content": "Skycraft Surplus (skycraftsurplus.com) took over the remaining MPJA inventory. Not sure how financially durable they are, but hopefully they’ll be around for a while. I would not be surprised at all to find that they also got some of the AS&S inventory in the end.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.706981
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/naturally-radioactive-food-and-safe-food-radiation-levels/
|
Naturally Radioactive Food And Safe Food Radiation Levels
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science"
] |
[
"food safety",
"ionizing radiation"
] |
There was a recent recall of so-called ‘radioactive shrimp’ that were potentially contaminated with cesium-137 (Cs-137). But contamination isn’t an all-or-nothing affair, so you might wonder exactly how hot the shrimp were. As it turns out, the
FDA’s report makes clear
that the contamination was far below the legal threshold for Cs-137. In addition, not all of the recalled shrimp was definitely contaminated, as disappointing as all of this must be to those who had hoped to gain radioactive Super Shrimp powers.
After US customs detected elevated radiation levels in the shrimp that was imported from Indonesia, entry for it was denied, yet even for these known to be contaminated batches the measured level was below 68 Bq/kg. The FDA limit here is 1,200 Bq/kg, and the radiation level from the potassium-40 in bananas is around the same level as these ‘radioactive shrimp’, which explains why bananas can trigger radiation detectors when they pass through customs.
But this event raised many questions about how sensible these radiation checks are when even similar or higher levels of all-natural radioactive isotopes in foods pass without issues. Are we overreacting? How hot is too hot?
Healthy Radiation, Normal Radiation
Pandalus montagui
in an aquarium. (Credit:
Claude Nozères
)
Ionizing radiation from nuclear sources forms both an unavoidable and an essential part of food safety. The practice of
food irradiation
involves exposing food to gamma rays in order to destroy anything that is still alive in it, like bacteria and other potentially harmful microorganisms. Much like heating with pasteurization and similar practices that aim to wipe out these microorganisms, this can render food safe for consumption for much longer than would otherwise be possible.
Whereas food irradiation does not actually introduce radioactive isotopes to the foodstuffs, these isotopes can still enter prospective food in other ways. Long before these infamous Indonesian shrimp – likely
prawns
– found themselves post-mortem on their way to the US, these critters were either happily galivanting about in the Pacific Ocean or less happily stuck in a shrimp farm, doing all the things that pre-mortem shrimp do. This includes consuming a lot of shrimp food, starting with plankton and moving up to worms, bivalves and other crustaceans as they mature.
All of these food sources along with the water that they live in contain some level of radioactive isotopes, ranging from the uranium-238 that’s plentiful in seawater, to tritium from atmospheric sources, and manmade isotopes like cesium-137 from nuclear weapons testing. Most isotopes, including Cs-137, do not bioaccumulate: in humans Cs-137 has a biological half-life of about 70 days . This suggests that this particular batch of whiteleg shrimp ingested some kind of relatively Cs-137-rich food shortly before harvesting.
The
Castle Bravo
15 MT blast on March 1, 1954. (Source:
USDOE
)
The Pacific Ocean area was a particularly prolific area when it came to
nuclear weapons testing
, with of the worldwide approximately 2,121 tests so far the US and France detonating a significant number in the Pacific. Tests such as the 15 megaton
Castle Bravo
experiment featuring the ironically named SHRIMP device, which significantly raised the amount of
carbon-14
(C-14), Cs-137, and strontium-90 (Sr-90) in the region. Due to its bioaccumulating nature, Sr-90 with its 29-year half life poses a particular risk, while C-14 with its 5,700-year half life is generally deemed of no consequence, on par with the normal intake of potassium-40 as both isotopes behave in a very similar way in the body.
Although the amount of Cs-137 from these tests has reduced significantly due to natural radioactive decay, this provides one potential path through which these and many other isotopes from both manmade and natural sources can find themselves inside small crustaceans prior to their untimely demise at the hand of bipedal primates with an appetite for seafood.
The one question that remains here is how we can know that a certain amount of an isotope per kg of foodstuff is too much for human consumption. How dangerous is the radioactive potassium-40 in bananas really?
Setting Limits
We earlier listed the FDA’s 1,200 Bq/kg as the limit for the
Cs-137
. A radioactive source rates one Becquerel if it undergoes
one disintegration event per second
, and dividing this by the weight gives a rough measure of radiation density. But all decay biproducts aren’t created equally. If we look at the
FDA guidance documents
pertaining to radionuclides in imported food, we can see that this listed limit pertains to the so-called Derived Intervention Levels (DILs), superseding the older Levels of Concern (LOCs). The same document lists the DILs for other isotopes, including:
Sr-90
at 160 Bq/kg.
Iodine-131
at 170 Bq/kg.
Cs-134
+
Cs-137
at 1,200 Bq/kg.
Pu-238
+
Pu-239
+
Am-241
at 2 Bq/kg.
What these isotopes have in common is that they are generally only produced by artificial sources, while omitting a very common natural isotope like
potassium-40
(K-40) which only forms the third-largest source of natural background radiation after thorium-232 and uranium-238. Since K-40 is readily present in soil and anywhere else that other potassium isotopes are present, it’s practically unavoidable to consume significant amounts of K-40 each day, regardless of whether you’re a crustacean, plant or mammal.
Potassium-40 decay scheme. (Credit: Tubas-en,
Wikimedia
)
K-40 is both a beta and gamma emitter, with approximately 140 grams of it present at any given time in a 70 kg adult human body, where it is responsible for an approximate constant 4,000 Bq of radiation.
Despite the long half-life of 1.248 billion years, K-40’s prevalence makes up for this sluggish nuclear decay rate, with around 4,000 of such disintegration events happening inside an adult human body each second, as a K-40 nucleus decays into either argon-40 or calcium-40 via gamma or beta decay respectively.
Cesium-137 decay into barium via one of two routes. (Credit: Tubas-en,
Wikimedia
)
We can contrast this with Cs-137’s 30 year half-life and somewhat similar decay into barium. Nearly 95% of Cs-137 nuclei decay into the metastable barium-137m via beta decay, before decaying into the stable barium-137 via gamma decay. The remaining 5% decay immediately via beta decay into this stable nucleus.
The much shorter half-life and primary gamma decay route make Cs-137 significantly more radiologically active than K-40. Yet while more gamma radiation may sound worse, one has to remember that the biological impact for radiation exposure once ingested is flipped around. For example, while the very powerful alpha radiation is luckily stopped by the top layers of our skin and dissipates its energy mostly in dead skin cells, you don’t want the same to happen to living cells like the inside of your lungs or various other soft issues, with alpha radiation absolutely cooking the nearest layers of cells.
This is where gamma decay ironically helps to distribute the radiation exposure from Cs-137 somewhat, while also complicating the comparison with K-40, as that isotope decays mostly via beta decay and thus can potentially do more damage per event to local tissue as beta radiation does not travel as far through the body.
Overabundance Of Caution
The
American Nuclear Society (ANS) article
on the “contaminated shrimp” event probably puts this event in best context. Normally shrimp from the Pacific region contains some level of Cs-137, but these recent batches caught the attention at the importing ports due to a 100x higher level of Cs-137 than normally seen. That sounds like a problem, but it only places the shrimp roughly in line with bananas.
A
2023 study
performed in Poland found that of animal products produced in that country, cattle muscle tissue showed Cs-137 levels up to 23.5 Bq/kg (wet weight), sheep nearly 50 Bq/kg, and in wild game animals some muscle tissue scored well over 4,000 Bq/kg. All of which place these commonly consumed animal tissues well above the typical value for Indonesian shrimp, and either in the ballpark or significantly above that of the ‘contaminated’ shrimp.
Threshold Models
The LNT model versus other models and measurements. (Source:
CNSC
)
Government regulations pertaining to radiation exposure are most often based on the linear no-threshold (
LNT
) model, which extrapolates down from very high radiation doses where we can measure the damage more easily. But it does so linearly, making the assumption that ten multiple small doses, even if they are spread out over time, are equivalent to one exposure that is ten times as strong.
Recent studies have suggested that below 100 mSv there are
no observable effects
, which suggests that a model that incorporates a threshold might make more sense for radiological contamination of food.
The National Academy of Science report on low levels of radiation from 2005
, on which most of the US regulations are based, at the time rejected the threshold model due to insufficient evidence. They also cite studies where very small doses are claimed to have negative effects on children still in the womb, suggesting that the lower threshold may not be uniform across different populations.
Even if a lower threshold does exist, and there is an
increasing push
by scientists for moving past the LNT, establishing the exact value for this threshold is difficult. Below a certain dosage, there just isn’t significant epidemiological data. You cannot prove a negative: “below this level there
will be
no increased risk of cancer”. One can only say that no excess risk was detected in this or that particular study.
Add in sensitivity about manmade radioisotopes in drinking water, food, and anything else that is sold or presented to the public, and most governments take the LNT approach even if it is likely to be very conservative. And that, in short, is why we got a ‘radioactive’ shrimp recall, when eating that banana might arguably be more hazardous for you.
| 25
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180943",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:02:01",
"content": "Even if the LNT model is true, below a certain point where we cannot even measure the effect because it’s so small that it’s hard to show even in large multi-decade studies, the question becomesdoes it even matter?The underlying question is, why should we mandate absolute zero risk? We accept much greater risks elsewhere, so what makes radioactivity special?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180952",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:17:45",
"content": "Possible birth defects, sometimes rather horrifying. Don’t see the effects soon after exposure like with consumption.",
"parent_id": "8180943",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181017",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:10:07",
"content": "Again, if it’s so rare, is it worth the trouble?We havemedicinewith possible side effects that include birth defects. Not as bad as thalidomide, but still.",
"parent_id": "8180952",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181023",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:24:11",
"content": "To put it in perspective, 1 in 33 babies in the US have some form of a birth defect. Meanwhile, no statistically significant increase in birth defects was recorded with atom bomb survivors. That isn’t to say there isn’t any, only that the effect was too small to say yes or no.https://www.rerf.or.jp/en/programs/roadmap_e/health_effects-en/geneefx-en/birthdef/",
"parent_id": "8181017",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181027",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:38:24",
"content": "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cga.70013Our study included 90 433 births in Fukushima, accounting for 52.6% of all births. Among these, birth defects were observed in 1376 (1.52%) births, of which 28 (0.031%) were diagnosed with radiation-induced malformations. With regard to other areas in Japan, 1 323 391 births, which accounted for 10.9% of all births, were registered; births with birth defects and radiation-induced malformations were observed in 37 490 (3.67%) and 889 (0.067%), respectively.Our results, which covered the largest number of births in Fukushima, did not find a significant increase in the incidence of radiation-induced malformations in Fukushima since FDND.That’s the conundrum. When sampling populations exposed to major doses or radiation and fallout from nuclear events, the number of radiation induced malformations actually seem to go down. If we’re assuming the effect does exist and the LNT model is right, the data would suggest it’s so small that it simply vanishes in random background noise.That in turn suggests that trying to do something about the case will cause more trouble than it solves, which in turn leads to greater damage to the people overall.",
"parent_id": "8181017",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180951",
"author": "Interloper",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:17:04",
"content": "I am pretty sure there is not 140g of K40 in the body, that is more than likely the total potassium, with the natural abundance being only about 117 ppm of that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180966",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:49:51",
"content": "I agree with you, the % of human body by weight are:Oxygen (O): 65%Carbon (C): 18.5%Hydrogen (H): 9.5%Nitrogen (N): 3%Calcium (Ca): 1.5%Phosphorus (P): 1%(~99% of the human body is the above 6 elements)Potassium (K): 0.4%Sodium (Na): 0.2%Chlorine (Cl): 0.2%Magnesium (Mn): 0.1%Sulfur (S): 0.04%For a 70 kg adult that would work out at about 280 grams of Potassium in total of which about 0.0117% is K40 so about 0.0003276 g or ~0.000328 micro grams of radioactive Potassium-40",
"parent_id": "8180951",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180968",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:51:36",
"content": "Typo I meant to say: 328 micro grams of radioactive Potassium-40",
"parent_id": "8180966",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181119",
"author": "Ken",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:36:01",
"content": "I think you made a math error. I came up with 0.03276 grams or 32.76 mg… 280*0.000117=0.03276",
"parent_id": "8180968",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180969",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:53:51",
"content": "Why don’t we consume largish amounts of pure K39 salts (while avoiding foodstuffs with naturally-high levels of K which contain the K40)?If we do this consistently, then the body will naturally excrete the excess K, thereby diluting the K40, and reducing the internal background radiation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180993",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:24:38",
"content": "The main reason is that it is just as difficult, time consuming, and expensive, to separate K40 from K41 and K39 as it is to separate U-235 from U-238. There is currently no cheap easy solution to separate isotopes of the same element in massive quantities.",
"parent_id": "8180969",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181004",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:37:54",
"content": "The other thing is that all living plants and animals contain potassium, so you would reduce the source of gamma rays (and beta particles) inside your human body but still be exposed to it from all other sources, and gamma rays have more energy than x-rays. So in effect at amazing financial cost you would not really reduce your exposure to natural sources of back radiation by a significant amount. The human body is amazingly efficient at keeping the level of potassium within the human body nearly constant no matter how much is eaten or drank. And the 380 micro grams is mostly in salt form and distributed evenly throughout the entire human body, where ever blood flows potassium goes. And all excess is excreted rapidly, so there is not a buildup in one area of the body.",
"parent_id": "8180969",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181007",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:39:08",
"content": "sorry ~330 micro grams",
"parent_id": "8181004",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181072",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:06:00",
"content": "Are you saying that when I stand next to another (non-treated) human, I’ll get the same dose as I would have anyway, and why should I bother? I think you need to calculate that, and please observe the inverse square law.So, the excess is rapidly excreted? To my mind this makes for a rapid dilution mechanism, once I start eating pure K39.Could you calculate the (chemical) half life of the remaining K40? As you say, the blood will distribute all K efficiently around the body.",
"parent_id": "8181004",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181100",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:11:45",
"content": "Gamma rays have such high energy that they pass right through most matter with no interaction. So the K-40 in the human body generating them means that the vast majority of the cells in your body will have no interaction at all! 330 micro grams is approximately 5.1 x 10^18 atoms of potassium-40 with a half-life of about 1.25 billion years (1.25 x 10^9 years or 39.447 x10^15 seconds) that would be about 65 gamma rays per second generated inside your body. At that level of activity, if they were all interacting with your body I think life on earth would be impossible.",
"parent_id": "8181072",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181105",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:19:27",
"content": "Sorry it is less than 65 there are beta particles or positrons or gamma rays generated by each decay event. I’m not going to bother to lookup the decay probabilities for each, so I’m just going to assume 33% chance for each. So I’m going to say about 22 gamma rays a second.",
"parent_id": "8181100",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181113",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:31:23",
"content": "So these beta particles, and positrons (66% of decays) – they sound quite dodgy. Are you sure they are safe?In any case, you didn’t dispute that the flushing effect will be quite efficacious. So I’m assuming my project is still a go.",
"parent_id": "8181100",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181132",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T22:08:06",
"content": "Good luck sourcing pure K39 salts.",
"parent_id": "8181100",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181143",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T22:44:41",
"content": "“Gamma rays have such high energy that they pass right through most matter with no interaction.”This isGROSSLYincorrect.Due to the photoelectric effect being dominant at lower energies, photons in the diagnostic x-ray range do get absorbed faster than higher energy photons (gamma rays), with absorption decreasing toward higher energies.BUT but past a few hundred keV it levels off, and the deposited dose is more or less constant with gamma energy: It still deposits ionizing energy, and a lot of it. The difference being that higher energy gammas go deeper and get to deposit dose in more matter (or body tissue).",
"parent_id": "8181100",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184192",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T14:51:53",
"content": "HaHa says:Good luck sourcing pure K39 salts.I don’t need luck, I have a cunning plan.After all, this is hackaday!",
"parent_id": "8181100",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181176",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:49:37",
"content": "Look up Radiation Hormesis.While this applies to background levels of radiation, not consumed food, it was found background radiation slightly above the current background actually improved lifespans for the experimental animals, over the population.Some individuals may be more sensitive, and others less, but the idea that a 0 radiation level is best does not fit the evidence.And I note these studies are practically suppressed nowadays. I read one when I had a summer position at Argonne National Lab between undergrad and grad school.As I’ve said elsewhere, I have been quite close to a fueled reactor (ZPR-9) and do not glow in the dark, nor do I have superpowers (unfortunately for the latter)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181323",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:10:20",
"content": "Natural radon levels in many places are the more dangerous radiation related hazard. Very high levels are found in very large areas of the US where uranium ores are more common.“Approximately 300,000 lung cancer cases worldwide each year are attributable to radon exposure, which accounts for about 15% of all lung cancers.Radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas, is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. This estimate is derived from epidemiological studies and meta-analyses, which indicate that radon contributes to 3–20% of global lung cancer cases, with a commonly cited midpoint around 15% depending on regional radon levels and smoking prevalence. For instance, a meta-analysis of 28 case-control studies (covering over 13,000 lung cancer cases) reported radon causing 3–14% of cases, while broader reviews estimate up to 20%, particularly higher among never-smokers (up to 30%). The World Health Organization (WHO) confirms radon as a leading cause, with risks increasing linearly by about 16% per 100 Bq/m³ exposure. Globally, lung cancer accounts for roughly 2.1 million new cases annually (per GLOBOCAN data), making the radon-attributable portion approximately 15% or 300,000 cases.Radon is dangerous because it’s a radioactive gas that emits alpha particles, which can damage DNA in lung cells when inhaled, increasing the risk of lung cancer. It’s colorless, odorless, and tasteless, so it’s hard to detect without testing. Radon comes from the natural decay of uranium in soil, rock, and water, seeping into homes through cracks and gaps.Long-term exposure, especially in poorly ventilated spaces, is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking, responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths annually in the U.S. Smokers exposed to high radon levels face an even higher risk due to synergistic effects.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181622",
"author": "Michael Paul Smith",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:57:54",
"content": "Radon is emitted by some rocks like granite. In Scotland, many houses were built from granite and had to have extraction pumps fitted to extract Radon from inside the houses.",
"parent_id": "8181323",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182925",
"author": "Everett Rubel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T13:16:48",
"content": "It is the radioactive decay products of radon that actually deliver the radiation to your lungs. Isotopes of polonium, lead, and bismuth are produced as charged atoms that stick to dust in the air. Such dust can stay in your lungs and airways, or be swallowed; gas, not so much.When tv was about watching CRTs, you could cleans the dust off the screen with a towel, and then get a few extra clicks by putting that towel on a Geiger counter.",
"parent_id": "8181323",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184193",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T14:55:09",
"content": "I live above chalk, so my background is pretty low.Hence the interest in reducing it further, by eliminating K40.",
"parent_id": "8181323",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.7758
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/oil-based-sprengel-pump-really-sucks/
|
Oil-Based Sprengel Pump Really Sucks
|
Tyler August
|
[
"classic hacks"
] |
[
"pump",
"vacuum",
"vacuum pump"
] |
Have you heard of the Sprengel pump? It’s how they drew hard vacuum back before mechanical pumps were perfected — the first light bulbs had their vacuums drawn with Sprengel pumps, for example. It worked by using droplets of a particular liquid to catch air particles, and push them out a narrow tube, thereby slowly evacuating a chamber. The catch is that that liquid used to be mercury, which isn’t something many of us have on hand in kilogram quantities anymore. [Gabriel Wolffe] had the brainwave that one might substitute modern vacuum pump oil for mercury, and built a
pump to test that idea.
Even better, unlike
the last (mercury-based) Sprengel pump
we saw, [Gabriel] set up his build so that no glassblowing is required. Yes, yes,
scientific glassblowing
used to be an essential skill taught in every technical college in the world. Nowadays, we’re glad to have a design that lets us solder brass fittings together. Technically you still have to cut an eyedropper, but that’s as complex as the glasswork gets. Being able to circulate oil with a plastic tube and peristaltic pump is great, too.
If you try it, you need to spring for vacuum pump oil. This type of pump is limited in the vacuum it can draw by the vapor pressure of the fluid in use, and just any oil won’t do. Most have vapor pressures far in excess of anything useful. In the old days, only mercury would cut it, but modern chemistry has come up with very stable oils that will do nearly as well.
How well? [Gabriel] isn’t sure; he bottomed out his gauge at 30 inches of Mercury (102 kPa). It may not be any lower than that, but it’s fair to say the pump draws a healthy vacuum
without
any unhealthy liquid metals. Enough to
brew up some tubes, perhaps
.
| 21
| 9
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180826",
"author": "Jan Prägert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:22:34",
"content": "[Helga]: “It’s definitely sucking.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duUOXmlWk80(obligatory sucking joke.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180934",
"author": "PPJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:36:23",
"content": "Long time ago my company had strict firewall rules and we couldn’t enter one manufacturer site because “positive suction head” (or similar phrase used on site) clearly indicated “adult content”.",
"parent_id": "8180826",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180861",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:50:10",
"content": "Never mind the questionable soldering — That’s not at all a Sprengel pump.A Sprengel uses the weight of the fluid in the mercury column to counter atmospheric pressure. It can do this with a column just a meter or two high, due to the density of mercury.To use vacuum pump oil to make a pump working on the same principle would require a column 14 times higher.That little peristaltic pump is doing all the work here, not the oil, and especially not gravity. The oil may be helping make an airtight seal in the tube in the pump. But with the correct choice of tubing it would work just as well without the oil.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180909",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:13:43",
"content": "I’m not sure about that. The peristaltic pump is doing the work in the sense that that’s where the energy is coming from but this build is still using the mechanism of trapping small air bubbles between drops of fluid to pull a high vacuum. That’s what I’ve always understood as the defining characteristic of the Sprengel pump. The source of the power isn’t the main thing. In fact I think you could argue that in original Sprengels the power is really coming from the operator emptying the lower reservoir and refilling the upper one.",
"parent_id": "8180861",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181037",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:21:52",
"content": "No, it’s not ” trapping small air bubbles between drops of fluid”, it’s trapping air bubbles between the lobes of the peristaltic pump. The oil is doing nothing except perhaps helping in the seal, exactly like its role in the vane pump it purports to usurp.",
"parent_id": "8180909",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181088",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:51:56",
"content": "In the video he clearly shows bubbles trapped in the tube before the line gets to the pump.Let me put it a different way. If the peristaltic pump was replaced with an impeller pump what would you expect to happen? I contend that the device would still succeed in drawing a vacuum as long as the impeller pump is strong enough to keep the fluid flowing. Pockets of gas would still get trapped in the tube line and then get expelled from the vent at the top. What do you think would happen differntly?",
"parent_id": "8181037",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181124",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:44:11",
"content": "There are no “bubbles trapped in the tube”.The peristaltic pump is moving cavities along, creating a void at its intake. Whatever pressure remains upstream is pushing a mixture of air and oil into that void. Whatever oil is present is coming along for the ride, just like the air. The oil has no function at that point — it’s just dribbled in from the needle valve, mixing with the air flowing from the vessel being evacuated. Droplets of oil in air, or bubbles of air in oil, it makes no difference.If the pump tubing could maintain a seal (and correct peristaltic pump tubingdoes), the oil would not have any function at all, and not be required.",
"parent_id": "8181088",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181044",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:34:26",
"content": "The peristaltic pump is already doing that: it’s pinching the tube between two rollers, closing the volume off, forming a “bubble” and moving it along the tube to the exit. The oil is perhaps a good idea so the tube doesn’t stick to itself as it collapses, but otherwise it’s not needed for this kind of a vacuum pump.The lower limit for pressure with this pump is either a) when the tube collapses on itself from the outside pressure, or b) when enough air diffuses in through the tube (and leaks) that the pump cannot remove it fast enough.",
"parent_id": "8180909",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180921",
"author": "maxzillian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:25:30",
"content": "You make a good point. What would the performance be if it were just the peristaltic pump? The oil may be improving it’s efficiency and that in itself is a pretty novel implementation, but this really isn’t operating like a Sprengel pump.",
"parent_id": "8180861",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181047",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:39:19",
"content": "That’s easily tested. Just shut off the oil valve and see what happens. It probably works just the same, though the tube would eventually run dry, and then you need to let in a couple drops of oil again.",
"parent_id": "8180921",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180875",
"author": "Mathieu L",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:21:55",
"content": "As a french guy, I can’t stop laughing each time he says “réservoir”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180896",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:57:10",
"content": "I was astounded at first, then Paul mentions it is not a Sprengel pump.I look again at the design, and if it is true the peristaltic pump is doing the work the design could be much simplified.Then I rememeber I saw new 2 stage pumps for $75, I have no doubt this cost more.I’m torn, HaD brought an interesting project to my attention, and the comment section elucidated me, but I feel I need to jump down a rabbit hole now to understand it properly.Also no mention was made of the useful volume over time, can this evacuate your average test tube or a small vacuum chamber? How long does it take?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181441",
"author": "Raukk",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:14:26",
"content": "The one with the mercury (older HaD link) took several hours to evacuate a bulb size if I remember right. There is probably ways to improve the performance, but idk.",
"parent_id": "8180896",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180971",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:57:51",
"content": "Great video, just had to set the playback speed to 1.5.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181069",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T19:52:57",
"content": "Heh, and just yesterday I saw a clip from the Dr. Stone anime about making light bulbs work by drawing out the air using a column of mercury.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR0K7CDzUbk",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181122",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:39:24",
"content": "How is this a sprengel pump?Those normally need a column that is taller than the distance a vacuum can pull the fluid.Considering that vacuum oil is slightly lighter than water (https://www.ravenol.de/en/product/industrieoel/ravenol-vakuumpumpenoel-iso-vg-32puts it at 0,848 kg/l) you’d need over 10m of column (11.something m for the ravenol).This contraption seems to not be anywhere near that…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181190",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:50:14",
"content": "Say you didn’t read previous comments without saying you didn’t read previous comments…",
"parent_id": "8181122",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181442",
"author": "Raukk",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:20:28",
"content": "I had wondered about the feasibility of the approach of using oil instead of mercury.I wonder if it would be possible to use ball bearings to add weight to it to make gravity actually involved. Also, then magnets could be used instead of a pump for control and to move the weight back to the top.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181503",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:43:42",
"content": "And he chose the wrong pronunciation.– Pronounce “s” before “p” as “sh”– “p” as in English– In Standard German the “r” is formed in the back of the mouth. It’s a bit like using mouthwash, but don’t make your uvula vibrate. In contrast to the English “r” the tongue is mostly flat. The tip and sides of your tongue have to touch your lower teeth.– “eng” as in “length”– The second e is pronounced exactly like the first one, but many Germans drop it when speaking fast.– “l” as in English",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181522",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T00:16:35",
"content": "Correct pronunciation is not universal.For example, in the USA France is pronounced FrAAnce.Not Frounce, as it’s pronounced in France.Israel same.Getting the world to roll Rs is going to be a hard sell.It’s just weird.Like Berlin and the funny ‘s’.",
"parent_id": "8181503",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181764",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:02:58",
"content": "At least over here the news on tv attempt to pronounce the names of people of our time like the are pronounced in their home country.It would be funny if they started pronouncing Donald as Dohnuld instead of Donnld tomorrow. We already do that for a certain Disney figure. But I don’t think a certain president would approve of that. In the same way I don’t think a certain pump inventor would have approved of the pronunciation used in the video.The r in Sprengel isn’t rolled, at least not in the region where he was born. That’s why I wrote that the uvula shouldn’t vibrate.",
"parent_id": "8181522",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.63775
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/the-practicality-of-solar-powered-meshtastic/
|
The Practicality Of Solar Powered Meshtastic
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Radio Hacks"
] |
[
"Meshtastic",
"solar power"
] |
A Meshtastic node has been one of the toys of the moment over the last year, and since they are popular with radio amateurs there’s a chance you’ll already live within range of at least one. They can typically run from a lithium-ion or li-po battery, so it’s probable that like us you’ve toyed with the idea of running one from a solar panel. It’s something we have in common with [saveitforparts], whose experiments with a range of different solar panels
form the subject of a recent video
.
He has three different models: one based around a commercial solar charger, another using an off-the-shelf panel, and a final one using the panel from a solar garden light. As expected the garden light panel can’t keep an ESP32 with a radio going all day, but the other two manage even in the relatively northern climes of Alaska.
As a final stunt he puts one of the nodes out on a rocky piece of the southern Alaskan coastline, for any passing hacker to find. It’s fairly obviously in a remote place, but it seems passing cruise ships will be within its range. We just
know
someone will take up his challenge and find it.
| 18
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180787",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:32:12",
"content": "I am working on something similar but instead of meshtastic I’m using plain old P2P LoRa. I just want to bridge a few relatives’ houses together on one network. All in a 5km radius",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180859",
"author": "francois nguyen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:47:23",
"content": "You should try HaLow. It’s wifi at sub GHz frequencies and people have achieved great ranges with that (though speed can be low)",
"parent_id": "8180787",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180962",
"author": "graystache",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:36:30",
"content": "I would be interested to see where your needs go beyond what meshtastic brings out of the box. Your description fits mt perfectly at first glance",
"parent_id": "8180787",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182049",
"author": "michael amend",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:52:27",
"content": "Where up and running now 3 neighborhoods in one shopping center smooth sailing!",
"parent_id": "8180787",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180823",
"author": "Oliver",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:06:54",
"content": "I iterated through multiple versions of outdoor nodes and my current favourite is a solution to be found on AliExpress that uses a D5 solar panel with battery charger that integrates a RAK4630 on a RAK19007 providing low power consumption. It can be had around 100 EUR with two 18650 cells included.Building your own kit (solar panel, project box, Wisblock, antennas, pigtails, barrel jack, LiIon cells (e.g. 1S3P with BMS), mounting option etc. will not really come much cheaper than that.If this one holds up it looks like a winner to me.“D5 Solar Power Lora Node Repeater Extender 3,7 V 5 V Wisblock RAK19007 RAK4630 SX1262 Meshtastic Kit Radio Lora WiFi Antenne”https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005008489536197.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180828",
"author": "drinkdhmo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:39:58",
"content": "I’m working on a DIY build that should come in under $50. I’m printing my own enclosure and making a J-pole antenna with a piece of house wire and a short piece of RG-58. To make the enclosure sun and water resistant I’m coating it in Plastidip.",
"parent_id": "8180823",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180848",
"author": "Greg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:24:25",
"content": "I didn’t know about this device. Thanks Oliver!",
"parent_id": "8180823",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180944",
"author": "Electronic Eel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:04:47",
"content": "Have you seen this one:https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005009296831256.htmlIt looks to me like it offers more sturdy and convenient mounting than the one you posted. Also a bit cheaper.With all of these models I would replace the antenna though. The Mikrotik 868 Omni antenna (or the 915 version for the Americas) is one that works well.",
"parent_id": "8180823",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180947",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:11:27",
"content": "Hmm I don’t know much about meshtastic. Is it a popular tech? Who is using these nodes?I mean if there is dedicated hardware on aliexpress surely there must be enough volume to warrant making these (unless they are repurposed?)I guess I’m just having trouble figuring out what the average user of meshtastic in general and these nodes looks like. Are they a hobbyist? Some kind of professional in some industry that is not very visible? Outdoor enthusiasts?",
"parent_id": "8180944",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181428",
"author": "brian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:29:32",
"content": "FWIW,, my use case.Rural property. Mesh of 19 nodes, where terrain limits simple LOS connect to server. Enviromental sensors, motion detectors, well pump and tank monitor/controllers, greenhouse mon/cntl, and tracking for my two dogs and two cats.My wife wants to add a tracker to myself. Nope.",
"parent_id": "8180947",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180978",
"author": "Tom Nardi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:10:54",
"content": "I’ve been running a few SenseCAP P1s and have been very impressed with them, may do some kind of review or hands-on for it in near future.",
"parent_id": "8180944",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181042",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:32:10",
"content": "Did your iterations include testing during winter? I’m in England and our days get pretty short during December, is there enough solar panel for a short and cloudy day to put enough charge in the cells to last through a cold night?",
"parent_id": "8180823",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181174",
"author": "Tommi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:46:16",
"content": "Did not find info that will it protect battery if it is too cold to charge.Battery will most likely fail very fast if it’ll get charged temperatures below freezing.",
"parent_id": "8180823",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180844",
"author": "Anon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:19:22",
"content": "LTO batteries are better for nodes like this; better temperature range vs LiFePo4. Only hard part is chargers / BMS for the lower voltage cells.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181471",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:23:03",
"content": "Sodium Ion batteries are also good for low temperature. They are cheaper than LTO, but it’s still hard to find chargers for them.",
"parent_id": "8180844",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181096",
"author": "captnmike",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:01:25",
"content": "The Coast Guard uses Aids to Navigation lights in parts of Alaska that are solar powered with LED lights that flash and are bright enough to be seen for several miles. Sorry I don’t know how far north the stock ones go, for custom ones I would imagine it would depend on how large the collectors were.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182913",
"author": "Al",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T12:34:09",
"content": "Unfortunately, after trying to deploy meshtastic for actual usage at burning man a few years in a row (always hoping it would improve sufficiently), I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s fundamentally flawed for all but the simplest of use cases. The routing just isn’t reliable, so messages are often never delivered.Next year I’ll be trying Reticulum (https://reticulum.network/) — I think its foundations are much more sound so I’m pretty hopeful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8184529",
"author": "Garrut",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T08:43:18",
"content": "That’s exactly what i’ve been thinking about meshtastic After Reading few experiment report. I’ve never tried myself and not enough personal knowledge to spot if the protocol is flawed by design or bad config is to blame for undelivered messages.That’s why my lora modules sit on my desk, waiting for spare “spare time” available.Thanks for citing réticulum i was unaware of. The agrégation of several network interface seems really nice. But, which software can use it? After Reading few thing in their wiki, i understand that, for now, software must be written to use it? What is your plan ?",
"parent_id": "8182913",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,423.829859
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/reviewing-deluxe-paint-40-years-on/
|
Reviewing Deluxe Paint, 40 Years On
|
Tyler August
|
[
"News"
] |
[
"amiga",
"Deluxe Paint",
"pixel art"
] |
When Deluxe Paint came out with the original Amiga in 1985, it was the killer app for the platform. [Christopher Drum] starts
his recent article on just that note
, remembering the day he and his mother walked into a computer store, and walked out with a brand new Amiga… thanks entirely to
Deluxe Paint.
Forty years on, how well can this killer app compete?
[Christopher] isn’t putting
Deluxe Paint
head-to-head with modern
Photoshop
; they’re hardly in the same class. Not
Photoshop
, no, but modern applications that do what
Deluxe Paint
did so well: pixel art. There was no need to call it pixel art back then, no, but with the resolutions on hand, all digital art was pixel art in 1985.
Or 1989, which is when
Deluxe Paint III
came out– that’s the last version written by Dan Silva and coincidentally the last version [Christopher] owned, and the one he focuses in on his tests. It has held up amazingly well.
Sure, you don’t get a full 24-bit colour palette, but most pixel artists stick to limited palettes still anyway. You don’t quite get a modern UI, but presence of useful keyboard shortcuts allows a Hands-On-Keybord-And-Mouse (We’ll call it HOKAM, in honour of HOTAS in aerospace)
workflow that is incredibly efficient.
About the only things [Christopher] found
Deluxe Paint III
lacked compared to its successors were a proper layering system, and of course the infinite undo we’ve all gotten so used to. (
DPIII
has an undo button, but it could only store one operation.) He also complained about cursor latency for some brushes, but we wonder if that might have had something to do with Windows and the emulation layer adding a delay. One thing Amiga was always known for back in the day was the snappy cursor movement, even when the processor was loaded.
There were just as many features he found had been forgotten in the new generation — like palatte swapping animations, or flood-filling line gradients.
It’s a small detail, but that’s a nice gradient tool.
Anyone who owned an
Amgia probably has fond memories of it
, but alas, in spite of Commodore’s recent resurrection,
we’re not likely to see a new one soon.
On the other hand, at least when it comes to pixel art, there’s apparently no need to upgrade.
via reddit.
(Thumbnail and header image by Avril Harrison, distributed by Electronic Arts with Deluxe Paint.)
| 23
| 13
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180779",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:01:02",
"content": "https://www.stef.be/dpaint/kinda clone",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181147",
"author": "Downshift",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T22:51:19",
"content": "Or PyDPainter a much more faithful clone.https://pydpainter.org/",
"parent_id": "8180779",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180781",
"author": "asdf",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:11:51",
"content": "Brushes lagging has nothing to do with the emulation, it’s just limitations of the hardware.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180805",
"author": "Lazerbrain",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:29:55",
"content": "I can recall large brushes lagging on my A500 back in the day. DPaint II was included as part of the A500 Batman pack I bought, and was heavily used for a variety of things, with output on my Star LC200 colour dot matrix printer. Great memories coming back from that time!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180874",
"author": "henningdkf29543cc0f",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:19:16",
"content": "The mouse cursor was a sprite, I assume brushes were drawn.",
"parent_id": "8180805",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181398",
"author": "hugh crawford",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:25:10",
"content": "Old Amiga developer here, I’m pretty sure the brushes were done with the blitter chip. Amigas didn’t copy stuff from one memory address to another, they would just change the address, in a single clock tick, so moving a brush wasn’t hardware constrained. Especially on the original A1000 where all the memory was blitable.",
"parent_id": "8180874",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180810",
"author": "Alex Topic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:37:07",
"content": "Ya, I loved Deluxe Paint on my Amiga 500, it was so easy to use. GIMP is horrible to use. Sort of like KRITA, but the damn thing doesn’t work with wayland properly when using a Wacom Intuos Pen tablet, wish it did, there is other programs that do. Maybe they can port Deluxe Paint to Linux native, that would be good.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180811",
"author": "Cricri",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:49:51",
"content": "Agreed on GIMP, I use PhotoFiltre. Not the most powerful tool, but for a non-artist like me does all I need in a simpler and more compact package. I used DP on PC back in the day as well, by far the best option and usable even by an art illiterate like me.",
"parent_id": "8180810",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181206",
"author": "Alex Topic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T02:37:53",
"content": "Thanks for telling me about Photo Filtre; but you need wine to run it and not sure if it will work with my Intuos Pen Tablet. Just really sux that Krita has the wayland (xwayland) mouse cursor glitch.",
"parent_id": "8180811",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181311",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T10:37:36",
"content": "I use Pinta for simple jobs and GIMP for more complex ones – Pinta is similar to Paint.net, both being along the lines of a less-awful MS Paint.",
"parent_id": "8180811",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180836",
"author": "zamorano",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:07:06",
"content": "Is Deluxe Paint the one that could do symmetrical drawing? Like, while you draw a line it adds N more clones of it distributed in a circular fashion or as tiles (which was great for drawing patterned backgrounds). The only software I’ve seen since that could do something similar was Fractal Paint, another one that would be worth reviving.True about the mouse cursor. I believe it was hardware supported, it worked even on the Amiga version of BSOD, the Guru Meditation. I remember moving to PC later and having a moment of panic when the mouse froze… I thought the computer died but it was business as usual for it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180920",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:25:19",
"content": "It didn’t take too long for mouse cursor hardwarw acceleration to happen, I think Windows 95 had it. Of course you needed non-buggy hardware and Drivers (looking at you ViA and SiS!)",
"parent_id": "8180836",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181312",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T10:38:58",
"content": "Yes, I remember symmetrical drawing in DPaintIV which came bundled with my A1200.The animation features were fun too, I’ve not seen it replicated in any modern package despite the prevalence of GIFs on the modern interwebs.",
"parent_id": "8180836",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182795",
"author": "Christopher Drum",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T00:07:25",
"content": "Yes, symmetrical drawing was one of the features and was one of my personal favorites toys within the program. Other programs with the feature I found while writing the article include Affinity Photo (onlydraw, can’t do fill), Pro Motion NG (settings are kind of hidden, but exist), and PyDPainter (a quite literal pixel-for-pixel rebuild of DPaint 2).",
"parent_id": "8180836",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180854",
"author": "Pat Ferguson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:42:04",
"content": "I use Deluxe Paint, personally and professionally for years after the Amiga was past its heyday. Cosmigo developer Jan Zimmerman created ProMotion as a Windows-based successor to Deluxe Paint, and has maintained it for over 20 years now. You can get ProMotion on Steam, or from Cosmigo’s website. And yes, there’s layers. You’re welcome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180870",
"author": "Brian Goldberg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:14:58",
"content": "We need to lock Ron Gilbert in a room and force him to make a new game with only Deluxe Paint to create the artwork.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181121",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:37:46",
"content": "After, of course, lavishing him with gold and fine alcohol and various other tokens of our gratitude for him making Monkey Island in the first place, no matter with what tools :-)",
"parent_id": "8180870",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180877",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:24:30",
"content": "Pro Motion NG is kind of a spiritual successor to Deluxe Paint.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181416",
"author": "Mike Hayes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:05:05",
"content": "What an amazing paint package Deluxe Paint was – I had version 3 and 4 mainly for animation. I had the A500+ then the A1200 (with Amstrad 464 Colour inbetween). I was messing about drawing stick men (my limit 🤣) and my then 3 year old son asked if I could make him move? 19 mini animated stories later. I was gutted when the Amiga “died” I really missed it and the great games created for it especially Public Domain. 💙",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181524",
"author": "Dave Leeds",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T00:39:20",
"content": "Another excellent program for the many people forgot was True Brilliance. As good and intuitive as Dpaint was, True Brilliance was better.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181645",
"author": "asdf",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T11:11:57",
"content": "It seems the source code for Deluxe Paint 1 has been made public:https://github.com/historicalsource/DeluxePaint/tree/master",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182794",
"author": "Christopher Drum",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T23:58:16",
"content": "Author here. I appreciate the post and seeing everyone’s comments and memories about DPaint. I do want to clarify that the”cursor lag” wasn’t referring to the ssytem cursor. I should have been more clear in my wording that thepaintinghad lag, which was totally normal on the hardware of the time. If you try it, you’ll understand.I distinctly remember on original hardware (and I see others posting similar recollections) having to operate some painting operations slowly to allow the system to “catch up.” This wasn’t about the system’s struggle to draw a cursor, it was about the system’s struggle to calculate all of the mirrored brushes in symmetry mode, for example. Some actions simply require more intense computation, and that’s where the “lag” is felt. I note in the article that bumping up the virtual CPU smooths things out a lot in those cases.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183216",
"author": "Kev711 2001",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T12:33:10",
"content": "dpaint proton ppaint list goes on what i used",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.898827
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/perovskite-solar-cell-crystals-see-the-invisible/
|
Perovskite Solar Cell Crystals See The Invisible
|
Heidi Ulrich
|
[
"chemistry hacks",
"Medical Hacks",
"News",
"Science",
"Solar Hacks"
] |
[
"camera",
"crystal",
"CZT",
"NaI",
"perovskite",
"radiation"
] |
A new kind of ‘camera’ is poking at the invisible world of the human body – and it’s made from the same weird crystals that once shook up solar energy. Researchers at Northwestern University and Soochow University have built
the first perovskite-based gamma-ray detector
that actually works for nuclear medicine imaging, like SPECT scans. This hack is unusual because it takes a once-experimental lab material and shows it can replace multimillion-dollar detectors in real-world hospitals.
Current medical scanners rely on CZT or NaI detectors. CZT is pricey and cracks like ice on a frozen lake. NaI is cheaper, but fuzzy – like photographing a cat through steamed-up glass.
Perovskites
, however, are easier to grow, cheaper to process, and now proven to detect single photons with record-breaking precision. The team pixelated their crystal like a smartphone camera sensor and pulled crisp 3D images out of faint radiation traces. The payoff: sharper scans, lower
radiation
doses, and tech that could spread beyond rich clinics.
Perovskite was once typecast as a ‘solar cell wonder,’ but now it’s mutating into a disruptive medical eye. A hack in the truest sense: re-purposing physics for life-saving clarity.
| 14
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180740",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T03:24:40",
"content": "Inspiration for theComponent Abuse Challengeannounced a short while ago?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180746",
"author": "carlfoxmarten",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T03:59:02",
"content": "I can hardly wait for all the perovskite technology to finally filter down to us hobbyists. Soon, please?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180747",
"author": "arifyn",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T04:18:48",
"content": "It’s a CsPbBr3 perovskite, which from what I can tell seems to be one that’s also promising for solar cell and quantum dot applications. (I mention because I had to dig all the way to the journal article to find that out. The details are well outside my area of expertise, but at least it’s open access!)I’m still annoyead at whichever geologists/chemists decided that everything with a similar crystal structure tothePerovskite (CaTiO3) could also just be called Perovskite, but it’s kind of an honored tradition in the fields, I guess (coughcoughoxidation reactionscoughcough)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180770",
"author": "Si",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T07:12:47",
"content": "I agree – perovskoid would be my favorite term.",
"parent_id": "8180747",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180824",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:09:59",
"content": "What about perovskish? Or perovskimilar? Or perovskicious? Or perovskibidi?",
"parent_id": "8180770",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180758",
"author": "ziew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:04:50",
"content": "Current medical scanners rely on CZT or NaI detectors.Oh, come on, no explanation whatsoever? Not everyone has PhD in nuclear physics. I guess I’m spoiled by the “old generation” of HaD authors who’d at least put the full name of the compound in the brackets.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180761",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:47:20",
"content": "+1I suspect the writer wanted to stay within the 200 word limit. Enough to spoke interest for those who grasp the subject, way to less to be informative. Regarding my personal knowledge, I’m only aware of “Swarovski” and “The dark crystal”, so I guess this article isn’t for me anyway. Regarding “The dark crystal”, I’ve seen the movie, it was interesting in many ways then a few years ago, I saw the series on Netflix (The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance) wow… that was awesome. The characters really come to life in that series, sure in a TV-series is plenty of time to expand the story line, but then again, the story is nicely detailed too. Anyway, I can recommend the series for everyone who likes the Jim Henson legacy, you don’t have to be a Muppet of fantasy fan to like this, but it sure does help. There was some talk about a second season of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, but I’m still waiting. Considering the quality of the series I suspect it had costs a lot of money to make this, so I understand that Netflix could not or would not afford/invest in another season. Sure the fans would like a second season, but how does that relate to the average Netflix serie that draws tripple the viewers and cost only a tenth.Looking at what I’ve typed so far, I’ve seem to have passed the word count of the article, interesting that a simple comment can take up more space than the article itself and I did not even mention the topic. Anyway, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, it’s worth a watch.",
"parent_id": "8180758",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180795",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:55:33",
"content": "There is no “word limit”, either max or min. You made this up yourself?",
"parent_id": "8180761",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180817",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T10:17:42",
"content": "I know, but considering it was very close to it, it made me wonder. Anyway, plenty of articles here on Hackaday are much longer and in many ways more in depth or explanatory regarding the subject. I guess we are spoiled in some way, so that if a very small article does come along and is about a groundbreaking discovery/invention people will get confused and might experience a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out).And although, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, is not related to this item, it sure is worth a watch, but again I digress.",
"parent_id": "8180795",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180792",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:50:40",
"content": "Can’t blame you for wanting to know more about scintillation crystals!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ScintillatorBut yeah. Sodium iodide and cadmium zinc telluride.",
"parent_id": "8180758",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180804",
"author": "ziew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:28:35",
"content": "Sorry if it came out harsh, I forgot the usual emoticon. The problem is that neither was easy to find. Googling for “CZT” resulted in lots of Mitsubishi Colt-related pages and as for “NAL”, well, let’s just say that the font didn’t help, I should have copy-pasted it instead.So yeah, Ireallywanted to know more about scintillation crystals ;-)",
"parent_id": "8180792",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180994",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:24:48",
"content": "A deeper explanation would require a few more words in the prompt, plus additional proofreading from the person submitting the AI’s output.",
"parent_id": "8180758",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181313",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T10:40:37",
"content": "^ this, I thought it was a golden rule of writing that you explain an acronym on first use.",
"parent_id": "8180758",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180879",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:29:00",
"content": "“The payoff: sharper scans, lower radiation doses, and tech that could spread beyond rich clinics.”Just in time for 2026.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,423.951942
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/a-10-telescope-because-you-only-live-once/
|
A 10″ Telescope, Because You Only Live Once
|
Tyler August
|
[
"classic hacks",
"Space"
] |
[
"mirror grinding",
"telescope",
"telescope mirror",
"YOLO"
] |
Why build a telescope? YOLO, as the kids say. Having decided that, one must decide what type of far-seer one will construct. For his 10″ reflector, [Carl Anderson]
once again said “Yolo”
— this time not as a slogan, but in reference to a little-known type of reflecting telescope.
Telescope or sci-fi laser gun? YOLO, just try it.
The Yolo-pattern telescope was proposed by [Art Leonard] back in the 1960s, and was apparently named for a county in California. It differs from the standard Newtonian reflector in that it uses two concave spherical mirrors of very long radius to produce a light path with no obstructions. (This differs from the similar Schiefspiegler that uses a convex secondary.) The Yolo never caught on, in part because of the need to stretch the primary mirror in a warping rig to correct for coma and astigmatism.
[Carl] doesn’t bother with that, instead using modern techniques to precisely calculate and grind the required toric profile into the mirror. Grinding and polishing was done on motorized jigs [Carl] built, save for the very final polishing. (A quick demo video of the polishing machine is embedded below.)
The body of the telescope is a wooden truss, sheathed in plywood. Three-point mirror mounts alowed for the final adjustment. [Carl] seems to prefer observing by eye to astrophotography, as there are no photos through the telescope. Of course, an astrophotographer probably would not have built an F/15 (yes, fifteen) telescope to begin with. The view through the eyepiece on the rear end must be astounding.
If you’re inspired to spend your one life scratch-building a telescope, but want something more conventional,
check out this comprehensive guide
. You can go bit
more modern with 3D printed parts
, but you probably don’t want to
try spin-casting resin mirrors.
Or maybe you do: YOLO!
| 21
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180735",
"author": "mythoughts62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T02:50:18",
"content": "My father built several Newtonian reflector telescopes when I was a child. I remember him talking about the Yolo telescope, but I didn’t remember the name. We had a lot of fun with the telescopes. Once a neighbor reported us to the police, thinking that a 6 inch telescope was some sort of morter or something.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181052",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T19:02:14",
"content": "WTF is the world coming to.When I was a kid, about 8, we played ‘war’ all the time.One of our toys was an expended LAW rocket tube, likely a training round.I had bought it at a garage sale, along with two dummy grenades.We used to point it at cop cars as they went by.Good times.",
"parent_id": "8180735",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181185",
"author": "Ron Sonntag",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:19:39",
"content": "Oh man. Now you reminded me of our bottle rocket wars when I was 10. Intense!",
"parent_id": "8181052",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180760",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:43:07",
"content": "F/15. is that bright? or dark for a typical telescope. i have no idea. in photography, f/15 is quite dark, but that depends on the focal length. i have no idea what the focal plane of this setup is.questions, questions",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180802",
"author": "Adrian Knagg-Baugh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:26:02",
"content": "This is essentially a Herschelian reflector, or ‘Schiefspielger’ design. Not sure why it’s now being renamed a ‘YOLO’ except for modern vibes.",
"parent_id": "8180760",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180827",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:22:58",
"content": "The article here as well as the linked instructable tell you where the name came from, and it’s not “modern vibes” considering the name was coined in the 1960s.“Art Leonard came up with the Yolo telescope in the 1960’s. It is quite similar to Anton Kutter’s Schiefspiegler. The main difference is Art Leonard used a concave secondary mirror instead of a convex mirror as found in the Schiefspiegler design. It appears from Art Leonard’s document “The Yolo Reflector”, “",
"parent_id": "8180802",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181575",
"author": "Taras",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T04:58:50",
"content": "That must act to shorten the focal length, as convex secondary mirrors increase it.",
"parent_id": "8180827",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181182",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T01:10:16",
"content": "Was named for Yolo county, California.",
"parent_id": "8180802",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180808",
"author": "Adrian Knagg-Baugh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:35:31",
"content": "Ok for visual and planetary work, pretty dark for DSOs.",
"parent_id": "8180760",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180821",
"author": "Pedro",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:03:27",
"content": "It doesn’t depend on the focal length. That’s what’s nice about the f numbers.A f/15 50 mm lens is as dark as a f/15 500 mm lens. What changes is the actual aperture size. 50 mm/15=3.33 mm aperture diameter, and for 500 mm it’s 33.3 mm.But in both cases the same amount of light and ISO will have the same exposure speed.",
"parent_id": "8180760",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180850",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:36:40",
"content": "it’s dark but it has a lot of magnification. and generally longer has less distortion but i don’t know about that lopsided mirror",
"parent_id": "8180760",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181153",
"author": "Horse-Pheathers",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T23:22:49",
"content": "It will provide a dimmer image for the aperture than a scope with a shorter focal length, yes, but with a ten inch primary this scope is gathering alotof light.Usually longer focal length scopes like this one are more tailored for planetary viewing than deep sky, as the long focal length lends itself to higher magnifications at the eyepiece.",
"parent_id": "8180760",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181574",
"author": "Taras",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T04:54:13",
"content": "It’s slow as a photographic telescope, but visually the F/15 focal ratio means Yolos are best suited to medium and high magnification observing. Photography through one would be best limited to the Sun, Moon, and planets.",
"parent_id": "8180760",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180780",
"author": "tony pedley",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:04:54",
"content": "it seems to me that the telescope world has split between telescopes designed for the Mk 1 eyeball, and those purely for astrophotography.The lack of a motorised mount and that is not an equatorial mount would mean any serious astrophotography would be hard, and this is a problem with a lot of the larger DIY telescopesNowadays astrophotography is largely abbout taking a large number of images and stacking them, so a accurate tracking mechanism is more important than size (Although if you can do both, great )",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180796",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:03:18",
"content": "‘Off-axis’ telescopes tend to be eitherveryexpensive, very labor intensive, ‘cranky’ in their implementation (“…the need to stretch the primary mirror in a warping rig to correct for coma and astigmatism…”), or all the above…and sometimes more.That said, kudos to [Carl Anderson] for pursuing his dream in such an elegant fashion and all the outstanding craftsmanship he employed.Great job!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180851",
"author": "Robert Hunt",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:36:43",
"content": "I’ve got a 10″ f14. 6 Maksutov and it’s plenty bright. It’s a bit easier to handle than this Yolo, but I’d love to get a look through it to see how it compares!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180893",
"author": "Steve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:55:58",
"content": "Great, unobstructed scope means no diffraction effects and contrast reduction from the spider holding the secondary. Good planetary scope.At the other end of the scale, amateurs are making f2.8 mirrors, 18″ and up in glass only 1/2 thick.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181137",
"author": "William Russell",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T22:22:19",
"content": "For those of you that haven’t experienced the joy of grinding your own mirror(s).. and trying to create automatic salt shakers.. while working with hard Tree sap LOL. I suggest you put everything aside and contemplate how random errors can lead to perfection. Who cares the damn things F15, and has a lopsided coma… Kudos.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181528",
"author": "Arlen Raasch",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T00:50:14",
"content": "f15 is a very slow telescope. This is not important for visual use, but is extremely important for astrophotography. For planets and the moon, f15 will not be a problem as the objects are bright. For DSO astrophotography, f15 is not recommended, as very long exposures will be required, and with the ever increasing number of satellites in low earth orbit the odds of imaging one or more of them in a long exposure are very high.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182093",
"author": "Jose",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T02:08:34",
"content": "Can the YOLOMatic be repurposed to play 45’s and LP’s?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182963",
"author": "Michael Lenczewski",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T16:01:41",
"content": "Evidence exists that YOLO is absolutely false. Just because you don’t remember living previously doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It should be called “you likely recall only this life” or YLROTL.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.210916
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/making-a-laptop-with-a-mechanical-keyboard/
|
Making A Laptop With A Mechanical Keyboard
|
Fenix Guthrie
|
[
"laptops hacks"
] |
[
"Case mod",
"diy laptop",
"Framework laptop",
"keyboard hack",
"mechanical keyboard",
"rotary encoder"
] |
A laptop is one of the greatest tools at the disposal of a hacker. They come in all manner of shapes and sizes with all manner of features. But perhaps the greatest limit held by all laptops is their chiclet keyboard. While certainly serviceable, a proper mechanical keyboard will always reign supreme, which is why [flurples]
built a laptop around a mechanical keyboard.
Such a keyboard could not fit inside any normal laptop, so a custom machined case was in order. The starting point was a standard Framework Laptop 13. Its open source documentation certainly helped the project, but numerous parts such as the audio board and fingerprint sensor are not documented making for a long and tedious process. But the resulting machined aluminum case looks at least as good as a stock Framework chassis, all be it, quite a bit thicker.
The resulting laptop retains three of the four modular input ports the Framework is known for, but one was sacrificed for a USB-A hub and HDMI port exposed by a custom carrier. Only one of the USB-As is externally accessible, with one used as a mouse dongle hider, and the other for keyboard connectivity.
The keyboard itself uses Kailh Choc Sunset switches, with the PCB resting on o rings for a more consistent typing experience. The key caps come from two sets of caps, with the shift and escape keys being dyed an excellent shade of orange. Sitting on the right hand side below the keyboard is a trio of rotary encoders. Using low profile encoders, the knobs blend neatly into the overall laptop, perhaps being invisible at first glance.
The rotary encoders forced a speaker arrangement redesign. Instead of siting next to the battery where the rotary encoders now are, they are attached to the top cover above the battery. This change required lengthening the speaker connector cables, but otherwise worked extremely well.
If you enjoy the work of laptop case replacement, make sure to check out this
Toshiba Libretto get a fresh lease on life with a re-designed case.
| 16
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180669",
"author": "lhasagreen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:22:25",
"content": "Mechanical keyboards: tattoos for your desk—flashy, noisy, and useless for real work. If you want productivity, grab a flat membrane; if you want to annoy everyone else, go clickety-clack your ego away.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180674",
"author": "Reggie",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:31:01",
"content": "Mechanical (especially buckling) spring is way better for production.",
"parent_id": "8180669",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180695",
"author": "miked",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T21:48:01",
"content": "We get it, you don’t like mech keyboards. I also agree that loud ones should not be used in a setting that disturbs coworkers.I prefer mech keybaords at home and am using one to reply. I love the feel.",
"parent_id": "8180669",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180699",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:13:00",
"content": "But I want my keys to be quiet and travel more than one millimeter. I also like them to be concave and have a large gap between each other.",
"parent_id": "8180669",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183438",
"author": "Garth Wilson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-23T21:33:10",
"content": "Daniel, exactly. I make way too many mistakes on the non-cupped keys of my laptop, which is one reason I vastly prefer my desktop computer with its separate keyboard. The cupping of the keys let your fingers stay centered on the keys by feel, so you don’t accidentally start pressing adjacent keys. One shouldn’t have to look at the keyboard when typing.",
"parent_id": "8180699",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180716",
"author": "Zai1208",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T23:34:41",
"content": "But for quite a bit of people, membrane keyboards put strain on their hands, and there are silent mechanical keyboards, that’s a thing if you bother to do a bit of research.",
"parent_id": "8180669",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180736",
"author": "mythoughts62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T02:55:05",
"content": "Exactly, I’m typing this on a (nearly) silent mechanical keyboard. Membrane keyboards are certainly useable, but they are not quite up to the experience of a mechanical keyboard.",
"parent_id": "8180716",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180936",
"author": "recook",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:40:47",
"content": "What brand and model, please?",
"parent_id": "8180736",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181294",
"author": "Nath",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T09:18:01",
"content": "Search for silent mechanical keyboard (“silent MK”) on reddit and you’ll find plenty of examples",
"parent_id": "8180936",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180744",
"author": "dremu",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T03:51:05",
"content": "I’m sorry, I think you’ve confused this website with HateADay. Please go there.",
"parent_id": "8180669",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180675",
"author": "Needleroozer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:39:19",
"content": "s/all be it/albeit/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180689",
"author": "Dizzy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T21:28:31",
"content": "prefer Marcin Plaza’s interpretation of this concept, more knobs though",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180692",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T21:39:39",
"content": "Nice! I like it… I’d go for a thicker laptop or phone if you could simply pop the back off and replace the battery too. What’s another 1/2″ ? Thin isn’t always better.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180778",
"author": "PPJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T07:56:06",
"content": "I agree. At this point we got more than enough of processing power and size. What I would like now is longer battery runtime and proper ergonomic interface.",
"parent_id": "8180692",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180897",
"author": "Anonymus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:58:47",
"content": "Plus the ability to use chorded clicks (independent mouse buttons) and more than 1000 cycles of disc rewrite endurance!",
"parent_id": "8180778",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8184404",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T00:23:27",
"content": "My current long-term ‘laptop’-ish build uses low profile mechanical keys.I say ‘laptop’-ish because it is a weird back-combination.A lapdock is like a laptop, but without the internal computer, so the keyboard input goes OUT to an external computer, and the video from that computer comes back in to be displayed on the lap-screen. There is often no battery, but likely USB power passthrough.Mine is conceptually in between, or boh depending on your perspective.It is like a lapdock, with an internal display port kvm, an internal battery, and an internal low-power computer.It will provide video input and keyboard/touchpad output, which can go to either the internal Linux machine or be usable as a “kvm cart”.Musing: I wonder if we will ever get USB-C display port alt-mode from a server IPMI.They are already doing silly stuff like mini/micro DP connectors in the name of density.Why not a single USB-C connector that can be video out AND keyboard/mouse/storage input?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.008255
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/how-to-have-a-medium-format-camera-without-breaking-the-bank/
|
How To Have A Medium Format Camera Without Breaking The Bank
|
Jenny List
|
[
"classic hacks"
] |
[
"diy camera",
"film photography",
"medium format"
] |
For most people, experimentation with film photography comes in the form of the 35 mm format. Its ubiquity in snapshot photography means cameras are readily available at all levels, and the film offers a decent compromise between resolution and number of shots per dollar spent.
For those who wish to take their film photography further there’s the so-called medium format 120 roll film, but here opting for a higher-end camera can become expensive. Fortunately [Javier Doroteo] is here with
a 3D printed medium format camera
designed to use lenses intended for the Mamiya Press cameras, and from where we’re sitting it looks very nicely designed indeed.
All the files can be found on Printables along with a list of the other parts required. It’s made simple by the Mamiya lenses incorporating the shutter, but there’s still a lot of attention that has been paid to the back of the camera. This is the third version of the design and it shows, details such as the film holder and light proofing are well thought out.
Photography is so often a world in which collecting the latest kit is seen as more important than the photographs themselves, so we like and encourage camera hackers as a reaction to all that. If you’d like to see another medium format camera,
this certainly isn’t the first we’ve brought you
.
| 11
| 7
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180662",
"author": "Tom S",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T19:49:32",
"content": "Medium format CAMERAs aren’t the bank breakers – Medium format GLASS is.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181198",
"author": "Dom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T02:17:35",
"content": "Exactly. You can pick up mamiya bodies for quite reasonable prices.Mamiya lenses however….",
"parent_id": "8180662",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180673",
"author": "dahud",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:30:34",
"content": "This is much more compelling than the other 3D printed medium-format cameras I’ve seen over the years.Most of the others require you to supply the lens, lens mount, and camera back from an actual camera. For those unfamiliar with the design of medium-format cameras, this is just about every interesting part of the camera. “Using nothing but some 3D printed parts, some machine screws, and a medium-format camera, our clever hero builds a medium-format camera!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180702",
"author": "Neville",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:19:54",
"content": "You still have to source a Press lens like every other project out there.",
"parent_id": "8180673",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180728",
"author": "Theverant",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T01:12:30",
"content": "Mamiya press bodies are incredibly affordable. This also looks like a 6×6, which is definitely a step down from press’ glorious 6×9 back. Also zone focus vs rangefinder. :(Source: i have a mamiya press universal. It’s a beautiful beast!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180830",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T11:52:28",
"content": "Bronica here. MF is a whole ‘nother world, but 35mm is much more portable!",
"parent_id": "8180728",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180750",
"author": "Meanderbot",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T04:53:52",
"content": "You guys should, if you haven’t already, look up Cameradactyl on YouTube. They’ve done some interesting stuff with 3D printed cameras.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180790",
"author": "Jeff NME",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:39:32",
"content": "Seriously, purchasing a Kiev 60 (Pentacon Six copy) kit and few lenses would still be cheaper than buying a good 3D printer and filament to manufacture a dodgy prototype camera at home with, if you really wanted to get started with a decent medium-format camera.Even cheaper would be a TLR camera, if interchangeable lenses weren’t your thing.Both options would have less opportunity for disappointment caused by bad framing and focus, than a box camera with uncoupled viewfinder.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181032",
"author": "Name",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:48:07",
"content": "Maybe use two of the few 50mm lenses from SLR era to build a medium format TLR ?The thing with DIY is by the time you are custom building something, you might as well go large format where simple lenses built from a few files elements doesn’t seem all that bad and even pinhole seems decent, why medium format?",
"parent_id": "8180790",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180794",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:55:14",
"content": "A TLR is pretty cheap, potentially cheaper than printing this and sourcing a lens. Or at least was when I bought mine – prices may have gone up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181109",
"author": "hugh crawford",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:28:12",
"content": "If you want some inspiration for making larger camerashttps://www.petergowland.com/gowlandflex-cameras",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.05684
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/2025-hackaday-component-abuse-challenge-let-the-games-begin/
|
2025 Hackaday Component Abuse Challenge: Let The Games Begin!
|
Elliot Williams
|
[
"classic hacks",
"contests",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] |
[
"2025 Component Abuse Challenge",
"components",
"contest",
"hacks"
] |
In theory, all parts are ideal and do just exactly what they say on the box. In practice, everything has its limits, most components have non-ideal characteristics, and you can even turn most parts’ functionality upside down.
The
Component Abuse Challenge
celebrates the use of LEDs as photosensors, capacitors as microphones, and resistors as heat sources. If you’re using parts for purposes that simply aren’t on the label, or getting away with pushing them to their absolute maximum ratings or beyond, this is the contest for you.
If you committed these sins against engineering out of need, DigiKey wants to help you out. They’ve probably got the right part, and they’re providing us with three $150 gift certificates to give out to the top projects. (If you’re hacking just for fun, well, you’re still in the running.)
This is the contest where the number one rule is that you must break the rules, and the project has to work anyway. You’ve got eight weeks, until Nov 11th.
Open up a project over at Hackaday.io
, pull down the menu to enter in the contest, and let the parts know no mercy!
Honorable Mention Categories:
We’ve come up with a few honorable mention categories to get your ideas flowing. You don’t have to fit into one of these boxes to enter, but we’ll be picking our favorites in these four categories for a shout-out when we reveal the winners.
Bizarro World:
There is a duality in almost every component out there. Speakers are microphones, LEDs are light sensors, and peltier coolers generate electricity. Turn the parts upside down and show us what they can do.
Side Effects:
Most of the time, you’re sad when a part’s spec varies with temperature. Turn those lemons into lemonade, or better yet, thermometers.
Out of Spec:
How hard can you push that MOSFET before it lets go of the magic smoke? Show us your project dancing on the edge of the abyss and surviving.
Junk Box Substitutions:
What you really needed was an igniter coil. You used an eighth-watt resistor, and got it hot enough to catch the rocket motor on fire. Share your parts-swapping exploits with us.
Inspiration
Diodes can do nearly anything. Their forward voltage varies with temperature,
making them excellent thermometers
. Even the humble LED can
both glow and tell you how hot it is
. And don’t get us started on the photo-diode. They are not just photocells,
but radiation detectors
.
Here’s a trick to double the current that a 555 timer can sink
. We’d love to see other cases of 555 abuse, of course, but any other IC is fair game.
Resistors get hot. Thermochromic paint changes color with temperature. Every five years or so, we see an awesome new design.
This ancient clock of [Sprite_tm]’s
lays the foundation, [Daniel Valuch]
takes it into the matrix
, and [anneosaur]
uses the effect to brighten our days
.
Of course, thin traces can also be resistors, and resistors can get
really
hot. Check out [Carl Bujega]’s
self-soldering four-layer PCB
.
And while magnetism is nearly magic,
a broken inductor can still be put to good use as a bike chain sensor.
Or maybe you have a new twist on the absolutely classic
LEDs-as-light-sensors
? Just because it’s been done
since the early says of [Forrest Mims]
doesn’t mean we don’t want to see your take.
Get out there and show us how you can do it wrong too.
| 48
| 19
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180619",
"author": "ex-Digikey customer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:21:42",
"content": "Is Digikey still doing the obnoxious thing of blocking any browser running an adblocker? I’m not turning off my adblocker, and I’m absolutely not turning off my adblocker for anyone who demands that I do so in order to give them money. Something’s gone badly wrong over there and it makes me more sad than angry.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180772",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T07:23:19",
"content": "I use a network-wide Pihole and also Adblock plus in my browser.Digikey works fine.",
"parent_id": "8180619",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180857",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:46:39",
"content": "I also have this problem — I think that something in their “are you a robot” algorithm detects less common browsers / user-agent strings as being illegit.I have to fire up a second browser to access their site.",
"parent_id": "8180619",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181935",
"author": "Im Human, please be kind",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:02:28",
"content": "I have moved over to using rs-online due to the “robot” detection of Digikey. I use many blocking type features, so will appear abnormal to the website. Another good example of how automated tasks are ruining the internet. Hopefully the Really Simple Licensing standard fixes this back in our (the humans) favour.",
"parent_id": "8180619",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183753",
"author": "ComputerL",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T18:15:50",
"content": "I actually attempted to visit digikey’s website but accidentally typed in ‘digikey.co’ instead of ‘digikey.com’. Multiple redirects, and a bunch of fake Windows defender popups in the browser lol.",
"parent_id": "8180619",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180627",
"author": "jenningsthecat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:50:45",
"content": "I once made a CATV data transceiver wherein the transmitter was comprised of a 74HCU04 hex unbuffered inverter. One section was an LC oscillator stabilized with N750 ceramic caps and modulated via a varactor diode. The remaining five sections were paralleled and configure as a linear amplifier via a large-value feedback resistor.It’s not eligible for the contest for two reasons. First, it was done more than twenty years ago and was a commercial design which actually saw (limited) production. Second, linear operation of the HCU04 is one of its advertised features and appears in the app notes. I just thought I’d mention it here because using a hex inverter as an analog RF oscillator and amplifier is ‘abuse adjacent’, and because someone might find the idea helpful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180762",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:52:12",
"content": "Yay!And I guess in that spirit:https://hackaday.com/2015/03/09/logic-noise-sawing-away-with-analog-waveforms/But agreed that having the typical voltage transfer curve in the datasheet makes it almost approved use.",
"parent_id": "8180627",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180629",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:54:19",
"content": "My “favorite” abuse isn’t in the spirit of the contest and takes almost zero creativity, but it’s technically (okay, very much literally) abuse: Using a part as a shim, weight, or other “thing that sits there and takes up space.” Need something to hold something down temporarily? That bag of resistors might do the job. Need a door-stop? That old broken circuit board just might work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180777",
"author": "Mr Nobody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T07:55:24",
"content": "+1 ….. I’ve got a large surplus PCB with lots of through component hole in it that works great as a fly swat. Particularly effective on blue bottles and wasps. I’m not going to enter it as i think it has no chance of winning.",
"parent_id": "8180629",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181026",
"author": "David M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:33:02",
"content": "I saw a PCB once that used a surface mount cap on a thin PCB peninsula as a latch for an SD card.",
"parent_id": "8180629",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180658",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T19:31:01",
"content": "i’m slightly off topic but i made a charge status display using a couple BJTs and an FET that would momentarily light an LED each time i turned tho device on. if the battery was fully charged (4V+), the indicator would be on for 5+ seconds. and if the battery was flat (less than 3.7V) then it would be lit for less than a second. it worked great on the bench but i was trickling microamps out of a ceramic capacitor over a period of seconds and you shouldn’t be surprised at the punchline: i made a thermometer. many times more sensitive to temperature than to voltage",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180670",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:22:56",
"content": "A long time ago I determined experimentally that an SCR would explode like a firecracker if you accidentally put the switched voltage onto the gate.I’m seriously thinking of making a remote control detonator or noisemaker or something, if I can reproduce the effect…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180681",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:52:36",
"content": "A long time ago my associates and I determined pragmatically that a low-valued resistor would explode like a firecracker when connected across the two active prongs of a power cord (a simple twist works just fine).No one ever checks the prongs of a power cord before plugging the cord in…",
"parent_id": "8180670",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181444",
"author": "MookieDog",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:45:44",
"content": "…As does a loop of small-diameter solder, which also makes a nice smoke cloud!",
"parent_id": "8180681",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182673",
"author": "andy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:59:34",
"content": "When I was at school I used to use electrolytic capacitors as small pyrotechnic devices. Made a satisfying bang when you turned the mains on, but you needed to watch out for the flying almuinium can.",
"parent_id": "8181444",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182765",
"author": "Greg White",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T20:48:47",
"content": "Lol. You reminded me of my exploits at primary school. I used to get the small electric motors out of battery toys and plug them into mains 😁 they would actually spin up (momentarily) before spectacular failure. I tried “recharging” AA cells as well, I don’t recall the results… I think just blown mains fuse?Another favorite pastime was getting several kids to hold hands in a circle and I’d zap them all at the same time with my hand wind generator salvaged from an old phone… That did get confiscated 🙁 I don’t think I was ever caught/reprimanded re: plugging stuff into mains. 240v here, so I guess I’m lucky to have survived primary school!!",
"parent_id": "8182673",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8189606",
"author": "Old-Guy",
"timestamp": "2025-10-08T19:03:25",
"content": "Back in the 60’s, my friend from next door wired some 12 gauge copper wire across the prongs of a Nema 5-15 plug. Back then, motorists plugged their cars in overnight (-40f in North Dakota USA.). The circuit’s fuse would blow, rendering the block heater useless. Pure vandalism.",
"parent_id": "8180681",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8191262",
"author": "Sparky",
"timestamp": "2025-10-11T20:16:01",
"content": "Selenium Rectifiers and Speakers (especially Woofers) directly across the mains were great fun back in my school days. (If you’ve never done a Speaker across the mains, you gotta try it!)",
"parent_id": "8180670",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180704",
"author": "Matt Cramer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:28:37",
"content": "Do mechanical components count? Such as having an engine producing double its rated power?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180765",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:53:55",
"content": "Sure! We don’t see enough gearhead hacks.",
"parent_id": "8180704",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180835",
"author": "Matt Cramer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:05:54",
"content": "Ok. I’m not sure I will have this finished by the deadline, but I’ll try!",
"parent_id": "8180765",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180713",
"author": "Paul A LeBlanc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T23:27:46",
"content": "I’ve always been fond of the light emitting resistor. They don’t last very long, though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180752",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T05:18:27",
"content": "Unless you edison it in a vacumed jar.",
"parent_id": "8180713",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182655",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:19:07",
"content": "Well played",
"parent_id": "8180752",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180756",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T05:51:21",
"content": "I find the light-emitting eprom just that little more sophisticated. :P Lasts about as long.",
"parent_id": "8180713",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180759",
"author": "OH3MVV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:33:13",
"content": "That is the built-in “installed backwards” warning light.Most LEDs pop their top to considerable distance when connected to 24V without series resistor. Maybe that could be used for some kind of target shooting game?",
"parent_id": "8180756",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181529",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T00:50:29",
"content": "One needs to be VERY careful…this almost destroyed an associate’s eye.Wear safety glasses if you fancy trying this as it is very dangerous.",
"parent_id": "8180759",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180842",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:12:13",
"content": "The sound emitting diode has an even shorter lifetime. But with the correct drive it can be spectacular.",
"parent_id": "8180713",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181497",
"author": "NiHaoMike",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:18:30",
"content": "A long time ago, when I was a kid, I discovered that by applying high voltage (but low current) to a germanium diode, it would emit a good amount of UV. (It may need to be pulsed for that to work, I don’t remember.) Not enough to tan or burn skin, but plenty to make fluorescent items glow in the dark. Lots of fun back when UV LEDs were simply not commonly available.",
"parent_id": "8180842",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181498",
"author": "NiHaoMike",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:21:06",
"content": "I forgot to mention that the diode did make a “click” sound when the high voltage supply (involved using a transistor and audio transformer) was turned on. The diode lasted a surprisingly long time with that abuse.",
"parent_id": "8181497",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181533",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:20:32",
"content": "If true, this is one of those very rare hidden gems that is really ‘neat’ to know about…which, quite possibly, almost know one knows.Unfortunately, it uses a device—a germanium diode—which is, due to no longer being in production, simultaneously in very short supplyandin very high demand by those who absolutelyneedthe characteristics of agermaniumdiode (crystal-radio-design purists, for example).This would, hands down, get my vote for either the very best, or the very worst, abuse of a component.It’s very hard to decide which.",
"parent_id": "8181497",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182111",
"author": "NiHaoMike",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T03:11:10",
"content": "Thankfully, there’s no point doing that hack nowadays, UV LEDs are far superior as UV sources.From what I have read, Schottky signal diodes (not to be confused with the more common Schottky power diodes which have a lot more capacitance) are a drop in replacement for germanium diodes in RF applications. For guitar effects, some series resistance is needed to emulate the high series resistance of a germanium diode.",
"parent_id": "8181533",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182400",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:00:08",
"content": "From [NiHaoMike]“From what I have read, Schottky signal diodes (not to be confused with the more common Schottky power diodes which have a lot more capacitance) are a drop in replacement for germanium diodes in RF applications.”Careful…only anextremely small feware ‘drop-in replacements’. You need to do your homework.The very few tend to be high-frequency mixer diodes.Do not go anywhere near any Schottky whose description contains the words “rectifier”; “power supply”, or anything such as that.AND…be extremely careful and cautious about buying anything, in this category, from eBay (a lot of the supposed ‘1N34As’ on eBay have the forward-voltage-drop characteristics of a silicon diode).BIG hint: here’s a good example of what to not waste your money on:https://www.amazon.com/BlueStars-Germanium-Schottky-Rectifier-Blocking/dp/B0C4T9TNTY",
"parent_id": "8181533",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180769",
"author": "Viv Cocoa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T07:12:44",
"content": "as a kid i used the joystick port of a broken Commodore 64 to power a salt water / lead battery!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180786",
"author": "Ø",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:28:13",
"content": "“a broken inductor can still be put to good use as a bike chain sensor”Kinda reminds me of the old but not that old mechanics trick of using a discarded but still functional variable reluctance sensor.Those are often found on crankshafts or camshafts somewhere on older EFI engines or at the wheels of older cars with ABS systems.Basically by hooking the two signal wires which are going straight to the VR coil up to a oscilloscope set to AC mode, you can play doctor with a stethoscope on ignition coils with integrated igniter, since said stage makes it impossible to do the classic test of measuring the resistance of the input, low voltage side of the coil.And if you jig the VR sensor up in the right place and your oscilloscope got a logging feature, you can even capture those pesky intermittent faults. Even better if you are using two identical VR sensors, where one of them are positioned on another ignition coil as reference.But man hours are expensive, so often the parts cannon are loaded instead and set to “fire at will”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180788",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:32:52",
"content": "The Badge culture has popularized many new uses for PCB materials other than “be backplane, hold traces, hold components”. Be an actual packaging, be a lightguide, be a heater, be a manual, be a piece of art, to name a few.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182687",
"author": "andy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T15:59:25",
"content": "My wife gave me a lampshade made from 4 upcycled fibreglass pcbs. I looked at the silk screen layer and it seemed to be from some sort of power supply. They glow a nice green when the light is on.",
"parent_id": "8180788",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180847",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:21:19",
"content": "You know how old Dewars were made a lot like Thermos bottles: The bright aluminum deposited on glass makes an excellent reflector for LEDs. And liquid nitrogen makes a great heatsink. Back when I have ready access to a plentiful supply of the stuff…You can put 2 amps into a normal T1-3/4 “high intensity red” LED when it’s immersed in a 77 Kelvin liquid, and it gets reallyreallybright. It will do that indefinitely, until the nitrogen boils off. That’s 100x its normal rated current. With the added voltage drop it’s more like 2-300x its rated power dissipation.I doubt a modern 10 W COB LED would survive that treatment, but it would be fun to try to push 100x normal current into one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183821",
"author": "DeepSOIC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T20:46:19",
"content": "i have drowned some blue leds in LN2, and they basically stop working (dim to nothing and cease conducting). I don’t know why, but it could be due to carriers being recaptured into their doping sites, and being unable to liberate due to temperature being too low. The fact that it works with red leds is very interesting, maybe it also works with infrareds then, which might be useful for me.",
"parent_id": "8180847",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180907",
"author": "Christian Elzey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:10:46",
"content": "Every diode is a light-emitting diode if you try hard enough!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181035",
"author": "IBal",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T18:14:50",
"content": "In college I would use the hinge side of my bedroom door to crimp 40 pin IDE cables. Not sure it counts as an abuse of the door though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181085",
"author": "Zonared",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:38:31",
"content": "As a kid I used to put electrolytic capacitors across a welder, awesome firecracker.But seriously, would reusing recycled parts count in this challenge? I’m reusing an old kettle PCB for its +5v PSU and relay by adding an ESP32, for tank water monitor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181102",
"author": "Al Menard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T21:14:03",
"content": "Does running 264 addressable 2812BbLEDs in three strips of 88 with a single Arduino Nano and a 3.7v lipo count as abuse?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181332",
"author": "pigster",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:50:28",
"content": "Just an inspiration for somebody – transistors in TO-220 are good heating elements for small amount of heat as they have ready made easy to use heat transfer interface. Saw that multiple times in configuration, where 2 transistors was bolted on single heatsink, one acting as heater, for measuring temperature response of the second one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181343",
"author": "had37b8e5c7066e",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T13:21:19",
"content": "even better use something like an LM317, then you also have thermal protection",
"parent_id": "8181332",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181446",
"author": "Tom Solo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:52:16",
"content": "I was once in a band where we used a microphone made out of a broken pair of headphones and half a guitar cable. I taped it to the side of my amp because I didn’t have a mic stand. It sounded terrible, but that was actually the point of that band.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182253",
"author": "Avi compadventures",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:14:05",
"content": "50 years ago when I was in my first steps of electronics doing some experiments at home. I used a Germanium PNP transistor as a light detector. The OC71 and also the OC81, scrapping the black paint on the glass package and exposing the germanium element to light. Making it act as a phototransistor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184063",
"author": "LloydG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T08:15:35",
"content": "How good would an led be as a voltage reference?A power supply with built in on indicator?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.14875
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/radio-apocalypse-clearing-the-air-with-scatana/
|
Radio Apocalypse: Clearing The Air With SCATANA
|
Dan Maloney
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider"
] |
[
"aviation",
"DME",
"faa",
"fcc",
"navaids",
"NORAD",
"Radio Apocalypse",
"radio navigation",
"SCATANA",
"TACAN",
"VOR",
"VORTAC"
] |
For the most part,
the Radio Apocalypse series
has focused on the radio systems developed during the early days of the atomic age to ensure that Armageddon would be as orderly an affair as possible. From systems that provided
backup methods
to ensure that launch orders would reach the bombers and missiles, to providing
hardened communications systems
to allow survivors to coordinate relief and start rebuilding civilization from the ashes, a lot of effort went into getting messages sent.
Strangely, though, the architects of the end of the world put just as much thought into making sure messages
didn’t
get sent. The electronic village of mid-century America was abuzz with signals, any of which could be abused by enemy forces.
CONELRAD
, which aimed to prevent enemy bombers from using civilian broadcast signals as navigation aids, is a perfect example of this. But the growth of civil aviation through the period presented a unique challenge, particularly with the radio navigation system built specifically to make air travel as safe and reliable as possible.
Balancing the needs of civil aviation against the possibility that the very infrastructure making it possible could be used as a weapon against the U.S. homeland is the purpose of a plan called Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids, or SCATANA. It’s a plan that cuts across jurisdictions, bringing military, aviation, and communications authorities into the loop for decisions regarding when and how to shut down the entire air traffic system, to sort friend from foe, to give the military room to work, and, perhaps most importantly, to keep enemy aircraft as blind as possible.
Highways in the Sky
As its name suggests, SCATANA has two primary objectives: to restrict the availability of radio navigation aids during emergencies and to clear the airspace over the United States of unauthorized traffic. For safety’s sake, the latter naturally follows the former. By the time the SCATANA rules were promulgated, commercial aviation had become almost entirely dependent on a complex array of beacons and other radio navigation aids. While shutting those aids down to deny their use to enemy bombers was obviously the priority, safety demanded that all the planes currently using those aids had to be grounded as quickly as possible.
The Rogue Valley VOR station in Table Rock, Oregon. According to the sectional charts, this is a VORTAC station. Source:
ZabMilenko
, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Understanding the logic behind SCATANA requires at least a basic insight into these radio navigation aids. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has jurisdiction over these aids, listing “VOR/DME, ILS, MLS, LF and HF non-directional beacons” as subject to shutdown in times of emergency. That’s quite a list, and while the technical details of the others are interesting, particularly the
Adcock LF beacon system
used by pilots to maneuver onto a course until alternating “A” and “N” Morse characters merged into a single tone, but for practical purposes, the one with the most impact on wartime security is the VOR system.
VOR, which stands for “VHF omnidirectional range,” is a global system of short-range beacons used by aircraft to determine their direction of travel. The system dates back to the late 1940s and was extensively built out during the post-war boom in commercial aviation. VOR stations define the “highways in the air” that criss-cross the country; if you’ve ever wondered why the contrails of jet airliners all follow similar paths and why the planes make turns at more or less the same seemingly random point in the sky, it’s because they’re using VOR beacons as waypoints.
In its simplest form, a VOR station consists of an omnidirectional antenna transmitting at an assigned frequency between 108 MHz and 117.95 MHz, hence the “VHF” designation. The frequency of each VOR station is noted on the sectional charts pilots use for navigation, along with the three-letter station identifier, which is transmitted by the station in Morse so pilots can verify which station their cockpit VOR equipment is tuned to.
Each VOR station encodes azimuth information by the phase difference between two synchronized 30 Hz signals modulated onto the carrier, a reference signal and a variable signal. In conventional VOR, the amplitude-modulated variable signal is generated by a rotating directional antenna transmitting a signal in-phase with the reference signal. By aligning the reference signal with magnetic north, the phase angle between the FM reference and AM variable signals corresponds to the compass angle of the aircraft relative to the VOR station.
More modern Doppler VORs, or DVORs, use a ring of antennas to electronically create the reference and variable signals, rather than mechanically rotating the antenna. VOR stations are often colocated with other radio navigation aids, such as distance measuring equipment (DME), which measures the propagation delay between the ground station and the aircraft to determine the distance between them, or TACAN, a tactical air navigation system first developed by the military to provide bearing and distance information. When a VOR and TACAN stations are colocated, the station is referred to as a VORTAC.
Shutting It All Down
At its peak, the VOR network around the United States numbered almost 1,000 stations. That number is on the decrease now, thanks to the FAA’s Minimum Operational Network plan, which seeks to retire all but 580 VOR stations in favor of cockpit GPS receivers. But any number of stations sweeping out fully analog, unencrypted signals on well-known frequencies would be a bonanza of navigational information to enemy airplanes, which is why the SCATANA plan provides specific procedures to be followed to shut the whole thing down.
Inside the FAA’s Washington DC ARTCC, which played a major role in implementing SCATANA on 9/11. Source:
Federal Aviation Administration
, public domain.
SCATANA is designed to address two types of emergencies. The first is a Defense Emergency, which is an outright attack on the United States homeland, overseas forces, or allied forces. The second is an Air Defense Emergency, which is an aircraft or missile attack on the continental U.S., Canada, Alaska, or U.S. military installations in Greenland — sorry, Hawaii. In either case, the attack can be in progress, imminent, or even just probable, as determined by high-ranking military commanders.
In both of those situations, military commanders will pass the SCATANA order to the FAA’s network of 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC), the facilities that handle traffic on the routes defined by VOR stations. The SCATANA order can apply to all of the ARTCCs or to just a subset, depending on the scale of the emergency. Each of the concerned centers will then initiate physical control of their airspace, ordering all aircraft to land at the nearest available appropriate airport. Simultaneously, if ordered by military authority, the navigational aids within each ARTCC’s region will be shut down. Sufficient time is obviously needed to get planes safely to the ground; SCATANA plans allow for this, of course, but the goal is to shut down navaids as quickly as possible, to deny enemy aircraft or missiles any benefit from them.
As for the specific instructions for shutting down navigational aids, the SCATANA plan is understandable mute on this subject. It would not be advisable to have such instructions readily available, but there are a few crumbs of information available in the form of manuals and publicly accessible documents. Like most pieces of critical infrastructure these days, navaid ground stations tend to be equipped with remote control and monitoring equipment. This allows maintenance technicians quick and easy access without the need to travel. Techs can perform simple tasks, such as switching over from a defective primary transmitter to a backup, to maintain continuity of service while arrangements are made for a site visit. Given these facts, along with the obvious time-critical nature of an enemy attack, SCATANA-madated navaid shutdowns are probably as simple as a tech logging into the ground station remotely and issuing a few console commands.
A Day to Remember
For as long as SCATANA has been in effect — the earliest reference I could find to the plan under that name dates to 1968, but the essential elements of the plan seem to date back at least another 20 years — it has only been used in anger once, and even then only partially. That was on that fateful Tuesday, September 11, 2001, when a perfect crystal-blue sky was transformed into a battlefield over America.
By 9:25 AM Eastern, the Twin Towers had both been attacked, American Airlines Flight 77 had already been hijacked and was on its way to the Pentagon, and the battle for United Flight 93 was unfolding above Ohio. Aware of the scope of the disaster, staff at the FAA command center in Herndon, Virginia, asked FAA headquarters if they wanted to issue a “nationwide ground stop” order. While FAA brass discussed the matter, Ben Sliney, who had just started his first day on the job as operations manager at the FAA command center, made the fateful decision to implement the ground stop part of the SCATANA plan, without ordering the shutdown of navaids.
The “ground stop” orders went out to the 22 ARTCCs, which began the process of getting about 4,200 in-flight aircraft onto the ground as quickly and safely as possible. The ground stop was achieved within about two hours without any further incidents. The skies above the country would remain empty of civilian planes for the next two days, creating an eerie silence that emphasized just how much aviation contributes to the background noise of modern life.
| 7
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181421",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:14:39",
"content": "Orderly Armageddon.I predict that somebody will adopt that as their Hackaday handle.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181423",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:15:35",
"content": "How do you say it? S-catana, or Scat-ana?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181437",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:01:51",
"content": "It’swrittenSCATANA, but it’spronounced“Throatwobbler-Mangrove”.(If you’ll pardon the random Monty Python reference.)",
"parent_id": "8181423",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181438",
"author": "Snarkenstein",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:04:49",
"content": "Ska-tana – cue The Mighty Mighty Bosstones!",
"parent_id": "8181423",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181450",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:09:50",
"content": "Clearly this is to be used when the sht hits the (turbo)fan.Still waiting for the *goodscatalogical jokes…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181452",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:11:06",
"content": "Dang it, wordpress. get your ass-terisks together.OK. Enough of the crappy jokes.",
"parent_id": "8181450",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181881",
"author": "Jack Harvey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:36:48",
"content": "Operation Sky Shield II, which ran for 12 hours in October 1961, was the second time—and the longest—that U.S. civil air traffic had been grounded. The first was Sky Shield I, run on September 10, 1960, from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The third and final time—until last September—was Sky Shield III: five and a half hours beginning at 3 p.m. EDT, September 2, 1962. (The Smithsonian)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.341989
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/pcbs-the-prehistoric-way/
|
PCBs The Prehistoric Way
|
Elliot Williams
|
[
"Arduino Hacks",
"Art"
] |
[
"3d printing",
"arduino",
"art",
"clay",
"extreme diy",
"pcb"
] |
When we see an extremely DIY project, you always get someone who jokes “well, you didn’t collect sand and grow your own silicon”. [Patrícia J. Reis] and [Stefanie Wuschitz] did the next best thing: they collected local soil, sieved it down, and
fired their own clay PCB substrates over a campfire
. They even built up a portable lab-in-a-backpack so they could go from dirt to blinky in the woods with just what they carried on their back.
This project is half art, half extreme DIY practice, and half environmental consciousness. (There’s overlap.) And the clay PCB is just part of the equation. In an effort to approach zero-impact electronics, they pulled ATmega328s out of broken Arduino boards, and otherwise “urban mined” everything else they could: desoldering components from the junk bin along the way.
The traces themselves turned out to be the tricky bit. They are embossed with a 3D print into the clay and then filled with silver before firing. The pair experimented with a variety of the obvious metals, and silver was the only candidate that was both conductive and could be soldered to after firing. Where did they get the silver dust? They bought silver paint from a local supplier who makes it out of waste dust from a jewelry factory. We suppose they could have sat around the campfire with some old silver spoons and a file, but you have to draw the line somewhere. These are clay PCBs, people!
Is this practical? Nope! It’s an experiment to see how far they can take the idea of the pre-industrial, or maybe post-apocalyptic, Arduino. [Patrícia] mentions that the firing is particularly unreliable, and variations in thickness and firing temperature lead to many cracks. It’s an art that takes experience to master.
We actually got to see the working demos in the flesh, and can confirm that they did indeed blink! Plus, they look super cool.
The video from their talk
is heavy on theory, but we love the practice.
DIY clay PCBs make
our own toner transfer techniques
look like something out of the
Jetsons
.
| 46
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181397",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:20:36",
"content": "This is just the aesthetic of environmentalism, not environmentalism itself. The chips are still made of epoxy and silicon and require billions of dollars worth of infrastructure! They need to think about this some more before bothering everyone else with their nonsense. These people are just making actual environmentalism look bad.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181401",
"author": "Ale",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:28:38",
"content": "And I thought the Flintstones did the PCBs.",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181513",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T23:28:04",
"content": "They did have a CRT TV so obviously they found a way to turn clay and scrap into working TV",
"parent_id": "8181401",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181409",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:46:12",
"content": "Sadly that is 99% of the environmentalism in the current era.Its a tech problem, both the origins and its solutions. It can’t go anywhere while humanities and social sciences focused leadership works on social issues other intangible before addressing the actual technical solutions.Absolutely no hate to anyone. Everyone means the best, their methods may be different. Sadly while valuable, social solutions alone cannot prevail. Engineering can only be ignored for so long",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181549",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:26:17",
"content": "Yeah, environmentalism in 2025 is basically an industrial consortium laundered through a lot of internationals and NGOs to promote the production of far more expensive and profitable hardware at the expense of massive pollution for the illusion of being sustainable. Sustainability, even though it’s theoretically possible, is precluded by the base motive of the consortium trying to increase its margins. It will never happen in its current state.I know this from personal insider experience. These people will burn the world down , not merely to profit from it, but also to have the sanctimonious frisson of being superior to those other guys who also want to burn the world down to profit from it. Also the sadistic frisson of making millions of regular people (whom they venomously hate) tighten their belts.And one of the saddest parts is the scientific plausibility of some of these ideas is abused as cynical cover to shut people up who point out they aren’t doing what they say they’re doing, that they’re the same as before, just another rival gang vying for the top position.",
"parent_id": "8181409",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181710",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:10:34",
"content": "“Everyone means the best” is either a very naive or very dishonest thing to say. The Hollywood elites, shouting about sea levels rising while they buy multi-million dollar beach houses, telling us to drive smaller cars while they take private jets to get a latte, definitely don’t “mean the best” for anyone but themselves as they pander to nihilist, anti-human lunatics. The same goes double for the lawmakers and NGOs, burning jet fuel by the kiloton so they can discuss how to take away freedoms and gain more power and tax money to waste.",
"parent_id": "8181409",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181412",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:53:25",
"content": "Not really, this is from an environmental POV massively better than the usual PCB substrates.Yes its not a complete replacement of all the somewhat toxic and high complexity industries that usually go into circuit boards, but using salvaged chips is still another winner environmentally.Obviously this is more art and proof of concept than serious, but still its hitting lots of good points, with reuse being better than recycle etc and avoiding fibreglass is not a bad thing environmentally.",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181422",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:14:53",
"content": "But ceramic PCBs already exist! They’re just expensive. Still cheaper than all that silver they used, though. The problem isn’t that we don’t know how to make environmentally-friendly devices, it’s that optimization inevitably leads to hell. Cheap and nasty sells better than expensive and clean. It’s a tale as old as evolution. If you want to take on environmental pollution, you need to take on efficiency itself as a concept.For more reading on this, see the Jevons paradox:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox",
"parent_id": "8181412",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181453",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:14:19",
"content": "Though the silver was also at least pseudo reused rather than strictly recycled so is actually somewhat kinder from an environmental point of view. The monatary value does not directly equate it is still effective enough, at least if the circuit actually did something useful it would be environmentally pretty close to optimal. It is taking waste and reusing it, taking local materials and simple processes for the rest, all disconnected from the profit is everything burn the world of your usual suppliers…And a large part of taking on cheap and nasty sells better is getting folks to actually realise the story of their purchase, or even better become part of it so they are personally invested and now know they can create and really own it, modify etc.Then with the goal of making it ecologically sound as well as just not cheap and nasty you need that story to include local reuse and recycling and materials – so rather than buy prefabbed double sided FR4 that was made in big industrial units in places that probably don’t have to worry much about cleaning up properly, and from raw materials as cheap as they can source (so likely just as damaging or worse).",
"parent_id": "8181422",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181495",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:17:31",
"content": "And a large part of taking on cheap and nasty sells better is getting folks to actually realise the story of their purchase, or even better become part of it so they are personally invested and now know they can create and really own it, modify etc.But as we see in reality, people avoid this behavior at all costs (because it is inefficient). Efficiency causes consumption causes pollution. Yeast in a petri dish, or humans on earth; it’s the same story either way.",
"parent_id": "8181453",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181604",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:03:23",
"content": "But as we see in reality, people avoid this behavior at all costs (because it is inefficient).Do we really!? I’d say that is an untenable argument given we were talking about an example of folks actually getting involved and doing it, then sharing their story not just understanding the story. And the successes of things like Pine64, Framework, Fairphone, the FOSS world in general (etc etc, as there are so many examples) show there are plenty of folks out there that at least buy into the story of a better solution if they are not actively contributing to making it. Obviously can’t claim everyone on Earth is engaging, but avoid at all costs is evidentially false, the furthest you can go on that sort of idea IMO remotely defensibly is “people selectively avoid/engage in this behaviour in only parts of the their lives”.Also is it really inefficient if you enjoy the process? Seems like a much more efficient option to me than consuming yet more low effort for maximum profit slop to fill your time…",
"parent_id": "8181453",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181463",
"author": "doris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:01:17",
"content": "” bothering people with their nonsense” who, pray, was bothered by this?",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181499",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:21:21",
"content": "Me, personally, for accidentally reading and watching it. The audience, for having to sit politely through it, or (in the worst case) if the audience enjoyed it, their friends and family for having to hear about it later.It’s an entire butterfly effect of academic navel-gazing. Who knows how much harm was caused, all things considered?",
"parent_id": "8181463",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181769",
"author": "EBo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T15:11:25",
"content": "sigh… I’ll post on some of the technical details later, but Really? You are offended by someone doing an art/exploratory piece about making their own ceramic PCB’s? Ceramic PCBs and ceramic hybrid circuits, are nothing new. That said, rolling your own from dirt to finished product is nice ;-)I’m glad they did this, and if you are offended, why are you readinganythingon Hackaday. Doing something OUT There is definitely the jab mere…",
"parent_id": "8181499",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181858",
"author": "Abe Dillon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:02:27",
"content": "This isn’t a “butterfly effect” (whatever that means) of academic navel-gazing. It’s a high-horse from which you’re catastrophizing. This kind of thing has always been and will always be a part of our society. Academics like to make art. People like to make their own . That’s what this site is all about.A lot of times people try to justify their esoteric pursuits with specious claims. So what?It’s way better than, say, people who shoot guns as a hobby, then justify that hobby with specious BS, then become preppers who constantly compare limiting access to guns for people with domestic violence backgrounds to “tyrannical government taking away ALL our guns” or whatever…",
"parent_id": "8181499",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181970",
"author": "cplamb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T20:56:32",
"content": "I wasn’t bothered by the technical content but mixing woke philosophy, feminism, and environmentalism into the video was annoying.",
"parent_id": "8181463",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181470",
"author": "come2",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:20:52",
"content": "Its the same thing as in electric cars: even if its still polluting, take into account that the PCB itself is still 20 or 40 kg of CO2 eq per square meter (depends on the study), plus the various wastes. For an example arduino uno (what they wanted to make), it would be 110g CO2eq. for the PCB.On the other hand, A STM32 (idk for a 328P) is 120g of CO2. Maybe the transport is not negligible, butthe PCB is as polluting (and probably more) than the chip itself.Its not an aesthetic, any way of diminishing the environmental impact of PCBs can reduce the impact of IT (even if its whole impact isn’t really important in the world), even if its not done mainly for economic and reliability reasons.Yes chips fabs are polluting and expensive, but they make a lot of chips.",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181500",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:22:55",
"content": "And what were the CO2 emissions of their campfire? Probably higher than that!",
"parent_id": "8181470",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181595",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T08:29:43",
"content": "Wood fire is carbon neutral (I’m assuming afterwards they wandered off and planted a tree).",
"parent_id": "8181500",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181606",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:09:47",
"content": "Even if they didn’t plant anything new as long as they are not burning a forest down at industrial scales the forest will do the job for you – it is in theory a self repairing system that is forever generating more dead wood you can collect to burn entirely on its own. No lasting harm is done.",
"parent_id": "8181595",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181613",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:22:40",
"content": "No it’s not. If you burn a forest, and look at a “multiple of your life” time, it’s probably neutral when all the tree and all the microbial ecosystem will have resumed.But in the current scheme of things, you’re freeing more CO2 to the atmosphere than the tree around can capture. And the fact that everyone is doing this, right now, make the ecosystem instable and more and more unlikely to recover and re-absorb it.In short, the CO2 from your burnt stick is not different from the CO2 of your burnt fuel of your car, so the tree that are, in your logic, supposed to absorb it back will just pick the CO2 from your car (because there’s more of it now), leaving the CO2 of your stick poisoning you.It would have been ten times better if you hadn’t burn that stick, the CO2 wouldn’t exist at first, since it’s stored as cellulose and lignin in your stick and doesn’t help disturbing the life condition we know of.",
"parent_id": "8181595",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181790",
"author": "Timo P",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:03:28",
"content": "It would be if it would not be cut down all around the world like there is no tomorrow. (There will not be with this pace…)",
"parent_id": "8181595",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181490",
"author": "anachronda",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:52:16",
"content": "This is just the aesthetic of environmentalism, not environmentalism itself. The chips are still made of epoxy and silicon and require billions of dollars worth of infrastructure!so they should have made it out of homebrew vacuum tubes?",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181493",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:13:57",
"content": "That would be better, and a relay oscillator would be better still, but the best would be not to build it at all (seeing as the circuit does nothing useful).",
"parent_id": "8181490",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181609",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:14:21",
"content": "As they said they used salvaged already existing chips that would be massively masively worse. Making your own tubes is going to be insanely energy intensive, and require loads of relatively high cost new or recycled resources compared to desoldering and reusing existing chips from e-waste…I do agree on the lack of practical purpose in the end results making it better to not build it in the strictest sense. However before you can make inevitably more complex really functional options you have to validate the methods on something sane. So as an attempt to do that…",
"parent_id": "8181493",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181848",
"author": "Abe Dillon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T17:49:00",
"content": "If you’re looking for pure utility, I think you’re on the wrong site. DIY PCBs is a hackaday staple. Why wouldn’t DIY PCB substrates be?",
"parent_id": "8181493",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181509",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T23:07:04",
"content": "This is a hell of a lot more recoverable than fibreglass-copper-epoxy laminates.",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181548",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:16:16",
"content": "Yes! Better to be like you, and just yell at anyone who has the temerity to actually attempt anything. That’ll solve all of the worlds problems! /s",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181558",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T03:04:07",
"content": "What if I’m solving the world’s problems AND yelling at people?",
"parent_id": "8181548",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181570",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T04:33:41",
"content": "I’m not seeing any problem solving.As even the summary says, it’s an arty thing that might interest some people and isn’t practical.Anyway ceramic PCBs have been a thing for ages, look at hybrid packages.",
"parent_id": "8181558",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181874",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T18:26:43",
"content": "I’m not seeing any problem solving.Why would I post it here?",
"parent_id": "8181570",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8182276",
"author": "Stephen Casey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T11:12:17",
"content": "It’s a long time since a Hackaday article has irritated me as much as this has. What ill conceived, virtue signalling, nonsense.",
"parent_id": "8181397",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181407",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:38:54",
"content": "Cool concept. I use microscope slides as a substrate and stick strips of adhesive backed copper tape on it to make traces. I have been able to do SO-8, but I’m pretty sure people with steadier hands can do much better",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181466",
"author": "CogFrog",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:08:35",
"content": "Does this improve over old-school breadboard construction in any way? Wood is renewable, and the wire/nails are both easily salvaged and easily reused. Some solder will be needed to add longer leads to ICs, but they already rely on solder with their arrangement. I’m certainly not against experimentation, but for their stated goals it seems like a step backwards. Now if I’m trying to make",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181494",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:15:13",
"content": "It’s cargo cult electronics. They copy what they see.",
"parent_id": "8181466",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181610",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:20:56",
"content": "Define Improve on? As if you can take this concept further it could end up making very dense SMD circuitry that old school breadboard and dead bug methods would really struggle to do nearly as well. No point in trying to take the stated goal so far the end product is impractical or useless. also if you are recovering silicon from existing broken electronics its almost certainly SMD these days, so the waste stream you are working with would somewhat determine the best methods",
"parent_id": "8181466",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181492",
"author": "Tony M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T22:01:17",
"content": "Some billions of years in the future ,some intelligent creature will find those artifacts and will be like look! this was an offering for the Gods of ancient civilizations, or maybe they will think: this is evidence of aliens in the past! or maybe ….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181508",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T23:06:08",
"content": "I wonder if you could just fill the embossed channels with solder and drop in the chips while it’s still molten? That would remove the need for any previous metals.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181539",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:46:07",
"content": "Just dead-bug wire the circuit.Coat with beeswax as a conformal coating.I found the article mildly amusing (in a MacGyver kind of way) and while impractical, locating a source for silver dust was inspirational and enlightening – I would have thought silver dust would have been reprocessed within the jewelry business.In a way, the “thoughts” responses are far more interesting than the article as they reflect upon the strong polarized views expressed by the public on just about any topic where feedback is solicited. If our two hackers had fun creating their dirt PCB then future endeavors should not be discouraged. The project team worked through challenges and solved various problems such as the silver connections and did not give-up until they succeeded in a working prototype, which is an accomplishment.My summary: Championing positive motion with encouragement is a kindly, courteous human response that may provide confidence for them to continue their experiments and maybe even someday lead to a monumental discovery.",
"parent_id": "8181508",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181615",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:24:02",
"content": "Dead-bug is nice, and certainly a valid options, but rather less portable and durable than even a brittle PCB (unless you pot it in epoxy or something, which would rather spoil this idea).If our two hackers had fun creating their dirt PCB then future endeavors should not be discouraged. The project team worked through challenges and solved various problems such as the silver connections and did not give-up until they succeeded in a working prototype, which is an accomplishment.Couldn’t agree more, ultimately they had fun, and some of us had fun living vicariously though their adventure.",
"parent_id": "8181539",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181571",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T04:39:59",
"content": "That would work. Take it one step further and remove the ceramic PCB afterwards.That’ll be one way to mass produce those circuit sculptures that pop up every so often. Replace the long solder traces with copper wire.We’re almost back at the vintage radio days which was essentially dead bug style as @Ray mentioned.",
"parent_id": "8181508",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181553",
"author": "mythoughts62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:49:27",
"content": "This reminds me of the hybrid circuits we made at Delco Electronics when I worked there in the ’80s and ’90s. Instead of clay, a ceramic substrate was used, made by Coors (Yes, the beer people) out of alumina. I’m having trouble remembering what the traces were screened with, but I do think it was silver. In the ’80s we wasted a lot of time trying to make hybrids with copper based conductors, it was a total failure and doomed the ARC line of car stereos. They just wouldn’t take solder well. The resistors were made with ruthenium, we were the biggest user of ruthenium in the world.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181732",
"author": "Inhibit",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:09:26",
"content": "How’s the resistance on pewter? That can be re-used, although I’d take a stab that there isn’t a useful amount in the context of mass production.Although I suppose that’d be true of anything that’s not in the conserve column of conservation. Neat science experiment though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181788",
"author": "hugh crawford",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:01:00",
"content": "Raku PC boards.It’s an art project, and a neat one.Grow ing up around ceramic artists and engineers, I completely get it.Point to point wiring would be be more “prehistoric”One person could make their own vacuum tubes and wire from raw materials and self built tools. Integrated circuits require a lot of technology stacks. The photographic technology alone represents a mature industry.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181816",
"author": "EBo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T16:37:26",
"content": "There are a couple of simple things you can do to improve the quality of the ceramics considerably. I grew up in a family of potters in New Mexico, and the style I personally focused on (called sgraffito) is so time-consuming that I often dug my own clay and pit-fired them. In particular, if you protect the pieces when firing by using something as simple as a can or pot (traditionally, this was done with broken pottery shards), then you will have less warpage and other issues with the firing. There are also some things you can do with the purification process as well, but these are all refinements. If you want to learn more about all these techniques, take a look at the videos on the potters of Mata Ortiz (Mexico) (this video is a good starting point:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtFTd8UIaDw). I grew up about 300 miles north of Mata Ortiz, but using the same techniques. So, with just a few simple refinements, you could make these thinner, smoother, flatter, and probably with less fuel. All that said, thank you for posting about your work, and just ignore the hatters.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182208",
"author": "mark999",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T08:05:04",
"content": "I’ve read a few sci-fi stories where a fancy 3d printer can be fed trash, dirt, rocks etc and pull out the usable elements/compounds to make things of. I keep wondering if/when we’ll be able a) to actually separate things like that, and b) how many common elementscan’tbe used to make materials in a few generic categories of materials, such asmedium-strength nonconductivemedium-strength conductiveflexible nonconductiveflexible conductivelow melting point conductive (e.g. solder)high melting point conductive (e.g heating element)Given materials in these categories you could print a vast array of things, assuming you have a source of semiconductors. While many oxides work as semiconductors, I suspect purity and other concerns would keep semiconductor fabrication out of reach.If the device made doesn’t last long, it’s no big deal – feed it back into the printer and build another.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.514331
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/a-new-generation-of-spacecraft-head-to-the-iss/
|
A New Generation Of Spacecraft Head To The ISS
|
Tom Nardi
|
[
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] |
[
"commercial space",
"Cygnus",
"Dream Chaser",
"HTV-X",
"international space station",
"nasa",
"resupply"
] |
While many in the industry were at first skeptical of NASA’s goal to put resupply flights to the International Space Station in the hands of commercial operators, the results speak for themselves. Since 2012, the SpaceX Dragon family of spacecraft has been transporting crew and cargo from American soil to the orbiting laboratory, a capability that the space agency had lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle. Putting these relatively routine missions in the hands of a commercial provider like SpaceX takes some of the logistical and financial burden off of NASA, allowing them to focus on more forward-looking projects.
SpaceX Dragon arriving at the ISS for the first time in 2012.
But as the saying goes, you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. As successful as SpaceX has been, there’s always a chance that some issue could temporarily ground either the Falcon 9 or the Dragon.
While Russia’s Progress and Soyuz vehicles would still be available in an emergency situation, it’s in everyone’s best interest that there be multiple backup vehicles that can bring critical supplies to the Station.
Which is precisely why several new or upgraded spacecraft, designed specifically for performing resupply missions to the ISS and any potential commercial successor, are coming online over the next few years.
In fact, one of them is already flying its first mission, and will
likely have arrived at the International Space Station
by the time you read this article.
Cygnus XL
The Cygnus was the second commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the ISS back in 2013, and like the Dragon, has gone through several upgrades and revisions over the years. Rather than starting from a clean slate, the Orbital Sciences Corporation based the vehicle’s pressurized module on the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module which was originally designed to fly inside the Space Shuttle’s cargo bay to provide onboard laboratory space before the construction of the ISS. This was paired with a service module that was derived from their line of communication satellites.
Orbital Sciences Corporation was eventually acquired by Northrop Grumman, which now operates the latest version of the spacecraft, the Cygnus XL. This latest version of the cargo craft lifted off for the first time on September 14th, and is currently en route to the ISS.
It retains the same 3.07 m (10.1 ft) diameter of the original Cygnus, but the length of the vehicle has been increased from 5.14 m (16.9 ft) to 8 m (26 ft). This has nearly doubled the internal pressurized volume of the craft, and the payload capacity has been increased from 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) to 5,000 kg (11,000 lb).
While the Dragon can autonomously dock with the ISS, the Cygnus XL needs to be captured by an astronaut using the Station’s robotic arm, and manually moved into position where it’s eventually bolted into place — a process known as berthing. This is a more labor intensive method of connecting a visiting spacecraft, but it does have at least one advantage, as the diameter of the berthing ports is larger than that of the docking ports. At least in theory, this means Cygnus XL would be able to deliver bulkier objects to the Station than the Dragon or any other spacecraft that makes use of the standard docking ports.
Like the earlier versions of the craft, Cygnus XL is an expendable vehicle, and lacks the heat shield that would be necessary to reenter Earth’s atmosphere safely. Once the vehicle delivers its cargo and is detached from the Station, it’s commanded to perform a deorbit maneuver which will cause it to burn up in the atmosphere. But even this serves an important function, as the astronauts will load the vehicle with trash before it departs, ensuring that refuse from the Station is destroyed in a safe and predictable manner.
HTV-X
Like the Cygnus XL, the HTV-X is an upgraded version of a spacecraft which has already visited the ISS, namely the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV). Designed and built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the first flight of this upgraded cargo vehicle is tentatively scheduled for late October.
The HTV-X reuses the pressurized module from the HTV, though it has been slightly enlarged and is now located at the rear of the spacecraft instead of the front. The cargo module is in turn attached to a service module that’s responsible for power generation, communications, and propulsion. For all intents and purposes, this service module is its own independent spacecraft, and JAXA is currently investigating future applications which would see this module mated with other payloads for various low Earth orbit missions.
Attached to the opposite side of the service module is an unpressurized cargo module. This is similar to the “trunk” of the Dragon spacecraft, in that it’s essentially just a hollow cylinder with shelves and mounting points inside. This module could potentially be used to bring up components that are intended to be attached to the outside of the ISS, or it could hold experiments and modules that are designed to be exposed to the space environment.
Like the Cgynus XL, the HTV-X will berth to the ISS rather than dock, and it will also burn up after its mission is complete. However the HTV-X is designed to fly freely on its own for up to 18 months after it delivers its cargo to the Station, which JAXA calls the “Technology Demonstration Phase” of the mission. This will essentially allow the agency to perform a second mission after the vehicle has completed its supply run, greatly improving the overall cost effectiveness of the program.
Dream Chaser
Far and away the most ambitious of these new spacecraft is the Dream Chaser, developed by Sierra Space. Reminiscent of a miniature version of the Space Shuttle, this winged vehicle is designed to land like an airplane at the end of its mission. This not only means it can bring material back down to Earth at the end of its mission, but that it can do so in a much less jarring manner than a capsule that ends up splashing down into the ocean under parachutes. This is a huge benefit when dealing with fragile cargo or scientific experiments, and is a capability not offered by any other currently operational spacecraft.
The Dream Chaser has been in active development for over 20 years, but its origins date back even farther than that, as it’s based on HL-20 Personnel Launch System concept from the 1980s. While it was initially designed for crew transport, it lost out to SpaceX and Boeing during NASA’s Commercial Crew Program selection in 2014. It did however secure a contract from the space agency in 2016 for six cargo missions to the ISS. To qualify for these missions, several changes were made to the original design, such as the addition of an expendable module that will attach to the rear of the vehicle to increase its relatively limited internal cargo capacity of 910 kg (2,000 lb) by 4,500 kg (10,000 lb).
The first orbital test flight of the Dream Chaser is currently scheduled to take place before the end of the year, but that date has already slipped several times. Being a reusable vehicle like the Dragon, the first Dream Chaser spaceplane is expected to fly multiple operational missions while a second craft is being assembled.
After completing their contractually obligated missions to the ISS, there are currently plans for the Dream Chaser to fly at least one mission for the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, which will carry an array of scientific experiments provided by member nations that do not have their own domestic space programs. The company also says they remain committed to bringing the crewed version of Dream Chaser to fruition, likely as part of their
partnership with Blue Origin to develop the Orbital Reef
— a “mixed-use business park” in space.
Time is Running Out
It might seem strange that three different spacecraft are scheduled to enter service before the end of the year, but of course, the clock is ticking. Although the date has been pushed out a number of times over the years, the current 2030 timeline for the decommissioning of the International Space Station seems to be holding so far. With as little as five years left to go before the ISS joins us Earthlings back here on the surface, it’s now or never for any vehicles designed for service missions. This is doubly true for companies such as Sierra Space, who have already agreed to perform a set number of missions.
At the same time, any of these vehicles could support a future commercial space station, should one actually materialize.
We’ve covered some of the post-ISS plans previously
, but given how volatile the aerospace world is, nothing is a given until it’s actually in orbit.
| 22
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181417",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:05:44",
"content": "Exciting times ahead! Can’t believe we are in the amazing timeline where we have private players in the space race!I was thinking about something, something absolutely cracked out if I say so myself.I was wondering if I would be eligible for a cash reimbursement from the space agencies since they are taking oxygen, CO2, carbon, steel, titanium, water and other materials into space, never to be returned to Earth again. These are hypothetical resources that may have been used by my children in the future, that they will never get to use (and in case of carbon, literally make up a part of my children), and they are being removed from the entire closed system (aka Earth)I mean they’re shared resources right? Its only fair that I get a payout since I was not asked if these resources can be taken out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181431",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:35:55",
"content": "Well, “private”. Corporations subsidized by the state, working for state funded projects (NASA + DoD) as their main or major source of revenue with a smattering of smaller private customers.They are more like pseudo-SOEs since they’re so dependent on the state to even exist – I think the exact term would be a captive supplier, except for the possibility of other clients. A “government‑dependent contractor”.",
"parent_id": "8181417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181456",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:36:40",
"content": "The question is, however, how long states remain independent.It could also happen that states or their agencies may end up owing money to big companies, eventually.Or that companies and their bosses have friends in high political positions.Then it’s the companies who have the political power.And an once democratic nation turns into a big corporation, basically.I know, it’s a bit far fetched. It’s just another dystopian story, maybe.",
"parent_id": "8181431",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181462",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:58:52",
"content": "That’s the thing about owning money printing presses.You can owe any amount of money, no problem.(Just print $ 2×10^12. Call it the ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’ Chutzpa has a new definition.)I don’t trust money grubbers or power grubbers.They are cousins.‘Money is power’ is a truism.“Power just takes money’ should also be.At least a business needs to make money, not a problem for a politician.Politicians can get as disconnected from reality as the population will allow.If that population is disarmed, WTF are they going to do?Wait for someone from across the pond to save them, same as last century?",
"parent_id": "8181456",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182472",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T21:55:05",
"content": "Corporations with government contracts are even more disconnected from reality than politicians. “Making a profit” is up to lobbyists, not the entirely subsidized market.",
"parent_id": "8181462",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8183954",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T01:36:38",
"content": "S OIf you only have one client you are F’ed, as a business.Every contractor knows this in his/her bones.First client is important, but second is more important.Second gives you power to tell first ‘no’, until then, you just can’t.Still true if that one client is the US federal government.You also need the US DOD^nW…joke…or is it?What you say is true for the Government trough specialists, no doubt.Government trough is wide and diverse.At worst is tit shaped trough, where pigs make nothing at all but hot air.",
"parent_id": "8181462",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181464",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:02:56",
"content": "Well, lobbying is pretty much a given. The point isn’t so much space exploration, or that’s a secondary outcome of funneling money to government adjacent business. That’s why they’re not so much trying to push boundaries and do new science, but simply re-inventing the wheel by re-engineering already tested solutions from the 60’s through 90’s.I mean, with the ISS going out of service for decades already, instead of inventing the proverbial automobile, they’re engineering better buggy whips.",
"parent_id": "8181456",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181454",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:18:23",
"content": "Exciting times ahead! Can’t believe we are in the amazing timeline where we have private players in the space race!I think it’s dystopian. Space exploration should be a humanistic journey rather than a commercial endevour.It should be about a human society that has grown up and has become one, rather each of them having childish desires for revenues.This is just another wild wild west story about a new gold rush, I’m afraid.Not that private companies are to be left out,but they should be under supervision by international organizations of democratic societies.So that “unresponsible” projects such as Starlink won’t happen again.The focus should be on research and for well being of all people on this planet, not just some countries or companies.The results of the work in space should be transparent, so that journalists and researchers have access to it.In this hindsight NASA used to do rather well, considering the “free” and public pictures from space probes.But that just my opinion, of course. It won’t happen (again).What we are going to see is hard competition over resources.Like oil platforms, but in space.There won’t be any place left for idealistic considerations.It’ll be all about money. For the Americans, at least.The Chinese, despite their questionable political system, do at least have more than money in mind.They’re doing it for pride and prestige and to impress the world,which is still selfish but at least slightly morally higher than doing it for pure greed and plain profits. IMHO.",
"parent_id": "8181417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181468",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:09:28",
"content": "The ‘humanists’ can pay for it then.Their own money please, never take your eye off them.They love to spend other people’s money.I didn’t realize you were so in favor of government speech regulations.‘Starlink’ is irresponsible?Only if you ask the nations that don’t allow free (as in speech) internet access.Who gets to define ‘well being of all people on this planet.’The MFers that have attempted that in the past have generally ended on ‘Giving me all power is best for for the well being of all people on this planet.’They can’t define ‘well being’, but they know it when they say it.Your right the Chinese are past money, onto power.Which is worse.",
"parent_id": "8181454",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182593",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:51:09",
"content": "Who gets to define ‘well being of all people on this planet.’The members who work together, I guess?I was thinking about basic research and open research papers.Things that could eventually help curing disseases, for example.‘Starlink’ is irresponsible?Releasing hundreds of thousands of barely tested satellites in orbit without asking isn’t?Which are transmitting on frequencies that are in use in certain countries, maybe?What about astronomers that monitor the night sky?The satellites are “in the way”, might be missinterpreted as other objects etc.The earth orbit is a common good of humanity,a single company shouldn’t be allowed to totally dominate it at will.What about other companies or space agencies?Such a launch of a big constellation should have been co-ordinated, at least.I didn’t realize you were so in favor of government speech regulations.Huh? Which speech regulations?Anyway, I think that things like important infrastructure (trains, roads, water/water pipes and orbits etc) should be under goverment supervision, to some degree at least.Because a goverment of a democratic nation represents the will of the people, the citizens.Private companies do not, they don’t serve the people but only their own interest.They would sacrifice people’s life to save money, I’m afraid.For example, I’ve read that US aircraft manufacturers are considering whetherit’s financially cheaper to make the planes extra safe orto simply wait and see if the plane crashes once a while and then pay the surviving families’ compensation claims.Your right the Chinese are past money, onto power.Which is worse.China’s hunger for power surely is concerning, but are the motives worse?Doing things for money alone seems more unhuman to me.Or at least more “hearthless”, more mechanical. It makes people feel dead inside.Not sure about the right words here. Any “enthusiasm” is missing, maybe.What China is doing has a lot to do with national identity, self-esteem and winning the own people.The USA were similar in the 1960s, still, when they still loved their nation.Back then, so it seems to me, it still had certain basic values besides capitalism.Some sort of balance, if we will. Not sure how to put it into words.Maybe I’m wrong about it, too. It just seems like that if you watch documentaries from the 1960s.People, ordinary people, were highly excited about was happening.I don’t remember them talking about money or taxes, but about the possibilities.",
"parent_id": "8181468",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8183971",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T02:25:01",
"content": "Nonsense about Starlink.Low enough to deorbit on their own and make effective censorship almost impossible.Money is everything except the people in your life.Every single thing is just money.Money is thingpotential.The things you and those people need.What better reason to work?You never know about the people…Exceptions are golden.Sure, at some point it’s just scorekeeping and status…Not my life, they wouldn’t listen even if I told them ‘Stop! You’re good for life. Don’t make your grandkids richers, you’ll ruin them.’ (I did try once, brick wall…”But I can make even more money next year!”)And at some further point, power takes over, or at least tries to…Why a buffoon heir is better than a power addicted puppet.Besides the entertainment value.Neither of us remembers the 1960s.People were still excited about movie cameras, super excited.I bet you can find movies of enthusiastic happy sober Finns from the 1960s.Perhaps even Germans not scowling.I’ll say this about old school American ‘burbs.Image was important.People in the 1960’s made an effort to look like perfect families.If they didn’t, dad would smack them.I grew up in a fairly backwater part of the USA, I do remember the 1970s, which weren’t what you describe at all.I go back at least 10 years every time I travel back from CA.But not really, CA wishes that were true, nobody is following where they’re going.CA west of the coast range is just granola (fruits, nuts and flakes) and has been for living memory.Like Berlin, but more stink and less techno.Still too much techno.I digress.",
"parent_id": "8182593",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181718",
"author": "albertron",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:43:57",
"content": "Well I suppose we should thank you for making it clear that you are a communist and that your ideas can be viewed accordingly.",
"parent_id": "8181454",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182581",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T07:03:22",
"content": "Hm? I wasn’t aware of this. I thought it was an social, democratic and a bit European point of view, rather.We have universities that do basic research, for example.And a social market economy. Well in my corner of Europe, at least.Also nolonger as much as we used to have, maybe.International competition has weakened our values, maybe.Universities are under financial pressure, too these days.Or let’s say maybe it was a 1960s/1970s US American point of view, too?In spirit of minds such as Sagan and many science fiction authors and philosophers of the time?When Sputnik was in orbit, scientists and dreamers both alike looked forward a peaceful exploration rather than money making.People like Wernher v. Braun worked on space station designs etc.It wasn’t about mining on moon so much, but about space colonies and research and the future of humanity.And that’s the problem. “Private space” is about making money first.It will expand the whole silly business making on earth into space.Especially the US American model is what we could call toxic and unhuman, maybe.It’s all about predatory capitalism and exploiting human beings.Each to his own, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.Do we really need that in space, too?No offense, though. I’m just trying to be honest.I simply think that’s not my idea of an mature society that has gained the ability of (limited) space travel.A society that has gained it should have been mentally more advanced than the technology it is using, at least.In space, humanity should stick together and solve problems together.The Mir-Shuttle missions and the ISS both were going in the right directon, I think.People of different nations worked together and were a living symbol for peace and friendship.And that’s not as easy as it seems, also because people both on earth and in space must overcome conflicts to make things work.",
"parent_id": "8181718",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181426",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:18:47",
"content": "It is exciting times. Infrastructure is being laid for future missions, bigger payloads, bigger rockets, etc. Glad to see space science and engineering is alive and well. I was hoping we would further along by now as we were on the moon all the way back in ’69. Almost another generation will have passed on before we get established on the moon … let alone Mars and other destinations… Good to have a frontier to explore instead of stagnate here on Earth.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182666",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T14:42:11",
"content": "Thank you for your positive view.Personally, I’ve used to be an optimist and I’d like to see it happen, too.Maybe it’s somehow good that China is such a big threat, also.Because I felt that without the USSR, the US Americans stopped being ambitious back then.They apparently need a strong rival, a competition or a race in order to get going.– Like Ash needed Gary in the 90s Pokèmon anime. ;)It’s like in their business life, I guess. It’s all about beating someone and being first at something.That would explain the stagnation for 40+ years, I think.Anyway, let’s hope they will make it back on the moon without much drama.The computer technology since the 1960/70s has improved, too.With the power of a C64 it’s possible to get there.And once they’re there, I do imagine, reliable 80s technology such as Packet-Radiocould be used to build FX.25 digipeaters and establishing long distant connections around the moon.“Store and forward” feature (for electronic mail) could be done by a Z80-based TNC and a 2m band two-way radio, each.And some solar cells and batteries to power everything.A Commodore C64 at the moon base could also handle communication and do orbit predictions.That’s something the Chinese don’t have, I think. Venerable, robust American technology.",
"parent_id": "8181426",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181460",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:50:30",
"content": "I understand that there are some new private stations being planned, but I have to question the wisdom of commissioning all of these different systems to service a vessel that is destined to be de-orbited within five years without a replacement in the pipeline.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181473",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:30:04",
"content": "I would have ‘thought’ the current space station would be a continual ‘build’. New modules would be added as old/obsolete modules de-orbited for a continual growing presence in space. It sure seems to me a a cost saving solution… Anyway, I think it makes perfect sense — but I guess not to the powers that be.",
"parent_id": "8181460",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181478",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:00:27",
"content": "You have to ask, what interest does a continuously manned station in LEO serve?Tourism? Maybe, but NASA?Science? No.Practice with long term life support? Done.Politics? Not so much anymore.Get onto prospecting the moon for fuel/Ice.Past LEO you need to find shielding, so it’s moons, planets or big asteroids.Or quick dashes during solar minimums.I think next after lunar fuel base is prospecting the moons of mars for fuel/Ice…Not landing on mars yet.Digging our base next to the alien’s Phobos base and getting started making fuel from ice.",
"parent_id": "8181473",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181550",
"author": "TGT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:32:24",
"content": "Think of it as like a rock climber hammering a piton into a crack in the cliffside and hanging a loop of his rope from a carabiner there. If he falls after climbing higher, or if he simply needs to rest a while, this will keep him from falling farther down.We came extremely close to giving up on manned space exploration entirely and just having a world of little bean-counting robots everywhere, which I personally would consider a shame.",
"parent_id": "8181478",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182426",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T18:49:57",
"content": "Please play some GD KSP.The ISS is not and can never be an orbital safety catch spot.That’s not how orbits work.For the money spent on ISS you could keep multiple Falcon/Dragon rockets on standby that could be launched into the correct orbit on a rescue mission.Manned space is GD expensive.Doing it to give people ‘billion dollar rides/media events’ is silly.",
"parent_id": "8181550",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8183498",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-24T01:32:26",
"content": "“…the results speak for themselves…”They sure do.The people no longer actually own any part of space, from the privately held designs built on top of public knowledge, to the equipment itself.The USA no longer has any space infrastructure.A private corporation can say “no” at any time, and are free to demand any price they please, and we will need to pay because they own all the current ‘ideas’ of modern spaceflight. We can’t even redevelop it on our own anymore, because we aren’t allowed to compete with private industry without a major governmental act.Even the VIDEO FOOTAGE of a government funded launch is property of a corporation now.Private spaceflight is a TRAVESTY.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8184224",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-25T16:34:59",
"content": "Die angry commie.",
"parent_id": "8183498",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,424.284999
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/listening-for-the-next-wow-signal-with-low-cost-sdr/
|
Listening For The Next Wow! Signal With Low-Cost SDR
|
Tom Nardi
|
[
"Space"
] |
[
"Radio Telescope",
"sdr",
"The Wow! Signal"
] |
As you might expect, the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo has a fascination with radio signals from space. While doing research into the legendary “Wow! Signal” detected back in 1977, they realized that the burst was so strong that a small DIY radio telescope would be able to pick it up using modern software-defined radio (SDR) technology.
This realization gave birth to the
Wow@Home project
, an effort to document both the hardware and software necessary to pick up a Wow! class signal from your own backyard. The University reasons that if they can get a bunch of volunteers to build and operate these radio telescopes, the resulting data could help identify the source of the Wow! Signal — which they believe could be the result of some rare astrophysical event and not the product of Little Green Men.
Ultimately, this isn’t much different from many of the
SDR-based homebrew radio telescopes
we’ve
covered over the years
— get a dish, hook your RTL-SDR up to it, add in the appropriate filters and amplifiers, and point it to the sky. Technically, you’re now a radio astronomer. Congratulations. In this case, you don’t even have to figure out how to motorize your dish, as they recommend just pointing the antenna at a fixed position and let the rotation of the Earth to the work — a similar trick to
how the legendary Arecibo Observatory itself worked
.
The tricky part is collecting and analyzing what’s coming out of the receiver, and that’s where the team at Arecibo hope to make the most headway with their Wow@Home software. It also sounds like that’s where the work still needs to be done. The goal is to have a finished product in Python that can be deployed on the Raspberry Pi, which as an added bonus will “generate a live preview of the data in the style of the
original Ohio State SETI project printouts
.” Sounds cool to us.
If you’re interested in lending a hand, the team says they’re open to contributions from the community — specifically from those with experience RFI shielding, software GUIs, and general software development.
We love seeing citizen science
, so hopefully this project finds the assistance and the community it needs to flourish.
Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.
| 14
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181351",
"author": "Jason",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:00:02",
"content": "It will never happen.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181381",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:03:47",
"content": "What will never happen? We’re detecting radio from space all the time.",
"parent_id": "8181351",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181534",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:24:26",
"content": "I wonder if leftover hardware from the now defunct Electrosense project could be put to use?I now have a spare raspi, rtl-sdr and a (probably not appropriate) antenna looki g for a purpose…",
"parent_id": "8181351",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181536",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T01:25:46",
"content": "Aannd the crappy hackaday comment section strikes again and messes up where the reply is posted…",
"parent_id": "8181534",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181373",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:28:09",
"content": "huh my first thought was that rejecting noise is such a challenge, you don’t really stand a chance at home.but if you have a hundred sites all over the world then you can easily rule out nearby sources by correlating multiple sites",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181411",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:52:44",
"content": "Honestly, with the state of things if I now saw communication of an alien species I’d keep it a secret.This is not the time for such things.I would just really not release the data. Even when I would find it hard because science should be neutral and embrace reality and ignore the nonsense of politics and media et cetera But we are in the context of the planet as it is, and the situation is too global.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181414",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:02:48",
"content": "I agree – if someone is convinced that they are the only person on the entire planet with definitive evidence of alien civilization communication, keeping quiet would be prudent.I would go so far as to say that said person should probably consider applying a similar approach with respect to their various political and social observations.It’s the only way to be safe from “the others.”",
"parent_id": "8181411",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181425",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:17:12",
"content": "I think you misunderstand, it’s not about being safe, it’s about the planet being idiotic about it, and then that situation sticking for decades – if not longer.And perhaps you just demonstrated a bit of the situation I refer to.",
"parent_id": "8181414",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181435",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:56:41",
"content": "No, I understood what you were saying just fine.But I don’t think I’m the one demonstrating your point …",
"parent_id": "8181425",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181439",
"author": "SETH3579",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T18:05:10",
"content": "This is literally the plot of X-Files 😂",
"parent_id": "8181425",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181545",
"author": "Chris Maple",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:00:53",
"content": "Why worry? Few people would believe you, and fewer still would care. Signal source would likely be dozens of light years away and anything coming to visit would take hundreds of years.What, specifically, is your concern? Worldwide panic? Unlikely; there are plenty of more worrisome things closer to home and more immediate. There are flat-Earthers and moon-landing-deniers, they get ignored.",
"parent_id": "8181411",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181738",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T14:22:42",
"content": "We are talking about RL now not a TV show, so obviously ‘panic’ of the public would not be the issue (not even in the US, regardless what you might think of the recent ‘drones-over-Jersey’ amusement).It’s what the politicians would do with the stuff and the media and the ‘pundits’ and the religious mofos and the ‘think tanks’, they would all try to be idiotic and use it for their silly little agendas, and to make money, and the public would eat up their nonsense and it would be anything but scientific but it would cause them to take over that field of science and piss all over it.Right now you should keep the aforementioned away from any science as much as possible is my conclusion. You guys are of course free to not see it that way.",
"parent_id": "8181545",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181430",
"author": "Peter DL3PB",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:31:35",
"content": "If I were the ‘Little Green Men’ I would chose any other channel than that of the hydrogen line.For example the ‘water hole’ between 1.42 and 1.66GHz – that would make everybody aware thatit’s not an astronomical event but an intended transmission. And that is with much less ‘noise’.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181554",
"author": "Eric J Korpela",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:52:23",
"content": "The SETI@home client is open source. Using SDR as input would be possible (an has reportedly been done in the past, although I’ve never seen the source code for such input formats). I’d be willing to help. Seems like fun. Porting to python? No thanks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,424.570075
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/18/give-your-band-the-music-of-the-bands/
|
Give Your Band The Music Of The Bands
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Musical Hacks"
] |
[
"music",
"radio",
"shortwave"
] |
The way to get into radio, and thence electronics, in the middle years of the last century, was to fire up a shortwave receiver and tune across the bands. In the days when every country worth its salt had a shortwave station, Cold War adversaries boomed propaganda across the airwaves, and even radio amateurs used AM that could be listened to on a consumer radio, a session in front of the dial was sure to turn up a few surprises. It’s a lost world in the 21st century, as the Internet has provided an easier worldwide medium and switch-mode power supplies have created a blanket of noise. The sounds of shortwave are thus no longer well known to anyone but a few enthusiasts, but that hasn’t stopped [gnd buzz]
investigating their potential in electronic music
.
There’s very little on the air which couldn’t be used in some form by the musician, but the samples are best used as the base for further processing. One example takes a “buzzer” signal and turns it into a bass instrument. The page introduces the different types of things which can be found on the bands, for which with the prevalence of WebSDRs there has never been a lower barrier to entry.
If you’re too young to have scanned the bands,
a capable receiver can now be had for surprisingly little
.
Radio dial header: Maximilian Schönherr,
CC BY-SA 3.0
.
| 3
| 2
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181432",
"author": "FT8",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:37:01",
"content": "Listening to the digital mode section of 10m (or any band really) with a wide filter makes a mournful electronic loop, like the lullaby of a dying machine",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181562",
"author": "PPJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T03:37:52",
"content": "I think Polyend tracker had built in FM receiver with recording option. With proper sampler, radio can serve as good source of waves, vocal samples etc.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181630",
"author": "gndbuzz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T10:18:49",
"content": "That’s true! My concern with sampling music on the (FM) radio is content id and copyright takedowns. But if it’s not for publishing, it’s not that big of an issue of course.",
"parent_id": "8181562",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,424.610586
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/when-is-your-pyrex-not-the-pyrex-you-expect/
|
When Is Your Pyrex Not The Pyrex You Expect?
|
Jenny List
|
[
"chemistry hacks"
] |
[
"borosilicate glass",
"glass",
"pyrex",
"soda glass"
] |
It’s not often that Hackaday brings you something from a cooking channel, but [I Want To Cook] has
a fascinating look at Pyrex glassware
that’s definitely worth watching. If you know anything about Pyrex it’s probably that it’s the glass you’ll see in laboratories and many pieces of cookware, and its special trick is that it can handle high temperatures. The video takes a look at this, and reveals that not all Pyrex is the same.
Pyrex was a Corning product from the early 20th century, and aside from its many laboratory and industrial applications has been the go-to brand for casserole dishes and much more in the kitchen ever since. It’s a borosilicate glass, which is what gives it the special properties, or at least in some cases it
used
to be a borosilicate glass. It seems that modern-day American Pyrex for the kitchen is instead a soda glass, which while it still makes a fine pie dish, doesn’t quite have the properties of the original.
The video explains some of the differences, as well as revealing that the American version is branded in lower case as pyrex while the European version is branded uppercase as PYREX and retains the borosilicate formulation. Frustratingly there’s no quick way to definitively tell whether a piece of lower-case pyrex is soda glass or not, because the brand switch happened before the formulation switch.
In all probability in the kitchen it makes little difference which version you own, because most users won’t give it the extreme thermal shock required to break the soda version. But some Hackaday readers do plenty of experiments pushing the limits of their glassware, so it’s as well to know that seeking out an older PYREX dish could be a good move.
If you’d like to know more about glass,
we’ve got you covered
.
| 22
| 12
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181251",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:08:08",
"content": "Frustratingly there’s no quick way to definitively tell whether a piece of lower-case pyrex is soda glass or not, because the brand switch happened before the formulation switch.I’m surprised by this, because as far as I know it should usually be very obvious simply by inspection.Soda-lime glass has an green tint which is visible when looking at an edge or other thicker area (while it’s possible to tint the glass to compensate, it doesn’t look like pyrex bothers.) Borosilicate glass has either a bluish or no tint. Every piece of pyrex shown in the video exhibits this characteristic.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181277",
"author": "had37b8e5c7066e",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T08:09:13",
"content": "it i even obvious in he thumbnail",
"parent_id": "8181251",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181345",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T13:27:21",
"content": "The bluish/greenish tint unfortunately isn’t a completely reliable test, since it’s caused by iron contamination and can appear in either kind of glass. A more reliable test is to submerge a piece in glycerine. Borosilicate has the same refractive index and will look invisible; soda-lime glass won’t.A good thread on distinguishing them is here:https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=158521",
"parent_id": "8181251",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181386",
"author": "Richard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:21:30",
"content": "I looked this up, and there is a great demo here:https://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/kdom18/fun_fact_glycerin_has_the_same_refractive_index/",
"parent_id": "8181345",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181261",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:36:00",
"content": "When it’s a jar?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181295",
"author": "WTF Detector",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T09:19:34",
"content": "All of that glassware has an entirely open top, it’s a bit more than a jar.Someone tried to tell me a door was a jar the other day, I told them they must be rather stupid, I can plainly see it’s a door and not a jar.",
"parent_id": "8181261",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181262",
"author": "brightvalve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:37:20",
"content": "Good to know that after 27 years of switching to soda-lime glass someone made a Youtube video explaining these differences.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181288",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T08:56:26",
"content": "how does PYREX compares to german SuperFest ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181290",
"author": "Clark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T09:05:42",
"content": "Superfest is, as far as I know, soda-lime glass with a surface treatment, so not suitable for high temperature use.",
"parent_id": "8181288",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181296",
"author": "had37b8e5c7066e",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T09:20:31",
"content": "completely different, superfest is more like gorilla glass",
"parent_id": "8181288",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181298",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T09:23:03",
"content": "SuperFest and “pyrex” are both strengthened glass. SuperFest is chemically strengthened (similar to Gorilla Glass) and “pyrex” is tempered. Both processes generate significant compressive stress in the outer layers of the glass which need to be overcome in order to break it, making it more impact resistant.“PYREX” gets it’s temperature resistance primarily it’s low thermal expansion coefficient. So heating it doesn’t generate the same stresses in it as in soda-lime glass. But since it doesn’t go through a secondary strengthening process, it’s impact resistance is lower.",
"parent_id": "8181288",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181325",
"author": "Brad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:12:55",
"content": "My favorite sighting of off-brand Pyrex glassware was branded “Fire King”. That always made me smile. (Think Latin)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181372",
"author": "Stylers",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:26:45",
"content": "Simply pulling empty glassware out of the oven is often enough to crack it.. with nothing in it it cools rather quickly.. and this wouldn’t be impact resistance.. just low thermal expansion coefficient.. what about lab glassware.. surely it still needs the properties of original Pyrex ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181374",
"author": "nospam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:35:38",
"content": "Explains why my “pyrex” dish exploded into a million little pieces all over the kitchen when it was taken out of the oven and put on the stove glass cooktop.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181375",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T14:36:53",
"content": "Frustratingly there’s no quick way to definitively tell whether a piece of lower-case pyrex is soda glass or notI mean there is one way and it sucks. It is destructive testing. Take it out of the oven or off the open flame cooktop and put in an ice water bath. If it shatters … you didn’t want that anyway. If it does not break it’s either legit borosilicate or it will suit your purposes fine anyway..When I heard of the switch I committed to just buying used from thrift shops, garage sales etc..Proper labware like beakers and stuff still works fine for kitchen use anyway plus has a groovy mad-scientisty vibe as well. And are pretty inexpensive.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181383",
"author": "jecooksubether",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:08:03",
"content": "… and for a groovy mad-scientist-mathmatician vibe, there’s ACME Klein bottles- Accept no substitutes!",
"parent_id": "8181375",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181447",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T19:04:37",
"content": "I’m pretty sure the article get’s the PYREX vs. pyrex, American vs Euro story wrong.IIRCCorning screwed up it’s US trademarks and only got ‘PYREX’, not lower case ‘pyrex’.How that’s not ‘confusingly similar’ is beyond me, but not a lawyer.Could just have been a courthouse spending contest, that’s how those things work IRL.You can still get Borosilicate ‘PYREX’ branded, from Corning, in the USA.You can also get ‘pyrex’, for much less money.It’s always soda glass, except when it’s just plane glass.You can guess what’s on the shelf at wallyworld.The crappiest chinesium available, same as always.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181465",
"author": "Kelly",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T20:07:50",
"content": "You can’t get PYREX cookware from Corning anymore, only PYREX labware.",
"parent_id": "8181447",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181579",
"author": "MinorHavoc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T06:03:10",
"content": "“pyrex” banded cookware comes from Corelle Brands, formerly World Kitchen, formerly Corning Consumer Products Company, a division of Corning. They were spun off from Corning in 1998, but the creation of the “pyrex” brand and the use of soda glass for some “pyrex”-brand consumer cookware happened while they were still a division of Corning. Corelle did switch to soda glass for all products after the spin-off and claims that 95% of its pyrex cookware are made in the US.Currently, Corning only sells industrial PYREX borosilicate products in the US. Elsewhere, I believe partners and not Corning sells borosilicate cookware with the PYREX branding.",
"parent_id": "8181447",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181488",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T21:41:27",
"content": "there are a lot of people trading on the name, but not doing the original glass.iehttps://www.pyrex.eu/en-eu/pages/a-unique-glassNote it their description ” *Thermal and mechanical resistance compared to competing products made of borosilicate glass.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181526",
"author": "bsg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T00:42:28",
"content": "As best as I can tell, legitimate Pyrex has its trademarked name typed in blocky letters and surrounded by that oblong. The other tell is that it always carries metric units (at least in Europe).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182048",
"author": "nope",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T23:44:59",
"content": "My advice? Buy the IKEA ones. They specify the glass composition on the website.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,425.78952
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/17/getting-the-most-out-of-ism-transceivers-using-math/
|
Getting The Most Out Of ISM Transceivers Using Math
|
Fenix Guthrie
|
[
"Radio Hacks"
] |
[
"home networking",
"rfm12b",
"SAMD21",
"wireless network",
"wireless networking"
] |
WiFi is an excellent protocol, but it certainly has its weaknesses. Its range in even a normal home is relatively limited, so you could imagine the sort of performance you’d expect through the hundred meters of dense woodland that [DO3RB] is trying to penetrate. So naturally the solution was to
develop a new wireless transceiver for the ISM band.
Of course, getting reliable packet transmission is tough. In a building with brick walls, WiFi will get around five to ten percent packet loss. For TCP to remain reliable, one percent packet loss is the maximum designed loss of this wireless protocol. In reality, the transceiver achieves 0.075% packet loss real world.
The crux of the magic behind this excellent reliability is the extended binary Golay code. By halving the bitrate, the Golay code is able to correct for up to four errors per codeword. While a more complicated scheme could have been used, the Golay code allowed for easy porting to an MCU thus simplifying the project. All this is encoded with frequency shift keying in the ISM band.
This magic is tied up inside an tiny SAMD21 paired with a RFM12BP wireless front end. Using TinyUSB, the interface shows up to the host as a USB Ethernet adapter making for seamless networking setups. With reliable bi-directional communication, you could theoretically use this as a home networking solution. However, this is realistically best for IoT devices as the speeds are around 56 kbit/s.
While this is an incredibly simple system, harking back to 90s networking, it certainly gets the job done in a neat and tidy manner. And if you too wish hark back to 90s radio communications,
make sure to check out this satellite imagery hack next!
Thanks [Bernerd] for the tip!
| 7
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181200",
"author": "BuriedCode",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T02:26:04",
"content": "I remember using a modified Golay code for a wireless instrument system prototype for my final year project. The prototype worked OK (ish), but what impressed me was how good that forward error correction could be, especially when you interleave it, so it can correct small burst errors. Crammed it into an old lattice CPLD",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181275",
"author": "Martin Sivak",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T07:59:35",
"content": "Same here. I have my own experimental FSK + interleaving + DC removal + extended golay radio protocol that is surprisingly good. And I still run it on small STM32L031 ARM Cortex-M0 micros (as well as on ESP32s and I think I even tried ATmega, but long time ago).The current repo where I experiment with the protocol ishttps://github.com/MarSik/laso-packet-rs(this is the third or fourth implementation.. C, C++, Rust) in case someone is interested. Recently I updated the DC removal to play nice (not multiply errors) with the golay decoder.LoRa is nice (and proprietary), but I started playing with this when it was hard to get and more expensive and my goal was similar to Sigfox back then (more than a decade ago) – short fixed messages from sensors. FSK radios were easy to get and I still have a heap of RFM12Bs and RFM69s.",
"parent_id": "8181200",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181241",
"author": "Christoph",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T05:43:02",
"content": "It’s a nice hack, but didn’t they invent wifi halow for these circumstances?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181253",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T06:12:09",
"content": "Hardly anything uses it. For IoT stuff, you’re probably better off using LoRa unless you need high data rates. The radio modules are cheap, readily available and easy to integrate with your microcontroller projects.",
"parent_id": "8181241",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181279",
"author": "Andrzej",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T08:17:41",
"content": "The github page claims that:IEEE 802.11ah Wi-Fi HaLow under planning since 2017 could solve this and since 2024 there seem to be some devices available but the devices’ stability and driver support look as bad as early WiFi on Linux.",
"parent_id": "8181241",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181387",
"author": "Jacob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T15:23:47",
"content": "HaLow is slowly coming around.https://openmanet.github.io/docs/range-testing.htmlFor comparison 0.2-0.4 Mbps over 1000m and 1.4-2.8 Mbps over 500m under clear line of sight!",
"parent_id": "8181241",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181315",
"author": "Gösta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T11:05:07",
"content": "Great article :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.255132
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/off-to-the-races-with-esp32-and-eink/
|
Off To The Races With ESP32 And EInk
|
Tyler August
|
[
"classic hacks"
] |
[
"eink",
"ESP32",
"formula 1"
] |
Off to the races? Formula One races, that is. This project by [mazur8888] uses an
ESP32 to keep track of the sport
, and display a “live” dashboard on a 2.9″ tri-color LCD.
“Live” is in scare quotes because updates are fetched only every 30 minutes; letting the ESP32 sleep the rest of the time gives the tiny desk gadget a smaller energy footprint. Usually that’s to increase battery life, but this version of the project does not appear to be battery-powered. Here the data being fetched is about overall team rankings, upcoming races, and during a race the current occupant of the pole-position.
There’s more than just the eInk display running on the ESP32; as with many projects these days, micro-controller is being pressed into service as a web server to host a full dashboard that gives extra information as well as settings and OTA updates. The screen and dev board sit inside a conventional 3D-printed case.
Normally when talking Formula One, we’re looking into the
hacks race teams make
. This hack might not do anything revolutionary to track the racers, but it does show a nice use for a small e-ink module that
isn’t another weather display.
The project is open source under a GPL3.0
license with code and STLs available on GitHub
.
Thanks to [mazur8888]. If you’ve got something on the go with an e-ink display (or anything else) send your electrophoretic hacks in to our tips line; we’d love to hear from you.
| 16
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180077",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:13:53",
"content": "I’ve got a couple of red/black rink displays I’d like to use, but I haven’t determined the support for them. It wasn’t headed in the right direction last time I looked.Anybody have a cheat sheet for how to figure out these displays without risk of frying anything?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180079",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:19:18",
"content": "Pretty straightforward honestly, connect it to your MCU of choice and include the manufacturer provided library into your code. Although you probably don’t need the entire library, just the single function to send a new frame to the screen.I never liked using the bloated libraries that manufacturers provide, I just strip them down and use my own framebuffer+drawing functions",
"parent_id": "8180077",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180083",
"author": "sjm4306",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:27:19",
"content": "^this, borrow initialization instructions from manufacturer provided demo code and write your own drawing functions. On a few epd’s I even was able to figure out how to add partial/fast updates by reading the controller chip datasheet.",
"parent_id": "8180079",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180122",
"author": "Joel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:24:51",
"content": "Could just let the compiler/linker optimize those unused symbols away for you.",
"parent_id": "8180079",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180105",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:31:10",
"content": "Pole position is determined by qualification before the race. It is not an indicator of who is leading the race. Indeed it would not make sense to show the current leader during the race on a device that only refreshes ever 30 minutes in a race that typically lasts under two hours.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180552",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:02:47",
"content": "You could change the refresh rate during the race.",
"parent_id": "8180105",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180133",
"author": "Bo Hansen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:40:12",
"content": "Brilliant idea, I have an E ink+esp32 lying around for building a display showing our dynamic electricity prices, but it is still at the idea level",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180267",
"author": "Dez",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:38:23",
"content": "This is an awesome little gadget! I want to do this for American football!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180390",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T07:30:13",
"content": "I was really curious how the ESP slept while hosting a web page for configuration. A scan through and it looks like it isn’t really sleeping but idling.I was hoping there was gonna be some new magic I didn’t know about so I’m a bit disappointed but it’s still a cool project. And if anyone on a high level than me sees the magic I missed please reply.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180446",
"author": "Bo Hansen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:46:51",
"content": "You could put the ESP in either deep sleep or hibernation mode and wake it up with rtc for web updates, then make the web configuration page available for eg. 30 minutes after a power on or via a dedicated button, this should minimize the power draw from the ESP, just be aware if your board uses a LDO voltage regulator, this will probably draw more power than the sleeping/hibernating ESP ;-)",
"parent_id": "8180390",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180630",
"author": "Keshlam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:54:21",
"content": "Has anybody got a good source for weatherproof e-ink displays in the 30- to 40-inch range, in single – unit quantity, preferably priced for an amateur developer? Black – red or better would be great, but I could probably live with monochrome. Resolution does not have to be great; this would be signage rather than user screen. Keeping weight down will also be great; the device needs to be fairly easily carryable.I have no idea whether my application would actually make sense, but the only way to really find out is to build a prototype and figure out what the minimum cost would be.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180742",
"author": "effgee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T03:36:48",
"content": "I googled and found 42 Inchhttps://share.google/F91Req4nyLQNvbVG8.No idea how good they are, or how many pieces they’ll be in after shipping. But I was surprised how cheap they are.",
"parent_id": "8180630",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180782",
"author": "mazur8888",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:12:48",
"content": "To clarify, this project doesn’t go to deep sleep as it isn’t battery powered.millis counts 30mins and fetches new data from api, so dashboard stays available all the time.30 mins refresh is overkill here, races are average once every 2 weeks anyway, and there is no new data until quali. I could probably modify it to start deep sleep based on quali day before main race and let device sleep for week or two, but it works fine as it is now.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181083",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:32:26",
"content": "tri-color LCD? Eh …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8185027",
"author": "Frank J Reyna",
"timestamp": "2025-09-27T20:43:22",
"content": "How would one go about making one of these with the display and esp?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8185264",
"author": "F Olsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-28T18:25:11",
"content": "Not arduino, but used PlatformIO, and no tutorial howTo.So for someone that is used to Arduino, this is hopless project.Would be better with arduino.GPT made the code in Arduino in 5 min.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,425.951506
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/flashlight-repair-brings-entire-workshop-to-bear/
|
Flashlight Repair Brings Entire Workshop To Bear
|
Tom Nardi
|
[
"Repair Hacks"
] |
[
"3D printed parts",
"Anker",
"flashlight",
"lathe"
] |
The modern hacker and maker has an incredible array of tools at their disposal — even a modestly appointed workbench these days would have seemed like science-fiction a couple decades ago. Desktop 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC mills, lathes, the list goes on and on. But what good is all that fancy gear if you don’t put it to work once and awhile?
If we had to guess, we’d say dust never gets a chance to accumulate on any of the tools in [Ed Nisley]’s workshop. According to his blog, the prolific hacker is either building or repairing something on a nearly daily basis. All of his posts are worth reading, but
the multifaceted rebuilding of a Anker LC-40 flashlight
from a couple months back recently caught our eye.
The problem was simple enough: the button on the back of the light went from working intermittently to failing completely. [Ed] figured there must be a drop in replacement out there, but couldn’t seem to find one in his online searches. So he took to the parts bin and found a surface-mount button that was nearly the right size. At the time, it seemed like all he had to do was print out a new flexible cover for the button out of TPU, but getting the material to cooperate took him down an unexpected rabbit hole of settings and temperatures.
With the cover finally printed, there was a new problem. It seemed that the retaining ring that held in the button PCB was damaged during disassembly, so [Ed] ended up having to design and print a new one. Unfortunately, the 0.75 mm pitch threads on the retaining ring were just a bit too small to reasonably do with an FDM printer, so he left the sides solid and took the print over to the lathe to finish it off.
Of course, the tiny printed ring was too small and fragile to put into the chuck of the lathe, so [Ed] had to design and print a fixture to hold it. Oh, and since the lathe was only designed to cut threads in inches, he had to make a new gear to convert it over to millimeters. But at least
that was a project he completed previously
.
With the fine threads cut into the printed retaining ring ready to hold in the replacement button and its printed cover, you might think the flashlight was about to be fixed. But alas, it was not to be. It seems the original button had a physical stabilizer on it to keep it from wobbling around, which wouldn’t fit now that the button had been changed. [Ed] could have printed a new part here as well, but to keep things interesting, he turned to the laser cutter and produced a replacement from a bit of scrap acrylic.
In the end, the flashlight was back in fighting form, and the story would seem to be at an end. Except for the fact that [Ed] eventually
did
find the proper replacement button online. So a few days later he ended up taking the flashlight apart, tossing the custom parts he made, and reassembling it with the originals.
Some might look at this whole process and see a waste of time, but we prefer to look at it as a training exercise. After all, the experienced gained is more valuable than keeping a single flashlight out of the dump. That said, should the flashlight ever take a dive in the future, we’re confident [Ed] will know how to fix it. Even better, now we do as well.
| 16
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180002",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:40:22",
"content": "As a kid, I used to take apart and repair flashlights. Recently, I had an LED flashlight fail on me. It’s a slightly fancy one with a spot light in front and a flood light on the side. It wasn’t turning on anymore. Inside was a circuit board with several tiny ICs and such. Aside from making sure the button was working properly, there wasn’t much else a tinkerer like me could do to resurrect it. And since the circuit board is so specialized, I can’t just easily swap it out. I haven’t thrown it in the trash yet, but that’s where it’ll probably end up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180007",
"author": "QBFreak",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:48:15",
"content": "I fixed one for my Dad that had a faulty chip that was just eating batteries. After a couple of days a fresh set would be dead. It was a common problem and the manufacturer had already stopped selling that model and had a replacement out, but it was physically a nice flashlight, justhungry.So I ripped all the smarts out of it and installed a toggle button from a donor flashlight. Problem solved.Sure it only has one brightness now, and it can’t strobe (why anyone would want that is beyond me), but the nice magnetic base, swivel head flashlight has avoided being trashed.",
"parent_id": "8180002",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180076",
"author": "Alexander Pruss",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:10:37",
"content": "I am guessing that the strobe is so that they can label it as “multifunction” or add bullet points. It’s annoying that because of a very rarely if ever used function one needs to press the button several more times to turn off the flashlight in normal operation.",
"parent_id": "8180007",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180128",
"author": "QBFreak",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:36:31",
"content": "In this particular case, it was smart enough to interpret a single button press as “off” if it had been on long enough.I have another device with a pointless built in flashlight that I turn on by accident all the time, and of course, you can’t turn it off without passing through the strobe setting first. I really should open it up and just disable the flashlight. All I do with it is blind myself.",
"parent_id": "8180076",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180329",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T05:29:07",
"content": "another product designed by a member of the LUS (League of Undercover Sadists)other producst designed by members: cars, “smart” devices like tv’s, phones, washing machines, toasters. devices with unnecessary blue leds in them. devices with unnecessary out-of-tune melody players. windows, mac os, linux, android, ios.",
"parent_id": "8180128",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180170",
"author": "randomguy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:50:43",
"content": "Actually the strobe is used as defense device, hard to attack when 1000 lumans of light disorienting you. Police use them. Oh, and also makes for like a 100hz timing light!",
"parent_id": "8180076",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180418",
"author": "PPJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:40:51",
"content": "For self defence it should have strobe to switch on first (not last) or a dedicated button. And many of those lights are more like 100 lumens than 1000.Other explanation I herd is to draw attention of rescue team.",
"parent_id": "8180170",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180607",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:58:32",
"content": "Walking besides a busy road with a strobe drawing attention.",
"parent_id": "8180170",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180013",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:11:47",
"content": "A number of dead cheap lights I have been given have rubber seals over the USB charge port and switch but have other parts that are not waterproof and water or beverage damage gets to the controller board. There is constant power on the newer press several times to turn off which with added water will grow fuzzy stuff and fail on or drain the cell.The best I have has a recessed clicking power switch in the tail, easy to find rather than feeling all around the barrel. It’s nice that the part is available.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180055",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:46:39",
"content": "I have a large torch with 12V halogen bulb/lead-acid battery that I tried to convert to LED/Lithium. Failed because LED bulbs with the same base do not emit their light from a small point within the bulb that is at the focal point of the reflector 🙄",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180793",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:53:06",
"content": "My dad prefers to use 6v lead acid flashlights, but as a creature of routine he would destroy them through excessive overcharging. facing your same problem, i took a length of scrap brass 3/4″ x 8″ and melted a hole through the plastic reflector with a soldering iron.I drilled a hole through the brass 1 1/2″ from the end and inserted and bent an iron nail, to ensure the correct focal distance by pressing against the reflector. to attach the led pcb i drilled a small hole in the end and screwed in a computer case screw.the brass rod was cushioned at the opposite end by some plastic wadding.I used a 3v 1a driver and toggle switch with rubber boot. I used a tp4056 module and a barrel connector and two 18650 in parallel from a laptop.It’s been running for over 6 years now, though i do have to repair broken wires and burnt out drivers every few years.",
"parent_id": "8180055",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180068",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:56:00",
"content": "A 0.2 nozzle prints 0.75 mm pitch threads OK.Which would have kept him out of that rabbit hole.Your going to want to clean them up with a bolt or nut, maybe with a thread cutting notch filed in it.Friction will make enough heat.But WTF?Make your own GD flashlight, made to survive a zombie apocalypse and be easily maintained.He’s wasting much time Fing with parts made to snap together cheaply.Respect the value of your own time and spend some money on parts.I’m not even sure I’d use the shell, the battery or the LED, perhaps.Truth:I’d end up with a printed polycarb (could still catch fire) shell around an C5 landing light…Make lightsaber noise…V8 powered 4×4 self propelled genset following me around, fat power cable, zoomie headers, 45” boggers…Everything better with mouse (small block Chevy motor)!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180144",
"author": "Ed",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:00:38",
"content": "Make your own GD flashlightThose Anker flashlights had a previous life as front running lights on our ‘bents:https://softsolder.com/2017/07/19/tour-easy-daytime-running-light-fairing-clamp-plates/Which eventually got replaced by full-on custom lights with 1 W LEDs blinking Morse:https://softsolder.com/2021/09/07/tour-easy-1-w-amber-running-light-holder-and-first-light/https://softsolder.com/2021/09/27/tour-easy-rear-running-light-first-light/But, yeah, that whole button repair thing got out of hand. :grin:",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180595",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:25:20",
"content": "I bet you could fit a C5 landing lite on the front of a recumbent.Might slow you down a bit, obstruct you view.But if you build the V8 4×4 genset right it will keep up.The zoomie headers will help, loud pipes save lives.",
"parent_id": "8180144",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180597",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:29:35",
"content": "haha i often have flashlights fail…the usual cause is alkaline batteries (my god i hate them). and apart from the difficulty of cleaning the contacts, i often break them further during disassembly.this article makes me feel good about my high level of willingness to simply throw them in the trash! :)(i also have made a lot of my own lights, because the cateye / blackburn family of bike lights is of such execrably low quality despite the high price, but i’ve abandoned that as well now that i’ve discovered you can buyMUCHhigher quality lights on temu for ludicrously low prices)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180608",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:00:52",
"content": "I just wear my gyno-light (head mounted LED light) to supplement the law compliant POS lights on my bike. It’s old and good, wasn’t that expensive either.But mostly, I ride in daylight.You can’t buy back wasted time.Waste it well.",
"parent_id": "8180597",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,426.078788
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/going-native-with-androids-native-development-kit/
|
Going Native With Android’s Native Development Kit
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Android Hacks",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] |
[
"android ndk",
"android sdk"
] |
Originally Android apps were only developed in Java, targeting the Dalvik Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and its associated environment. Compared to platforms like iOS with Objective-C, which is just C with Smalltalk uncomfortably crammed into it, an obvious problem here is that any JVM will significantly cripple performance, both due to a lack of direct hardware access and the garbage-collector that makes real-time applications such as games effectively impossible. There is also the issue that there is a lot more existing code written in languages like C and C++, with not a lot of enthusiasm among companies for porting existing codebases to Java, or the mostly Android-specific Kotlin.
The solution here was the Native Development Kit (
NDK
), which was introduced in 2009 and provides a
sandboxed environment
that native binaries can run in. The limitations here are mostly due to many standard APIs from a GNU/Linux or BSD environment not being present in Android/Linux, along with the use of the minimalistic Bionic C library and APIs that require a detour via the JVM rather than having it available via the NDK.
Despite these issues, using the NDK can still save a lot of time and allows for the sharing of mostly the same codebase between Android, desktop Linux, BSD and Windows.
NDK Versioning
When implying that use of the NDK can be worth it, I did not mean to suggest that it’s a smooth or painless experience. In fact, the overall experience is generally somewhat frustrating and you’ll run into countless Android-specific issues that cannot be debugged easily or at all with standard development tools like GDB, Valgrind, etc. Compared to something like Linux development, or the pre-Swift world of iOS development where C and C++ are directly supported, it’s quite the departure.
Installing the NDK fortunately doesn’t require that you have the SDK installed, with a
dedicated download page
. You can also download the
command-line tools
in order to get the SDK manager. Whether using the CLI tool or the full-fat SDK manager in the IDE, you get to choose from a whole range of NDK versions, which raises the question of why there’s not just a single NDK version.
The answer here is that although generally you can just pick the latest (stable) version and be fine, each update also updates the included toolchain and Android sysroot, which creates the possibility of issues with an existing codebase. You may have to experiment until you find a version that works for your particular codebase if you end up having build issues, so be sure to mark the version that last worked well. Fortunately you can have multiple NDK versions installed side by side without too much fuss.
Simply set the
NDK_HOME
variable in your respective OS or environment to the NDK folder of your choice and you should be set.
Doing Some Porting
Since Android features a JVM, it’s possible to create the typical native modules for a JVM application using a Java Native Interface (
JNI
) wrapper to do a small part natively, it’s more interesting to do things the other way around. This is also typically what happens when you take an existing desktop application and port it, with my
NymphCast Server (NCS) project
as a good example. This is an SDL- and FFmpeg-based application that’s fairly typical for a desktop application.
Unlike the GUI and Qt-based NymphCast Player which was
briefly covered in a previous article
, NCS doesn’t feature a GUI as such, but uses SDL2 to create a hardware-accelerated window in which content is rendered, which can be an OpenGL-based UI, video playback or a screensaver. This makes SDL2 the first dependency that we have to tackle as we set up the new project.
Of course, first we need to create the Android project folder with its specific layout and files. This is something that has been made
increasingly more convoluted
by Google, with most recently your options reduced to either use the Android Studio IDE or to assemble it
by hand
, with the latter option not much fun. Using an IDE for this probably saves you a lot of headaches, even if it requires breaking the ‘no IDE’ rule. Definitely blame Google for this one.
Next is tackling the SDL2 dependency, with the SDL developers fortunately providing direct support for Android. Simply get the
current release
ZIP file, tarball or whatever your preferred flavor is of SDL2 and put the extracted files into a new folder called
SDL2
inside the project’s JNI folder, creating the full path of
app/jni/SDL2
. Inside this folder we should now at least have the SDL2
include
and
src
folders, along with the
Android.mk
file in the root. This latter file is key to actually building SDL2 during the build process, as we’ll see in a moment.
We first need to take care of the Java connection in SDL2, as the Java files we find in the extracted SDL2 release under
android-project/app/src/main/java/org/libsdl\app
are the glue between the Android JVM world and the native environment. Copy these files into the newly created folder at
src/server/android/app/src/main/java/org/libsdl/app
.
Before we call the SDL2 dependency done, there’s one last step: creating a custom Java class derived from
SDLActivity
, which implements the
getLibraries()
function. This returns an array of strings with the names of the shared libraries that should be loaded, which for NCS are
SDL2
and
nymphcastserver
, which will load their respective
.so
files.
Prior to moving on, let’s address the elephant in the room of why we cannot simply use shared libraries from Linux or a project like
Termux
. There’s no super-complicated reason for this, as it’s mostly about Android’s native environment
not supporting versioned shared libraries
. This means that a file like
widget.so.1.2
will not be found while
widget.so
without encoded versioning would be, thus severely limiting which libraries we can use in a drop-in fashion.
While there has been talk of an NDK package manager over the years, Google doesn’t seem interested in this, and community efforts seem tepid at most outside of Termux, so this is the reality we have to live with.
Sysroot Things
It’d take at least a couple of articles to fully cover the whole experience of setting up the NCS Android port, but a Cliff’s Notes version can be found in the
‘build steps’ notes
which I wrote down primarily for myself and the volunteers on the project as a reference. Especially of note is how many of the dependencies are handled, with static libraries and headers generally added to the sysroot of the target NDK so that they can be used across projects.
For example, NCS relies on the
PoCo
(portable component) libraries – for which I had to create the
Poco-build
project to build it for modern Android – with the resulting static libraries being copied into the sysroot. This sysroot and its location for libraries is found for example on Windows under:
${NDK_HOME}\toolchains\llvm\prebuilt\windows-x86_64\usr\lib\<arch>
The folder layout of the NDK is incredibly labyrinthine, but if you start under the
toolchains/llvm/prebuilt
folder it should be fairly evident where to place things. Headers are copied as is typical once in the
usr/include
folder.
As can be seen in the NCS build notes, we get some static libraries from the Termux project, via its
packages
server. This includes FreeImage, NGHTTP2 and the header-only RapidJSON, which were the only unversioned dependencies that I could find for NCS from this source. The other dependencies are compiled into a library by placing the source with Makefile in their own folders under
app/jni
.
Finally, the reason for picking only static libraries for copying into the sysroot is mostly about convenience, as this way the library is merged into the final shared library that gets spit out by the build system and we don’t need to additionally include these
.so
files in the
app/src/main/jniLibs/<arch>
for copying into the APK.
Building A Build System
Although Google has been pushing CMake on Android NDK developers,
ndk-build
is the more versatile and powerful choice, with projects like SDL offering the requisite
Android.mk
file. To trigger the build of our project from the Gradle wrapper, we need to specify the external native build in
app/build.gradle
as follows:
externalNativeBuild {
ndkBuild {
path 'jni/Android.mk'
}
}
This references a Makefile that just checks all subfolders for a Makefile to run, thus triggering the build of each
Android.mk
file of the dependencies, as well as of NCS itself. Since I didn’t want to copy the entire NCS source code into this folder, the
Android.mk
file is simply an adapted version of the regular NCS Makefile with only the elements that
ndk-build
needs included.
We can now build a debug APK from the CLI with
./gradlew assembleDebug
or equivalent command, before waddling off to have a snack and a relaxing walk to hopefully return to a completed build:
Finished NymphCast Server build for Android on an Intel N100-based system.
Further Steps
Although the above is a pretty rough overview of the entire NDK porting process, it should hopefully provide a few useful pointers if you are considering either porting an existing C or C++ codebase to Android, or to write one from scratch. There are a lot more gotchas that are not covered in this article, but feel free to sound off in the comment section on what else might be useful to cover.
Another topic that’s not covered yet here is that of debugging and profiling. Although you can set up a debugging session – which I prefer to do via an IDE out of sheer convenience – when it comes to profiling and testing for memory and multi-threading issues, you will run into a bit of a brick wall. Although Valgrind kinda-sorta worked on Android in the distant past, you’re mostly stuck using the LLVM-based Address Sanitizer (ASan) or the newer
HWASan
to get you sorta what the Memcheck tool in Valgrind provides.
Unlike the Valgrind tools which require zero code modification, you need to specially compile your code with ASan support, add a special wrapper to the APK and a couple of further modifications to the project. Although I have done this for the NCS project, it was a nightmare, and didn’t really net me very useful results. It’s therefore really recommended to avoid ASan and just debug the code on Linux with Valgrind.
Currently NCS is nearly as stable as on desktop OSes, meaning that instead of it being basically bombproof it will occasionally flunk out, with an
AAudio
-related error on some test devices for so far completely opaque reasons. This, too, is is illustrative of the utter joy that it is to port applications to Android. As long as you can temper your expectations and have some guides to follow it’s not too terrible, but the NDK really rubs in how much Android is not ‘just another Linux distro’.
| 8
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180088",
"author": "helmlier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:39:44",
"content": "Honestly who cares about Android anymore… just gonna end up being a worse closed garden than apple at this point..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180588",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:10:59",
"content": "people care about it because they use it. our frustration and disapproval doesn’t make it disappear.",
"parent_id": "8180088",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181436",
"author": "naus3a",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T17:57:13",
"content": "I’ll tell you why I care about android:1. I need a smartphone, like everybody2. I need apps for public transport, the bank etc, so unfortunately a pure linux smartphone is not a practical option3. If I have a computer in my pocket, I need a terminal. Termux might not be perfect, but it’s better than what I have on iOS4. I think that having to pay a yearly dev license to be allowed to develop on my own device is a total lack of respect, so I stopped buying iphones ages ago5. Every single time I need to log into my apple id my stomach aches6. Everytime I end up on Apple docs and tech forums I cannot stop imagining every line is written by somebody named Brad, a guy who has a very high level understanding of the topic being discussed, but still wants to contribute. This also make my stomach ache.In short: is android what I really want? Nope, but it’s still better than the alternative for me.",
"parent_id": "8180088",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180190",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T23:32:33",
"content": "Working in the NDK ages ago on a multiplatform OGL/GLES app, I found app-modal dialogs from non-native gui components (like the ui flow for file or camera permissions) tricky to deal with. Perhaps I wasn’t multithreading somewhere I should’ve been? I’d love to know what the state of the art patterns are now.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180591",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:13:30",
"content": "ugh that’s just about the hardest android problem to solve imo. and it’s also a really intrinsic one because we get so much advantage out of the stock GUI, but you really have to reinventeverythingonce you abandon that.i would recommend starting up a stock gui “Activity” written in regular java, and doing all your permissions first. and only when that’s done do you switch to an NDK gui, using the framebuffer or GLES or whatever.",
"parent_id": "8180190",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180354",
"author": "olaf",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:13:51",
"content": "What is the advantage over Qt that can do the same?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180592",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:18:21",
"content": "advantage of what? of SDL? same as on non-android platforms: SDL is much simpler if you don’t actually need a full GUI.(though on android i typically just initialize a “Surface” in java using the android API, and simply call into NDK just to fill in that frame buffer, rather than putting my main application in the NDK)",
"parent_id": "8180354",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180586",
"author": "Jamie S",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:09:47",
"content": "I feel like CMake may be able to complete some of these steps more easily. The Android NDK has a toolchain file that allows building basically any “regular” CMake project for Android:https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/cmakeSince the POCO library has a CMake build system, you should be able to compile it for android simply by passing -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/path/to/ndk_toolchain_file.cmake",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.317378
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/usb-c-pd-decoded-a-diy-meter-and-logger-for-power-insights/
|
USB-C PD Decoded: A DIY Meter And Logger For Power Insights
|
Matt Varian
|
[
"hardware"
] |
[
"ESP-01",
"power meter",
"USB-C PD"
] |
As USB-C PD becomes more and more common, it’s useful to have a tool that lets you understand exactly what it’s doing—no longer is it limited to just 5 V. This
DIY USB-C PD tool
, sent in by [ludwin], unlocks the ability to monitor voltage and current, either on a small screen built into the device or using Wi-Fi.
This design comes in two flavors: with and without screen. The OLED version is based on an STM32, and the small screen shows you the voltage, current, and wattage flowing through the device. The Wi-Fi PD logger version uses an ESP-01s to host a small website that shows you those same values, but with the additional feature of being able to log that data over time and export a CSV file with all the collected data, which can be useful when characterizing the power draw of your project over time.
Both versions use the classic INA219 in conjunction with a 50 mΩ shunt resistor, allowing for readings in the 1 mA range. The enclosure is 3D-printed, and the files for it, as well as all the electronics and firmware, are available over on the
GitHub page
. Thanks [ludwin] for sending in this awesome little tool that can help show the performance of your USB-C PD project. Be sure to check out some of the other
USB-C PD
projects we’ve featured.
| 9
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179881",
"author": "Lacey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:04:17",
"content": "Only an hour ago I was thinking it would be handy to have something like this, mostly because I was using a new PD supply with my phone and have no idea which volate mode it’s operating on out of 5, 9, 12, 15 and 20.Also been playing with some cheap PD boards from AliExpress – configuring them to 9/12v and then using them with buck converters to drive old consoles seems to work well. Using one directly configured for 5V with an SMS. Modern power option for about a quid.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180166",
"author": "Zombodotcom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:40:18",
"content": "Literally bought one from AliExpress for 3$.And 20 different cables for 10$.So far it’s worked like a charm.But no wifi!!! Diy wins again",
"parent_id": "8179881",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182476",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T22:19:52",
"content": "I have some from AliExpress and some from Conrad. None of them work for phone chargers because they only accept input on the male plug and output on the female socket. I have yet to find one that can go the other way or measure both ways.",
"parent_id": "8180166",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179953",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T14:55:22",
"content": "This can be the base for an “USB-C condom”: all the data lines would be cut, and a microcontroller would process the PD data in the power source, send it filtered to the device being charged, and send the replies to the power source. Or even better: two microcontrollers connected through a serial interface for maximum isolation. That way it’s possible to avoid any backdoor in the CC1 protocol.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180081",
"author": "blacksmithtb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:20:30",
"content": "It’s a fun project, but the end result does not equal the commercially available tools, likehttps://plugable.com/products/usbc-vameter3which can handle 240W (not sure I’d want to push that much power through a homemade tester…)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180129",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:39:15",
"content": "reading the reviews of that one – V1 was pretty good, V3 (the current one) not so much.",
"parent_id": "8180081",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180264",
"author": "ChrisM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:33:36",
"content": "” equal the commercially available tools, ”I do not see any data logging function there. If so, it has by far not the same function.",
"parent_id": "8180081",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180134",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:43:05",
"content": "But there is nothing USB-PD here, it’s just a voltage/current monitor that has Type-C plugs on both ends",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180626",
"author": "TbR78",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:49:26",
"content": "Came back to make exactly this comment… it’s a voltage and current meter with USB-C connectors. Nice, but it has a misleading name.Moreover, you can buy real USB-PD tools in smaller form factor that actually decode the PD protocol on the CC lines to show additional data.And, if you plug this in an EPS-capable USB-PD power source, it might even fry the circuit due to going higher than 24V.",
"parent_id": "8180134",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,425.841288
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/original-mac-limitations-cant-stop-you-from-running-ai-models/
|
Original Mac Limitations Can’t Stop You From Running AI Models
|
Ian Bos
|
[
"News"
] |
[
"apple",
"Apple Macintosh",
"mnist databse",
"neural network",
"sdk"
] |
Modern retrocomputing tricks often push old hardware and systems further than any of the back-in-the-day developers could have ever dreamed. How about a neural network on an original Mac? [KenDesigns] does just this with a classic
handwritten digit identification network running with an entire custom SDK
!
Getting such a piece of hardware running what is effectively multiple decades of machine learning is as hard as most could imagine. (The
MNIST dataset
used wasn’t even put together until the 90s.) Due to floating-point limitations on the original Mac, there are a variety of issues with attempting to run machine learning models. One of the several hoops to jump through required quantization of the model. This also allows the model to be squeezed into the limited RAM of the Mac.
Impressively, one of the most important features of [KenDesigns] setup is the custom SDK, allowing for the lack of macOS. This allows for incredibly nitty-gritty adjustments, but also requires an entire custom installation. Not all for nothing, though, as after some training manipulation, the model runs with some clear proficiency.
If you want to see it go, check out the video embedded below. Or if you just want to run it on your ancient Mac,
you’ll find a disk image here
. Emulators have even been tested to work for those without the original hardware. Newer hardware traditionally proves to be easier and more compact to use than these older toys; however, it doesn’t make it any less impressive to run a neural
network on a calculator
!
| 14
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179834",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:28:35",
"content": "Let’s just wait a little longer and users will have unlearned to use a mouse of a GUI operated system.Instead, they will be asking an LLM like ChatGPT to click an icon or make a selection. Let’s just wait..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179911",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:11:55",
"content": "I asked ChatGPT to analyze the products on a website, give me the highest priced product in each category.It took almost an hour, inefficiently at first browsing the site, but eventually figuring out how to do so in a reasonable manner, collected the process across categories. It missed 1 category for some reason, but got the 5 other categories.I didn’t have to tell it how to do any of this, I just told it what I wanted it to collect and give me.So, anybody with a brain and hand eye coordination could have done it in a fraction of the time, but it was still impressive that we can provide a goal, and the system can figure out how to achieve it.",
"parent_id": "8179834",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179965",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:37:41",
"content": "The technology is fascinating, no question.However, it’s scary to think what it may do to us or some of us in near future.I know people who can’t do written calculation anymore, for example.Today, we can be glad when people know how to use a pocket calculator, still.Humans should be the masters of technology and not other way round.Once they as a society have forgotten the fundamental workings of their technology,they’ll feel lost once said technology needs maintenance.It wasn’t like this yet in the 1980s when kids knew each peek/poke of a C64 and had a book of a 6502 and the c64 kernal.90s was still mostly similar, when books of x86 assembly and interrupt tables ofMS-DOS were normal things to be found in the shelf of any average computer user.Then there’s another problem. Search engines are switching to LLMs, too.In near future, it’ll be nolonger about finding valuable information on a given topic,but about search engines providing an answer based on ratings (what users seem to like most).Like it started a couple of years ago with the paid ads being showing up first, but worse.So if you’re searching for information about the healthiness of a certain drink,you won’t links to scientific papers anymore but you’re may ending up with positive summary or a public relations website of C. Cola.",
"parent_id": "8179911",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179983",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T16:58:05",
"content": "Humans should be the masters of technology and not other way round.Once they as a society have forgotten the fundamental workings of their technology,they’ll feel lost once said technology needs maintenance.I generally agree.However, some tech becomes obsolete or relegated to niche- or hobbyist-only use over time. Very few people besides hobbyists and collectors use a tube radio that they have to maintain? Ditto a butter churn or pre-19th-century-technology firearms.Other tech becomes so low-maintenance that it’s easier to pay an expert on the rare occasions that it fails. Take cars. Even 60 years ago wise drivers knew how to do things like add water to the battery, change oil, add radiator fluid, change a tire (inner tube and tubeless), adjust and replace spark plugs, and more. Now, failures other than a punctured tire are rare, and cars warn you ahead of time so you can drive to your mechanic or for “imminent catastrophe” issues, pull over and call for help.",
"parent_id": "8179965",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179987",
"author": "undersampled",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:05:30",
"content": "Do you know how to make a 6502? Would you be able to repair the chip if it broke?It’s called the technology trap, and we “fell into it” decades before computing. It’s hard to say that it was a bad idea, especially considering that modern medicine is also part of that system.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKELMR6wACw",
"parent_id": "8179965",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180089",
"author": "threeve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:41:39",
"content": "Pretty soon, kids these days won’t even know how to to charge they phone, eat hot chip and lie.",
"parent_id": "8179834",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179863",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:12:25",
"content": "Very interesting reading material for everyone who really wants to go old-skool regarding handwriting recognition. With some very good examples, seriously!https://jackschaedler.github.io/handwriting-recognition/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179878",
"author": "Zmar",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:02:56",
"content": "Thanks for sharing. I’m in the process of going over a lot of old course notes and I was searching for some HTR solution to digitalize all of them. From what I’ve found, the best way could be to fine-tune a kraken HTR model to my own handwriting. Base models however work really kinda bad, lots of nonsense because my cursive is inconsisten + often warped. I’m gonna give this a good read !",
"parent_id": "8179863",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179890",
"author": "Matt Cramer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:14:26",
"content": "Suggested next challenge: Run this on an Apple Newton, which badly needed it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179916",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:26:03",
"content": "Aw come on now, how about an Eliza front end lol?!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179999",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:30:09",
"content": "And how does “how about an Eliza front end lol?!” make you feel?_",
"parent_id": "8179916",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180085",
"author": "Clif",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:28:19",
"content": "In the 90s, we were doing semantic processing with a neural net doing a lot of the heavy lifting. XFNC/XCMDs all in LightSpeedPascal along with plain C, and a hypercard front end.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180139",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:52:41",
"content": "In the 1980s when software stores were a thing you could buy neural net software for the PC-XT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180637",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:06:44",
"content": "Yes, there was a time of such things.In AI, there had been two big groups at the time, neuronal nets and expert systems.Commercial software such as Question and Answer (Q&A) were popular, for example, which ran on DOS and IBM PC.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%26A_(Symantec)They would combine Eliza with a database, essentially.You could ask things such as, say, how many women in a state have a driver’s license at the promptand then the database would show the matching results.Real neural nets had been worked on, too in the 1980s.Especially advanced computers such as Macintosh, Atari ST or some graphics workstation were usable for this research, I think.There are some videos ln YT, I think.",
"parent_id": "8180139",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,426.133683
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/utf-8-is-beautiful/
|
UTF-8 Is Beautiful
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Software Hacks"
] |
[
"character set",
"UTF-8"
] |
It’s likely that many Hackaday readers will be aware of UTF-8, the mechanism for incorporating diverse alphabets and other characters such as 💩 emojis. It takes the long-established 7-bit ASCII character set and extends it into multiple bytes to represent many thousands of characters. How it does this may well be beyond that basic grasp, and [Vishnu] is here with
a primer that’s both fascinating and easy to read
.
UTF-8 extends ASCII from codes which fit in a single byte, to codes which can be up to four bytes long. The key lies in the first few bits of each byte, which specify how many bytes each character has, and then that it is a data byte. Since 7-bit ASCII codes always have a 0 in their most significant bit when mapped onto an 8-bit byte, compatibility with ASCII is ensured by the first 128 characters always beginning with a zero bit. It’s simple, elegant, and for any of who had to deal with character set hell in the days before it came along, magic.
We’ve talked surprisingly little about the internals of UTF-8 in the past, but it’s worthy of note that this is our second piece ever to use the poop emoji, after
our coverage of the billionth GitHub repository
.
Emoji bales: Tony Hisgett,
CC BY 2.0
.
| 30
| 16
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179799",
"author": "a",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T05:47:36",
"content": "*poop",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179832",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:24:49",
"content": "It’s lacking CP437, which was part of the IBM PC’s character set.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179894",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:33:53",
"content": "No it’s not? wikipedia:Code page 437",
"parent_id": "8179832",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180072",
"author": "FeRDNYC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:02:15",
"content": "The Unicode Consortium has put pretty mucheverythinginto UTF-8. In addition to all of the traditional written languages that used to be covered by code pages / character sets (even the old box-drawing symbology from DOS and other systems), they’ve adopted the emoji library (which was the wild West when device vendors controlled it absent shared standards), made emoji composable via zero-width joiners, added the combining glyph sets (the reason it’s now possible to write “Spin̈al Tap” without a special font, despite an umlaut over a consonant not being valid in any language), accepted Klingon iconography, and a couple of years ago they even brought in a raft of retro computing symbols, like the Delete characters from the Apple ][, TRS-80, and Amstrad CPC. (, , and respectively).",
"parent_id": "8179832",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179842",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:49:30",
"content": "In 2008, I was working on a large website migration project from several CMS’s into one. After a while, I could recognize what kind of codepage translation errors were happening based on what characters I got to see, like efficiÃíncy (which should be efficiëncy, I forgot the exact characters). That’s when I started learning about UTF-8 and found out what a wonderful design it is (yes, I know it has its faults).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179847",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:05:36",
"content": "At the time, there were alternatives to UTF. Such as ISO 8859-15 or use of HTML Entities.Normally, the web browser should handle it automatically if the HTML header has the character set mentioned.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-15https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entities.asp",
"parent_id": "8179842",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180106",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:33:51",
"content": "Yes, but the old CMS didn’t have proper codepage declarations and we extracted it right from their backends, so we didn’t (automatically) know what we were converting from. To it was all unicode/utf-8, not HTML entities.",
"parent_id": "8179847",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179856",
"author": "MrSVCD",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:34:15",
"content": "UTF-8 is a way to encode numbers.Unicode is a way to represent characters as numbers.UTF-8 is a way to use Unicode that is Ascii compatible.If Unicode had decide to not copy ascii into the first block, UTF-8 encoded Unicode would not be ascii compatible.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179994",
"author": "defdefred",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:15:17",
"content": "Yes!And unicode is a mess.",
"parent_id": "8179856",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179909",
"author": "Mr T",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:07:32",
"content": "A specific, security-related problem with UTF-8 are overlong characters where the same character can be represented with different UTF-8 codes, basically by encoding leading zeros.An example with the letter ‘e’ (ASCII 65, 0x41) and four different hex UTF-8 representations (UTF-8 value => encoded value).0x41 => 0x410xC181 => 0x0410xE08181 => 0x00410xF0808181 => 0x00041They all end up as an ‘e’ but only the first is valid. This means that a program checking against a specific text may be fooled by letters in overlong UTF-8.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179913",
"author": "Mr T",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:17:05",
"content": "Not the letter ‘e’, but ‘A’ — Sorry!",
"parent_id": "8179909",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179943",
"author": "joegatling",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T13:59:53",
"content": "Is the security risk here that I could sneak the word “cheese” past a disallow list with that word on it by using overlong notation on the “e” and hoping that the search function gets confused, but trusting that Notepad.exe doesn’t?",
"parent_id": "8179909",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179957",
"author": "AaronFish",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:07:09",
"content": "I mean maybe, if you’re part of the dairy industry that could be a risk. But a more common risk might be IDN homograph attacks where a malicious party registers a domain thatlookslike a legit one but is slightly tweaked at the unicode level so it’s technically not:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack",
"parent_id": "8179943",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180046",
"author": "Mr T",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:38:39",
"content": "That is obviously a huge risk! 🤪The risk is more for allowing text through that should have been sanitised or rejected. Think how a not-so-smart way of avoiding SQL injection attacks could be implemented by rejecting apostrophes and semicolons in the input data without also rejecting all overlong codes (the right way) or checking for the characters to reject even if they are specified as overlong UTF-8 (the stupid but possibly working way).",
"parent_id": "8179943",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180714",
"author": "Jim J Jewett",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T23:28:31",
"content": "Hard to see how that could be a problem unless confusables are already a worse problem. (Confusables are different characters that look the same … Essentially a generalization of the old 1 vs l vs I problem.)",
"parent_id": "8180046",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179971",
"author": "Eric Hughes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T16:03:22",
"content": "Such overlong encodings have been expressly forbidden for almost 25 hears. This corrigendum is from November 2000.https://www.unicode.org/versions/corrigendum1.html. Here’s the most relevant sentence:[…] the Unicode Technical Committee has modified the definition of UTF-8 to forbid conformant implementations from interpreting non-shortest forms […]Whatever problems that have actually arisen are not a problem with the UTF-8 definition. The definition is more than just the encoding and decoding specifications, but also puts behavioral restrictions on the software that uses them. The problems in practice are from noncompliant software, that is, from defects in implementation.",
"parent_id": "8179909",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180028",
"author": "Mr T",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:26:16",
"content": "It is far from all problems that are due to bad specifications — including this — but rather due developers only reading the part of the specification that defines the bit patterns to use, implementing those, and then getting on to the next project they can do wrong.Buffer overflows, memory leaks, SQL injection attacks … you name it and someone will do it wrong — even today, way more than 25 years after they were made know and the knowledge disseminated.Theoretically, it could have been avoided by actually assigning those overlong patterns to special characters, at the cost of easy implementation, sure, but it would have made it more probable that some lazy developers would have implemented that part too and avoided the pitfall.",
"parent_id": "8179971",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180084",
"author": "defdefred",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:27:21",
"content": "Exactly!Plus adding formating information in to unicode is a real mess.",
"parent_id": "8179909",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179944",
"author": "玩家１’",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T14:03:08",
"content": "My username on a lot of stuff isplær1’or玩家１’",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179996",
"author": "fluffy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:25:02",
"content": "Ironically, this website’s RSS feed replaces emojis with pictures, which are also rendered much larger than the surrounding text (although at least it preserve the emoji in alt text so copy-paste still works).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180062",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:49:16",
"content": "So an emoji blocker is more than just a way of getting those yellow circles off my screen? Good.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180080",
"author": "None",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:20:20",
"content": "Brought to you by the same fine people that invented UNIX and C. Thank you Ken Thomson, for allowing us to leave behind UCS-2 (which was a VERY BAD IDEA even back in 1990).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180094",
"author": "Erik Johnson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:55:14",
"content": "I once worked with a chat protocol that had null-delimited segments. Except the NULL was UTF-8 encoded; 0xC0 0x80",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180238",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T01:10:16",
"content": "I am glad in my career I only had to deal with the standard ascii 7-8 bit codes. Does everything I ever needed doing… and still does. Makes everything simpler.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180369",
"author": "Reggie",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:32:10",
"content": "Exactly. UTF-8 is both beautiful and cancer.",
"parent_id": "8180238",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180322",
"author": "Josué Vicioso",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T05:16:05",
"content": "Missed opportunity to name the article “UTF-8 is BeaUTFul”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180441",
"author": "danny s",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:43:02",
"content": "Having had to deal with code pages, translations and British developers who thought £ was ASCII (it isn’t, it’s just in British code pages), I pretty much got to “just use utf-8”.If you’ve seen translation files opened and modified in an editor with the wrong code page (was it an 8859-n or a win-125n?) resulting in horrid mojibake, switching the “just use ASCII” mindset to “just use UTF-8” is a big win.For those who’ve not seen it mojibake is where a string of bytes (e.g. for some Chinese characters in GB-nnnn) gets reinterpreted into some other code page (a win-125x on PC somewhere in Europe) then saved creating a byte sequence no longer sensible in the original character set. Using UTF-8 all the way through (maybe apart from an initial ingest from some other known character set) will prevent it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180560",
"author": "Christian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:23:02",
"content": "UTF8 should have been the default for strings and byte arrays in any programming language / OS. This distinction between text and bytes is annoying me. Let the output functions, deal with the presentation, to a fault if need be. Instead I have to litter my code with .decode(UTF8) / .encode(UTF8) calls. Not to mention that most code bases will have bugs/security issues with any incoming external text. Either not checking “It’s base64, it’s safe” or not handling badly encoded UTF8. Letting each app/program/os deal with it has be the poorest choice ever made.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180585",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:09:30",
"content": "i try to exclude utf-8 from my life, because the iso-latin charset is enough for my purposes. really, 90% of my complaints would be resolved if there was just a good way to search for (‘/’) any character with the high-ascii-bit set for search-and-replace of errant post-modern quotation marks.but i think a cool thing about utf-8 is that NUL is still NUL. so if you run UTF-8 through a program that isn’t expecting it, which just uses the regular NUL-terminated string functions like strcmp() and strcpy(), it will tend to “just work.” it will pass through the UTF-8 code points unchanged. you don’t need a major re-architecting to use counted strings or wchar_t.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180686",
"author": "grexe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T21:20:24",
"content": "My first contact with UTF-8 was through BeOS, the revolutionary operating system of the late 1990s. Can you imagine how amazing it was back then to be able to handle all those special characters throughout the system in a consistent, easy and native way, all the way down to the filesystem? 🤓",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.02059
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/e-waste-and-waste-oil-combine-to-make-silver/
|
E-Waste And Waste Oil Combine To Make Silver
|
Tyler August
|
[
"chemistry hacks",
"News"
] |
[
"Chemistry",
"e-waste recycling"
] |
As the saying goes, “if it can’t be grown, it has to be mined”– but what about all the metals that have already been wrested from the bosom of the Earth? Once used, they can be recycled– or as this
paper charmingly puts it, become ore for “urban mining” techniques
. The technique under discussion in the Chemical Engineering Journal is one that extracts metallic silver from e-waste using fatty acids and hydrogen peroxide.
This “graphical abstract” gives the rough idea.
Right now, recycling makes up about 17% of the global silver supply. As
rich sources of ore dry up
, and the world moves to more sustainable footing, that number can only go up. Recycling e-waste already happens, of course, but in messy, dangerous processes that are generally banned in the developed world. (Like open burning, of plastic, gross.)
This paper describes a “green” process that even the most fervant granola-munching NIMBY wouldn’t mind have in their neighborhood: hot fatty acids (AKA oil) are used as an organic solvent to dissolve metals from PCB and wire. The paper mentions sourcing the solvent from waste sunflower, safflower or canola oil. As you might imagine, most metals, silver included, are not terribly soluble in sunflower oil, but a little refining and the addition of 30% hydrogen peroxide changes that equation.
More than just Ag is picked up in this process, but the oils do select for silver over other metals. The paper presents a way to then selectively precipitate out the silver as silver oleate using ethanol and flourescent light. The oleate compound can then be easily washed and burnt to produce pure silver.
The authors of the paper take the time to demonstrate the process on a silver-plated keyboard connector, so there is proof of concept on real e-waste. Selecting for silver means leaving behind gold, however, so we’re not sure how the economics of this method will stack up.
Of course, when Hackaday talks about
recycling e-waste
, it’s usually more on the
“reuse” part
of “reduce, reuse, recycle”. After all, one man’s e-waste is another man’s parts bin–
or priceless historical artifact
.
Thanks to [Brian] for the tip.Your tips can be easily recycled into Hackaday posts through an environmentally-friendly process
via our tipsline.
| 12
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179733",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T02:46:43",
"content": "Ok, but what happens to the slush that’s left over? Presumably the electronics would need to be ground into a more surface-available dust and mixed into a slurry for this chemical process to work. This liquid waste can be a lot harder to deal with than the more relatively solid waste you normally see.And ask for the other metals that are leached out, but not as readily, what happens to them? If you only pull 10% as much eg. cadmium into the solution, you’ve still got a solution with a lot of cadmium in it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179857",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:40:58",
"content": "Seems like having skimmed the paper they didn’t do anything but cut larger chunks into pretty large cubes and all the other metals that are dissolved remain in the liquid for the most part, and that liquid can in theory be reused to process more after the silver gets selectively precipitated.So in theory at least you’d build up the other metals that do dissolve to a level that makes the silver extraction less and less efficient, though maybe it would also cease to be producing such pure silver. Either way at that point you have a fairly concentrated mix of these other metals in a small volume of liquid rather than huge volume of e-waste plastics you can process. Also as it seems from a skim read the gold isn’t touched by this process the waste from silver extraction is probably worth then processing that waste for gold extraction eventually.All in all an interesting concept that I’d like to see the long term recycling projections done with.",
"parent_id": "8179733",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179801",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T05:55:40",
"content": "dangerous processes that are generally banned in the eloped world…Where did the world elope to? What did its parents have to say about it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179810",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T06:27:14",
"content": ":) Fixed, and thanks.",
"parent_id": "8179801",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179930",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T13:11:58",
"content": "lol",
"parent_id": "8179801",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179802",
"author": "Dom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T05:56:19",
"content": "I’d be keen to see some statistics for silver consumption after the introduction of digital cameras. Silver being a significant component of film negatives, I know the bleach baths for colour film – where the developed silver and unexposed silver halides were removed – were targeted for recovering the silver halides.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179923",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:47:47",
"content": "Solar panels.",
"parent_id": "8179802",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179824",
"author": "Menno",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T07:52:30",
"content": "“fatty acids (AKA oil) ”Fatty acids are not oil. Fatty acids are, well, just that: fatty acids.Oils (as mentioned here, vegetable oils) are esters of fatty acids and glycerol.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179984",
"author": "Mr. Christopher",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T16:58:56",
"content": "I always worry when I read about some new industrial process that takes some input that’s human food and turns it into something that is NOT edible. Sure they are using waste sunflower oil, but increased demand will cause the price to go up. And if clean oil works better there will always be the temptation to use fresh oil . Second, even if they swear it will never happen, there’s always a way for used & contaminated oil to somehow make it back to the human food supply.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180056",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:46:54",
"content": "Well luckily that stuff isn’t human food in the first place, it was mass marketed as food after petroleum oil bases for paint were developed, leaving behind a massive industry of sunflower and flax and rapeseed oil production that was (until then) considered unfit for human consumption. So they just handwaved that and re-marketed it.",
"parent_id": "8179984",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180070",
"author": "EA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T19:00:16",
"content": "Get out of here, you unscientific seed oil crank.",
"parent_id": "8180056",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180097",
"author": "Mr. Christopher",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:02:56",
"content": "Cool, Cool.I express concern about profit-driven industry misdirecting resources, and I get nutrition science’s answer to the ancient aliens guy,",
"parent_id": "8180056",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,425.902714
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/this-rail-speeder-needs-a-little-work/
|
This Rail Speeder Needs A Little Work
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Transportation Hacks"
] |
[
"Electric motor",
"rail speeder",
"steel rim"
] |
If you take the wheels off a FIAT Punto, you might just notice that those rims fit nicely on a rail. [AT Lab] did, and
the resulting build makes for a very watchable video
.
Some of us have been known to spend a little too much time chasing trains, and there’s little on rails that won’t catch a railfan’s eye. That goes for rail speeders too, home constructed railcarts for exploring abandoned lines, and there are some great builds out there. We like the one in the video below the break, but we can’t help noticing a flaw which might just curtail its career.
It’s a simple enough build, a wooden chassis, a single motor and chain drive to one axle. All the wheel fittings are 3D printed, which might be a case of using the one tool you have to do everything, but seems to work. It rides well on the test track which appears to be an abandoned industrial siding, but it’s in those wheels we can see the problem and we guess that perhaps the builder is not familiar with rails. The Punto wheels have an inner rim and an outer rim, while a true rail wheel only has an inner one. There’s a good reason for this; real railways have points and other trackwork, not to mention recessed rails at road crossings or the like. We love the cart, but we’d cut those inner rims off to avoid painful derailments.
If you’re up for the ultimate railway build, take care not to go near a live line, and make sure you follow
this video series
.
| 29
| 11
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180574",
"author": "JSL",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:53:03",
"content": "“but we’d cut those inner rims off to avoid painful derailments.” I think you meant to say that you’d cut the outer rims off, not the inner ones.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180579",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:59:44",
"content": "it’s the inner rims of the wheel, but they are mounted in reverse here… but yeah, it’s not at all clear :)",
"parent_id": "8180574",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180707",
"author": "A railfan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:36:36",
"content": "I think the proper railroad term for what is being referred to as “rim” here is flange.",
"parent_id": "8180574",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180580",
"author": "Ranomatic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:00:51",
"content": "I think I’m confused about how that FIAT wheel works. If you remove the wheels, aren’t the rims a part of what you removed?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180708",
"author": "Zygo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:48:42",
"content": "No, you’re confused about the structure of the sentence.You remove the wheels, then use the wheels (including the rim) on the project. If you look at the picture, the Fiat Punto is no where to be seen, only the wheels remain.",
"parent_id": "8180580",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180733",
"author": "Ranomatic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T02:43:36",
"content": "Ha! Of course you are right.",
"parent_id": "8180708",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180587",
"author": "Jan Prägert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:10:41",
"content": "“one tool you have to do everything”“it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180590",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:12:16",
"content": "‘When your only tool is a hammer, all the world starts to look like a skull!’",
"parent_id": "8180587",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180589",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:11:12",
"content": "The wear parts are the car wheels.Tops of rails are hardened.No need to cut the outer part of the rim off.It will fall off on it’s own, in a hundred miles or so.More or less, the same punchline as the ‘Asian clap’ joke.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180596",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:28:51",
"content": "Something about not needing roads and trying to get the thing up to 88Mph.",
"parent_id": "8180589",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180599",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:37:23",
"content": "This is one of those 10/10 bad ideas. I love it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180614",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:14:41",
"content": "the only thing wrong with this build is a lack of a shovel holder. you kind of need one to dig out of situations where abandoned rails have accumulated a surplus of dirt. abandoned rails tend to be abandoned for a reason.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180620",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:24:59",
"content": "ahhhh… but what if there’s another person on a similar contraption but coming from the opposite direction, moving at high speed and also assuming the tracks are abandoned?",
"parent_id": "8180614",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180635",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:01:48",
"content": "its not an actual train so i would fathom their stopping distance is rather short. at least within visual range. typical turn radii are wide and grades are shallow so very little chance for them to sneak up on you.",
"parent_id": "8180620",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180661",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T19:42:14",
"content": "This makes me wonder if there are any high tech hobos that could hitch their vehicles to the back of a train while it’s moving to get a free ride.Like if you had one of those rail trucks and a grappling hook :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180672",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:27:55",
"content": "We don’t live in the world of Wile Coyote physics.But don’t let me stop you.Please ensure your attempt is videoed!",
"parent_id": "8180661",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180703",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:22:38",
"content": "The grappling hook was a joke but the overall premise isn’t entirely unrealistic.I don’t see a reason someone couldn’t connect an extra unofficial train car.",
"parent_id": "8180672",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180763",
"author": "Krzysztof",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T06:52:51",
"content": "They would either need to sneak up on a moving train somehow which requires good engine and fast car to chase the train, or attach at rail station, but this would be noticed.",
"parent_id": "8180703",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180954",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T15:25:32",
"content": "Trains aren’t always going that fast and sometimes they will have a point in the middle of nowhere where they stop to let another train pass first.Either of those situations lower the requirements.",
"parent_id": "8180763",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181056",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T19:12:02",
"content": "Amtrak hauls private cars for a price.I bet you could pry open your wallet and rent a historic private railcar for a coast to coast trip.WAG middle five figures.More if you want the butler.Amtrak would suck, but it would suck less than being at the end of a freight.",
"parent_id": "8180703",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181973",
"author": "cplamb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T21:03:51",
"content": "Yeah, but Amtrak no longer allows people to travel on the open air observation platform at the ends of many cars.",
"parent_id": "8181056",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181030",
"author": "cplamb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T17:45:49",
"content": "Trains periodically travel over detectors which count the axles. If the axle count is not what is expected the crew will stop the train and figure out why.",
"parent_id": "8180661",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180665",
"author": "Nikolai",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:00:05",
"content": "I would make the top of the bed rotating to drive back.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180887",
"author": "marc luscher",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:41:25",
"content": "would just rotating the seat and a gear complication (to drive the motors in the other direction) accomplish all that is needed ? the control stick (judging from the controls I have seen and used) would be somewhat uncomfortable but could be replaced or modified",
"parent_id": "8180665",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180666",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:11:52",
"content": "“If you take the wheels off a FIAT Punto, you might just notice that those rims fit nicely on a rail.”As someone tried to point out above, if you take the wheels off a car, that car has no rims. Being non-existent they do not fit nicely or otherwise.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181317",
"author": "Jenny List",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T11:54:45",
"content": "“rims” is common parlance in automotive enthusiast circles for wheels.",
"parent_id": "8180666",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182714",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T16:53:32",
"content": "Correct.If you want fancy wheels, you go into a tire shop and ask for a ‘rim job’.Just like getting heads rebuilt at the machine shop.",
"parent_id": "8181317",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180723",
"author": "Christopher Reeves",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T23:55:50",
"content": "What it needs is a quick way to drive off the rails in case something’s coming.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180856",
"author": "Soheren",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T12:45:11",
"content": "Riding the rails scene from the movie ‘The flim flam man’ with George C Scott:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k8H0Iz2gaiU&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.196045
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/serious-chemical-threat-sniffer-on-a-budget/
|
Serious Chemical Threat Sniffer On A Budget
|
Heidi Ulrich
|
[
"chemistry hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] |
[
"air",
"air quality",
"air quality monitor",
"chemical warfare",
"gas",
"pollution",
"smog",
"VOC"
] |
Chemical warfare detection was never supposed to be a hobbyist project. Yet here we are:
Air Quality Guardian
by [debdoot], the self-proclaimed world’s first open source chemical threat detection system, claims to pack lab-grade sensing into an ESP32-based build for less than $100. Compare that with $10,000+ black-box hardware and you see why this is worth trying at home, even if this project might not have the nut cracked just yet.
Unlike
your air monitor from IKEA,
the device aims to analyze raw gas sensor resistance – ohm-level data most devices throw away – combined with temporal spikes, humidity correlations, and a database of 35+ signatures. Of course, there is a lot of work to be done here on the calibration side, and we don’t have any chemical warfare agents on hand to test against, so we have no idea how well it works, and we’d expect false positives. Still, the idea of taking a more granular look at the data coming off the sensor may bear some fruit.
(Editor’s note: edited with a hefty dash of skeptical salt.)
Featured Image by
Arjun Lama
on
Unsplash
| 40
| 15
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180487",
"author": "Clark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:27:26",
"content": "I truly admire the self-confidence of the person who wrote the readme, boldly explaining how this arduino + 8€ COTS sensor combined with ~900 lines of C++ is better than professional chemical warfare detection systems.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180494",
"author": "Shoe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:43:35",
"content": "I’d also be interested to hear how they think they developed a system for detecting nerve gas/Sarin, and how they think they tested it to ensure the code is working, bearing in mind that the manual for the BME688/AI-studio says it has to be taught what signal a chemical will generate.",
"parent_id": "8180487",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180497",
"author": "Douglas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:57:39",
"content": "the person who wrote the readmeI’d bet quite some money that the readme was written by an LLM. Just look at the “Project Structure” part. And the fact that “dirtysalsa” has forked the DeepSeek-V3 repo.",
"parent_id": "8180494",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180554",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:12:57",
"content": "It’s all talk and no proof, IMO. Whether it’s AI or human, there’s a very strong smell of “fake it till you make it” over there.And I don’t think they’ve made it just yet.",
"parent_id": "8180497",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180567",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:34:36",
"content": "I’m not sure we should be giving this airtime and legitimacy by featuring it here?",
"parent_id": "8180554",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180577",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:55:28",
"content": "I hear you, but we can’t un-publish it. Or rather, we don’t — editorial policy. So let’s just chalk it up as a mistake.OTOH, there’s actually some good discussion about how to correctly do the chemical sensing that’s developing in the comments here, so I guess that’s some kind of redemption?",
"parent_id": "8180554",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180569",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:37:33",
"content": "Ah, I see this has been addressed more in comments below, but it’d be good to say something at the top of the article I think.",
"parent_id": "8180554",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180873",
"author": "luccamakesthings",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:18:40",
"content": "Having actually built a portable gas chromatograph for sarin detection (we used simulants), this device won’t be terribly useful without some form of separation. Raw sensor values aren’t useful for identification, you need retention time.",
"parent_id": "8180494",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180517",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:56:08",
"content": "I truly admire the self-confidence of the person who wrote the readmeEven worse, they likely made an LLM like ChatGPT write it! The emojis are a dead giveaway",
"parent_id": "8180487",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180490",
"author": "eek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:35:44",
"content": "How did this go through the editorial process? This has 1 star on GitHub and reeks of regurgitated LLM outputs.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180556",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:15:35",
"content": "Agreed. We’re leaving this up for the record and for discussion, but I had an edit on the post to make it clear that the claims are those of the project’s owner.Even Hackaday makes mistakes. Sorry about this one.",
"parent_id": "8180490",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180566",
"author": "Disappointed reader",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:33:27",
"content": "This is not the only “low quality” post which “slipped through” during the last couple of weeks.:-(Please stop posting stuff which smells fishy!",
"parent_id": "8180556",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180573",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:52:25",
"content": "Agreed. There was another dubious project about a week ago. It’s not cool — our editors should be catching this sort of thing. I’ll remind folks.",
"parent_id": "8180566",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180641",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:27:11",
"content": "Please stop posting stuff which smells fishy!Unless it’s a hack that relates to literal fish or the odors thereof. An interesting hack of fishing gear would be welcome, especially if it had dasblinkenlights.",
"parent_id": "8180566",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180491",
"author": "jaseg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:38:16",
"content": "That’s a whole lot of extremely AI code along with a hype-heavy readme and exactly no validation or detailed reasoning why any of this would even work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180495",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:46:18",
"content": "The real information is here is:PMS7003 particulate sensor ( plantower.com/en/products_33/76.html )BME688 gas sensor (http://www.bosch-sensortec.com/products/environmental-sensors/gas-sensors/bme688/)How does this compare to the SEN54 ( sensirion.com/products/catalog/SEN54 ) used in the IKEA product? dunno.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180525",
"author": "Bob the builder",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:21:20",
"content": "The SEN54 is a very simple sensor and can only give a simple VOC score. The Bosch sensor can also do VSC’s that the SEN54 doesn’t appear to be able to do. It seems to me that the Bosch BME688 is a much better sensor. For example, the Bosch BME688 is capable of detecting H2S that the SEN54 is not capable of doing that. H2S would be the primary thing I would test.",
"parent_id": "8180495",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180604",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:50:14",
"content": "Fart wars in the cube farm!No women on the whole floor.Bored geeks, banging out DB/bean counting code.The vegetarian started it.It escalated.We were eating for war.It ended when a PHB ‘detected’ natural gas taggant (not H2S anymore), cleared the building, which had no gas service, but a number of ‘gas leaks’.We stopped after that.The look on the PHB’s face when the fireman told him ‘no gas service’ was priceless.X-hot KimChi, hardboiled eggs and old Milwaukee beer!Don’t do it.",
"parent_id": "8180525",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180498",
"author": "Lindsay Wilson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:58:38",
"content": "Sorry, but this whole thing stinks. (Hah. See what I did there?). My understand of these sensors is limited, so please correct me if I’m wrong.The sensitivity of the detector seems to be controlled by the temperature of the sensing element. Higher temperature = higher sensitivity. However, from what I can gather from the datasheet, it simply detects ANY VOCs which are reactive enough to do stuff to the sensor. I fail to see how on earth you can get a “signature” which allows you to identify a particular compound. Compare that with proper detectors which have a detection method that is closely matched to the compound in question – e.g. an enzyme or bacteria which will only react with an organophosphate and nothing else.Unless you have access to the compounds in question to actually test the sensor, I fail to see how you could determine the “signatures” for each or have any faith in what the sensor is saying.Next, how the project is presented. Reading the github page, it sounds like the sort of sensationalised guff that an AI would generate. Sure enough, pasting it into 4 different AI text checkers, they ALL said it was 100% AI-generated.The user is “dirtysalsa” based in Kolkata and they have a twitter account athttps://x.com/dirtysalsaand a website athttps://www.dirtysalsa.com/(seems to be how-to videos on Salsa dancing). Their twitter feed has a whole conspiracy theory feel to it – numerous sensational posts about “heavy metal attacks” or “neurotoxin” attacks, tagging the UN, Kolkata police. Believes someone upstairs is spreading poisonous gas etc. etc. and that’s why they built this sensor.Generally, Hackaday, please have a good look at who’s behind this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180538",
"author": "Helena",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:10:36",
"content": "Yeah, I’d never head of “chemical harassment” before but it made my BS detector ping. Googled a bit, and found only people who believe that the smell of fabric softener in a laundromat is an attack targeted at them personally, and that other people’s presence in public is specifically designed to inconvenience them.",
"parent_id": "8180498",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180645",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:32:32",
"content": "We didn’t call it that, but there was plenty of “chemical harassment” going on when I was in elementary school. Unlike the “X-hot KimChi” above, we were acting our age.",
"parent_id": "8180538",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180544",
"author": "pigster",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:25:41",
"content": "Well yes – BME688 can’t detect CO2 – it is just estimate based on the amount of VOCs and an assumption that they are produced by humans breathing. This is just BS. So the only thing they can measure is VOC concentration (badly, the sensor is good for rough estimate and thats that) and dust. The rest is just AI generated slop and conspiracy theories.Please stop this – it is like publishing articles about new devices to measure flatness of earth to prove that the earth is flat or something.",
"parent_id": "8180498",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180499",
"author": "Livid",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:59:46",
"content": "The readme on the github repo screams LLM-generated to me. It’d be interesting to see any testing of the device with pesticide or something given the readme says treat any warnings from this doohickey as a serious threat.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180502",
"author": "Lindsay Wilson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:05:35",
"content": "Red flags:1) Github description is likely AI-generated (I pasted it into 4 different checkers and they all said 100% likelyhood)2) User’s twitter account (https://x.com/dirtysalsa) has a total conspiracy theory flavor to it. Believes someone upstairs is poisoning them with gas so they built this detector to check it. I kid you not. For example:https://x.com/dirtysalsa/status/1964072290540216633",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180520",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:07:07",
"content": "Why do paranoid people have the most entertaining and humorous Twitter accounts",
"parent_id": "8180502",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180647",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:34:42",
"content": "Because 1) most of the rest of us have better thing to do with our time than create entertaining and humorous Twitter accounts, and 2) absurdity is generally funnier than normal, sane life",
"parent_id": "8180520",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180534",
"author": "Saint Aardvark the Carpeted",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:56:48",
"content": "Another red flag: the “Project structure” part of the README lists a very impressive tree of files…most of which don’t exist.",
"parent_id": "8180502",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180503",
"author": "mcenderdragon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:08:56",
"content": "anyone who actually worke din the field with RMOX sensors will tell you: this will onyl work with oen sensor, as the sensor to sensor variation is very very wide. Also age will quickly alter resistance response.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180516",
"author": "Alex Claveau",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:51:41",
"content": "the effectiveness of this seems….. dubiousIts hard to believe any amount of hackery and AI magic can turn a $20 sensor into a CRBN detector.The BME688 datasheet says its for things like detecting spoiled food, bad breath, and dirty diapers…. certainly unpleasant but not exactly chemical weapons.A quick peek the creators twitter show some pretty out-there beliefs and suggests that they might not be well. That the effectiveness of this device in detecting airborne chemical weapons might not be reflective of consensus reality.In short, someone should take a skeptical look at this",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180528",
"author": "Ject",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:29:37",
"content": "Mountains of AI generated fluff in the readme, no prototype, no demonstration. Why would you post this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180541",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:21:58",
"content": "From a superficial “sniff test”: Heidi Ulrich last posted an “article” 20 days ago….Okay, maybe just on holiday but I wanted to throw a sniff test in here. ;-)",
"parent_id": "8180528",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180557",
"author": "Joseph",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:18:31",
"content": "Anyone looked to make a budget high specificity sensor should look into molecularly imprinted polymers and sensor arrays (i.e. if you wanted to distinguish toluene/benzene you could imprint a polymer with both then overlay a voc sensor with both and a differential signal between the two can give you better quantification. Of course as far as I know MIPs are not typically as selective as things like gold nanoparticle sensors with specific ligands.)Good luck getting your hands on an appreciable amount of sarin to imprint the polymer, of course.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180568",
"author": "eriklscott",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:35:01",
"content": "Funny thought – could you extract the insect version of acetylcholinesterase from a bunch of insects, use that to get your detector working for Bug Spray ™, and then replace that thin film with a smear of actual acetylcholinesterase and hope you’re close enough? I mean, you can always hope, but you know what I mean. (I’m thinking SAW detectors, which are, granted, Old School AF)",
"parent_id": "8180557",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181716",
"author": "Joseph",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T13:32:56",
"content": "Yes, but I’m afraid if we keep going this direction we’ll just end up smearing liver pate on a piece of copper foil and call it a day.",
"parent_id": "8180568",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180563",
"author": "eriklscott",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:29:47",
"content": "It’s a shame, too, because the way real sensors for these agents work is definitely worthy of hackaday. Very good intro:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5750728/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180575",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:53:19",
"content": "Not an expert here, but apparently any kind of organophosphate detection on a budget is very hard and requires a whole lot more than offered here.I’m pretty sure all nerve agents fall into the organophosphate category together with lots of (all?) insecticides.Also, chlorine is way easier to synthesize than any of the nerve agent chem weapons. Pretty sure phosgene and mustard gas are too.Yes, the LD50 on them is much higher but they were incredibly effective in WWI anyway.As others have said, not a good project but also, not even properly focused on real world risk.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180697",
"author": "Tom P",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:11:25",
"content": "With all due respect to the editors: Leaving up an article that is full of BS isn’t helping. You should publish a withdrawal notice and mea culpa. Then work at not making the same mistake again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180698",
"author": "Tom P",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T22:12:36",
"content": "Meant to say retraction not withdrawal.",
"parent_id": "8180697",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180718",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T23:43:19",
"content": "I agree, but Eliot Williams has already, and with regret, stated above that un-publishing articles isn’t Hackaday editorial policy.And now, of course, this article will be scraped by an LLM, ingested into its corpus, and the next generation of AIs will be confidently telling naive and credulous people how to build a $20 chemical warfare sensorwith a citation… and the circle of dross will continue.",
"parent_id": "8180698",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180876",
"author": "luccamakesthings",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:22:01",
"content": "Jeez not a single comment here mentioning the need for chromatographic separation. There’s no such thing as a selective sensor. In order to identify the target analytes, you’d need gas chromatography to separate the sample, and you’d need to calibrate the instrument against your target compounds to generate the calibration curve. I did this professionally for 10 years, this project is bunk.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.394685
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/16/jointly-is-a-typeface-designed-for-cnc-joinery/
|
Jointly Is A Typeface Designed For CNC Joinery
|
Tyler August
|
[
"cnc hacks"
] |
[
"cnc",
"mortise and tenon",
"typography",
"woodworking"
] |
If you have a CNC router, you know you can engrave just about any text with the right tool, but Jointly is a typeface that isn’t meant to be
engraved
. That would be too easy for [CobyUnger]. His typeface “Jointly” is the first we’ve seen that’s
meant to be used as joinery
.
The idea is simple: carve mortises that take the shape of letters in one piece, and carve matching letter-tenons into the end of another. Push them together, and voila: a joint! To get this concept to work reliably, the font did have to be specially designed — both the inner and outer contours need to be accessible to a rotary cutting tool. Cutting tools get harder to use the smaller they go (or more fragile, at any rate) so with Jointly, the design spec was that any letters over 3/4″ (19.05 mm) tall needed to be handled with a 1/8″ (3.175 mm) rotary cutter.
This gives the font a friendly curved appearance we find quite fetching. Of course if you’re going to be cutting tenons into the end of a board, you’re going to need either some
serious
z-depth or an interesting jig to get the end of the board under the cutting head. It looks like [CobyUnger] has both, but he mentions the possibility of
using a handheld CNC router
as the cheaper option.
Speaking of routing out type,
do you know the story of Gorton
? You can’t make joinery with that typeface, but you’ve almost certainly seen it.
| 23
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180450",
"author": "medix",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:57:47",
"content": "Is it just me or is this is vaguely giving “comic sans in wood” vibes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180511",
"author": "Tarheelbandb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:37:23",
"content": "Apropos given how much of a joke “real” woodworkers would view this.",
"parent_id": "8180450",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180531",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:37:28",
"content": "I’m a “real” woodworker (at least, I have a signed certificate that says so) and I think this is really cool! It won’t be the strongest of joints but with so much glue surface it will probably hold up as good as a modern tenon and mortise joint.",
"parent_id": "8180511",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180581",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:01:37",
"content": "no real value when it’s internal and not visible but when they go all through the other piece, that’s an awesome way to write something and join at the same time",
"parent_id": "8180531",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180643",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:30:31",
"content": "Use contrasting woods. Make the joint. Cut through the finished joint parallel to the face of the text. Voila, two-tone text. Admittedly, this would be a long,ahem, route to achieving said effect.Otherwise, yeah, it’s conceptual. Well, maybe you could hide a series of short text messages in a piece of furniture. That’d set the spy game back a century or two.",
"parent_id": "8180581",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180784",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:16:19",
"content": "There are various decorative joints which are more or less practical. With modern glues, joints are often far stronger than they need to be and you can sacrifice a little bit of strength for decoration.Examples are the OG dovetail joint (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovetail_joint), a pin joint or the nicer pin-and-crescent joint (https://www.woodmagazine.com/woodworking-how-to/joinery/pin-and-crescent-joint) or this beautiful decorative joint (https://dornob.com/decorative-puzzle-piece-table-joints-put-the-joy-in-joinery/) which falls in the same league as this text joint.An important aspect from joinery is it’s manufacturability, and CNC has enormously increased the options there.",
"parent_id": "8180581",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180582",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:02:28",
"content": "There are some really awesome CNC joints out there.https://hackaday.com/2020/10/23/complex-wood-joints-thanks-to-new-softwares-interactive-features/https://hackaday.com/2012/04/16/joinery-sure-to-be-useful-on-your-next-sheet-goods-enclosure/and the great-granddaddy of them all:http://winterdienst.info/50-digital-wood-joints-by-jochen-gros/Doing it with letters is just hilarious, though.",
"parent_id": "8180531",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180644",
"author": "Tyler August",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:31:26",
"content": "It’s the radiusing. Not a lot of fonts you see these days have radii everywhere the way this one and, yes, Comic Sans do.",
"parent_id": "8180450",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180510",
"author": "Rick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:35:55",
"content": "Wow … what a rabbit hole to dive into. The history of the Gorton typeface was a nice start to the morning.Now, do I build that vertical table onto my CNC Router????",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180633",
"author": "EGO111",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:00:01",
"content": "Or a “rabbet” hole. ;-/",
"parent_id": "8180510",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180748",
"author": "FeRDNYC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T04:28:50",
"content": "Boooooo! Also, well done. But still, boooo!",
"parent_id": "8180633",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180535",
"author": "AbraKadabra",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:57:38",
"content": "I envision a store bought house that arrives in a shipping container. All parts “labelled” so that assembly is obvious.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180559",
"author": "JNA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:21:33",
"content": "I envision ‘bespoke cabinetry’ with pass-through tenons so that when you open a drawer or view the sides of a box the name of the artist, manufacturer or brand is ‘written’ into the wood itself (in contrasting species of wood that make the words stand out.)Would also be cool to incorporate into a puzzle box, or alternative to labeling or engraving the contents of drawers, etc.",
"parent_id": "8180535",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180648",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:36:32",
"content": "top-tier Ikea furniture",
"parent_id": "8180535",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180594",
"author": "Ron chaffins",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T16:24:40",
"content": "I’m already drawing thumbnails of stories book like boxes for the grandkids and loved ones . One could certainly craft books of fairy tales , poems ext. Out of thin sheets of paper made of veneers of contrasting woods one laminates ! Oh my what to do first? I wish I would have been this excited about Letting 101 freshman year.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180610",
"author": "Beaker",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:08:09",
"content": "This is amazing. The next logical step I see is making a small footprint CNC machine with the cutting tool horizontal, and feeding the end of the board into it. Instead of expanding the Z axis, rotate the tool and workpiece. Fonts aside, you could make some gorgeous things.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180613",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:13:12",
"content": "i’m not crazy about the joinery on display here but i wish i had this font in openscad for my 3d printing! the default font seems kind of inappropriate for the limitations of the medium",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180616",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:19:25",
"content": "sorry for the double post but i decided to follow through on this wishi downloaded the font fromhttps://www.cobyungerdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/JOINTLY-Font.zipi unzipped it and took just the Jointly3.otf file and copied it to /usr/share/fonts/opentype/i used text(text=str, font=”Jointly3″, size=…); in openscad. and voila!only complaint is it seems to be just the alphanumeric…my percent sign is showing up as a boxed-X. but i’ll probably use this as my default font in openscad, going forward. thanks!",
"parent_id": "8180613",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180732",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T02:18:00",
"content": "When you think about it a percentage sign would actually not be bad as a joint, it even has Y-axis symmetry. And a # could be made completely symmetrical (I assume that’s missing too), but might get bulky.",
"parent_id": "8180616",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180785",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:18:50",
"content": "The problem with # (and the holes in the % sign, or with the A’s in this font) is that holes can not be used in this type of end joinery … well that’s not true, they can but have no function.",
"parent_id": "8180732",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180977",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:04:45",
"content": "They have an aesthetic function, as you can see on the pictures on the linked page, where the b and p and such seem to be filled afterwards with a contrasting color material to make it look OK.But also as many people here seem to like the font for 3D printing you can use the holes there fine, even as joining elements.Plus it depends on the grain of the wood I expect, very fine grain wood, or bamboo perhaps, might be OK with little pegs being routed. Just guessing though.And of course when talking CNC.. there’s steel and aluminium andsoforth too :)",
"parent_id": "8180785",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180651",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:40:38",
"content": "yeah this font actually looks really nice for 3d printing. I’m using Orbitron (open source font) which works for printing but has a particular aesthetic. Jointly looks like plain comic sans which is great",
"parent_id": "8180613",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180749",
"author": "FeRDNYC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T04:33:01",
"content": "“Jointly looks like plain comic sans which is great”I’m submitting that to /r/brandnewsentence, the subreddit for combinations of words that have never been seen before (and, implicitly, were believed impossible). Actually I could probably just submit “comic sans which is great” all by itself.",
"parent_id": "8180651",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,426.460433
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/the-microtronic-phoenix-computer-system/
|
The Microtronic Phoenix Computer System
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"computer hacks",
"hardware",
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"Busch 2090 Microtronic Computer System",
"Microtronic Phoenix",
"texas instruments",
"TMS1600 microcontroller"
] |
A team of hackers, [Jason T. Jacques], [Decle], and [Michael A. Wessel], have collaborated to deliver the
Microtronic Phoenix Computer System
.
In 1981 the
Busch 2090 Microtronic Computer System
was released. It had a 4-bit Texas Instruments TMS1600 microcontroller, ran at 500 kHz, and had 576 bytes of RAM and 4,096 bytes of ROM. The Microtronic Phoenix computer system is a Microtronic emulator. It can run the original firmware from 1981.
Between them the team members developed the firmware ROM dumping technology, created a TMS1xxx disassembler and emulator, prototyped the hardware, developed an Arduino-based re-implementation of the Microtronic, designed the PCB, and integrated the software.
Unlike previous hardware emulators, the Phoenix emulator is the first emulator that is not only a re-implementation of the Microtronic, but actually runs the original TMS1600 firmware. This wasn’t possible until the team could successfully dump the original ROM, an activity that proved challenging, but they got there in the end! If you’re interested in the gory technical details those are here:
Disassembling the Microtronic 2090
, and here:
Microtronic Firmware ROM Archaeology
.
The Phoenix uses an ATmega 644P-20U clocked at 20 MHz, a 24LC256 EEPROM, and an 74LS244 line driver for I/O. It offers two Microtronic emulation modes: the
Neo Mode
, based on [Michael]’s Arduino-based re-implementations of the Microtronic in C; and the
Phoenix Mode
, based on [Jason]’s Microtronic running the original Microtronic ROM on his TMS1xxx emulator.
The Phoenix has a number of additional hardware features, including an on-board buzzer, additional push buttons, a speaker, 256 kBit 24LC256 EEPROM, and six digit 7-segment display. Of course you have to be running in
Neo Mode
to access the newer hardware.
There are a bunch of options when it comes to I/O, and the gerbers for the PCB are available, as are instructions for installing the firmware. When it comes to power there are four options for powering the Phoenix board: with a 9V block battery; with an external 9V to 15V DC power supply over the standard center-positive 2.5 mm power jack; over the VIN and GND rivet sockets; or over the AVR ISP header.
If you’re interested in the history we covered [Michael Wessel]’s Arduino implementation
when it came out back in 2020
.
| 4
| 1
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180618",
"author": "KC8KVA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:19:41",
"content": "This brings back so many great memories for me. Spending my Summers in Germany, I would frequent this “Spielwaren” in downtown Donauwoerth that had toys and kits to build. The owner, at the time, knew I had a knack for the analog technology and migrated me to the digital logic one. It had an LCD counter and also used the yellow pegs to hold the wires in the holes. Busch and Fischerteknik were the best tools to help me learn and get a head up on the tech.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180631",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:57:21",
"content": "Hi there! Back then Busch and ELO magazine worked together.Some models have the ELOtronic brand, thus.The old Busch construction kits were still being built in the form of remakes, last time I checked.The Studio Center models. Under different name, though.They even seem to include the big manuals of the day.Not sure if the old mascot is still included, though.You know, the cartoon character of a young experimenter boy.",
"parent_id": "8180618",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181195",
"author": "Michael Wessel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T02:10:48",
"content": "Yes, they did… although for the Microtronic, they did not. Here is some info about the development history of the Microtronic:https://github.com/lambdamikel/Busch-2090?tab=readme-ov-file#latest-newsBest source is the Diplomarbeit of Jörg Vallen, but German only:https://github.com/lambdamikel/Busch-2090/blob/master/manuals/joerg-vallen-diplom.pdf",
"parent_id": "8180631",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181074",
"author": "Michael Wessel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:08:16",
"content": "Great to hear and thanks for sharing! According to you HAM Radio Callksign, you are in the US – do you mind sharing how you cam to Germany back in the days? Maybe military service family? Super excited to hear that folks from the US know about Busch and Fischertechnik! Cheers, Michael",
"parent_id": "8180618",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,426.579055
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/see-voyagers-1990-solar-system-family-portrait-debut/
|
See Voyager’s 1990 ‘Solar System Family Portrait’ Debut
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Space"
] |
[
"nasa-jpl",
"Voyager 1",
"Voyager 2"
] |
It’s been just over 48 years since Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 from Cape Canaveral, originally to study our Solar System’s planets. Voyager 1 would explore Jupiter and Saturn, while its twin Voyager 2 took a slightly different route to ogle other planets. This primary mission for both spacecraft completed in early 1990, with NASA holding a press conference on this momentous achievement.
To celebrate the 48th year of the ongoing missions of Voyager 1 and its twin, NASA JPL is
sharing an archive video of this press conference
. This was the press conference where Carl Sagan referenced the pinpricks of light visible in some images, including Earth’s Pale Blue Dot, which later would become the essay about this seemingly insignificant pinprick of light being the cradle and so far sole hope for the entirety of human civilization.
For most people in attendance at this press conference in June of 1990 it would likely have seemed preposterous to imagine both spacecraft now nearing their half-century of active service in their post-extended Interstellar Mission. With
some luck
both spacecraft will soon celebrate their 50th launch day, before they will
quietly sail on amidst the stars
by next decade as a true testament to every engineer and operator on arguably humanity’s most significant achievement in space.
Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.
| 5
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180260",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:03:43",
"content": "Between them, the pictures from the Voyagers have “billions and billions” of views.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180496",
"author": "Miguel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:52:08",
"content": "Voyager 1 is almost one day light far!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180657",
"author": "Tom S",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T19:30:13",
"content": "Light Day",
"parent_id": "8180496",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180504",
"author": "Will Belden",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T12:09:39",
"content": "Amazing video, can’t believe I’ve never seen this! Imagine if they had better cameras… amazing with what they had at the time!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180687",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T21:22:37",
"content": "Hi! Because of the video quality? It’s not state of the art fir its time.The film material surely used to be of good quality when aired.Even with Standard-Definition (SD) of NTSC or PAL.The NASA letters and the logo in front of the spokesman used to be very sharp and well focused, I assume.The reason it’s so blurry might be because of video tape or the setup used for digitizing. VCR, video grabber, codec etc.A professional equipment makes quite some difference here.Tube cameras made a very clean looking image, I think.It’s all about the optics, rather, to get a good picture.The Voyagers had hi-res monochrome Vidicon cameras with color filters, if memory serves.However, the real challenge was to transmit the pictures back to earth, error-free if possible.At max. resolution the bandwidth and time needed to transmit was quite high, I assume.For example, domestic analog black/white video cameras had 800 to 1000 lines.That was quite higher than the 525 lines (PAL: 625 lines) of ordinary color tv.",
"parent_id": "8180504",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,426.618266
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/a-closer-look-inside-a-robots-typewriter-inspired-mouth/
|
A Closer Look Inside A Robot’s Typewriter-Inspired Mouth
|
Donald Papp
|
[
"Art",
"Raspberry Pi"
] |
[
"3d printed",
"animatronics",
"lip sync",
"mouth",
"stepper motor"
] |
[Ancient] has a video showing off a fascinating piece of work:
a lip-syncing robot whose animated electro-mechanical mouth works like an IBM Selectric typewriter
. The mouth rapidly flips between different phonetic positions, creating the appearance of moving lips and mouth. This rapid and high-precision movement is the product of a carefully-planned and executed build. When we featured this project before, we wanted to see under the hood. Now we can.
Behind the face is a ball that, when moving quickly enough, gives the impression of animated mouth and lips. The new video gives a closer look at how it works.
[Ancient] dubs the concept
Selectramatronics
, because its action is reminiscent of the IBM Selectric typewriter. Instead of each key having a letter on a long arm that would swing up and stamp an ink ribbon, the Selectric used a roughly spherical unit – called a
typeball
– with letters sticking out of it like a spiky ball.
Hitting the ‘A’ key would rapidly turn the typeball so that the ‘A’ faced forward, then satisfyingly smack it into the ink ribbon at great speed. Here’s a look at how that system worked, by way of
designing DIY typeballs from scratch
. In this robot, the same concept is used to rapidly flip a ball bristling with lip positions.
We first saw this unusual and fascinating design when its creator showed
videos of the end result on social media
, pronouncing it complete. We’re delighted to see that there’s now an in-depth look at the internals in the form of a new video (the first link in this post, also embedded below just under the page break.)
The new video is wonderfully wordless, preferring to show rather than tell. It goes all the way from introducing the basic concept to showing off the final product, lip-syncing to audio from an embedded Raspberry Pi.
Thanks to [Luis Sousa] for the tip!
| 26
| 10
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180210",
"author": "Evaprototype",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T00:08:16",
"content": "Cool was waiting to see a if they used a stepper or a whiffletree.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180217",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T00:27:16",
"content": "Thanks. I still hate it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180221",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T00:30:30",
"content": "yeah, nope",
"parent_id": "8180217",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180243",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T01:24:32",
"content": "The video is worth watching just to see how he swaps out the shaft of a stepper.I didn’t know you could do that!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180383",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T07:06:04",
"content": "It does usually end up reducing the maximum torque when you take the rotor out. But for some applications that doesn’t matter.",
"parent_id": "8180243",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180414",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:26:32",
"content": "I’ve heard that, but why, exactly?",
"parent_id": "8180383",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180650",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:39:04",
"content": "Ditto.Is it the inability to achieve some alignment perfectly upon reassembly?",
"parent_id": "8180414",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180677",
"author": "Ralph Stirling",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:43:54",
"content": "I think that warning goes back to the original stepper that used pre-neodymum magnets. Strong alinco magnets must have a steel keeper across the poles for a complete magnetic circuit at all times to prevent loss of strength. I don’t think modern steppers with neodymium magnets have this problem. Somebody should test.",
"parent_id": "8180414",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180679",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T20:48:40",
"content": "The stator behaves as a magnetic “keeper” for the magnetized rotor, by closing the magnetic circuiit. When you remove the rotor, the magnetic field lines are forced to go through the air (with its puny magnetic permeability) and this can weaken magnets of low coercivity. At least that’s what I remember.Magnet keepers were common on old horseshoe magnets when storing them.The real question is how they put the rotor in there in its highly-magnetized state to begin with.",
"parent_id": "8180383",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180257",
"author": "MAC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T01:59:31",
"content": "This reminds me of President Lincoln’s ‘Picture Phone’ in the Amazing Screw-On Head (https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx6EsSgqt8mSWEVCb–ur9A_Ci_ClyAu8T?si=SJvnCG_ZfBufZiwN).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181396",
"author": "NQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T16:20:29",
"content": "This whole project reminds me of Al Jolson for some reason",
"parent_id": "8180257",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180263",
"author": "dahud",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:33:17",
"content": "Every step of that construction was a delight, and I learned a great deal by watching that video.Shame the effect doesn’t work. I was only occasionally able to relate the sounds I was hearing to the lip-flaps I was seeing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180406",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:10:45",
"content": "Maybe the problem is with the camera, and in “live” it works better.",
"parent_id": "8180263",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180477",
"author": "Nuno",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:08:50",
"content": "I think it might work better if you paint the lips or add some other contrast to the mouth",
"parent_id": "8180406",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180533",
"author": "dahud",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:46:22",
"content": "My first fix would be to strobe the lights in time to the movements. Works wonders for film projectors.",
"parent_id": "8180477",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181001",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:35:13",
"content": "Interesting idea. The maker should try that.But I agree some more contrast to the mouth would also help.What I find odd too is that with all that effort a choice was made to make the eyes flat, why not rounded? You can also easily move them that way, in fact it’s easier since you can pivot instead of shifting. Not that the eyes are moving at this point it seems, but a slight rounding would look better I think, doesn’t have to be a full globe-style rounding mind you.And talking of color, maybe if the mouth ball was different color it would work, maybe the closeness of the color to that of the face makes you more aware of the edge. Although there is a risk you’d get accused of ‘blackface’ if you made it a different color carelessly :)You could try colors with a video editor I suppose, you can just select the region of the mouth and apply a color filter.",
"parent_id": "8180533",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180407",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:11:13",
"content": "It almost, almost works for me, from time to time. It’s missing some lip-flaps so there’s overlap, and doesn’t work at all when the speech speeds up, but when it’s slow and well enounciated, it’s almost there.",
"parent_id": "8180263",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180416",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:31:55",
"content": "This is some fantastic hobby engineering.I think the effect would be materially improved with some better contrast–paint the teeth white, the open mouth cavity flat black, with tongue and lips some shade of red.As is, the shapes are lost in monochrome, and shadows are insufficient to reveal changes in mouth geometry… especially with the blur of the ball’s motion.",
"parent_id": "8180263",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180273",
"author": "Raf Cellucci",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:45:42",
"content": "This would be a great prop for a steampunk movie…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180367",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:31:12",
"content": "Why did I have to be born with a dirty mind…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181005",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:38:03",
"content": "Now you made me wonder if there is a fetish where people suck shins..Oh well, sounds innocent enough :)",
"parent_id": "8180367",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181314",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T10:42:45",
"content": "Rule 34",
"parent_id": "8181005",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180444",
"author": "Madaeon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:44:40",
"content": "Maybe I miss something – how do yo move the steppers so quickly?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180551",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:01:00",
"content": "Minimal mass, a motor with plenty of torque, and a stepper driver that handle high speed smoothly.",
"parent_id": "8180444",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180632",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:59:20",
"content": "Bro saw the uncanny valley and yelled “geronimo.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180652",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:49:21",
"content": "I’m not really feelin’ the animation vibe. But, if it could be made to compactly, alternately expose ten segments, I think it might make for an interesting analog score display element. Like what might have happened if electromechanical arcade games had continued on without being supplanted by digital electronics (or maybe just provide inspiration for the lamest episode of “Sliders” ever).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.688103
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/15/hosting-a-website-on-a-disposable-vape/
|
Hosting A Website On A Disposable Vape
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Microcontrollers",
"Reverse Engineering"
] |
[
"disposable vape",
"ewaste",
"reverse engineering",
"upcycling",
"webserver"
] |
For the past years people have been collecting disposable vapes primarily for their lithium-ion batteries, but as these disposable vapes have begun to incorporate more elaborate electronics, these too have become an interesting target for reusability. To prove the point of how capable these electronics have become, [BogdanTheGeek] decided to turn one of
these vapes into a webserver
, appropriately called the vapeserver.
While tearing apart some of the fancier adult pacifiers, [Bogdan] discovered that a number of them feature Puya MCUs, which is a name that some of our esteemed readers may recognize from ‘cheapest MCU’ articles. The target vape has a Puya
PY32F002B
MCU, which comes with a Cortex-M0+ core at 24 MHz, 3 kB SRAM and 24 kB of Flash. All of which now counts as ‘disposable’ in 2025, it would appear.
Even with a fairly perky MCU, running a webserver with these specs would seem to be a fool’s errand. Getting around the limited hardware involved using the
uIP
TCP/IP stack, and using
SLIP
(Serial Line Internet Protocol), along with semihosting to create a serial device that the OS can use like one would a modem and create a visible IP address with the webserver.
The URL to the vapeserver is contained in the article and on the
GitHub project
page, but out of respect for not melting it down with an unintended DDoS, it isn’t linked here. You are of course totally free to replicate the effort on a disposable adult pacifier of your choice, or other compatible MCU.
| 53
| 14
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8180111",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:39:29",
"content": "Hariharasubrahmanian Shrikumar designed an itty-bitty cheap web server in 1999:The World’s Smallest Web Server?It is the size of a match head and it costs less than $1. The single chip computer runs an iPic web-server and is claimed to be the tiniest implementation of a TCP/IP stack and an HTTP 1.0 web-server.The chip is a PIC 12C509A, running at 4MHz the CPU, with 256 bytes of memory, serial port interface circuitry and clock oscillator. The TCP/IP stack is implemented on a small 8-pin low- power microcontroller using 512 words of program ROM. Its inventor says that if iPic can fit in a PIC, it can fit in just about anything.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180539",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:10:43",
"content": "Kind of shows there’s not much to a basic web server.",
"parent_id": "8180111",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180638",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:11:41",
"content": "Well, no, there isn’t, there’s plenty of examples on far less powerful 8 bit microcontrollers, some even using ISA Ethernet cards and implementing TCP/IP",
"parent_id": "8180539",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181578",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T05:43:46",
"content": "Yes and much later in 2002 individual one-upped the fellow by getting one to run on a part originally made by Fairchild. Which is the ACE1101, I found it athttps://web.archive.org/web/20020605032931/http://d116.com/ace/sadly the original is down.",
"parent_id": "8180111",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180116",
"author": "Kevin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:08:42",
"content": "my buddy goes through three of these things a week. I know the original author doesn’t want to advertise a tobacco product by revealing the name of the manufacture, but if anyone knows or recognizes from the pic can you shoot me an email so I can get him to save the brand that can be used the letter k thensaunders0324@gmail.comthank you!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180118",
"author": "BogdanTheGeek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:16:41",
"content": "I did leave a hint in the blog post, but you have to read carefully :)",
"parent_id": "8180116",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180435",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:18:12",
"content": "lost mary? from mary jane i.e. blazingly fast / getting blazed?I think i have heard that they PUYA",
"parent_id": "8180118",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180522",
"author": "henrytriplette",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:14:28",
"content": "https://github.com/grahamwhaley/py32c642_vape",
"parent_id": "8180435",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180542",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:22:22",
"content": "My guess is ‘the TARGET vape’ then",
"parent_id": "8180118",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180125",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:29:34",
"content": "Vaporware.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180225",
"author": "Bernie M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T00:34:08",
"content": "hahahahahahahaha – I liked that one. :-)",
"parent_id": "8180125",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180136",
"author": "D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:50:12",
"content": "Gives new meaning to “the magic smoke escaping” from the electronics.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_smoke",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180137",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:50:44",
"content": "Why does a vape need a microcontroller?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180141",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:56:34",
"content": "It doesn’t, but people will pay a higher price if it does.Marketing proves the invisible hand of the market is not rational.",
"parent_id": "8180137",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180361",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:25:20",
"content": "How, when people don’t even know it’s in there?Very little of marketing actually does anything other than cost money. That’s just the marketing agencies selling bunk – after all, marketing only needs to work to the extent of the primary customer, which is the company that wants to advertise itself. Whether it actually influences consumer behavior is a secondary concern.",
"parent_id": "8180141",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180640",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T18:22:57",
"content": "Vapers, on the mod scene, have had microcontrollers for at least a decade and even OLED displays to allow users to configure the devices for different coils, liquids, temperatures etc. etc.The cheap, nearly disposable vapes use chips which are single digit pennies each and add a few blingy features like flashy lights, charge indication, some count up the number and duration of ‘hits’ to give percentage used so they’re not entirely useless (no, I don’t vape or smoke, I just collect street lithium and now microcontrollers when I see them).",
"parent_id": "8180361",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180145",
"author": "Snarkenstein",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:01:34",
"content": "And if it did need a uC, wouldn’t something in the 8051 class be sufficient?This is how we’re going to get sentient toasters with an attitude problem.",
"parent_id": "8180137",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180160",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:29:17",
"content": "Howdy doodly do! How’s it going?",
"parent_id": "8180145",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180315",
"author": "Jane",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T05:01:57",
"content": "Maybe a toaster that always burns the toast if it is handled roughly or detects the user is in a bad mood?",
"parent_id": "8180145",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180570",
"author": "deL",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:39:07",
"content": "Yay, I did the port of Adam Dunkels’ uIP v0.9 to the 8051, and added the slip protocol dude uses too.",
"parent_id": "8180145",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180571",
"author": "deL",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T15:42:25",
"content": "…and it’s just as relevant today:https://green.bug-eyed.monster/uip-v0-9-keil-8051/",
"parent_id": "8180570",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180146",
"author": "inventive4ffe17fc58",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:02:45",
"content": "Recent disposable vaping devices have an LCD display to show remaining battery and e-liquid; some even have addressable LEDs and animation effects. For these features, you need an MCU.In more expensive models, you can even adjust the coil current.”",
"parent_id": "8180137",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180147",
"author": "psynautic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:03:00",
"content": "it was probably way easier and cheaper to write firmware to control the heater and leds than making a circuit.",
"parent_id": "8180137",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180172",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:57:48",
"content": "THIS. I have extensively messed with these, having teen neighbors that throw them over the fence when they are done. Watching the evolution, it makes a lot of sense to do it like that and have the uC handle the power, heating element, display, and extra leds thrown in. The main hobble with these is the limited storage. I lucked out and found one with a cloned broadcomm chip which let me hit the display frame and unravel a lot from there. I totally fried a few too apparently being attiny kinda clones with fuses but whatever it is just me playing with garbage lol. There was another that i found had a curl listing for whatever reason but when I scanned the url it was a dumpload for an iot bulb lol. I think they just use whatever they get their hands on for cheap. It is fascinating from a tinkering standpoint but also frustrating dealing with clones of clones and some chips they found in a bin next to a Mogwai cage lol. I will say AI is an absolute beast at figuring out possible base chip and what they will respond to, saving hours of whitepage multitabbed madness lol.",
"parent_id": "8180147",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180468",
"author": "Kaliin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T10:55:31",
"content": "Could you expand a bit how you use AI to find the chip?",
"parent_id": "8180172",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180526",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T13:27:58",
"content": "Apparently not. Hackaday keeps removing my replies. Sorry but I guess you will just have to figure it out on your own. The limited ram really makes it difficult to do much of anything outside of a MUD with 2 users. Good luck!",
"parent_id": "8180468",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180609",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:06:59",
"content": "Run the above through AI and ask “Talking about chips found in vapes. So how would AI do what’s described?” The rest is some suggestions.",
"parent_id": "8180468",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180910",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:16:02",
"content": "You basically play 20 questions with the AI. Given some piece of evidence, it can narrow down the list of possibilities and suggest some course of action. If that works, then the list gets shorter.For example, I just pretended that my calculator was damaged, half the display doesn’t work, and the model number was scuffed off, and ran through a number of input options to determine that it’s an fx-82ES.",
"parent_id": "8180468",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181333",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T12:51:35",
"content": "I’ll see if this one stays. You act like you want to build one with AI. Then ask it about some current models to compare to. Then you throw the rope over the wall and have it scan asian forums for other known parts on the board. It is surprisingly good sometimes at finding things on chip broker sites etc and seems to gear its probablility marks around that. For figuring out the clones thing, there are 5 big “Mordor” style factories that shit all of these things out. You find the proper chip and then ask AI for cheaper alternatives. You can even ask it to find a clone with more onboard ram etc but but but it is by its nature a cheap clone and its specs are not probably true or reliable which was something AI ironically warned me of lol. Start with Jason’s blog on his adventures to get an overview. Oh and it takes a fair amount of luck with AI on the prompts as probably anyone can attest to. Sometimes it nails a prompt first try and other times it drowns itself in a sea of possibilities…",
"parent_id": "8180468",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180154",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:13:42",
"content": "To run the display. Why a vape needs a display is another question, and of course the main question is why vape?The fancier ones let you set custom parameters & profiles for whatever reason, so you need a uC for that.",
"parent_id": "8180137",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180199",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T23:52:09",
"content": "One of the best things that we can do as consumers is ban disposable vapes.GenZ / GenAlpha have no right to complain",
"parent_id": "8180137",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180364",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:26:18",
"content": "On what grounds?I dislike the government targeting of tobacco/vape/nicotine companies. Yes they are bad, yes they can cause issues. So can drinking, you don’t see progressively higher taxes on those.And the absurd “Think of the children,” as they ban flavors in tobacco/vape/nicotine! Meanwhile if you want Rootbeer, Vanilla, Whipped Cream, or any of hundreds of flavors of Vodka its just a trip to the liqueur store.",
"parent_id": "8180199",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180381",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:59:38",
"content": "Disposable vapes are just unnecessary waste. They could still use vapes with replaceable cartridges.",
"parent_id": "8180364",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180420",
"author": "F",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:45:31",
"content": "No progressive taxes on alcohol? Well that is a thing in EU!We have plans to increase alcohol tax every couple of years. Of course this is country dependent.",
"parent_id": "8180364",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180939",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:43:43",
"content": "It’s a curious thing, seeing how easy it is to make alcohol, that people still keep paying those taxes. If you’re paying ten euros a pint, like in some Nordic country, you’d think that people would skip the pub and just drink their own booze.Maybe they do?",
"parent_id": "8180420",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180478",
"author": "Marvin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:08:50",
"content": "Not because smoking is unhealthy or whatver, I don’t care.But throwing away at least a lipo cell which was charged ONE TIME ist utter bullshit. Lots of countries have laws against unnecessary e-waste. I really wonder how these thing could even start to sell here in germany…They have one good aspect, though (aside free street lihium from these douche flutes): They are good to shut down idiots ranting about evil EVs that have their lithium mined by poor children somwhere in the jungle. Ranting while sucking on their disposable smoking pacifier…",
"parent_id": "8180364",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180941",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T14:46:45",
"content": "The cells in those things are often as good as disposable, because they’re made extremely cheaply. I wouldn’t trust them to charge safely – for instance, who says they even bothered mixing the right additives to prevent dendrite formation?",
"parent_id": "8180478",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180419",
"author": "steaky",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T08:41:31",
"content": "Disposable vapes (single use) are banned in the UK. Now reusable vapes have become so cheap they are essentially disposable",
"parent_id": "8180199",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180168",
"author": "Folkert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T22:41:37",
"content": "But does it run Doom?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180183",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T23:18:28",
"content": "Either “yes it does” or someone is gonna say “hold my beer” real soon now.",
"parent_id": "8180168",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180812",
"author": "Matthias",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T09:51:08",
"content": "it kind of runs Doom on society…",
"parent_id": "8180168",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180236",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T01:06:07",
"content": "WTF are these?I have been collecting and salvaging disposable vapes for a decade.I even went around to the local bars and convinced them to set up a highly visible box for patrons to drop their used vapes in. (It helped that there has been at least 1 parking lot fire here caused by a discarded vape being run over)I have never seen one with a pcb in it.They are usually just a battery, a bit of Nichrome wire, and either a reed switch or a microphone+switch.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180271",
"author": "Dj Biohazard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:42:31",
"content": "The “microphone+switch” you mention has an ASIC inside. They do look like a small mic, but it’s a pressure sensor :)",
"parent_id": "8180236",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180368",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:31:56",
"content": "There’s 3 types. The basic ones you’ve been finding (those have the biggest cells), USB-C rechargeable (but not refillable) ones where the small battery gets charged a few times before getting tossed, and ones like here that have some sort of display to show charge level or whatever, and these are often refillable via “juice pods’.Like everything else the high end models (some which take dual 18600’s!) have lots of useless bells & whistles & configuration setting, hence the controller. The pods have magnets and pogo pins, for God’s sake.I found a bunch of chunky cylindrical rechargeable ones, so I put in bigger batteries (where the juice pod goes) and 3D printed some shapes to make night lights. One model I find a lot of can take 2 x 18450 cells so I make power banks out of them.As DJ Boi mentioned, you need to trigger the air sensor to make any circuitry work, but they usually shut off after a few seconds. You can add a button to check charge state etc but usually you’ll only be using it as a charge module.Terrible useless wasteful crap, but hey, free batteries!",
"parent_id": "8180236",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180237",
"author": "That's on a need to know basis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T01:09:58",
"content": "the year is 2035 and each one has its own ai chatbot and internet connection…im gen z and have no intention of touching those things.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180303",
"author": "mtr",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T04:32:58",
"content": "missed opportunity for tcp/ip over vapor signals (receiving part to be worked out) ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180480",
"author": "PPJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T11:13:21",
"content": "It could read news and release white smoke whenever new pope is chosen.",
"parent_id": "8180303",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180342",
"author": "Sheff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:00:45",
"content": "I just used a cheep one to make a laser in an old phone receiver 📞.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180387",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T07:13:36",
"content": "Not mentioning the brand feels more like hoarding the free supply of boards and less like protecting us from advertising the manufacturer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180537",
"author": "Snarkenstein",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:09:33",
"content": "I can’t stop thinking, “Someone with poor impulse control had this in their MOUTH!”Not touching that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180550",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:51:06",
"content": "Mouth would be the cleaner place",
"parent_id": "8180537",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181073",
"author": "redletterday",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T20:06:10",
"content": "Assume it will return a 420 http status?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181284",
"author": "detro",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T08:25:25",
"content": "Recently got a lost mary spinoff that has a full LCD capable of playing doom. Going to take that apart now lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.781813
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/hackaday-links-september-14-2025/
|
Hackaday Links: September 14, 2025
|
Dan Maloney
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] |
[
"atomic",
"biosignature",
"crt",
"hackaday links",
"Manhattan Project",
"mars",
"nasa",
"nuclear",
"Perseverance",
"redox",
"retro",
"video"
] |
Is it finally time to
cue up the Bowie
? Or was
the NASA presser
on Wednesday announcing new findings of potential Martian biosignatures from
Perseverance
just another in a long line of “We are not alone” teases that turn out to be false alarms? Time will tell, but from
the peer-reviewed paper
released simultaneously with the news conference, it appears that biological activity is now the simplest explanation for the geochemistry observed in some rock samples analyzed by the rover last year. There’s a lot in the paper to unpack, most of which is naturally directed at planetary scientists and therefore somewhat dense reading. But the gist is that
Perseverance
sampled some sedimentary rocks in Jezero crater back in July of 2024 with the
SHERLOC
and
PIXL
instruments, extensive analysis of which suggests the presence of “reaction fronts” within the rock that produced iron phosphate and iron sulfide minerals in characteristic shapes, such as the ring-like formations they dubbed “leopard spots,” and the pinpoint “poppy seed” formations.
The big deal with these redox reactions is that they seem to have occurred
after
the material forming the rock was deposited; in other words, possibly by microorganisms that settled to the bottom of a body of water along with the mineral particles. On Earth, there are a ton of aquatic microbes that make a living off this kind of biochemistry and behave the same way, and have been doing so since the Precambrian era. Indeed, similar features known as “reduction haloes” are sometimes seen in modern marine sediments on Earth. There’s also evidence that these reactions occurred at temperatures consistent with liquid water, which rules out abiotic mechanisms for reducing sulfates to sulfides, since those require high temperatures.
Putting all this together, the paper’s authors come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation for all their observations is the activity of ancient Martian microbes. But they’re very careful to say that there may still be a much less interesting abiotic explanation that they haven’t thought of yet. They really went out of their way to find a boring explanation for this, though, for which they deserve a lot of credit. Here’s hoping that they’re on the right track, and that we’ll someday be able to retrieve
the cached samples
and give them a proper lab analysis here on Earth.
Back here on Earth,
the BBC has a nice article
about aficionados of old-school CRT televisions and the great lengths they take to collect and preserve them. Thirty-odd years on from the point at which we switched from CRT displays and TVs to flat-panel displays, seemingly overnight, it’s getting harder to find the old tube-based units. But given that hundreds of millions of CRTs were made over about 60 years, there’s still a lot of leaded glass out there. The story mentions one collector, Joshi, who scored a lot of ten displays for only $2,500 — a lot for old TVs, but these were professional video monitors, the kind that used to line the walls of TV studio control rooms and video editing bays. They’re much different than consumer-grade equipment, and highly sought by retro gamers who prize the look and feel of a CRT. We understand the sentiment, and it makes us cringe a bit to think of all the PVMs, TVs, and monitors we’ve tossed out over the years. Who knew?
And finally — yeah, a little short this week, sorry — Brian Potter has another great essay over at Construction Physics, this time regarding
the engineering behind the Manhattan Project
. What strikes us about the entire effort to produce the first atomic bombs is that everyone had a lot of faith in the whole “That which is not forbidden by the laws of physics is just an engineering problem” thing. They knew what the physics said would happen when you got just the right amount of fissile material together in one place under the right conditions, but they had no idea how they were going to do that. They had to conquer huge engineering problems, turning improbable ideas like centrifugal purification of gaseous uranium and explosive assembly with shaped charges into practical, fieldable technologies. And what’s more, they had to do it under secretive conditions and under the ultimate in time constraints. It’s an interesting read, as is Richard Rhodes’s “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” which we read back in the late 1980s and which Brian mentions in the essay. Both are highly recommended for anyone interested in how the Atomic Age was born.
| 1
| 1
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8181008",
"author": "Nik",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T16:40:38",
"content": "Do aliens exist? Yes. Are they alone too? Yes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.876761
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/retro-x86-with-486tang/
|
Retro X86 With 486Tang
|
Al Williams
|
[
"FPGA",
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"80486",
"fpga",
"Gowin",
"MiSTER",
"Tang"
] |
Tang FPGA boards are affordable, and [nand2mario] has been trying to get an x86 core running on one for a while. Looks like it finally worked out, as there is an early version of the
ao486 design on a Tang FPGA board using a Gowin device
. That core’s available on the MiSTer platform, which emulates games using an Altera Cyclone device.
Of course, porting something substantial between FPGA architectures is not trivial. In addition, [nand2mario] made some changes. The original core uses DDR3 memory, but for the Tang and the 486, SDRAM makes more sense. The only problem is that the Tang’s SDRAM is 16 bits wide, which would imply you need two cycles per 32-bit access. To mitigate this, the memory system runs at twice the main clock frequency. Of course, that’s kind of double data rate, but not in the same way as DDR memory.
The MiSTer uses an ARM processor’s high-speed channel to link to the FPGA for disk access. The Tang board lacks a high-speed interface for this, so the disk storage is now on an SD card that the FPGA directly accesses. In addition, the first 128K of the SD card stores configuration settings that the FPGA now reads from that on boot up.
One of the most interesting things about the development was the use of Verilator to simulate the entire system, including things like the VGA card. It was possible to simulate booting to a DOS prompt, although it was slower than being on actual hardware, as you might expect. But, this lets you poke at the entire state of the system in a way that would be difficult on the actual hardware.
Want to give it a try? The Tang boards are cheap. (We have one on a shelf waiting for a future post.) Or, you could go the simulation route.
MiSTer
has really put FPGAs on a lot of people’s radar. If you prefer the C64, that’s
available on a Tang board
, too.
| 4
| 2
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179631",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:56:31",
"content": "I love the tang9k and 20k. Very capable little boards.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179684",
"author": "ellisfl",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T23:48:42",
"content": "Also low cost. I wish there more people would pick these guys up.",
"parent_id": "8179631",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179845",
"author": "tiopepe123",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:57:44",
"content": "The lack of educational focus from many FPGA manufacturers has historically been a significant barrier to broader adoption, especially outside specialized industrial or academic fields.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180009",
"author": "Clyde",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:55:32",
"content": "Agreed! Although not from the manufacturer, Lushay Labs has a series of tutorials for the Tang 9K athttps://learn.lushaylabs.com/tang-nano-series/which uses open source tools",
"parent_id": "8179845",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,426.838034
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/reverse-engineering-aleratec-cd-changers-for-archival-use/
|
Reverse-Engineering Aleratec CD Changers For Archival Use
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Reverse Engineering",
"Tech Hacks"
] |
[
"archival",
"cd changer",
"optical media"
] |
Handling large volumes of physical media can be a bit of a chore, whether it’s about duplication or archiving. Fortunately this is a perfect excuse for building robotic contraptions, with the robots for handling optical media being both fascinating and mildly frustrating. When [Shelby Jueden] of
Tech Tangents
fame was looking at
using these optical media robots for archival purposes
, the biggest hurdle turned out to be with the optical drives, despite these Aleratec units being primarily advertised for disc duplication.
Both of the units are connected to a PC by USB, but operate mostly standalone, with a documented protocol for the basic unit that makes using it quite easy to use for ripping. This is unlike the larger, triple-drive unit, which had no documented protocol. This meant having to sniff the USB traffic that the original, very limited, software sends to the robot. The protocol has now been documented and
published
on the
Tech Tangents
Wiki for this Aleratec Auto Publisher LS.
Where [Shelby] hit a bit of a brick wall was with mixed-media discs, which standalone DVD players are fine with, but typical IDE/SATA optical drives often struggle with. During the subsequent search for a better drive, the internals of the robot were upgraded from IDE to SATA, but calibrating the robot for the new drives led [Shelby] down a maddening cascade of issues. Yet even after making one type of drive work, the mixed-media issue reared its head again with mixed audio and data, leaving the drive for now as an imperfect, but very efficient, ripper for game and multimedia content, perhaps until the Perfect Optical Drive can be found.
| 15
| 4
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179582",
"author": "MrW",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:05:02",
"content": "Pioneer 107d",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179615",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:56:25",
"content": "I used to work for a company who did DRM on optical disks. That meant lots of testing, as (unlike some of our competitors), we were pretty strong on it not interfering with legal usage. To assist in all this, we had a few robots – some like these, and bigger 4-drive / 5 stack things.We had to reverse engineer them to use them for duplication and testing.Firstly, the serial ones were far simpler to work with. The USB ones we found tended to drop connection occasionally.They came with pretty naff drives (from a features POV), which we needed to replace, in some cases with specific other drives (sometimes with special firmware, control boards, etc). This is where the real fun was.They came with custom drives, adapted to eject further than normal, and to eject to a more reliable position.Every drive that went into a robot thus needed to be hacked to fit – removing bezels, adjusting end stops, even cutting out parts of the case occasionally – to do what we could to make the drive trays open to a repeatable position. And the drives would sometimes drop the disc in an erratic position on the tray, further increasing the chance of failure.The whole thing was further complicated by often having the drives connected to different PCs for various reasons.Then we had to test them, which I did by making them play towers of Hanoi with CDs over the weekend.Despite all that, you could guarantee it’d crash when you actually needed it 😭Fun days.Yeah, not sad optical media has died! 😂",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179626",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:42:39",
"content": "I was thinking about this recently for archivalstorageactually, using a shitload of blank DVDs or bluray disks….for however long those still get made.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179635",
"author": "Dide",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:16:51",
"content": "Considering that you can’t buy reliably good quality blanks anymore, for 20 years now, archiving on DVDs is asking for more trouble than it’s worth.I suppose you could burn three copies of each disc, and when they inevitably rot and develop unrecoverable errors, you can at least hope to reconstruct the data.",
"parent_id": "8179626",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179649",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:41:03",
"content": "I wouldnt buy them off amazon (fakes) but Ritek and Verbatim BluRay M Disks are still very available and they really do not inevitably rot nor develop unrecoverable errors. Only downside is the whole write once dynamic, but if youre archiving thats not an issue.",
"parent_id": "8179635",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179851",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:14:44",
"content": "I’ve seen many ” 100 year” discs come and go, and the story was always the same. First batches seem promising, then quality control goes and the stuff that ends up on the market is whatever slop.There’s no control because there’s no repercussions. The discs are bad – so what? They never promised you anything more than a new disc for warranty. It just takes people 5-10 years to notice that the discs are getting corrupted.",
"parent_id": "8179649",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179937",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T13:34:21",
"content": "Point in case:https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/yu4j1u/psa_verbatim_no_longer_sells_real_m_discs_now/“I emailed Verbatim’s customer service and prepared a bunch of images that show these fake M Discs next to real ones. But to my surprise, after a debate with customer service they told me that these are not fakes, and that these “are the only M Discs that are going to be sold from now on” (quote). What’s insane is that these discs currently being sold are not M Discs at all, but regular organic layer Verbatim BD-Rs, yet Verbatim still calls these M Disc.”",
"parent_id": "8179851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179945",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T14:05:35",
"content": "As for Ritek, I asked duck.ai to list the best and worst reported brands of BD-R discs and their typical failures, and Ritek was among the worst listed.“High variance in quality; higher coaster rates and poor longevity reported.”And indeed, when you look at old forum posts, there are people who swear by them, and people who complain that their discs rot in 3 months even though they test perfect right after burning.That’s what all the manufacturers do. They push good batches and bad batches, whatever happens to come out of the production lines, because nobody is keeping accounts. Nobody knows whether they’re good or bad until years later, unless they’re really bad, at which point they address the problems and do a bit of PR face lifting, change the logo or the color of the wrapper and go “New and improved!”. For a while it is until they let the quality control slip again to save money and make profit.It’s called the lemon market: when the consumers can’t trust the product and can’t evaluate the quality until it’s too late, which makes it impossible to compete with quality, even those whose products were initially good will eventually sell the same crud as the fakers.",
"parent_id": "8179851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180317",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T05:02:53",
"content": "Some guy on reddit said some Verbatim customer service agent said that Mdisc are all fake now. MMHMMM yeah. Thats some reliable source youve got there. Im sure their website is just lying.https://www.verbatim.com/en/m-disc/products/43825-m-disc-bd-r-25gb-4x-limited-archival-10pk“Unlike traditional optical media, which utilize dyes that can break down over time, data stored on an M DISC is engraved on a patented inorganic write layer – it will not fade or deteriorate. ”“ISO/IEC 16963 standard longevity tests have proven the durability of M DISC technology, and it withstood rigorous testing by the US Department of Defense. Based on ISO/IEC 16963 testing, M DISC media has a projected lifetime of several hundred years.”You better run and edit wikipedia which explains:“Early in 2022, Verbatim changed the formulation of their M-DISC branded Blu-rays. These new discs could be written at a faster rate than the previous ones – 6× speed instead of 4×. The new discs also had different colouration and markings compared with older version.Later in the year customers accused Verbatim of selling an inferior product and deceptive marketing.Verbatim responded that the new discs were a further development of the older discs and should have the same longevity, and that the technical changes therein were responsible for the altered appearance and higher write speeds.The updated M-DISC currently sold on the market uses the same metal ablative layer (MABL) metal oxide inorganic recording layer used in many of Verbatim’s regular Blu-ray products.”",
"parent_id": "8179851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180751",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T05:12:24",
"content": "The updated M-DISC currently sold on the market uses the same metal ablative layer (MABL) metal oxide inorganic recording layer used in many of Verbatim’s regular Blu-ray products.That’s the point. Whatever could be said of the earlier M-DISC does not apply any longer because it isn’t the same product. Whether it’s better or worse will be decided – years later.Is the current M-DISC simply picked out of the normal disc production line, randomly tested, and deemed “just as good”? Is that what makes it more expensive than the regular ones, and the regular ones are simply the batches that failed testing?Note that you can’t test them non-destructively, so you have to use random sampling and derive a probability that the entire batch is “good” or “bad”. That means there’s still variability – just that it’s within acceptable bounds. That means you still got to keep sampling the discs yourself and gambling whether THIS disc out of THIS lot is good or bad according to your demands.Iso/Iec 16963:2015. The methodology includes only the effects of temperature and relative humidity. It does not attempt to model degradation due to complex failure mechanism kinetics, nor does it test for exposure to light, corrosive gases, contaminants, handling, or variations in playback subsystems.",
"parent_id": "8179851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180753",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T05:18:37",
"content": "Also note that regular CD-R/W discs subjected to the ISO/IEC accelerated testing also promise 30-100 year lifespan – as a selling point – but are found to break down in months to couple years in practice as the actual quality of the discs goes up and down over the years. Just because it passes the test under ideal conditions does not mean the discs are good for archiving.Again because there’s no real consequences to the manufacturer to pass on bad QC. So NASA found out 20 years later that all the M-DISCs are corrupted? Then what? Nothing. The CEO of the company has retired and nobody cares.",
"parent_id": "8179851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179946",
"author": "Ale",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T14:10:08",
"content": "but which options are left for archival ? harddiscs do not last forever…",
"parent_id": "8179626",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179958",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:07:58",
"content": "Tape.Hard disks typically last longer than your average home-burned optical discs, and come with the advantage of higher data rates and storage density. Just as with anything, you have to keep migrating your data to newer devices if only for the point that the physical interfaces and the file systems keep on moving forwards, so you’re not left with a situation of having a disc but no drive to read it.",
"parent_id": "8179946",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180297",
"author": "nobody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T03:58:12",
"content": "I was contemplating using spinning disks (plastic and rust) for archival storage. But then I considered LTO tape and it actually worked out really well for me. I pay about $3/TB for blank LTO5 tapes. The used tape drive was about $150, and a cheap HBA card was under $50. It does writes at a steady 140MB/s, so it’s pretty fast too. LTO6 is becoming affordable on eBay too. Data stored on tape should last reliable for about 30 years. In 10 years I’ll probably upgrade to LTO7 or LTO8 if it becomes affordable.",
"parent_id": "8179946",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179636",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:17:17",
"content": "RIP Gulliver.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.935735
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/this-board-helps-you-prototype-circuits-with-tubes/
|
This Board Helps You Prototype Circuits With Tubes
|
Seth Mabbott
|
[
"how-to",
"Radio Hacks"
] |
[
"breadboard hacks",
"vacuum tubes"
] |
There you are at the surplus store, staring into the bin of faded orange, yellow, red, and black, boxes–a treasure trove of vintage vacuum tubes—dreaming about building a tube amp for your guitar or a phonograph preamp for your DIY hi-fi sound system. But, if you are not already in possession of a vintage, purpose-built tube testing device, how would you test them to know whether they are working properly? How would you test out your designs before committing to them? Or maybe your goal is simply to play around and learn more about how tubes work.
One approach is to build yourself a
breadboard for tubes
, like [MarceloG19] has done. Working mostly with what was laying around, [MarceloG19] built a shallow metal box to serve as a platform for a variety of tube sockets and screw terminals. Connecting the terminals to the socket leads beneath the outer surface of the box made for a tidy and firm base on which to connect other components. The built-in on/off switch, fuse and power socket are a nice touch.
[MarceloG19’s] inaugural design is a simple Class A amplifier, tested with a sine wave and recorded music. Then it’s on to some manual curve tracing, to test a tube that turns out to be fairly worn-out but serviceable for certain use cases.
If you’re dipping your toes into tube-based electronics, you’re going to want a piece of equipment like this prototyping board and [MarceloG19’s] documentation and discussion are a good read to help get you started.
Once you have your board ready, it’s time to move on to building a
stereo amplifier
, a tube-based
headphone preamp
, or take things in a different direction with this
CRT-driven audio amplifier
.
| 12
| 8
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179513",
"author": "werd",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:46:32",
"content": "“surplus store”?! Where is this mythical beast?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179525",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:33:16",
"content": "Here in Germany it’s that shop where you can order 1 kg of random parts for 7.99€. They’ll send you 10 random tubes for 1.95€.",
"parent_id": "8179513",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179538",
"author": "KenN",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:15:16",
"content": "I expect that most Western cities have at least one electronics surplus shop of some description, with flats of unsorted, untested tubes. Tube lots can occasionally be found in the local online classified ads, after someone’s reclusive uncle passes away. And of course tubes are found on fleaBay. And amateur radio (“ham”) groups periodically have flea markets at which tubes are usually available.Several years ago, new old-stock mil-spec Soviet tubes were very cheap on eBay, so I stocked up. Great for audio and radio projects. They’re still available, but not as cheap. The very small pencil tubes with leads are still inexpensive.",
"parent_id": "8179513",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179541",
"author": "Foxhood",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:34:20",
"content": "My approach was to take cut leads from diodes that were either used in projects or no longer identifiable and solder those unto Sockets. These could be bent to fit in a regular breadboard. It isn’t remotely elegant or proper, but it is good enough for experiments like running tubes at lower than intended voltages and so called “Hybrid” amplifier circuits.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179589",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:19:50",
"content": "i use flexibe wire and a pin header for that. the tube lies flat down besides the breadboard.",
"parent_id": "8179541",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179578",
"author": "Me",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:57:29",
"content": "“tubes” as in not CRT’s, are known in English as valves 😉",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179596",
"author": "m",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:42:53",
"content": "Who here is old enough to remember the origins of the term “breadboard”?Also, I was thinking those terminal blocks could be replaced by springs, like those in a RadioShack 100-in-1 kit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179607",
"author": "mjrippe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:28:55",
"content": "I am, and that’s why mine was made with an old wooden clipboard. Banana jacks for power input, several terminal blocks, a long solid copper bus bar (for tack soldering to), and octal relay sockets with screw terminals.",
"parent_id": "8179596",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179624",
"author": "John Francis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:29:00",
"content": "I just use tagboard",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179846",
"author": "Nickstomp",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:03:27",
"content": "i have something similar. in general I’ll avoid metal for the base I’ll prefer something more ‘isolated’ (i had one made with wood probably plexiglass would be better)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180436",
"author": "Justin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:25:23",
"content": "I see the word bread board… But no bread 🤔",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182810",
"author": "Matthew Shoup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-22T01:40:55",
"content": "Probably better than metal. Vacuum tube (9 pin) prototyping board enclosure by simplyflipflops – Thingiversehttps://share.google/kndBfJvHosC5bSKJ7",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,426.985929
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/reverse-engineering-the-milwaukee-m18-diagnostics-protocol/
|
Reverse-Engineering The Milwaukee M18 Diagnostics Protocol
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Battery Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Tool Hacks"
] |
[
"battery pack",
"cordless tool",
"Milwaukee M18"
] |
As is regrettably typical in the cordless tool world, Milwaukee’s M18 batteries are highly proprietary. Consequently, this makes them a welcome target for reverse-engineering of their interfaces and protocols. Most recently the
full diagnostic command set for M18 battery packs were reverse-engineered
by [ToolScientist] and others, allowing anyone to check useful things like individual cell voltages and a range of statistics without having to crack open the battery case.
These results follow on
our previous coverage
back in 2023, when the basic interface and poorly checksummed protocol was being explored. At the time basic battery management system (BMS) information could be obtained this way, but now the range of known commands has been massively expanded. This mostly involved just brute-forcing responses from a gaggle of battery pack BMSes.
Interpreting the responses was the next challenge, with responses like cell voltage being deciphered so far, but serial number and the like being harder to determine. As explained in the video below, there are many gotchas that make analyzing these packs significantly harder, such as some reads only working properly if the battery is on a charger, or after an initial read.
| 17
| 7
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179452",
"author": "mnh-jansson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:49:13",
"content": "While i was involved in this project, the video is from ToolScientist. I would give him the main credit in the article :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179537",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:15:11",
"content": "Thanks! And fixed.",
"parent_id": "8179452",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179462",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:12:11",
"content": "Batteries becoming little computers in their own right. Can’t wait to run Doom on one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179475",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:50:35",
"content": "There are microcontrollers in basically everything, and have been for a long while now. Tool batteries are probably one of the least surprising places.",
"parent_id": "8179462",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179595",
"author": ".",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:42:09",
"content": "They mightn’t be very smart, but once they become sentient they’ll be much better armed to wreak havoc than fancy-pants AI smartphones.",
"parent_id": "8179462",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179622",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:22:31",
"content": "I worked on a commercial moped BMS for a company. All I’ll say is, there is nearly not as many details that are captured in actual several kWHr moped BMSes, than there are in these power tool batteries. Surprising honestly",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179665",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T23:09:10",
"content": "Cool. Now do Makita!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180048",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:40:10",
"content": "Martin Jansson has done much of this work:https://martinjansson.netlify.app/posts",
"parent_id": "8179665",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180730",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T01:31:01",
"content": "Thanks!",
"parent_id": "8180048",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179875",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:53:25",
"content": "Time for Europe to make usb-c mandatory for those tools.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179880",
"author": ".",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:04:01",
"content": "USB-C and angle grinders.Good on ya mate.",
"parent_id": "8179875",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179954",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T14:56:13",
"content": "If your angle grinder runs on batteries then it’ll probably run on usb-c which is capable of 240W (48v @ 5A)",
"parent_id": "8179880",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180182",
"author": "DKE",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T23:14:53",
"content": "You did see the part where he was pushing 300A @18V, 5.4kW.",
"parent_id": "8179954",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179925",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:51:17",
"content": "I upgraded a couple of old drills from NiCad to LiPo, and yup, USB-C. These were 12v, pretty easy with off-the-shelf charge & BMS modules.It does seem a no-brainer ow that USB-C can do 240W (48v @ 5A).",
"parent_id": "8179875",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179922",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:46:10",
"content": "You missed the really crazy thing that Louis Rossmann picked up on.Apparently for all the stats they track to make it easier to void a warranty, they don’t have any logic for battery balancing. So your battery might just keel over because one cell is a little low.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179934",
"author": "Josephus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T13:29:50",
"content": "I think there was discussion of that on here a while back",
"parent_id": "8179922",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8181546",
"author": "David Carver",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T02:04:38",
"content": "So now we can use this to build a charger that gives useful diagnostic info on a screen. I would love to plug in a battery and see which cell needs replacing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.038231
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/14/from-paper-to-pixels-a-diy-digital-barograph/
|
From Paper To Pixels: A DIY Digital Barograph
|
Matt Varian
|
[
"hardware"
] |
[
"barograph",
"bme280",
"ESP32"
] |
A barograph is a device that graphs a barometer’s readings over time, revealing trends that can predict whether stormy weather is approaching or sunny skies are on the way. This
DIY Digital Barograph
, created by [mircmk], offers a modern twist on a classic technology.
Dating back to the mid-1700s, barographs have traditionally used an aneroid cell to move a scribe across paper that advances with time, graphing pressure trends. However, this method has its shortcomings: you must replace the paper once it runs through its time range, and mechanical components require regular maintenance.
[mircmk]’s DIY Digital Barograph ditches paper and aneroids for a sleek 128×64 LCD display that shows measurements from a BME280 pressure sensor. Powered by an ESP32 microcontroller — the code for which is available on the project page — the device checks the sensor upon boot and features external buttons to cycle through readings from the current moment, the last hour, or three hours ago. Unlike traditional barographs that only track pressure, the BME280 also measures temperature and humidity, which are displayed on the screen for a more complete environmental snapshot.
Head over to the project’s Hackaday.io page for more details and to start building your own. Thanks to [mircmk] for sharing this project! We’re excited to see what you come up with next. If you’re inspired, check out other
weather display projects
we’ve featured.
| 6
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179480",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:03:19",
"content": "Built one a few years ago around an Arduino. I might steal some ideas from this one and update mine.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179555",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T17:38:17",
"content": "Interesting, it would be nice to build one with e-paper to mimic to graphic proces more.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179560",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T17:59:05",
"content": "BRAVO: I like the implementation of BAROGRAPH … much more refined that the old Arduino projects of mine (STM32F103 Maple Mini/Blue Pill); much of the effort there was directed to core and libraries as they were not nearly as mature as today’s products.http://forum.arduino.cc/t/barometer-project/935657/4In this implementation, an IR sensor detects the wave of a hand over the display to switch momentarily to the barometric display and automatically returns to the GPS clock.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAPr7fRsu_Ahttp://web.archive.org/web/20190316202535/https://www.hackster.io/rayburne/color-barometric-extension-to-gps-date-time-clock-a8b121Opinion: the ESP32 has way too much capability to be dedicated to just the barometer, but it is readily available and inexpensive so I can understand why it was chosen if it was already on hand. And, there is always the option to use WiFi to make the device accessible anywhere inside the home.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179592",
"author": "Thinkerer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:27:59",
"content": "Also in for a past Arduino build, but with a suggestion: Compensation. There are several barometric values to fool around with (Station, MSL, and Altimeter Setting) and the adjustment is just accounting for the altitude of the instrument. I did it with simple code adjustments since my effort was for home, but being able to change this would be useful.https://www.weather.gov/bou/pressure_definitionsPersonally I’d rather stick with a $3 Arduino and spend on a nice ePaper display, but to each their own.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179601",
"author": "cplamb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:07:01",
"content": "How does one do an absolutely calibration of the atmospheric pressure reading? I could do a relative one by making a barometer out of tubing and water but without a precision instrument close by I can’t figure out how to do an absolute calibration.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179625",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:38:52",
"content": "int localCorrect = 3575;// +/- hPa*100 to correct for local altitude// 100X delta: 3625 == Briscoe Field, Ga (1061 feet)(323.3928 meters)I prefer to tell folks to just stick in a number, compile, upload and view the barometric pressure… then look online to the local airport pressure report and adjust your ‘guess’ higher or lower to zero in on the value!I went ahead and posted my entire project from 10+ years ago to my hackaday.io pages:https://hackaday.io/project/204027-wow-barometer-stm32-ili9341-bmp180",
"parent_id": "8179601",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,427.17912
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/3d-modeling-with-paper-as-an-alternative-to-3d-printing/
|
3D Modeling With Paper As An Alternative To 3D Printing
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"3d Printer hacks"
] |
[
"Arts and Crafts",
"paper model"
] |
Manual arrangement of the parts in Pepakura Designer. (Credit: Arvin Podder)
Although these days it would seem that everyone and their pets are running 3D printers to churn out all the models and gadgets that their hearts desire, a more traditional approach to creating physical 3D models is in the form of paper models. These use designs printed on paper sheets that are cut out and assembled using basic glue, but creating these designs is much easier these days, as [Arvin Poddar]
demonstrates in a recent article
.
The cool part about making these paper models is that you create them from any regular 3D mesh, with any STL or similar file from your favorite 3D printer model site like Printables or Thingiverse being fair game, though [Arvin] notes that reducing mesh faces can be trickier than modelling from scratch. In this case he created the SR-71 model from scratch in Blender, featuring 732 triangles. What the right number of faces is depends on the target paper type and your assembly skills.
Following mesh modelling step is mesh unfolding into a 2D shape, which is where you have a few software options, like the paid-for-but-full-featured
Pepakura Designer
demonstrated, as well as the
‘Paper Model’ exporter
for Blender.
Beyond the software used to create the SR-71 model in the article, the only tools you really need are a color printer, paper, scissor,s and suitable glue. Of course you are always free to use fancier tools than these to print and cut, but the bar here is pretty low for the assembly. Although making functional parts isn’t the goal here, there is a lot to be said for paper models for pure display pieces and to get children interested in 3D modelling.
| 32
| 13
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179392",
"author": "prfesser",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T06:05:04",
"content": "Paper modeling is about as inexpensive as a hobby can get. A huge variety of highly detailed models are available for free download. How about a 1/48 scale (2.3 m, seven and a half feet!) Saturn V? Or a 1/40 scale ISS that will probably need its own room for display…https://www.papermodelingman.com/gallery_models.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179613",
"author": "Niklas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:48:37",
"content": "That’s a cool resource – thanks for sharing :)",
"parent_id": "8179392",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179397",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T07:21:55",
"content": "I remember papakura ages ago (10+ years?) as something I had to mess with to load and print a papercraft. I think there might have been paid upgrades to the viewer and the designer was 100% paid-only. It always struck me as the kind of thing that it would be pretty easy to write an open-source replacement for (just taking a 3D model and texture and choosing how to unfold it, then putting that on a sheet of paper to print), but I never had a strong enough need to pursue it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179404",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T08:16:36",
"content": "Just this morning I built a model of a spherical flexure (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141635921000726#appsec1) out of cardboard with my kid. It didn’t turn out quite as accurate as the 3D printed one would have, but now I don’t have a bunch of single-use plastic to throw out.And it felt a lot more like “doing” something than just waiting for a 3D print would have.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179415",
"author": "mathman",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:27:11",
"content": "Wow, this is really cool!Thanks for the link!",
"parent_id": "8179404",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179533",
"author": "JSA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:57:30",
"content": "I remember getting kits like this as a kid.",
"parent_id": "8179415",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179421",
"author": "ganzuul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:52:00",
"content": "Very neat concept. Maybe this helps with material selection.https://www.flickr.com/photos/mitopencourseware/3491556513There is ~0.2mm thick aluminum sheet that can be cut with scissors but it does not form a tight bend very well.",
"parent_id": "8179404",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179498",
"author": "Tony H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:08:54",
"content": "Now Im considering how to make this with my kids, as well as unique use cases for such a joint",
"parent_id": "8179404",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179577",
"author": "Scleronomous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:52:18",
"content": "Was this inspired by the latest “Action Lab” video on YT involving chickens?",
"parent_id": "8179404",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179410",
"author": "fjrytjty",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:12:05",
"content": "only open sourcesorry mac, findows and other closed programs not for me",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179696",
"author": "Anathae",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T00:36:02",
"content": "Blender runs on Linux, doesn’t it?",
"parent_id": "8179410",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179411",
"author": "highjumpman",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:12:13",
"content": "This also sounds useful for thin sheet metal designs, for those folks that have access to a good laser cutter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179414",
"author": "ganzuul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:25:14",
"content": "Currently obsessing about a toolset to do analog computation with paper construction and replace CAD with screen-free alternatives, now that computers don’t need me to hold their hand everywhere. Free at last.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182600",
"author": "Bear Naff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-21T08:24:27",
"content": "Have you written any of your ideas down anywhere? There have been various attempts at purely mechanical plotters and whatnot in the past. IIRC at least one of the designs made some kind of use of a jerk-motion network of twine to pass messages between human-operated stations.I have long wondered about the idea of an educational machine that can give instructions for building various input and output devices meant to interface with itself. The machine would be meant to help someone rebuild a technological base from roughly the mid-18th century well into some kind of lower energy version of the late 20th. An apocalypse seed or dragon’s egg, if you will.I have played with ideas for making useful outputs that could handle text (A Baird televisor) and print images (An open air nitrogen laser being used in a light-tight plotter fed with cyanotype paper) for sharing and archiving design information contained in the machine.An even simple and more rugged book on information that couldteachhow to make the tools for useful analog computing using paper and other simple materials would dovetail into that kind of project well.",
"parent_id": "8179414",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179417",
"author": "alanrcam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:38:35",
"content": "For the sake of longevity, can you apply epoxy resin to the cardboard?With an airbrush, perhaps?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179445",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:38:13",
"content": "Or dissolve styrofoam in acetone to make a durable waterproof plastic lacquer. This really works and there are numerous YouTube videos about it.Doing this is best done outdoors for obvious reasons.",
"parent_id": "8179417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179479",
"author": "alanrcam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:01:08",
"content": "So long as it doesn’t deform, while making a casting mould.In fact, it might even be re-used.",
"parent_id": "8179445",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180099",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:13:22",
"content": "Or dissolve styrofoam in gasoline to make kiddy napalm.Useful when you are bored with your models.Outdoors is probably best, but your call.",
"parent_id": "8179445",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179453",
"author": "Scoops",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:51:28",
"content": "Maybe use clear UV cure nail gel?",
"parent_id": "8179417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179509",
"author": "rasz_pl",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:37:56",
"content": "illegal in EU :)",
"parent_id": "8179453",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179623",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:26:43",
"content": "No, clear UV cure nail gel itself isn’t illegal in Europe, but the use of a specific photoinitiator chemical, TPO, has been banned in cosmetic products since September 1, 2025. TPO is one of the cheapeest option for photoinitiator but the percent PI required is such a small portion of a gel that the increased cost of an alternative doesnt significantly effect the per bottle cost. There are TONS of TPO free products out there already filling the market gap.",
"parent_id": "8179509",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179466",
"author": "Jon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:24:09",
"content": "Use aluminum cans",
"parent_id": "8179417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179524",
"author": "prfesser",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:24:07",
"content": "Yes. I have made many conical paper transitions for rocketry by first forming the transition, then mixing and applying epoxy. I just rub it in with a gloved finger, and after it penetrates and turns somewhat translucent, wipe off the excess with a paper towel. Laminating epoxy–the thin stuff used for fiberglass and carbon fiber work–works best.",
"parent_id": "8179417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179579",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:58:33",
"content": "Hackaday has you covered:https://hackaday.com/2025/06/15/making-corrugated-cardboard-stronger-and-waterproof/(The video starts out very hype but after a few minutes gets quite information-dense and interesting)",
"parent_id": "8179417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179739",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T02:58:21",
"content": "This is standard practice for years for building replica prop armor from movies and videogames (Iron Man, Halo, Fallout, etc)Build the paper shape, paint on resin to stiffen it up, then fibreglass the inside and bondo on the outside to smooth it off before paint.",
"parent_id": "8179417",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180101",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:20:06",
"content": "Is there anything bondo can’t do?A friend of mine went into the ‘mobile body shop’ business when he was 16…Believe it or not, he talked well enough that a couple of people trusted him to fix significant dents (this was before paintless dent repair was a thing).On the second car, he realized he could drastically cut his bondo costs by incorporating old tennis shoes into the ‘dent repair’.",
"parent_id": "8179739",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179485",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:31:05",
"content": "Weeelll, I used Pepakura a long time ago (15+ years). A big problem of it was that the unfolded model didn’t show all the folds (for complex models with lots of curves – like airplanes) and therefore the finnished model was off.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179502",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:16:20",
"content": "I kind of wonder could you use this to print out a single leaf for a parabolic dish and then cut out 10-30 from thin sheets of aluminum to make a fan like parabolic RF dish. I guess supporting it and rotating it would still be an issue, oh and wind if it was really thin sheets.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179553",
"author": "Andy B",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T17:34:13",
"content": "An old website that’s now shut down (paperaircrafts.com) used to create fully flying paper airframes using this kind of modelling, I bought a few of the host’s models. Youtube still has demos, from user masterpaperaircrafts, great little models!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179576",
"author": "Mike J.",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:52:05",
"content": "Very interesting article.the only tools you really need are a color printer,Ah… What M is empty, I cant print… I dont need M… But I cant print… :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179765",
"author": "Petebeat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T04:09:40",
"content": "I’ve banned yt so hopefully this wasn’t in the source and I missed it but one really useful thing with papercraft is that you can get finishes that are really hard to do with 3d print.Want a shiny reflective daft punk helmet for Halloween? You could try and go down the pain route and spend days sanding and spraying or worse trying to figure out electroplating… oh yah did I mention this is a costume for a kid…Anyway trip to the craft store will net you gold foil cardboard which is perfectly shiny. Throw your downloaded high poly mesh into blender, and use a “retopologize” workflow to turn it into a “low poly” look. Which also btw looks very cool and daft punk should have done it.Oh and this same technique also works with thicker acetate sheets which are perfectly clear so you can even make a visor out of it. Again good luck getting 3dp to do that also wo like days of post processing.A cricket plotter/cutter is a must for efficiency though.(Not to shit on 3dp, after I finished the paper version I bought a 3dp and printed one and it didn’t end up with a nice surface but was significantly more robust and better in every other way than shininess. Kept the low poly triangulated mesh look though.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8187023",
"author": "monkeyking1969",
"timestamp": "2025-10-03T13:23:14",
"content": "I have been printing and making paper models for a few years. They are fun, I have even used a demo of Pepakura. I think the biggest downside to paper models is the cutting and the gluing, when you compare it to 3D printing. With paper models you have to CUT/GLUE precisely, and then assemble – precisely. With additive manufacture, even with assemblies of smaller parts, the end result is more precise and faster. I think paper models are great…and taking any 3D model and turning it into a cuttable model just opens up the possibilities for new models to build faster. But as an alternative to 3D printing…nah.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.253904
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/aussie-researchers-say-they-can-bring-the-iron-age-to-mars/
|
Aussie Researchers Say They Can Bring The Iron Age To Mars
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Space"
] |
[
"ISRU",
"mars"
] |
It’s not martian regolith, bu it’s the closest chemical match available to the dirt in Gale Crater. (Image: Swinburne University)
Every school child can tell you these days that Mars is red because it’s rusty. The silicate rock of the martian crust and regolith is very rich in iron oxide. Now Australian researchers at CSIRO and Swinburn University claim
they know how to break that iron loose.
In-situ Resource Utilization (IRSU) is a big deal in space exploration, with good reason. Every kilogram of resources you get on site is one you don’t have to fight
the tyranny of the rocket equation
for. Iron might not be something you’d ever be able to haul from Earth to the next planet over, but when you can make it on site? You can build like a Victoria is still queen and it’s time to flex on the French.
The key to the process seems to be simple pyrolysis: they describe putting dirt that is geochemically analogous to martian regolith into a furnace, and heating to 1000 °C under Martian atmospheric conditions to get iron metal. At 1400 °C, they were getting iron-silicon alloys– likely the stuff steelmakers call ferrosilicon, which isn’t something you’d build a crystal palace with.
It’s not clear how economical piling red dust into a thousand-degree furnace would be on Mars– that’s certainly not going to cut it on Earth– but compared to launch costs from Earth, it’s not unimaginable that martian dirt
could be considered ore
.
| 44
| 9
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179358",
"author": "Sean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T02:18:31",
"content": "“It’s not clear how economical piling red dust into a thousand-degree furnace would be on Mars”We are far from there yet, but in the end, unless you are doing asteroid mining in say the Xinglong (The Expanse), it’s likely more economical than launching Terran iron for those starter habitats.Some sort of thermonuclear power source and a lightweight titanium furnace maybe? Oh, Canada (ISS) style extensible arms under machine learning control would be good there!Launch that robot at Mars then come in later to (hopefully) a pile of pre-made ingots could be quite a “Satisfactory (game)” type starter habitat solution to get your crew out of the sun’s radiation.(it’s fun to think of, anyway, even if very silly)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179420",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:44:31",
"content": "Perhaps we could save even more weight. Maybe a furnace could be built from Marian rock, either from small stones or better yet, hewn directly from a solid rock face, a bit like a lime kiln. We could start small, to bootstrap the process and then use the resources gathered to expand and refine the process. We can’t expect to hit the ground running if we are only going over there with the bear minimum. Who ever goes, they’ll be true pioneers.",
"parent_id": "8179358",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179439",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:18:42",
"content": "A proof of concept display will be done remotely which makes the prefabbed route the only sane option. There mayeventuallybe a more basic solution but initially it will be prefabbed. However, I doubt they will merely stop with making iron since a steel alloy would be much more useful.",
"parent_id": "8179420",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179573",
"author": "CCO18",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:38:39",
"content": "First habitat will be the starship, if it goes there. 3 or 4 mm of stainless steel.And then, we will need an economical way to do everything there… From rock wool to steel and electronics later on.The goal is to create an independent world, even if exchanges exist.",
"parent_id": "8179439",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181219",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T03:25:06",
"content": "…and you need to bring enough stuff with you to survive for 2 years. At least.It’s a pipe dream at the moment. I’m sure it’ll happen in 20 years, which is good because then they can bring one of those new-fangled working-at-last fusion reactors with them.",
"parent_id": "8179573",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180100",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:15:12",
"content": "The problem with ‘natural’ rock kilns is how disposable they are.How much time/effort is each gram of processed iron worth?ISRU is going to be super important, but not in the small scale.We need to plan on putting multi-ton furnaces in place, which will require an entirely different launch infrastructure on Earth.(Like, wildly different. Think linear rail launch assistance going up a mountain sized ramp…)We can’t do that without long term planning, and it will either never be “profitable”, or only in the VERY long term. Which means we need leadership that can stomach government programs that don’t turn a profit in their pitifully short elected terms.The whole ‘for profit’ private space industry is insane, and it doesn’t get us ground plebs anything.If we are ever going to make real progress off this rock, it will have to be something we ALL pay for, and we do on principal.It can’t be about prospecting.It must be about the simple exploration.",
"parent_id": "8179420",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180214",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T00:16:33",
"content": "Or you send up small likely self assembling robotic system that allows you to bootstrap the tech tree and build the larger industrial facilities required quickly but without having to actually bring the facility with you. In much the same way you can make your own lathe, and from that lathe any other machine tool with nothing but pretty basic hand tools and some sand casting – it takes a heck of alot longer than having somebody who has already done some of that work letting you use their existing machine to make bits of yours.If we are ever going to make real progress off this rock, it will have to be something we ALL pay for, and we do on principal.Much as that sounds nice I’m rather certain real progress will one day be made in space even if it just to make Musk or whomever inherits the title of wealthiest muppet by the time the technologies are ready even wealthier and more powerful.",
"parent_id": "8180100",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179440",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:23:50",
"content": "Given the amount of radiation and the daily temperature extremes, living on the surface is a not a good option. However, this could be useful for constructing other things that we will need, if we can manage to bootstrap real automated manufacturing.",
"parent_id": "8179358",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180540",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:13:44",
"content": "“starter habitat solution to get your crew out of the sun’s radiation” at 1/3g a lot of local regolith can be piled on a habitat. The air pressure alone at 1 atmosphere can support around 5 meters. With Victorian era cast iron structures?",
"parent_id": "8179358",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179362",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T02:55:08",
"content": "Very funny guys, who swapped out the regolith simulant for Milo?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179380",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T03:48:06",
"content": "So, if we could forge lengths of circular section iron up there would they be Mars bars?I’ll see myself out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179544",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:49:26",
"content": "The audience Snickers.",
"parent_id": "8179380",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179567",
"author": "flipperpi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:26:06",
"content": "…and Mars does reside within the Milky Way.",
"parent_id": "8179380",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179394",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T06:34:10",
"content": "neat, but no one is going to mars",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179396",
"author": "Alloydog",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T07:04:41",
"content": "The chances of anything coming from Earth are million to one, they said…Dun-dun-duuuuh!Dun-dun-duuuuh!Cue groovy bass rift…",
"parent_id": "8179394",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179403",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T08:07:46",
"content": "Can we just send Elon?",
"parent_id": "8179394",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179526",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:37:52",
"content": "Yeah, space is a LARP at this point. We’re stuck on this rock.",
"parent_id": "8179394",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179688",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T00:11:47",
"content": "Sad but true. We should’ve given NASA a bunch of money and nukes back when they were cooking with gas. The current one is ngmi",
"parent_id": "8179526",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179583",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:05:28",
"content": "I suspect you are wrong, as the way the world is going Mars is going to be the next great power flexing moon race most likely.Though this time it might actually be happening at a time when our tech level can actually make use of the resources of the outer solar system and we’d want/need to exploit that resource to make up for the lack down here, or at least the lack down here on your side of the planet… Which makes Mars a viable jumping off point for the great powers to compete for effective ownership of the entire solarsystem – can’t do much from down the gravity well once your opponent can build in space effectively enough to drop rocks on you very cheaply.",
"parent_id": "8179394",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179633",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:06:55",
"content": "If we can’t send stuff from Earth to Mars, then it’s going to take setllers on Mars hundreds of years to build a society that resembles the one on Earth. Maybe thousands of years.Are we going to pump trillions of dollars into a colony on Mars? Or just a few billion dollars and then let them live and prosper?A colony on Mars sounds nice, but if they can’t even make their own integrated circuits. They would only have two options: rely on us gifting them their IC’s, or buying them from us.So, if we don’t want to gift them (it’s a colony after all, not a hobby), they’ll have to buy them from us, but buy them with what? What would they have on Mars that we would want to have?Strip the romantics, and you’re left with reality. Reality is that Mars does not have anything that we don’t already have ourselves. There will not be trade between Earth and Mars. And if there is no trade, a Mars colony will not prosper.The moon, however, DOES have something we need: a significantly lower gravity than Earth. We need that to be able to explore the further reaches of our solar system. A colony on the moon is much more realistic. People want to pay for exploration.",
"parent_id": "8179583",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179828",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:20:15",
"content": "There’s a lot of radioactive sand on Mars. Sand we just start to lack on Earth to build more concrete kilometer high tower to pack more humans so they can shoot themselves and tell others how they are happy to be so rich while being so desperately empty inside. Look how I’m rich in my Mars concrete highest tower in Dubaï.Don’t worry, as long as there are crude wealthy people, there will be moral-less vendors to exploit them.",
"parent_id": "8179633",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179873",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:44:59",
"content": "If we can’t send stuff from Earth to Mars, then it’s going to take setllers on Mars hundreds of years to build a society that resembles the one on Earth. Maybe thousands of years.So what? Not the point at all, people go to Mars quite probably with no intention of actually building a self sufficient society – can’t have the colony turning on you…My point is the great powers that are busy competing with each other DON’T have everything themselves – or at least not large enough quantities of everything. So the initial ‘exploration’ of Mars will be done for political grandstanding, if enough tech and resources exist to start making useful materials, even if its mostly just refined materials sent ‘home’ to be worked on with some high complexity industry products sent out to make it possible.",
"parent_id": "8179633",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179689",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T00:12:53",
"content": "You know, the idea that the future always has to be bigger and better than the past is not strictly true",
"parent_id": "8179583",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179831",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:23:50",
"content": "Yeah, it’s dick-waving contest V2. V1 was “first to Moon” with USA vs the Russian commies, now it’s USA vs the Chinese commies.The Chinese will get hands on some Mars rocks 2030-ish, but no-one is sending people any time soon. The USA hasn’t even a plan for how to bring their rocks back at the moment, but Sean Duffy was being very loud about how they’re going to win this race as well. Good luck with that dude.",
"parent_id": "8179583",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180102",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:21:45",
"content": "You are talking about space tech that is 1000 years in the future.The last 50 years of leadership has shown that they don’t care about much other than enriching themselves during the next half-decade.We are never getting back to Luna, let alone Mars, if it needs to be profitable in the next quarter.Our current ‘private’ space industry is more about the pageantry to fleece investors than any actual ‘space’ exploration.",
"parent_id": "8179583",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179401",
"author": "Allan-H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T07:54:14",
"content": "“Swinburne University” would be the usual spelling.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179423",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:59:41",
"content": "Rather than heat everything including impurities, why not use an electromagnet to extract pure iron which can then be smelted?What am I missing?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179433",
"author": "daid",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T10:52:34",
"content": "Oxides are a bond of iron, not pure iron. So you need heat to break the bond",
"parent_id": "8179423",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179604",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:27:06",
"content": "Sure. But in the dirt not all of it is iron oxide right? So you can either heat dirt + iron oxide or just heat iron oxide…Most iron oxides seem to have “superparamagnetism” aka they are only magnetic when in an external magnetic field.Seems like a very simple and prudent purification step",
"parent_id": "8179433",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179617",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:57:47",
"content": "15-20% iron oxide (Fe2O3), 40-50% silicon dioxide (SiO2), 7-18% aluminum oxide (Al2O3)The reduction temperatures of each of these escalate in that order. This is why at 1000°C they get iron metal and at 1400 °C, they were getting iron-silicon alloys.",
"parent_id": "8179604",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179826",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:14:26",
"content": "Ahhh, taking advantage of the different melting points. Got it.",
"parent_id": "8179617",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179605",
"author": "SparkyGSX",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:28:21",
"content": "Iron oxide is not magnetic, you need to reduce it first.Mars doesn’t get a whole lot of sunlight, so energy will be at a premium. You could use the product and waste to pre-heat the fresh material. Maybe we could build an efficient high-temperature heat pump to bring the energy requirement down further.",
"parent_id": "8179423",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179611",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T20:46:31",
"content": "Mars gets quite a bit of sunlight, around 12 hours a day. The intensity is lower than the earth sure, by about 50%. Big deal. Youll just need twice as many panels.",
"parent_id": "8179605",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179634",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:11:53",
"content": "Twice as many panels is twice as many rocket flights to Mars. Is twice as many billions of dollars. And what does Earth get back for that?Reality revolves around economics. That is the real reason why we are not on Mars yet. It’s not economical, we get nothing out of it other than a bit of interesting but otherwise useless knowledge, and maybe some innovations that we can use for more than just a spacecraft that can fly to Mars and back.",
"parent_id": "8179611",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179642",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:34:58",
"content": "ideally,solar panels made ON mars would be used to power mars.The ONLY advantage to a mars colony is ensuring the survival of humanity in the event of major cataclysmal event on earth.",
"parent_id": "8179634",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179827",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:16:25",
"content": "Uhh Most iron oxides have “superparamagnetism” aka they are only magnetic when in an external magnetic field. So yeah.So yes that could be used, but as someone else pointed out it isn’t needed when taking advantage of different melting points.",
"parent_id": "8179605",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179427",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T10:28:12",
"content": "Quite a while ago I saw an image of a Mars lander that had drilled a hole for a sample, and what struck me as noticeable was that the red layer was very thin, and there was not much dust to go through, and it perplexed me since there are these constant dust storms and you would think there would be a thick layer of dust (there is plenty of red dust on the landers after a while) and that the dust would in general be red, but from that image that seemed not to be the case.I’m still wondering how to explain that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179837",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:33:26",
"content": "Simple, you land on rock, not sand dunes.Mars has plenty of sand dunes, they work pretty much the same way as they do on Earth.Also most of the samples they take are from outcrops or boulders, not from the ground. Plenty of dust on the ground though, as seen from the rover tracks or other missions where they’ve scooped it up.",
"parent_id": "8179427",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179441",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:23:55",
"content": "Well, the big difference with what is considered an “ore” on Earth is the economics of extracting the target mineral/element from it. Common “dirt” contains many valuable minerals and elements, but in such low concentrations that it doesn’t make sense presently to extract it, from an energy-budget standpoint. The same could be said of seawater.It may be that the necessities of ISRU could lower that bar for what is a “useful” concentration. For instance, perhaps a process like sintering could be used to form simple structural elements for nascent shelters. With the low atmospheric pressure and gravity, even extremely high winds don’t deliver that much energy so erosion isn’t much of an issue. And there is no hydrological erosion. An amalgam of sintered regolith could be a viable option. Further processing could yield better materials for other purposes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179528",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:43:47",
"content": "Well, as Earth has an unusually large iron core compared to the neighbours (Venus has a large one too, according to observations) , and an active tectonic surface renewal operation going, Earth has alotmore iron available at or near the surface than any other planet in the Solar System. Mars, having no perceivable tectonics, will be very iron poor at the crust. Earth and Venus have large cores due to large collisions in the early early Solar System (why Earth has such a large moon, and why Venus doesn’t spin on it’s axis the way most of the planets do).",
"parent_id": "8179441",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179839",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:41:07",
"content": "Sintering is ok for habitats and so on, but at some point you’re going to need the actual pure metals. Same idea has been proposed for the Moon, focused sunlight to melt the dust into bricks.Welding on the Moon would be novel, no atmosphere to cause problems.",
"parent_id": "8179441",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180126",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T21:30:49",
"content": "Baby steps :)",
"parent_id": "8179839",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180783",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T08:12:59",
"content": "Yeah, lot & lots & lots & lots of little baby steps.Until someone figures out a way to drop a fusion reactor on Mars, nothing is going to happen.",
"parent_id": "8180126",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179919",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:31:10",
"content": "Just use the xbox towel trick. Dump atmostpheric thinners and reflectors until it gets super hot on mars and all of the iron reflows into a harvestable shell. Ta Da!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.129879
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/how-to-make-a-simple-mosfet-tester/
|
How To Make A Simple MOSFET Tester
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"hardware",
"LED Hacks"
] |
[
"mosfet",
"MOSFET tester"
] |
Over on YouTube our hacker [VIP Love Secretary] shows us
how to make a simple MOSFET tester
.
This is a really neat, useful, elegant, and simple hack, but the video is kind of terrible. We found that the voice-over constantly saying “right?” and “look!” seriously drove us to distraction. But this is a circuit which you should know about so maybe do what we did and watch the video with subtitles on and audio off.
To use this circuit you install the MOSFET you want to test and then press with your finger the spare leg of each of two diodes; in the final build there are some metal touch pads attached to the diodes to facilitate this. One diode will turn the MOSFET off, the other diode will turn the MOSFET on, and the LED will show you which is which.
Apparently this works through stray capacitance, an explanation which makes sense to us. We were so curious that we ran over to the bench to build our own version (pictured with the schematic above) just to see if it worked as advertised, and:
it did!
We tested it with a faulty MOSFET and when the MOSFET under test is faulty then the LED won’t turn on and off like it should when the MOSFET works. Also, if you build one of these, you want to feed in a two or three volt supply (it will depend on the specs of the LED you use); it’s not mentioned in the video but two volts is what we used that worked best for us.
Thanks to [Danjovic] for
writing in
to let us know about this one. If you’re interested in MOSFETs maybe it’s time to
learn the truth
about them.
| 22
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179342",
"author": "JSL",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T00:13:12",
"content": "Nice video. A better explanation is that the stray capacitance of the high-impedance gate should retain whatever charge is imparted upon it to keep the LED turned on or off. The human acts as an antenna for lots of stray EMF and the diodes are acting as peak detectors for the antenna voltage. Touching the cathode drags the gate down to the peak negative voltage (minus the diode drop), while touching the anode raises the gate up to the peak positive voltage (again, minus the diode drop).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179347",
"author": "jp314",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T00:38:03",
"content": "Be cautious using this as ESD from touching the diodes could destroy your MOSFET. If you add a ~10V zener diode from gate to source, it’ll protect it without affecting the tester functionality.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179355",
"author": "brian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T01:44:29",
"content": "Agree, but a typical zener will do little to protect against ESD; and many MOSFET gates can blown to smitthereens by HBM ESD.",
"parent_id": "8179347",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179471",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:31:37",
"content": "Oh, bummer. Is there anything to be done to make this circuit work safely?",
"parent_id": "8179355",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179484",
"author": "Bunsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:20:59",
"content": "A series resistor – zener shunt to source – series resistor – gate configuration is pretty robust, and this application is so insensitive to turn-on/turn-off time that you don’t have to think much about picking resistors. Grab something in the kiloohms, and make the first resistor something with a decent voltage rating (if you have no datasheets because you’re fishing around the junk box, physically larger resistors are usually better).Junk box parts and haphazard layout won’t be perfect, and if you scuff your feet across the carpet enough or stand up from a fabric chair fast enough you will still be able to kill your FETs, but a circuit like that will be fine if you exercise even a tiny bit of care.",
"parent_id": "8179355",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179487",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:36:35",
"content": "Thanks for your advice! I will revisit this circuit next week.",
"parent_id": "8179484",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179497",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:06:33",
"content": "FYI the circuit I plan to implement next is this one. I would be happy to have any feedback on it! Thanks!https://www.inthelabwithjayjay.com/file/2025-09-14-235202/MOSFET-tester-2025-09-14-235154.png",
"parent_id": "8179484",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179534",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:02:02",
"content": "You can remove D6 (Zener can also conduct)You have also drawn a wire though D6. It’s shorted now.Remove R1 (Why use two resistors?)Increase R1 to 100k to a few Mega Ohm (You only have to charge the gate capacitance)And as I wrote in that other post, TVS diodes are better, because they react faster. But with a 100k or more series resistor, the RC time (with the gate capacitance) is probably more then the reaction time of the zener.Also, the usage of the Diodes implies that you pick up noise (If I touch my scope probe, I can often see >80V mains voltage hum.A variant of this circuit: touch the gate with one finger, and then alternately touch GND or the 12V power supply. Your body will conduct enough to turn the FET on or off. (For this the power supply needs to be higher then the gate voltage).This also works with darlington transistors, you may have to add a 3rd BJT for more amplification of the picked up noise.",
"parent_id": "8179497",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179543",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:35:18",
"content": "Thanks paulvdh. The latest circuit revision can be found at the following link. I assume I want a unidirectional TVS diode and not a bidirectional one? Will a 6.8V TVS diode suffice?https://www.inthelabwithjayjay.com/file/2025-09-15-023319/MOSFET-tester-2025-09-15-023308.png",
"parent_id": "8179497",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179470",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:31:10",
"content": "Thanks for the tip! I have some 9.1V Zeners on hand, will one of those do?",
"parent_id": "8179347",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179530",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:51:30",
"content": "Don’t use regular zeners, but use TVS diodes.In a class at school they were troubled by a lot of blown FET’s (Used on breadboards), so they started soldering TVS diodes directly from Gate to Drain.Most FET’s have their threshold voltage around 4V and 9V is enough In that class they used something like 16V or 18V TVS diodes. It interferes less with the gate driver, while still being below the (most often 20V allowable gate voltage. (Some high power fets have a 30V gate voltage these days). For small signal fets, it can be less.",
"parent_id": "8179470",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179384",
"author": "SM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T05:02:40",
"content": "I assume what’s going in with the narration is that some kind of AI is doing a “too literal” translation of the creator’s original words. The final published result is not outright awful, but not excellent.I guess we’re going to see this more and more as opposed to the hordes of “word-less workshop” “howto” videos that has plagued YouTube in the past.Some of the “wordless” videos were actually useful, while others were obvious BS (if they involve chucking a AA battery in a drill and unbending a paper clip to unlock all channels worldwide on your smart TV, they are obvious trash). And then there was a vast middle ground, that I could go on and on about.What we need is for YouTube (or a YouTube competitor) to bring back down-doots — let’s face it, someone is out of office and 81m(dot)com is now an archived defunct website. There is no reason not to go back to ratings sanity.Lacking that, I’m daydreaming about an add-on or something that would let me mark/ban bad or deceptive channels from the videos that YouTube recommends. Not only the AA-battery-in-the-drill-chuck videos, but the channels that make fake “free energy” videos and other fake, time-wasting content. I do have a name for the program picked out already, I would call it: “Remove_Van_de_Paar”(if anyone wants to remake this video with a better dialog and an explanation of what is going on, I’d watch and bookmark it. OTOH, I’d recommend one of the multi-function testers (various names like TC1) with the ZIF sockets and a color screen that’s running an unknown version of Karl-Heinz Kübbeler’s freeware firmware. You can’t make the tester cheaper than what you can buy off of of Ebay and it works extremely well.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179430",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T10:41:44",
"content": "Although all those ridiculous ‘tech’BS videos are annoying what I find more annoying is that I get all those political and war propaganda videos suggested with 90% of the normal videos I watch.And no its not cookies, those are not kept.I don’t want to hear fantasies about tr*mp or about random people who got shot in the US or imaginary tales about ongoing wars.I wonder what percentage of YT is pure BS clickbait at this point, must be over 50% I imagine right? Or at least the suggested content is over 50% (maybe up to 70%) clickbait.I better not ask what percentage of regular news is clickbait BS fantasies though..",
"parent_id": "8179384",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179551",
"author": "Jim J Jewett",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T17:18:10",
"content": "Dropping cookies is part of your problem… If they know about your interests, they’ll try to pick something decent, and more ads will be targeted. If not, they go for rage-bait recommendations and spam-the-world advertisers.",
"parent_id": "8179430",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179867",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:23:03",
"content": "How many people that drop cookies watch ads you think?And the interest they know about would be the video you are watching.Problem is that they now do suggestions based on what the interest of the video-creator are and what he/she watched and subscribed to, and a percentage of what other viewers of the video are interested in. And the problem there is that an awful lot of people fall for those stupid videos.But there’s the issue of them getting paid by those annoying youtubers too of course, now that YT takes money to promote channels.On a related note, I just heard a youtuber tell how a video he made that has the most negative comments, on the subject of the video, is actually the video that is making him the most money. Seems people love to find videos that they can b|tch about.I’m guilty of it too in a sense, I sometimes go to stupid videos to see the comments, while not allowing it to play. But is not allowing it to play really stopping the google metrics from marking the video as popular though? Is it views only or is simply clicking enough to cause an unwanted boost? I hope not, but I fear it might.",
"parent_id": "8179551",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179419",
"author": "foresterr",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:40:02",
"content": "Not a big fan of circuits that rely on EM background noise pickup via stray capacitances, other than for demonstrating that this noise is everywhere. They can be irritatingly random, and can behave very differently when being powered from a wall wart vs a battery.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179473",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:34:57",
"content": "Oh, interesting, thanks for your remarks. I might give my circuit a go on a battery and see if I can see any changes in behavior.",
"parent_id": "8179419",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179490",
"author": "Suppressed Carrier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:53:12",
"content": "“This is a really neat, useful, elegant, and simple hack, but the video is kind of terrible.”To me this seems to be more crude than elegant…Here is an idea…Same circuit, however build a low power signal source instead of using a finger…. Now power the whole thing off a low voltage solar panel; that puts the word elegant back into the conversation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179500",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:15:49",
"content": "Thanks for the suggestion. That would be an interesting mod. I will see if I can find some time to implement it!",
"parent_id": "8179490",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179659",
"author": "Harry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:57:45",
"content": "First line of defense of the MOSFET gate is an ESD wrist strap grounded to the test circuit ground. This is industry standard operating procedure.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179869",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:29:47",
"content": "Sound good [Harry] but..in actuality in 90% of the repair videos I’ve seen the guy (never see women for some reason) doing the repair has no ground wrist strap. Even from big outfits.And of course when working with mains grounding yourself can be pretty dangerous, so you’d have to unhook yourself constantly depending on the repair, and not mess up.",
"parent_id": "8179659",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179871",
"author": "OH3MVV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:38:46",
"content": "That’s why the wrist straps usually have a large series resistor between strap and actual ground. Allows ESD to bleed off while preventing dangerous currents from mains.To keep both hands free, the wrist strap can also be attached to ankle.",
"parent_id": "8179869",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,427.313635
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/send-images-to-your-terminal-with-rich-pixels/
|
Send Images To Your Terminal WithRich Pixels
|
Donald Papp
|
[
"Software Hacks"
] |
[
"pixel art",
"terminal",
"unicode"
] |
[darrenburns]’
Rich Pixels
is a library for sending colorful images to a terminal. Give it an image, and it’ll dump it to your terminal in full color. While it also supports ASCII art, the cool part is how it makes it so easy to display an arbitrary image — a pixel-art rendition of it, anyway — in a terminal window.
How it does this is by cleverly representing two lines of pixels in the source image with a single terminal row of characters. Each vertical pixel pair is represented by a single Unicode ▄ (U+2584 “lower half block”) character. The trick is to set the
background
color of the half-block to the
upper
pixel’s RGB value, and the
foreground
color of the half-block to the
lower
pixel’s RGB. By doing this, a single half block character represents two vertically-stacked pixels. The only gotcha is that Rich Pixels doesn’t resize the source image; if one’s source image is 600 pixels wide, one’s terminal is going to receive 600 U+2584 characters per line to render the Rich Pixels version.
[Simon WIllison] took things a step further and made
show_image.py
, which works the same except it
resizes the source image to fit one’s terminal
first. This makes it much more flexible and intuitive.
The code is
here on [Simon]’s tools GitHub
, a repository for software tools he finds useful, like the
Incomplete JSON Pretty Printer
.
| 10
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179302",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T21:24:15",
"content": "Mode 7, Teletext!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179325",
"author": "Brendan Robert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T22:43:05",
"content": "catimgis also a thing.https://github.com/posva/catimg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179364",
"author": "Daniel Scott Matthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T03:00:00",
"content": "What real world use-case is there for this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179416",
"author": "Davidmh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:32:01",
"content": "Quickly inspecting images over ssh, for example.",
"parent_id": "8179364",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179398",
"author": "biou",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T07:22:36",
"content": "How does it compare to the sixel image format?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixelhttps://www.arewesixelyet.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179468",
"author": "rc",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:27:56",
"content": "I really don’t know why sixel is not more talked. It’s very cool and you can use a few old compatible terminal/monitors to render images in glorious amber or green monochrome. ;-D",
"parent_id": "8179398",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179893",
"author": "[TheDarkTiger]",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:28:00",
"content": "Well, with sixtels (2×3 subpixels) (or even braille code, giving you 2×4 subpixels), you are still limited to two colors.So, you first have to chose which color most represent the block of pixels you want to display.But it’s indeed not new nor performant to use half blocks to display images.Even Cacalib does a finer job than that.Still a funny reminder of what can be done tho.",
"parent_id": "8179398",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179897",
"author": "[TheDarkTiger]",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T11:44:39",
"content": "Oh sorry, I though you were talking about the unicode “Symbols for Legacy Computing” page, containing the 2×3 pseudo graphical blocks from Teletexte…For more unicode goodness, the “Block Elements” page, gives you “Quadrant” 2×2 subpixel glyphsAnd as previously stated, “Braille Patterns” page would give you 2×8 sub pixels glyphsBut each glyph can only have 2 colors, whatever the number of sub pixels.",
"parent_id": "8179398",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179413",
"author": "Valentijn Sessink",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:19:59",
"content": "X or Wayland server inside a terminal; terminal inside this server; GOTO 10",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179447",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:41:30",
"content": "Taking the title “ad literam”, I was expecting to learn how to craft tiny wallets.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.368743
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/esp32-hosts-functional-minecraft-server/
|
ESP32 Hosts FunctionalMinecraftServer
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Games",
"Microcontrollers"
] |
[
"esp32-C3",
"minecraft"
] |
If you haven’t heard of
Minecraft
, well, we hope you enjoyed your rip-van-winkle nap this past decade or so. For everyone else, you probably at least know that this is a multiplayer, open world game, you may have heard that running a
Minecraft
server is a good job for maxing out a spare a Raspberry Pi. Which is why we’re hugely impressed that [PortalRunner] managed to squeeze an
open world onto an ESP32-C3
.
Of course, the trick here is that the MCU isn’t actually running the game — it’s running
bareiron
, [PortalRunner]’s own C-based
Minecraft
server implementation. Rewriting the server code in C allows it to be optimized for the ESP32’s hardware, but it also let [PortalRunner] strip his server down to the bare essentials, and tweak everything for performance. For example, instead of the multiple octaves of Perlin noise for terrain generation, with every chunk going into RAM, he’s using the
x
and
z
of the corners as seeds for the psudorandom
rand()
function, and interpolating between them. Instead of caves being generated by a separate algorithm, and stored in memory, in
bareiron
the underground is just a mirror-image of the world above. Biomes are just tiled, and sit separately from one another.
So yes, what you get from
bareiron
is simpler than a traditional
Minecraft
world — items are simplified, crafting is simplified, everything is simplified, but it’s also running on an ESP32, so you’ve got to give it a pass. With 200 ms to load each chunk, it’s playable, but the World’s Smallest
Minecraft
Server is a bit like a dancing bear: it’s not about how well it dances, but that it dances at all.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen
Minecraft’s
server code re-written:
some masochist did it in COBOL
, but at least that ran on an actual computer, not a microcontroller. Speaking of low performance, you
can’t
play Minecraft on an SNES, but
you can hide the game inside a cartridge
, which is almost as good.
Thanks to [CodeAsm] for the tip. Please refer any other dancing bears spotted in the wild
to our tips line.
| 11
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179188",
"author": "1Fac3D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T17:14:44",
"content": "My respect and my condolences",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179239",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:24:26",
"content": "Someone was also written a minecraft server in bash:https://sdomi.pl/weblog/15-witchcraft-minecraft-server-in-bash/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179259",
"author": "Jan-Willem",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:06:30",
"content": "There have been quite a few. I was thinking specifically about one on an 8-bit AVR, but it only ran a very simple world. Yet it allowed him to do crazy things like toggling real world output from the game. Funnily, his later iteration from ’14 is also called ‘World’s Smallest Minecraft Server’.https://hackaday.com/2012/11/16/avr-minecraft-server-lets-you-toggle-pins-from-the-virtual-world/I like how other people solve it in different ways. Where this ESP32 version hosts a playable game, as where the AVR has more of a proof of concept feel.",
"parent_id": "8179239",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179435",
"author": "Shara",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:06:47",
"content": "Ok, because-we-can. But in real-world it’s enought to use esp-32 as signalling server for werbrtc.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179529",
"author": "Radiohyperactivity",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:50:49",
"content": "Ehm…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNrFOClrzTA",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179546",
"author": "BILLPC2684 (Maren)",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:58:07",
"content": "that was a demostration on a limited world, that detected levers flipped for a LED strip, while yes thats the “smallest” server but this does alot more and is playable",
"parent_id": "8179529",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179531",
"author": "Radiohyperactivity",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:55:32",
"content": "Seems the anti-spam system didn’t really like my link to CNLohr’s 10 year old video on running a Minecraft server an an AVR. Search for “CNLohr World’s Smallest Minecraft Server” to check it out!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179536",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T16:09:26",
"content": "First-time posters get quarantined, and it’s the weekend. :) Sorry for the wait.",
"parent_id": "8179531",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179841",
"author": "Radiohyperactivity",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:46:58",
"content": "Sensible policy, but would be even more sensible if I was made aware of this when i posted :-)",
"parent_id": "8179536",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179935",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T13:30:46",
"content": "Man this is fun. I didn’t know there were so many Minecraft-compatible servers. I want this micro server for a digital pet.And it’s x86_64 compatible? AND a Cosmopolitan binary that can run on all systems? This is checking so many boxes …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.468357
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/keep-reading-keep-watching/
|
Keep Reading, Keep Watching
|
Elliot Williams
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] |
[
"newsletter",
"rants"
] |
I’ve been flying quadcopters a fair bit lately, and trying to learn some new tricks also means crashing them, which inevitably means repairing them. Last weekend, I was working on some wiring that had gotten caught and ripped a pad off of the controller PCB. It wasn’t so bad, because there was a large SMT capacitor nearby, and I could just piggyback on that, but the problem was how to re-route the wires to avoid this happening again.
By luck, I had just watched a video where someone else was building up a new quad, and had elegantly solved the exact same routing problem. I was just watching the video because I was curious about the frame in question, and I had absolutely no idea that it would contain the solution to a problem that I was just about to encounter, but because I was paying attention, it make it all a walk in the park.
I can’t count the number of times that I’ve had this experience: the blind luck of having just read or seen something that solves a problem I’m about to encounter. It’s a great feeling, and it’s one of the reasons that I’ve always read Hackaday – you never know when one hacker’s neat trick is going to be just the one you need next week. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons that we try to feature not just the gonzo hacks that drill down deep on a particular feat, but also the little ones too, that solve something in particular in a neat way. Because reading up on the hacks is free, and particularly cheap insurance against tomorrow’s unexpected dilemmas.
Read more Hackaday!
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
!
| 13
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179164",
"author": "Chris Pepin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T14:12:54",
"content": "This is why it’s good to have a well-rounded education and to be constantly learning new things. You never know what bits of information will come in handy and provide unexpected dividends.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179171",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T14:50:01",
"content": "Absolutely",
"parent_id": "8179164",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179217",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:05:49",
"content": "True.But note that in the USA ‘well-rounded education’ has been redefined by weasels.It now means ‘Education including no math or science beyond middle school level.’In other words a BA, MA, PhD, EdD.Not all of the ‘Piled higher and deeper’ people, but so many it makes the degree kind of stink.The entire Ed school is in a class by itself for stupid, because they’ve been there decades longer.",
"parent_id": "8179164",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179304",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T21:26:40",
"content": "I can’t read more Hackaday. I read it every day and there just aren’t any more.If you rebranded to hackanhour or something then I could read more, but then I wouldn’t have time to build stuff.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179474",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:49:11",
"content": "We just need more days.",
"parent_id": "8179304",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179309",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T21:47:49",
"content": "thanks for calling them what they are: quadcopters.and yes. the day i do not learn something is the day i am dead. (i might learn that though)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179314",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T22:11:36",
"content": "When you get old enough you can learn the same thing several times a day!",
"parent_id": "8179309",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179405",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T08:17:23",
"content": "Well, yes, but helicopter is made from two words: ”helico”, meaning spiral (from which we get ”helix”), and “pter”, meaning “wings” (from which we get “pterodactyl”, or “winged fingers”). Thus, “quadcopter” means quadco-wings. Even “copter” means co-wings.I’m sure we could get some Greek words together to talk about things with four spiralling wings.",
"parent_id": "8179309",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179478",
"author": "SirDan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:58:44",
"content": "4-off in Greek is tetra. So tetrahelicopter? Helicotetrapter? That could shorten to tetrapter, almost rolls off the tongue!",
"parent_id": "8179405",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179481",
"author": "Matthias",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:13:03",
"content": "… and tetraptor for military use.",
"parent_id": "8179478",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179749",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T03:27:37",
"content": "Nothing about this means “co-wings”. “Co” meaning “co-” is Latin not Greek. “Quadcopter” means “quadcopter”, a Latin / French portmanteau. Genitive of “helix” is “helikos”. ==> helicopter",
"parent_id": "8179405",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179360",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T02:38:41",
"content": "A lot of the problem I have is the ego or ‘persona’ being so loud I can’t watch it long enough to glean any information.Series I like: HOWEESMACHINESHOP for machining tips, and for automotive technology Nivlac57 and Oliver Pickard ‘pickard mosquito’ car build. Down to earth, a little wacky, but solid and full of practical engineering, not hur dur ‘cleetus’ type stuff, or ‘I haz supercar’. Not that I care if you watch the other guys, I just can’t.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179431",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T10:46:07",
"content": "This article(/post) was tagged as ‘rants’ when in fact it’s the opposite, an..uhm.. stnar?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.422743
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/turning-a-milling-machine-into-a-lathe/
|
Turning A Milling Machine Into A Lathe
|
Aaron Beckendorf
|
[
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] |
[
"cnc",
"cnc lathe",
"lathe",
"metal lathe",
"taig mill"
] |
If you’re planning to make a metalworking lathe out of a CNC milling machine, you probably don’t expect getting a position sensor to work to be your biggest challenge. Nevertheless, this was
[Anthony Zhang]’s experience
. Admittedly, the milling machine’s manufacturer sells a conversion kit, which greatly simplifies the more obviously difficult steps, but getting it to cut threads automatically took a few hacks.
The conversion started with a secondhand Taig MicroMill 2019DSL CNC mill, which was well-priced enough to be purchased specifically for conversion into a lathe. Taig’s conversion kit includes the spindle, tool posts, mounting hardware, and other necessary parts, and the modifications were simple enough to take only a few hours of disassembly and reassembly. The final lathe reuses the motors and control electronics from the CNC, and the milling motor drives the spindle through a set of pulleys. The Y-axis assembly isn’t used, but the X- and Z-axes hold the tool post in front of the spindle.
The biggest difficulty was in getting the spindle indexing sensor working, which was essential for cutting accurate threads. [Anthony] started with Taig’s sensor, but there was no guarantee that it would work with the mill’s motor controller, since it was designed for a lathe controller. Rather than plug it in and hope it worked, he ended up disassembling both the sensor and the controller to reverse-engineer the wiring.
He found that it was an inductive sensor which detected a steel insert in the spindle’s pulley, and that a slight modification to the controller would let the two work together. In the end, however, he decided against using it, since it would have taken up the controller’s entire I/O port. Instead, [Anthony] wired his own I/O connector, which interfaces with a commercial inductive sensor and the end-limit switches. A side benefit was that the new indexing sensor’s mounting didn’t block moving the pulley’s drive belt, as the original had.
The end result was a small, versatile CNC lathe with enough accuracy to cut useful threads with some care. If you aren’t lucky enough to get a Taig to convert, there are
quite a few
people who’ve built their own
CNC lathes
, ranging from
relatively simple
to the
extremely advanced
.
| 8
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179282",
"author": "tyler",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T20:01:33",
"content": "I’m building a bullet lathe in the same veinUsing a piece of railroad track as the bed",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179476",
"author": "Cory",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:54:31",
"content": "Hello. Was just curious as to how much time and money are involved in something of this nature. I don’t think it’s extremely expensive to just buy a small bench top style lathe that can be retrofitted. I’m like I said, just curious.",
"parent_id": "8179282",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179853",
"author": "Hassi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:20:36",
"content": "if machine building is your hobby you wouldn’t ask how much time it would take – it would take three times as much as you estimate :)maybe look at used mini lathes online, i shot one for 200 bucks",
"parent_id": "8179476",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180109",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:38:58",
"content": "Double the number and next higher unit.So 2 hours is actually 4 days.1 week actually 2 months.2 years actually 4 decades.1 decade actually 2 centuries (CA HSR).",
"parent_id": "8179853",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179829",
"author": "fadingalways80f8abd446",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:21:40",
"content": "I have traditional milling machine i convert to cnc by stepper motor and smc 4 cnc controller it is Chinese after after then i make it cnc lathe look in milling cnc i have three axis in cnc lathe you have to cancel z of milling machine and there is problem that the safe distance when you press stop in milling is on z so you have to convert to x or y when you use lathe cnc our smc 4 controller not help in converting i have to give it y as z of milling machine so the scrow of y and z in milling machine is different the cnc controller should be made for this there is lathe cnc controller and milling cnc controller no cnc controller for both",
"parent_id": "8179282",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180107",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T20:34:48",
"content": "……….Here you go.English uses them for sentence breaks.When you hit e-stop, you stop the spindle as well as all the axis, apply such brakes as it has.You don’t go to a ‘safe position’, you stop.There is no guaranteed safe position.It should unpower the drivers, but stepper based machines aren’t as good about this.Which is fair, they are generally not too strong.",
"parent_id": "8179829",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179443",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:28:38",
"content": "I have seen something similar for turning a lathe into a milling machine. The hangup was obtaining a useful range of motion for the “table”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181694",
"author": "Matt Thie",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T12:35:55",
"content": "I use my mill to turn once in a while. You just chuck the part in the tool holder, put the tool in the vise and change the plane code, so that your arcs work right. Good for complex contours on short parts. No threads.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.586927
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/13/design-scanimations-in-a-snap-with-the-right-math/
|
Design Scanimations In A Snap With The Right Math
|
Donald Papp
|
[
"Art",
"classic hacks"
] |
[
"animation",
"barrier grid",
"scanimate"
] |
Barrier-grid animations (also called scanimations) are a thing most people would recognize on sight, even if they didn’t know what they were called. Move a set of opaque strips over a pattern, and watch as different slices of that image are alternately hidden and revealed, resulting in a simple animation. The tricky part is designing the whole thing — but researchers at MIT designed
FabObscura
as a design tool capable not only of creating the patterned sheets, but doing so in a way that allows for complex designs.
The barrier grid need not consist of simple straight lines, and movement of the grid can just as easily be a rotation instead of a slide. The system simply takes in the desired frames, a mathematical function describing how the display should behave, and creates the necessary design automatically.
The paper
(PDF) has more details, and while it is possible to make highly complex animations with this system, the more frames and the more complex the design, the more prominent the barrier grid and therefore the harder it is to see what’s going on. Still, there are some very nice results, such as the example in the image up top, which shows a coaster that can represent three different drink orders.
We recommend
checking out the video
(embedded below) which shows off other possibilities like a clock that looks like a hamster wheel, complete with running rodent. It’s reminiscent of
this incredibly clever clock
that uses a Moiré pattern (a kind of interference pattern between two elements) to reveal numerals as time passes.
We couldn’t find any online demo or repository for FabObscura, but if you know of one, please share it in the comments.
| 10
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179128",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T09:50:40",
"content": "Probably a fun little weekend programming puzzle.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179150",
"author": "Pumpkinwaffle",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T11:45:26",
"content": "I hope the tool is made public at some point. Seems very handy to create artworks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179163",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T14:08:42",
"content": "It’s trivial to make the masks in any reasonable graphics program.",
"parent_id": "8179150",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179193",
"author": "lmorchard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T17:36:19",
"content": "So trivial they wrote a 16 page paper about it and wrote a “novel parameterization and computational design tool for systematically designing new barrier-gridanimations without domain expertise”",
"parent_id": "8179163",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179269",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:27:59",
"content": "That’s kind of the new MIT schtick, ever since Negroponte.Some parts of the school still are worthy of respect, but the brand has been diluted by this sort of schlock, IMO. (speaking as one with family members holding degrees from said school).",
"parent_id": "8179193",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179422",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:58:31",
"content": "The paper points out some simple rules and requirements that the mask has to satisfy in order to work as a barrier grid animation, such as being periodic in the direction of motion. Besides that, you can pretty much just wing it any way you like. You don’t need special mathematical formulas or python scripts to do it.Once you’ve drawn the mask in your graphics program, you can use the mask itself to selectively erase the pictures you intend to show. You just move it around and press “delete” for the parts of the pictures that are in the wrong position.",
"parent_id": "8179193",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179205",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:00:04",
"content": "For each animation frame/position of the mask grid compute the displayed pixels of the frame that are not covered by the grid, then add them to the final image. Next frame/position. Easy.Difficult is to find transparent film that works with inkjet printers and a way to unclog my CISS printer.More fun will be a software to help with the moire patterns.",
"parent_id": "8179163",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179311",
"author": "Brian Peiris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T21:52:09",
"content": "Looks like the research will be presented at UIST 2025 (Sept 28 – Oct 1), so maybe the source code will be released after that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179552",
"author": "Rob Milliken",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T17:21:53",
"content": "Before I read the article and saw the pictures, I thought this was done by a 3D printer. But come to think of it, why not do this with a 3D printer instead of a screen printer? Larger would be more durable, it could have a thick frame which could have tiny holes in it where a motor could drive it back and forth, animating. Just need to convert 2D grid to SVG then STL – might be any easier way even than that to accomplish.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179870",
"author": "Aknup",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:34:40",
"content": "In the linked article there is a link to pinterest, amazing stuff, who the hell doesn’t have pinterest blocked? Students are insane in such a special way eh.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.632218
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/musical-motors-bldc-edition/
|
Musical Motors, BLDC Edition
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Musical Hacks"
] |
[
"BLDC controller",
"bldc motor",
"electronic music"
] |
This should count as a hack: making music from a thing that should not sing. In this case, [SIROJU] is tickling the ivories with
a Brushless DC motor, or BLDC.
To listen to a performance, jump to 6:27 in the embedded video. This BLDC has a distinctly chip-tune like sound, not entirely unlike other projects that
make music with stepper motors
. Unlike most stepper-based instruments we’ve seen [SIROJU]’s BLDC isn’t turning as it sings. He’s just got it vibrating by manipulating the space vector modulation that drives the motor — he gets a response of about 10 kHz that way. Not CD-quality, no, but plenty for electronic music. He can even play chords of up to 7 notes at a time.
There’s no obvious reason he couldn’t embed the music into a proper motor-drive signal, and thus allow a drone to hum it’s own theme song as it hovers along. He’s certainly got the chops for it; if you haven’t seen [SIROJU]’s videos on BLDC drivers on YouTube, you should check out his channel. He’s got a lot of deep content about running these ubiquitous motors. Sure, we could have just linked to him showing you how to do FOC on an STM32, but “making it sing” is an expression for mastery in English, and a lot more fun besides.
There are
other ways
to make
music with motors.
If you know of any others, don’t hesitate to
send us a tip.
| 21
| 15
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179066",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:06:23",
"content": "Sounds like AI narration. Even if it’s not, I couldn’t get past two minutes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179071",
"author": "Cad the Mad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:27:54",
"content": "Going from a sine wave to chords and envelopes took the project from 1 to 100 right quick.Very impressive. It feels like a great starting point for a unique synths project, maybe by hooking the motor to a spring to serve as a reverb tank?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179093",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:02:05",
"content": "Your mind is going to be blown when you see what can be done with a paper cone, some wire, and a magnet!",
"parent_id": "8179071",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179249",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:38:52",
"content": "While it has been suggested that the reproduction of audio is theoretically possible, both for immediate communications and as a recording, I remain convinced that it will only ever be a novelty enjoyed by the wealthy.Perhaps in fifty years, the five richest kings of Europe may be communicating at a distance with speech and possess machines that can reproduce a few minutes of sound while only occupying a single room but I wouldn’t sell your telegraphy and music hall shares just yet.",
"parent_id": "8179093",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179521",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:10:52",
"content": "I have never done this but your post has convinced me to give it a go",
"parent_id": "8179093",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179100",
"author": "Till",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:25:27",
"content": "For sure not the same sound quality but most modern ESC can play startup music on the attached BLDCs e.g.https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwip8UXl_Wqg4FUnzJBpHO_VSBquJgiacor the melodie editor onhttps://esc-configurator.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179105",
"author": "Christian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:41:31",
"content": "The Austria Railjet (ÖBB) plays also musik when leaving the station.https://youtu.be/0Cz8VaJErjA?si=8ynNKMXPnz4bDFKcBut no chords !!Nice work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179149",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T11:39:06",
"content": "Not really the same at all, but I’ve plugged a plain DC [b]brushed[/b] motor into a normal audio amplifier and gotten something similar",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179152",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T12:01:31",
"content": "Kronk, as a drone singing it’s own theme music.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179153",
"author": "MURALEE KRISHNAN C R",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T12:56:13",
"content": "Can a BLDC on a project, running, give real alert messages?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179173",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T14:54:58",
"content": "Yep! I know there’s some common BLDC ESC firmware that will beep error codes at you with the motor.",
"parent_id": "8179153",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179464",
"author": "Fred",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:19:52",
"content": "Audio is alternating and won’t alter the velocity of the motor when summed over time. On paying attention to the closeups, you’ll notice that the rotor does not move significantly. That means that a moving motor will not stall or speed up too much if an audio waveform is superimposed on its DC supply. What will be interesting is whether the cute beeps will be able to be heard over the propellers’ WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH. Maybe toroidal propellers can help there.",
"parent_id": "8179153",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179170",
"author": "Robert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T14:49:25",
"content": "Pity the video didn’t show what circuitry was driving this motor, because any circuit that can play music through this can probably make it act like a servo (position and speed control) too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179228",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:13:23",
"content": "Also you can change the wave form and decay curve to sound like other instruments.Do not forget the floppy musichttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCXRerqaJI&pp=ygUMZmxvcHB5IG11c2lj",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179272",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:33:02",
"content": "And I’ve found that a stereo audio amplifier makes a pretty good motor driver too! One stereo amplifier obviously can run a 2-phase stepper, but it can also run a full 3-phase BLDC, by grounding one motor leg. Bonus: it’s nice and quiet!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179306",
"author": "Conor Stewart",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T21:29:38",
"content": "I don’t see how this is that impressive, it has been a feature of hobby ESCs for quite a long time now. On drones it is used for beeps at startup or beeps to help you find the drone after you crash but a lot of them do also have the feature to play a short piece of music when the drone starts up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179334",
"author": "GameboyRMH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T23:40:10",
"content": "This makes me wonder if a balanced brushless motor driven this way could make a more versatile vibration motor than the usual offset-weight setup. Game controllers often have multiple motors of different sizes and with different amounts of offset weight to produce high-pitched and low-pitched vibration effects, maybe one motor could do the work of both, and then multiple identical motors could be combined to give even more capability.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179412",
"author": "Gary Bergstrom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:13:49",
"content": "This takes me back to the 70’s at college where I watched and listened to a chain printer play the school’s song. They also had the IBM360 run the “right” instructions to play music on a nearby radio.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179783",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T04:34:07",
"content": "Singing Winchester.",
"parent_id": "8179412",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179677",
"author": "Jonathan H Damora",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T23:33:23",
"content": "Now why couldn’t one get this to either listen to itself and noise cancel itself or even just adjust it with a pre-made phase inverted sound of the rotors to make a quieter quadcopter?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179970",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:59:14",
"content": "there’s nothing here. as others have said, you just feed an audio waveform into a BLDC and it’s just a low quality speaker.there is a cool thing…not only can ESCs (electronic speed control, the interface between a radio receiver and a BLDC) sometimes play music, but a lot of them use it for their configuration as well. you move the throttle stick up and down to control its configuration process, and it plays different kinds of beeps to let you know what you’re doing so you can tell what you’re doing. in practice, it works really well for me.making the noise isn’t an accomplishment, but making the noisefor a purposeis, imo.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.685883
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/what-is-the-fourier-transform/
|
What Is The Fourier Transform?
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"digital audio hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] |
[
"discrete fourier transform",
"fast fourier transform",
"fourier transform",
"Joseph Fourier"
] |
Over at
Quanta Magazine
[Shalma Wegsman] asks
What Is the Fourier Transform?
[Shalma] begins by telling you a little about
Joseph Fourier
, the French mathematician with an interest in heat propagation who founded the field of harmonic analysis in the early 1800s.
Fourier’s basic insight was that you can represent everything as a sum of very basic oscillations, where the basic oscillations are sine or cosine functions with certain parameters. [Shalma] explains that the biology of our ear can do a similar thing by picking the various notes out from a tune which is heard, but mathematicians and programmers work without the benefit of evolved resonant hairs and bone, they work with math and code.
[Shalma] explains how frequency components can be discovered by trial and error, multiplying candidate frequencies with the original function to see if there are large peaks, indicating the frequency is a component, or if the variations average to zero, indicating the frequency is not a component. [Shalma] tells how even square waves can be modeled with an infinite set of frequencies known as the Fourier series.
Taking a look at higher-dimensional problems [Shalma] mentions how Fourier transforms can be used for graphical compression by dropping the high frequency detail which our eyes can barely perceive anyway. [Shalma] gives us a fascinating look at the 64 graphical building blocks which can be combined to create any possible 8×8 image.
[Shalma] then mentions
James Cooley
and
John Tukey
and the development of the Fast Fourier Transform in the 1960s. This mathematical tool has been employed to study the tides, to detect gravitational waves, to develop radar and magnetic resonance imaging, and to support signal processing and data compression. Even quantum mechanics finds use for harmonic analysis, and [Shalma] explains how it relates to the uncertainty principle. The Fourier transform has spread through pure mathematics and into number theory, too.
[Shalma] closes with a quote from
Charles Fefferman
: “If people didn’t know about the Fourier transform, I don’t know what percent of math would then disappear, but it would be a big percent.”
If you’re interested in the Fourier transform and want to dive deeper we would encourage you to read
The Fastest Fourier Transform In The West
and
Even Faster Fourier Transforms On The Raspbery Pi Zero
.
Header image: Joseph Fourier, Attributed to Pierre-Claude Gautherot,
Public domain
.
| 20
| 11
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179113",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T08:10:10",
"content": "The 3blue1brown YouTube channel has an amazing video titled “But what is the Fourier Transform” that really nailed home my intuition for it.https://youtu.be/spUNpyF58BY?feature=shared",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179175",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T15:28:04",
"content": "Excellent. Thank you!",
"parent_id": "8179113",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179121",
"author": "ewlie",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T09:05:04",
"content": "Hackaday once featured an awesome interactive web page on Fourier that it looks this one might be based onhttps://www.jezzamon.com/fourier/index.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179176",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T15:30:08",
"content": "Thanks for the link. But, oh man, I’m gonna need some sleep before I take this one on!",
"parent_id": "8179121",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179141",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:39:40",
"content": "Just don’t get it confused with the Furrier transform, which only works during a full moon. Awooooooooo!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179157",
"author": ".",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T13:19:22",
"content": "werewolf in london",
"parent_id": "8179141",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179165",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T14:18:23",
"content": "i wouldn’t know, despite having used it many times a day for many yearsHow I got past Calc 2 is still a mystery. If I was my professor, I would’ve failed myself",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179178",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T15:41:35",
"content": "If you feel like trying again there’s a really good chapter on DFT and FFT in Introduction to Algorithms. I have 3ed but I haven’t read it as closely as what I would have liked!https://www.amazon.com/dp/026204630X",
"parent_id": "8179165",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179280",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:56:33",
"content": "Seriously. I went through all sorts of very high level math. Multivariable Calc, Differential Equations, Fluid Dynamics and others….Still don’t understand it all (also not an engineer). But FFT I use often for SDR stuff. I wish I had seen practical applications of the math I was learning way back when. I would probably use a lot more of it.",
"parent_id": "8179165",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180345",
"author": "Garth Wilson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T06:05:13",
"content": "The first time I tried to post this, it dumped it; so I’m trying again. Fortunately I kept a copy so I wouldn’t have to re-type it all.Math books always put this stuff in math shorthand, making it much too sterile for me. (Apparently it’s also too sterile for a lot of other people who have a lot more formal education than I, and I’ve found myself explaining it to them.) But when I wanted to understand it, I had to finally push the books aside and just think about what had to happen, and try various ideas. What I came up with, when cleaned up, looked awfully familiar. I went back to the books, and doggone—it was the same thing! But now I understood it. I have to learn and figure things out my own way. I have not been able to figure out the Cooley-Tukey method though. I did however take someone’s algorithm for it and write a Forth program for it to run on my home-made workbench computer, and it ran correctly on first try.",
"parent_id": "8179280",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179523",
"author": "Homer10",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T15:11:38",
"content": "In 1992 I worked for the SETI project of Mountain View CA. They created a 15 million point FFT RF spectrometer that broke down a 20MHz band RF spectrum into 15 million .7Hz wide bins looking for signals coming from intelligent civilations. We never were able to confirm a signal, but we got a lot of (WOWs). Wows are transient signals where you look at the data, and go WOW! But they have never been confirmed. So, they are added to the list of WOWs. Fourier Analysis allows a system to look down through oceans of noise to uncover very very faint signals burried in this noise. Fourier Analysis is amazing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179570",
"author": "AggregatVier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:36:24",
"content": "There’s a movie that comes to mind. Something about a natural number that never repeats and using a drill to relieve the pressure.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179572",
"author": "AggregatVier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:37:57",
"content": "Or, rather, an irrational number that appears in nature.",
"parent_id": "8179570",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179668",
"author": "William Payne",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T23:22:41",
"content": "What good is the Fourier transform going to you in 2025?But college professor love Fourier transforms as well at the Bolzano Weierstras-theorem?Did Bill Gates drop out of Harvard rather than listen to college professor tell him how computer should work?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180339",
"author": "Garth Wilson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T05:53:20",
"content": "The first time I tried to post this, it dumped it. Let’s see if this one works.Not as recent as 2025, but I’ve used it for audio spectrum analysis. One thing I’ve used it for is taking the impulse response of a speaker and getting the amplitude and phase versus frequency, in the design of active noise-cancelling headsets, for work. A simple spectrum analyzer won’t usually give you phase response.",
"parent_id": "8179668",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179955",
"author": "Eric Graham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:04:58",
"content": "I tried my hand at a shiny app to explain using Fourier transforms to model soil temperatures. Looking at it now (oof, it takes some time to load), it’s a little much. But I did enjoy the coding and there are some interactive bits that might help with also understanding what Fourier transforms can do?https://erksome.shinyapps.io/Fourier_and_Soil_Temps/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179959",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:13:38",
"content": "An approach for building intuition uses filters. Imagine there is a signal possible buried in noise and you know what the signal should look like. The optimal filter for that signal is formed by multiplying the incoming noisy source by your copy of the signal. The hard part is you don’t know the phase and have to multiply by all possible phases of your copy. When your copy and the incoming signal line up, you get only positive products of the signal while the noise is randomly positive and negative. You sum the results for each shift in phase and look for a peak.The analytical Fourier Transform that uses the calculus does this over a continuous space. In the digital domain this is very very math intensive. The FFT makes it practical. It also is used to do convolution and deconvolution practical, which is needed for the optimal filter ideas. It essentially can do all the frequencies or all the phases at once.I think of the FFT as doing the optimal filter operation with the reference signals being all possible frequencies and phases of the sine function.The from used in SDR is usually ignored in the FFT descriptions. In order to get phase information SDR uses the complex form, as in complex numbers. SDR uses I/Q sampling where the input is multiplied by a sine signal and the same signal shifted by 90 degrees. The unshifted output goes to the “real’ part of the complex number and the shifted part to the “imaginary” part. This preserves the phase. Then the whole FFT/Convolution stuff is done in the complex domain.FYI, the other thing that makes SDR front-end circuitry so simple is also based on Fourier Analysis. If look for the Sin/Cos references for I/Q sampling you won’t find it in modern systems since the mid 1990’s. In stead you see a switch that chops the inputs with square waves. How does this work? The Fourier Transform of a square wave is sine waves at all the odd harmonics of the square wave frequency. This means that if you filter the chopped signal to block anything higher that the chopping frequency you get the input multiplied by a sine at the chopping frequency! You just don’t need the analog circuitry that used non-linear response of some parts to get a product of two signals. IIRC this comes from some work at Stanford in the 1990’s. First the chopping trick, then the I/Q and SDR a few years later and soon it was fully digital. I did not get the real implications until the Hack-RF Onehttps://greatscottgadgets.com/hackrf/one/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180014",
"author": "gretchen roy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T18:13:34",
"content": "please see “series and products in the history of mathematics” (2021), published by cambridge university press, written by RANJAN ROY.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180547",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T14:35:48",
"content": "Another article that mentions FFT and omits to mention the DFT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8180891",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:50:15",
"content": "Have to tried running a DFT on 4k samples?",
"parent_id": "8180547",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,427.740965
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/running-code-on-a-pax-credit-card-payment-machine/
|
Running Code On A PAX Credit Card Payment Machine
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"Reverse Engineering"
] |
[
"payment terminal",
"point of sale"
] |
The PAX D177 PoS terminal helpfully tells you which tamper points got triggered. (Credit: Lucas Teske)
These days Points of Sale (PoS) usually include a digital payment terminal of some description, some of which are positively small, such as the Mini PoS terminals that PAX sells. Of course, since it has a CPU and a screen it must be hacked to run something else, and maybe discover something fun about the hardware in the process. Thus [Lucas Tuske] set out to
do exactly this with a PAX D177 PoS
, starting with purchasing three units: one to tear apart, one to bypass tamper protections on and one to keep as intact reference.
As expected, there are a few tamper protections in place, starting with pads that detect when the back cover is removed and a PCB that’s densely covered in fine traces to prevent sneaky drilling. Although tripping the tamper protections does not seem to affect the contents of the Flash, the firmware is signed. Furthermore the secrets like keys that are stored in NVRAM are purged, rendering the device effectively useless to any attacker.
The SoC that forms the brains of the whole operations is the relatively obscure
MH1903
, which is made by MegaHunt and comes in a dizzying number of variants that are found in applications like these PoS terminals. Fortunately the same SoC is also found on a development board with the AIR105 MCU that turns out to feature the same MH1903 core. These are ARM Cortex-M3 cores, which makes targeting them somewhat easier.
Rather than try to break the secure boot of the existing SoC, [Lucas] opted to replace the SoC package with a brand new one, which was its own adventure. Although one could say that this is cheating, it made getting a PoC of custom code running on one of these devices significantly easier. In a foll0w-up article [Lucas] expects to have
Doom
running on this device before long.
| 7
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179059",
"author": "x0rpunk",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T04:19:32",
"content": "CPU swap….Another 1337 way is to put a SBC in it; classic HaD style",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179081",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T06:12:03",
"content": "foll0w-up? :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179191",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T17:32:48",
"content": "Most secure POS systems are using some form of ARM vortex M3 core. Some of them have two one more secure ( keyboard entry pin, encryption etc., and a less secure chip For OS – comms, printing etc.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179254",
"author": "person",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:50:32",
"content": "But there is a question, can it run DOOM?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179402",
"author": "kovo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T08:06:06",
"content": "I also see this as unfinished project :o) (I opted out of using useless :P )",
"parent_id": "8179254",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179456",
"author": "Bruno",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:56:55",
"content": "In Brazil people have hacked these kind of terminals to use in illegal gambling operations. I have no clue how it was done.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179664",
"author": "some dude or whatever",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T23:05:32",
"content": "I think that “hack” is just to have them registered to another business, yeah?not much use in hacking it to use someone else’s receiving account as you couldn’t retrieve the funds, nor is there any use in having the keys for the payment processors replaced with something else.or are you saying they use them for private “club cards” instead of say poker chips? that seems like a pretty wild way to solve that “problem”",
"parent_id": "8179456",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,427.78753
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/a-breadboard-computer-in-three-chips/
|
A Breadboard Computer In Three Chips
|
Bryan Cockfield
|
[
"computer hacks"
] |
[
"breadboard",
"clock",
"computer",
"counter",
"programmable",
"ram"
] |
Building a computer on a breadboard is a seminal project for many builders, but it can become complicated quite quickly, not to mention that all the parts needed for a computer are being placed on a medium which often lends itself to loose wires and other hardware bugs.
[3DSage] has a working breadboard computer that is as simple as it can possibly be
, putting it together piece by piece to show exactly what’s needed to get a computer which can count, access memory, and even perform basic mathematical operations.
The first step for any computer is to build a clock, and in this case it’s being provided by a 555 timer which is configured to provide an adjustable time standard and which steps through the clock pulses when a button is pressed. The next piece is a four-bit counter and a memory chip, which lets the computer read and write data. A set of DIP switches allows a user to write data to memory, and by using the last three bits of the data as opcodes, the computer can reset, halt, and jump to various points in a simple program.
Although these three chips make it possible to perform basic programming, [3DSage] takes this a bit further in his video by demonstrating some other simple programs, such as one which can play music or behave as an alarm clock. He also shows how to use a fourth chip in the form of a binary adder to perform some basic math, and then packages it all into a retro-styled computer kit. Of course you can take these principles and build them out as far as they will go, like
this full 8-bit computer
built on a breadboard
or even this breadboard computer that hosts a 486
.
| 4
| 3
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8179060",
"author": "mythoughts62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T04:27:53",
"content": "This sounds alotlike a 4-bit machine I built with perf board and dead-bug wiring as a teenager in the ’70s. It used a lot more than 3 chips though, it was all TTL except for the, you guessed it, 555 timer used as a clock.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179201",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T17:54:03",
"content": "This would be more effective at computing if you added a ROM so that it executed microcode for each instruction.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179409",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T09:00:23",
"content": "Was thinking (nearly) the same – adding another EEPROM for storing only the opcodes/programs and thus separating opcodes from operands.I think the whole point was simplicity, and combining opcodes with operands in one 8-bit word was to show that it can be done simply.",
"parent_id": "8179201",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179261",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:13:39",
"content": "@03:38 7805 and NE555@04:44 74161 Synchrounus 4 bit counter@07:26 CDP1824 23*8 static RAMI’d say it’s a bit much to call this a computer. It’s barely a state machine.But it does trigger some memories from ages long gone by. Back then there were some pattern generator projects based on counters and Eprom chips. You could combine that with an ALU (or ALU logic) and even do 8×8 multiplication in a LUT. But still the principles are very similar to that used here.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,427.824057
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/reify-your-github-commit-history-with-contrib-cal/
|
Reify Your GitHub Commit History With Contrib Cal
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"3d Printer hacks",
"hardware",
"LED Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] |
[
"Contrib Cal",
"GitHub activity",
"Raspberry Pi Zero W"
] |
Over on Instructables, [Logan Fouts] shows us
the Contrib Cal GitHub desk gadget
. This build will allow you to sport your recent GitHub commit activity on your wall or desk with an attractive diffuse light display backed by a 7×4 matrix of multicolor LEDs. Motivate yourself and impress your peers!
This humble project is at the same time multifaceted. You will build a case with 3D printing, make a diffuse screen by gluing and cutting, design a LED matrix PCB using KiCad, solder everything together, and then program it all with Python. The brains of the operation are a Raspberry Pi Zero W.
The Instructables article will run you through the required supplies, help you to print the case, explain how to solder the LEDs, tell how to install the heat-set inserts for high quality screw attachments, explain wiring and power, tell you about how to use the various screws, then tell you about where to get more info and the required software on GitHub:
Contrib Cal v2
.
Of course this diffuse LED matrix is only one way to display your GitHub progress, you can also
Track Your GitHub Activity With This E-Ink Display
.
| 3
| 1
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178826",
"author": "jawnhenry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:38:39",
"content": "Only one comment:What does“REIFY”mean?More of your commitment to Artificial Stupidity, Hackaday?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178865",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:43:39",
"content": "reify /rē′ə-fī″, rā′-/transitive verbTo regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence.verbTo regard something abstract as if it were a concrete material thing.Consider an abstract concept to be real.And take that back about AI.",
"parent_id": "8178826",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179816",
"author": "Logan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T07:04:22",
"content": "Didnt know what reify meant before but you learn something new everyday ;). Thanks for the article Elliot!",
"parent_id": "8178865",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,427.900583
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/hackaday-podcast-episode-337-homebrew-inductors-teletypes-in-the-bedroom-and-action/
|
Hackaday Podcast Episode 337: Homebrew Inductors, Teletypes In The Bedroom, And Action!
|
Dan Maloney
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] |
[
"Hackaday Podcast"
] |
Fresh hacks here! Get your fresh hot hacks right here! Elliot and Dan teamed up this week to go through every story published on our pages to find the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and serve them up hot and fresh for you. The news this week was all from space, with the ISS getting its latest push from Dragon, plus <<checks notes>> oh yeah, life on Mars. Well, maybe, but it’s looking more and more like we are not alone, or at least not a few million years ago.
But even if we are, plenty is still going on down here to keep you interested. Like homebrewing? Good, because we looked at DIY inductors, wire nuts, and even a dope — but nope — ultralight helicopter. Into retro? We’ve got you covered with a loving look at IRC, a 60s bedside computer guaranteed to end your marriage, and a look at the best 8-bit language you never heard of.
We looked at a rescued fume hood, sensors galore on your phone, a rug that should have — and did, kind of — use a 555, and raytracing for the rest of your natural life. As for “Can’t Miss Articles,” Elliot could barely contain himself with the bounty of projects written up by our Hackaday writers, not to mention Arya’s deep dive into putting GPS modules to work in your builds.
Download this MP3, full of twisty little podcasts, all alike
. Plugh!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 337 Show Notes:
News:
Dragon Is The Latest, And Final, Craft To Reboost ISS
NASA Presser Reveals New Clues About Ancient Life on Planet Mars – YouTube
What’s that Sound?
Have a listen, guess where the music is from, and
enter your guess right here!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Give Your Twist Connections Some Strength
Print-in-Place Connectors Aim To Make Wiring Easier
Tips For Homebrewing Inductors
Was Action! The Best 8-Bit Language?
AtariWiki V3.1: Action Source Code
AtariWiki V3.1: Action
AtariWiki V3.1: Forth
Retrotechtacular: The Noisy Home Computer From 1967
A Love Letter To Internet Relay Chat
Life After IRC – Your Move, Mozilla!
Making An Ultralight Helicopter
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks
Old Phone Upcycled Into Pico Projector, ASMR
Reverse Engineering A Robot Mower’s Fence
The 555 As You’ve Never Seen It: In Textile!
A Look At Not An Android Emulator
No Plans For The Weekend? Learn Raytracing!
Dan’s Picks:
Restoring A Cheap Fume Hood
Smartphone Sensors Unlocked: Turn Your Phone Into A Physics Lab
Heart Rate Monitoring Via WiFi
Can’t-Miss Articles:
FreeCAD Foray: From Brick To Shell
Bootstrapping Android Development: A Survival Guide
The Android Linux Commander
GPS And Its Little Modules
| 0
| 0
|
[] | 1,760,371,427.863178
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/this-week-in-security-npm-kerbroasting-and-the-rest-of-the-story/
|
This Week In Security: NPM, Kerbroasting, And The Rest Of The Story
|
Jonathan Bennett
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] |
[
"0-days",
"NPM",
"Obfuscated C Code Contest",
"This Week in Security"
] |
Two billion downloads per week. That’s
the download totals for the NPM packages compromised in a supply-chain attack this week
. Ninety-nine percent of the cloud depends on one of the packages, and one-in-ten cloud environments actually included malicious code as a result of the hack. Take a moment to ponder that. In a rough estimate, ten percent of the Internet was pwned by a single attack.
What extremely sophisticated technique was used to pull off such an attack?
A convincing-looking phishing email
sent from the newly registered
npmjs.help
domain. [qix] is the single developer of many of these packages, and in the midst of a stressful week, fell for the scam. We could refer to the obligatory
XKCD 2347
here. It’s a significant problem with the NPM model that a single developer falling for a phishing email can expose the entire Internet to such risk.
And once that account was compromised, it didn’t take long for the mystery attacker to push malicious code. Within an hour, cryptocurrency stealing code was added to two dozen packages. Within a couple hours, the compromise was discovered and the cleanup effort began.
BREAKING
LARGEST SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACK IN HISTORY PULLS OFF MASSIVE CRYPTO HEIST
ATTACKS STEAL $20.05 OF ETH. ENTIRE WORLD CRUMBLING
— vx-underground (@vxunderground)
September 8, 2025
While the attack was staggering in its breadth, in the end
only a few hundred dollars worth of cryptocurrency was actually stolen as a result
. Why was such a successful attack, when measured by deployment, so minimal in actual theft? Two reasons: First, the malware was only live for two hours before takedowns began. And a related second reason, the malicious code was specifically aimed at developer and end-user machines, while the majority of the installs were on servers and cloud deployments, where cryptocurrency transactions weren’t happening.
It brings to mind the question, what could have happened? Instead of looking for cryptocurrency to steal, if the malicious code was tailored to servers and stealth, how long would it have taken to detect? And is there malicious code on NPM and in other places that we just haven’t discovered yet?
SAP ERP CVEs
Let’s break down this Alphabet soup. SAP is an acronym for “Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing”, a German company providing business software. ERP is their Enterprise Resource Planning software, and of course a CVE is a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure. So to translate the acronyms,
SAP’s accounting software has vulnerabilities
. And in this case, CVE-2025-42944 is a ten out of ten on the CVSS severity scale.
In fact, there are four vulnerabilities altogether, all CVSS of nine or higher, and all in the underlying NetWeaver platform. SAP owned up to the problems,
commenting that they operated as a backdoor
, allowing unauthorized access. Patches are available for all of these issues, but some of them have been found in use in the wild.
Kerbroasting
You know it’s bad
when a sitting US Senator can tell that your security has problems
. Though before I read the article, I had a feeling it would be [Ron Wyden].
The issue here is Microsoft’s support for RC4 encryption in Active Directory. RC4, also known as ARC4, is a pseudorandom number generator developed at RSA in 1987. This continuing support leads to an attack known as
kerberoasting
.
Kerberos is one of the protocols that powers Active Directory. It works through a sort of ticket signing system. The server doing the signing takes a hash of a password and uses that hash as an encryption key to encrypt the Kerberos ticket. There are two possible problems. First, that password may be a human generated password, and therefore a weak password. And second, the legacy combination of RC4 and original NT hashing makes for extremely fast offline password guessing.
So here’s the kerberoasting attack: Take any account in the Active Directory, and request a Kerberos ticket, specifying the legacy RC4 encryption. Take this offline ticket to a modern CPU/GPU, and use Hashcat to crack that password, at a guess rate measured in the billions per second. Once that password is discovered, arbitrary Kerberos tickets can be signed, providing access to basically any account on the AD system.
This was part of the 2024 ransomware attack on Ascension health, and why the US senate is taking notice. What’s strange is how resistant Microsoft has been to fixing this issue. Microsoft states that RC4 only makes up .1% of traffic, which is nonsense, since the attack doesn’t rely on traffic. Finally in 2026, new installs of Windows server 2025 will disable RC4 by default.
Reverse Engineering and TLS Hacking
We get a great primer from [f0rw4rd] on
how to defeat TLS certificates, in a very specific scenario
. That scenario is reverse engineering an embedded or industrial Linux system. One of the tools you might want to use is to intercept traffic from the embedded system to some web server, but if that system uses HTTPS, it will fail to verify that certificate. What is a researcher to do?
One possible solution is to abuse
LD_PRELOAD
to poison the application. This approach uses dynamic library loading to insert a “malicious” library before program execution.
tls-preloader
is a tool to do exactly this, and supports multiple SSL/TLS libraries, allowing sniffing all that useful TLS data.
The Rest of the Story
Just recently we mentioned several 0-day vulnerabilities that were being used for in-the-wild attacks. This week we have updates on a couple of those. First is
the iOS and macOS vulnerability in DNG image file processing
. The basic issue is that this file type has a TIFF header that includes a
SamplesPerPixel
metadata, and a SOF3 section with a component count. A properly formatted file will have consistency between these two elements, and the Apple file processing didn’t handle such an inconsistency correctly, leading to memory corruption and potentially Remote Code Execution (RCE).
The other
recent 0-day is a FreePBX flaw
that was discovered through the presence of a
clean.sh
script on multiple FreePBX installs. The flaw was an automatic class loader that allowed an unauthenticated user to include module files when calling the ajax.php endpoint. One way to turn this into an exploit is SQL injection in one of the modules. This is what has been patched, meaning there are likely more exploits to find using this php injection quirk.
Bits and Bytes
The Apple CarPlay SDK had a buffer overflow that was reachable by a device connecting to the vulnerable head unit.
Researchers from oligo discovered this flaw, and presented it at Def Con this year
. The end result is root-level RCE, and while Apple has already published an SDK update, most cars are still vulnerable to this one.
And finally, enjoy [LaurieWired]
taking a look at
this year’s
International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC)
winners. This contest is all about pushing the limits in how terrifying C code can be, while still compiling and doing something interesting. And these entries don’t disappoint.
| 9
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178771",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:39:10",
"content": "One can only assume that Microsoft has been served with a FISA warrant, with gagging, from the FISC to keep the backdoor in place as long as possible.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178776",
"author": "Michael Schaller",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:16:26",
"content": "RC4 isn’t a pseudorandom number generator! RC4 is stream cipher.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC4",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179006",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:51:17",
"content": "heh i am pretty ignorant of which sense is meant in a given context but i wanted to peavishly point out that a stream cipher and a prng are the same thing. and i figured i ought to skim the article you linked, and i found this text in it:DescriptionRC4 generates a pseudorandom stream of bits (a keystream). As with any stream cipher, these can be used for encryption by combining it with the plaintext using bitwise exclusive or; decryption is performed the same way (since exclusive or with given data is an involution).",
"parent_id": "8178776",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178785",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:40:31",
"content": "The bit that staggers me with the NPM stuff is the well got poisoned, and apparently just a few hours later its been distributed widely in active use – where is the pre-prod testing on the patches. Its all well and good to trust the developer, they probably earn it on the whole, but even the best developer writing code specifically for your use case isn’t going to hold the entire complex system in their heads and not miss an interaction that can cause crashes, corruption etc!This sort of thing when the breach in the supply chain is found in so few hours shouldn’t have any impact at all, as you should be having at least a few hours of simulation/beta testing before real deployment on any remotely important system/service. That testing might not actually find any problems, I doubt it would notice this in this case, so the supply chain attack could still get into deployed builds eventually – the risk is always there. But if the estimate is right 10% in a few hours is crazy, at most it should be a fraction of a percent made up of the daily-dev-builds that nobody is really intended to treat as ready for use!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178879",
"author": "Daid",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:25:41",
"content": "Well, it’s NPM and javascript, both with a “great track record” on security (sarcasm)I’m kinda shocked that just a compromised account can update packages that have that many downloads. Other package repos learned long ago that signing packages is important to reduce supplychain attacks.Maybe this will finally change things, but, seeing how often npm gets a supply chain attack and nothing really happened, I doubt it.",
"parent_id": "8178785",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179011",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:58:49",
"content": "yeah i agree. and, without knowing any of the sites affected, i imagine it is mostly “unimportant” sites. like, you can tell that google and amazon and the banking backends test before deployment. and you can tell that like specialty goods dealer dot com often does not.i think this kind of failure of npm might represent a case of jevons paradox. they did such a good job of making it efficient to reuse maintained code (and to maintain reused code) that it caused a massive increase in the amount of code reuse, until the costs of reusing it are now higher than when reusing code was hard! i’m always railing against the bloat and instability, but security verification becomes prohibitively expensive as you pull in multiple streams of constant updates.",
"parent_id": "8178785",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179096",
"author": "Patrick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:15:53",
"content": "In the case of this particular attack, it’s really intended to target the developer machines anyway, so it’s lucky that apparently not too many were running it locally before pushing to prod. But in general it’s definitely eye-opening how much these updates are being propagated without testing or auditing first!",
"parent_id": "8178785",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179926",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:57:51",
"content": "lmfao the shitting of the hot tub has begun. Good hopefully people will see how unbelievably stupid it is to trust your life to MLM schemes on loose servers. I mean it is all just pump and dump schemes using polysyllabic tech newspeak so it has to be totally legit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179993",
"author": "Jack Dansen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T17:14:41",
"content": "The Kerberoasting section is a bit misleading. The issue isn’t specifically an RC4 problem. RC4 can be disabled and is recommended for hardening all environments at this point. You can still Kerberoast with NetNTLMv2 hashes. Yes they are harder to crack, but still very much in the realm of feasible for all normal human password lengths, especially with dictionary attacks. The real problem in the whole SPN ticket granting process. This is also mitigatable by using managed service accounts that have very long, frequently auto-rotated passwords.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.044986
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-the-manhattan-project-but-were-afraid-to-ask/
|
Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Manhattan Project (But Were Afraid To Ask)
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Science"
] |
[
"Manhattan Project",
"nuclear bomb"
] |
There have been plenty of books and movies about how the Manhattan Project brought together scientists and engineers to create the nuclear bomb. Most of them don’t have a lot of technical substance, though. You know — military finds genius, genius recruits other geniuses, bomb! But if you want to hear the story of the engineering,
[Brian Potter] tells it all
. We mean, like, all of it.
If you’re looking for a quick three-minute read, you’ll want to give this a pass. Save it for a rainy afternoon when you can settle in. Even then, he skips past a lot of what is well known. Instead, he spends quite a bit of time discussing how the project addressed the technical challenges, like separating out U235.
Four methods were considered for that task. Creating sufficient amounts of plutonium was also a problem. Producing a pound of plutonium took 4,000 pounds of uranium. When you had enough material, there was the added problem of getting it together fast enough to explode instead of just having a radioactive fizzle.
There are some fascinating tidbits in the write-up. For example, building what would become the Oak Ridge facility required conductors for electromagnets. Copper, however, was in short supply. It was wartime, after all. So the program borrowed another good conductor, silver, from the Treasury Department. Presumably, they eventually returned it, but [Brian] doesn’t say.
There’s the old story that they weren’t entirely sure they wouldn’t ignite the entire atmosphere but, of course,
they didn’t
. Not that the nuclear program didn’t have its share
of bad luck
.
| 34
| 7
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178736",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T12:52:48",
"content": "Copper, however, was in short supply. It was wartime, after all. So the program borrowed another good conductor, silver, from the Treasury Department. Presumably, they eventually returned it, but [Brian] doesn’t say.Actually, he does say:Altogether 13,540 tons, worth $300 million ($6 billion in 2025 dollars) was borrowed, 99.964% of which was eventually returned.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178920",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:13:58",
"content": "They went so far as to tear up the floor boards and burn them to recover as much silver dust as possible. Whenever drilling happened to bolt parts together, someone would use a bit of paper to catch the filings. There was always someone standing nearby, watching to make sure no funny business happened.",
"parent_id": "8178736",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178756",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:46:41",
"content": "We could use all kinds of Manhattan Projects (ie, bringing together the best scientists and the best engineers) to address other needs that are very, very long overdue. Like affordable housing, infrastructure upgrades, proper public transit and plenty more.If we don’t do it now by ourselves, AI will, and it remains to be seen if it find us, humans, and our NEEDS worthy attention.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178770",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:35:58",
"content": "The Manhattan project had one advantage over the type of projects you are thinking.A clear definition of what the solution will accomplish: Bomb go Boom! in a big way.What is affordable housing? What infrastructure needs to be upgraded? What is proper public transit?Most of the bigger problems we have are societal problems. You can’t simply experiment on people’s lives. The Manhattan project accomplished its goals by experimentation on a grand scale. To “fix” housing, you’d have to try a myriad of different solutions – with each attempted solution, you will change people’s lives for better or worse with no way of knowing beforehand which way it will go.The same goes for public transportation. Optimal public transformation depends on a lot of factors, most of which have an enormous influence on how people live and structure their lives.",
"parent_id": "8178756",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178777",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:18:12",
"content": "Worse; big projects to address ill defined problems end up binding the hands of experts who are already trying to solve the problem, by diverting the attention away to endless conferences and fundraisers and publicity campaigns in the lack of any meaningful direction to take. Such projects become projects of project management with the hope that if you manage it enough then the original problem becomes clear and solvable.The effort starts to consume money and time just to keep the project organization moving along, and keeping the experts in line and involved even when it’s really doing nothing in terms of the original problem. This is not seen as a failure of the project; instead it encourages to re-double the efforts to raise more funding and awareness for the project under the idea that a grand enough project would eventually have to solve the problem.So, it becomes an exercise of kicking the can down the road at a grand scale.",
"parent_id": "8178770",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178802",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T16:32:24",
"content": "Affordable housing is easy, look at the UK. They had it and then broke it. So the solution is to fix what they broke. (I figure you’re American, the solution involves that scary socialism word so I welcome your ignorant comments as to why “We can’t do that!”. Don’t forget to ignore the post WWII GI stuff.)Fusion is an idea, it’s been said that if it was properly funded we’d have it by now instead of “in 20 years time”. There’s your Manhattan Mk II, our very own helium factory.",
"parent_id": "8178770",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178806",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T16:53:54",
"content": "I am an American, but I live in Germany. Socialism is fine. Don’t blindly bash people you don’t know.The thing is that the US is different.An affordable housing solution that works in New York City is not the same solution that works in a small town 40 miles from no damn where.The UK has a population density of 279 people per square mile.New York City has a population density of 29300 people per square mile.I’ve lived places in the US where the whole county has a population of 7500 people and a population density of 15 per square mile.The housing requirements and costs are tremendously different, as are the solutions for affordable housing.",
"parent_id": "8178802",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178856",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:10:22",
"content": "Socialism is fine. Don’t blindly bash people you don’t know.Thing is, socialism isn’t necessarily what you were sold as socialism. For example, the welfare state was originally refused by the socialists because it represented “throwing a bone” to the poor by the rich and thus prevented total revolution to full dictatorship of the proletariat. The people alone, according to the original theory, can only rise to a trade union level of class consciousness, in a compromise with the owning classes, which meant that a revolution was necessary to bring about the true workers’ state.So unless you’re acutely aware of what ideologies and practices you are buying and selling under the auspice of “socialism”, you can be too easily taken over by those who would use your compliance to further other causes.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178859",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:28:27",
"content": "The philosophical underpinnings of socialism come from things like Romanticism and then Hegel, etc. which basically assume that a person is not even defined as a person until they actualize themselves through the society at large. In other words, You as an individual does not exist except as defined by everyone.The problem becomes defining “everyone”, or the society, which is being represented not by each and every individual but by the elected or self-elected administration, which is not the same thing as the people in either case. This means that the actions defined as “socialism” or what defines you as a person does not actually stem of the people, but of the administration, in the name of the people but not of the people. It becomes a dictatorship of the socially powerful, who then become financially powerful, which replaces the owning class of capitalism as rulers.So buying socialism and calling your policy socialism is selling something you might not want to have – if you understood what you’re really talking about. In the modern context, people who claim to be socialist are largely just moderate capitalists who want to hide behind the label, or confused individuals who don’t know what they’re talking about, or people who have ulterior motives and want to obfuscate what socialism means in order to take more than they demand.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178867",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:47:02",
"content": "Dude:Socialism is an term older than Marxism.Definitely included ‘the welfare state’, including religious and other charity.The problem is the Fing Marxists/commies deliberately conflate ‘socialism’ with whatever the F they’re calling themselves this week.Their drunken idiot founder having redefined ‘socialism’ in long winded founding rants.Private definitions are a hallmarks of a cult.True for commies or clams.TLDR;Socialism isn’t just another name for commies.But because commies are such weasels, it is.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178868",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:47:31",
"content": "Also, yeah yeah, I know, “Communism isn’t socialism”. Guess what, paraphrasing Marx: “Communism is Socialism taken seriously.”People who adopt socialism and reject communism despite largely just pick and choose whatever principles they find convenient out of “socialism” and ignore the logical consistency of the whole thing when it interferes with their own self-interests.Rules for thee, not for me.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178871",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:02:07",
"content": "Socialism is an term older than Marxism. Definitely included ‘the welfare state’, including religious and other charity.For some thinkers, and not for others. There wasn’t any unified theory and everybody just winged their own armchair philosophy without any intent to put it into practice. It was more about aristocratic thinkers grandstanding to be seen as philanthropists despite their social standing and their actual indifference to it. The early socialists were also pretty paternalistic and though of the poor as a class that needed management rather than self-administration. That was the main criticism by Marx.When they started to implement socialism systematically, the welfare state was first implemented by Otto Von Bismarck as a compromise between the classes (state socialism), and the socialists/communists immediately rejected it because it watered down the call for total workers’ revolution. In other words, it’s wrong when you do it, and right when we do it.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178874",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:13:20",
"content": "Meanwhile, the “more successful” social model, depending on accounts, is the Nordic Model, which is based neither on capitalism or socialism, but on “corporatism” which takes the different factions of the society as collective groups with representation and puts them into mutual discussion and compromise about rules and regulations, such as general contracts over wages and labor hours etc.Guess what that is modeled from? From the system of medieval guilds and later Italian Fascism, with modifications of universal suffrage and egalitarian democracy.Not socialism.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178875",
"author": "dUDE",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:18:41",
"content": "Sorry, I meant earlier Italian Fascism – before Mussolini turned it into “Si Si Si”.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178886",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:42:46",
"content": "Dude:The poor definitely need a ‘daddy’.Almost by definition.If they could manage their shit, they wouldn’t be poor for long.At least in the USA and western Europe.A dad comes with ‘asking for an allowance’.Who do they think they are?Jerry Brown? (lifelong trust fund snot-monkey)",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178892",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:57:40",
"content": "If they could manage their shit, they wouldn’t be poor for long.That depends on whether the fault is in the system or in themselves. That is the whole debate.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178990",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:10:43",
"content": "It is demonstrably true that many poors stop being poor by getting their shit together.Are there edge cases?Sure.Life is more poker than chess.Some people get dealt really crap cards.Many of them are tough as hell and do fine.Some are born rich and never want for anything.Soft as marshmallows, especially in the head.",
"parent_id": "8178806",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178808",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:01:07",
"content": "When?The UKs housing market is a mess and has been for all of living memory.What % of urban housing units are council owned as of 2025?How many died in fires in council owned and maintained high rise housing?How many in the single worst incident?What is generational dole?Is ‘Shameless’ a documentary?The UK is a lost cause.Democracy failure mode: More than 50% on government tit, vote for ‘more tit’, repeat.It’s over.If your in the UK and not on tit the only decision left is where you’re moving to.",
"parent_id": "8178802",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178832",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:54:31",
"content": "Everything is fine in the UK, and if you say differently you face prison",
"parent_id": "8178802",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178829",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:41:18",
"content": "I DO have clear definition.BTW, military’s Army Corps can (and SHOULD) help out with building average houses, or condos, for the average law-abiding tax-paying citizens who ALREADY paid their bills in full.Yes, Public Housing in the US is a disaster controlled by emerged cartels. I am not saying we should be repeating these, I am saying we should be learning from, say, public housing in Vienna, Austria. Average rental there goes for around $600 a month. Not shoddy bunch of houses in the middle of nowhere, a condo in a high rise, with public swimming pool, stores, kindergartens and hospitals. $600 a month. Public transportation, too.I am not clear why engineers and sane thinking people get all the flak intended for the morons who destroyed things in the past. Coops in the US used to be a large economy driving thing, and those were simple, SIMPLE to open and run. I drive pass few coop-built houses on regular basis, so I know these. They were modest by today’s standards, but affordable back then. Not McMansions, but good enough to live in.I’ve heard UK stories aplenty, and local builder-tie-ins are not much better. They are literally cartels forcing exorbitant prices for unclear merit. Again how do I know this? By having friends who are contractors.Regardless, US is permanently stuck in the late 1980s, celebrating the accomplishments long past. We still cannot move forward into the 21 century, because our economy seem to be permanently stuck in the bronze-age mentality still, while entire world is mostly pass the alloy-age.As I said, it is either us or AI, and I see that AI will win while we are stuck discussing minutiae.",
"parent_id": "8178770",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178838",
"author": "teh stig",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:18:00",
"content": "L.O.L.",
"parent_id": "8178829",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178877",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:21:51",
"content": "To quote a lot of folks I’ve known “Which part of Texas are you from son?”You understand condo’s and coop’s mean you own certain parts of the property, right? “Coop” = cooperative, “Condo” = condominium. You actually buy or get a mortgage to obtain ownership of a share of the building or your unit as a part of the building.“Coop” and “Condo” are not the same thing as “apartment” or “flat” or “high rise”.$600 for high rises with pools and all … yeah, there’s this thing they have now …. I think Adam Smith invented it. It’s called the market.Unless you’re thinking of Cabrini Green or Starrett city, you are literally talking about socialism or communism because any developer who could build a livable,safe complex and charge $600 a monthwouldbecause 50% of the US population would move there in a hot minute.The issue isn’t technology or engineers or research, it’s just how capitalism works.The US is stuck in the 80’s? Geez, have you seen what San Francisco or Miami or NYC look like and cost? Yeah, I member the 80’s, the US is stuck, but not in the 80’s.The US is fundamentally grappling with the fact that something like 30% to 50% of the employable population either have no significant marketable skills needed for the global economy or are at a barely manageable theshhold of skills and earnings with constantly threats of a “race to the bottom” for income as offshoring and automation and now AI rewrite what is needed to achieve “the American Dream.”This is whatALLthe drama is about (orange man). It’s why middle aged white men without college educations have a rapidly increasing mortality rate while for the rest of theWORLDmortality is going down (except in regions of war).Someone changed all the rules of the game and either no one told a whole bunch of the players or they didn’t listen. Which is glib. The rules changed and the institutions intended to protect them either failed out of fecklessness or had previously been stripped or shut down in the name of cost cutting.Your “manhattan project” is basically South Park’s “underwear, something something profit.”",
"parent_id": "8178829",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178965",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T00:05:56",
"content": "Good points, and thank you for pointing out the obvious while leaving important parts out.Coops provided their own starting capital. That IS the definition of the coop, cooperative initiative. Whether commercial banks like it or not (they hate it) is irrelevant. Point is, pooling resources together. Not just finances, EVERYTHING, skills, expertise, know-how. A lot of coops I heard about where literally built from ground up by the people who knew how to build their own houses.“…$600 for high rises with pools and all … yeah, there’s this thing they have now …. I think Adam Smith invented it. It’s called the market….” no, and DO find a youtube video. I am not making this up. It is not the market, it is public housing for those left out of the market. Very simple. Maybe people do NOT want to be part of the rat race and opt out.I do not own any property (long story, unrelated to this thread, been renting the same unit for the last 20 years, not coop). I also do not want to own any property where I live, too many parasites riding my back for free.Market supposed to weed out the meek and non-function, and it is not doing its job in the US. Time to introduce some proper competition, and public housing financed by coops could be just such a thing. Pooling resources. Cooperating. Useless/destructive competition can wait.“…The issue isn’t technology or engineers or research, it’s just how capitalism works…” I know how wit works, and I just described the cooperative capitalism that can compete with the outsourced financing. There are other “capitalisms” out there, btw, and one version taught in high school is one of many. “Capital” can be many things, too. Human Capital, ie, expertise, is another one – the one that NAFTA shipped offshore in the 1990s.“…This is what ALL the drama is about (orange man)…” I do not vote for clowns. Their words generated at random might as well be AI-generated for all I care. Actually, now that I think of it, we should elect AI-generated pre and vice-prez and be over with.I do not agree that “…The US is fundamentally grappling with the fact that something like 30% to 50% of the employable population either have no significant marketable skills needed for the global economy ..” yes it does, and US potential at large is being regularly squandered on meaningless s**t of no particular merit. We have the potential. We have the able-bodied (and reasonably well-educated) population. Whether it is being wasted is a different story. NAFTA is one of those stories.Case in point – Japan was insourcing people just like US did later. It was running the risk of being overwhelmed by cheap workers. What did it do? Read the Nintendo manual – ANY manual, and notice the names. Pretty much ALL of them will be japanese. Why? Japan passed a law that insourced/foreign workers cannot be paid less than twice the salary of locals. It became cheaper to train and hire its own. Yep.Funny you mention capitalism, because 100% capitalism is dead on arrival without the “trickle-down economy” or social programs. Similarly, any 100% socialism is dead on arrival without elements of capitalism or free trade (or social programs). The two are about as unattainable as pure communism (mind you, The Amish had communism since, like, ever – and it works for them, btw, no money, etc, just at the parrish level, not nation-wide).“…barely manageable theshhold of skills…” comes from chasing ever running away jobs that pay well. Rat race. It doesn’t mean the populace is dumb, it means there is no definite target to run after. Direct result that’s quite predictable – why chase after a dream that can disappear in few years. “Gypsy economy” we truly are, btw.Someone changed all the rules of the game – emerged cartels are nothing new, and our anti-trust laws suppoed to prevent them from emerging, but they failed.I served in the military and hurting with words doesn’t impress me. Try snowflakes.",
"parent_id": "8178877",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178974",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T00:21:51",
"content": "Fascinating.I truly did NOT intend to derail the topic into socialism-vs-capitalism magabagoo, so apologies for the unintended consequences of my actions.Regardless, some scientists (like Albert Einstein – and others) turned down offer to work for the military. I am pretty sure there were plenty of engineers who did the same, too. Not because they were traitors, but because they knew exactly well how it will go and didn’t want to have any part of it.That’s why I said we need Manhattan Project for the civil purposes.Please don’t mix me with the tree huggers, and I do know what I am talking about. Do your homework first, reply with useful information.",
"parent_id": "8178756",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179075",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:40:39",
"content": "AI won’t figure it out for the same reason humans can’t: they’re both strictly programmed to ignore vital pieces of the problems and thus can’t find working solutions.",
"parent_id": "8178756",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178852",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:57:01",
"content": "The design of the implosion bomb, the top picture, is ironic to me seeing as Americans have never embraced soccer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179043",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T03:04:41",
"content": "Yes at that time a “foot ball” might have been one thing that got attention of the hush hush police.",
"parent_id": "8178852",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179079",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:47:05",
"content": "Really it’s all that cardio that we object to, not the phenomena of tesselation",
"parent_id": "8178852",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179833",
"author": "phuzz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:26:53",
"content": "I guess that’s the influence of the British scientists working on the Manhattan Project ;)(jk)",
"parent_id": "8178852",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178862",
"author": "MikeG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:33:46",
"content": "I have one of the world’s largest private collections of trinitite and trinitite-related literature. I’m the original author of the Trinitite FAQ in my link.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178880",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:27:58",
"content": "I’m quite jealous.Very very hard to get these days. I’m told counterfeit Trinitite shows up on eBay occasionally. I’d settle for some Chernobylite but the post office might object. I can’t even get Tritium via Alibaba any more. I scored a bunch of rice grains worth but seem to have misplaced them, which would worrying if I had kids or planned to.I was lucky enough to meet a number of the original Manhattan project scientists, including Bernie Feld and Phillip Morrison.Brilliant but very haunted very angry men.",
"parent_id": "8178862",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179031",
"author": "Steve Spivey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:22:47",
"content": "I’m not afraid to ask… it is the consequences of asking that I’m worried about.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179586",
"author": "Carl Vehse",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:08:00",
"content": "In his article, “An Engineering History of the Manhattan Project,” Brian Potter discusses some of the physical and engineering methods used in the Manhattan Project to develop the uranium and plutonium fission bombs.However, there is also a story to tell about the development of plutonium chemistry needed to separate and then purify plutonium sufficiently to make a fission bomb possible. Various plutonium methods were developed, first at the University of California, Berkeley, where Glenn Seaborg and his group initially produced, isolated, and identified plutonium as a new element following neptunium on the periodic table. Later, the bismuth-phosphate precipitation chemistry was developed by Glenn Seaborg and other scientists at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory in Jones Laboratory, not far from Stagg Field stadium, where Enrico Fermi built the first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reactor. The bismuth-phosphate chemistry was modified for use at Hanford, Washington, to separate the plutonium from uranium and the highly radioactive fission products in irradiated reactor fuel elements.However the plutonium products sent to Los Alamos still had impurities which would interfere with using the plutonium in a working fission bomb. At Los Alamos, additional plutonium purification chemistry was developed by Arthur Wahl, who as Seaborg’s graduate student at Berkeley had first separated and identified the new element of plutonium. Following this chemical purification, the plutonium could then be converted into plutonium metal, which was then used in the Fat Man fission bomb.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181512",
"author": "T.W. Ciarlariello",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T23:23:59",
"content": "Hysterias about “proliferation” hinders what could allow civilization to voyage beyond our world or even beyond our universe.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.17663
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/12/how-strong-of-a-redbull-can-you-make/
|
How Strong Of A Redbull Can You Make?
|
Fenix Guthrie
|
[
"chemistry hacks"
] |
[
"Chemistry",
"redbull"
] |
Energy drinks are a staple of those who want to get awake and energetic in a hurry. But what if said energy is not in enough of a hurry for your taste? After coming across a thrice concentrated energy drink, [Nile Blue]
decided to make a 100 times concentrated Redbull.
Energy drinks largely consist of water with caffeine, flavoring and sugar dissolved inside. Because a solution can only be so strong, so instead of normal Redbull, a sugar free variant was used. All 100 cans were gathered into a bucket to dry the mixture, but first, it had to be de-carbonated. By attaching a water agitator to a drill, all the carbon dioxide diffused in the water fell out of solution. A little was lost, but the process worked extremely well.
From there, the Redbull was moved to a fancy vortex drying machine. While simply evaporating the water in a food dehydrator is an option, it takes a very long time and does not preserve the flavor. The solution to patience is expensive machines from China. This particular machine works by shooting in a mist of liquid into a vortex of hot air. This causes the solids to fall out of solution and separate into a powder which is collected. Much of the powder got caked in the vortex funnel and with much effort, a portion of it was removed by a chisel, and washing with water. Of course, the portion washed with water had to be dried in a food dehydrator, which took ten days. Unfortunately, the machine did not work perfectly and about 33.5 cans worth of Redbull powder where lost along the way.
To math the volume of a standard can of Redbull, all 250 grams of powder would need to be dissolved in a mere 250ml of water, a theoretical 67 times concentrated Redbull. While it did mostly dissolve into a somewhat grainy thick sludge, the powder added so much volume it ended up being equivalent to a 37 times concentration. A mere 7ml of this concoction amounts to a single Redbull, likely the strongest concentration of Redbull possible. Of course, for the full Redbull experience, the sludge was carbonated and finally packaged in an appropriate jar.
If you like strange and potentially dangerous chemistry hacks, make sure to check out this
gold nanoparticle fabrication project next!
| 38
| 20
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178686",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:57:27",
"content": "no comments.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178689",
"author": "Darkstar",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:03:07",
"content": "WTF is “gold nonparticipant fabrication”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178697",
"author": "Sean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:42:42",
"content": "Not sure, buthttps://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/restoring-a-cheap-fume-hood/leads tohttps://hackaday.com/2025/06/12/diy-calibration-target-for-electron-microscopes/",
"parent_id": "8178689",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178713",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:59:40",
"content": "nanoparticleThis post seems to have a lot of typos, even by Hackaday standards. Fortunately autocorrect can replace them with correctly spelled incorrect words!",
"parent_id": "8178689",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178722",
"author": "Mamx",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:34:24",
"content": "They’re committed to new lows every day.",
"parent_id": "8178713",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178731",
"author": "Bunsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T12:18:05",
"content": "A little was lost after the Hackaday was lost, but the process worked extremely well.",
"parent_id": "8178722",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178949",
"author": "EGO111",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T23:21:03",
"content": "Meta! I love it.",
"parent_id": "8178731",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178696",
"author": "Ray",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:30:55",
"content": "36:20 for the taste test",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178702",
"author": "Wendell",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:13:23",
"content": "I have made a version 500x stronger, ie 15g per 100mL of caffeine. Had to be made from the ingredient chemicals though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178714",
"author": "Adam Blumenberg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:01:25",
"content": "Although interesting, this is a dangerous project because it concentrates caffeine to the point where there is a dangerous and potentially lethal dose within a beverage container.Energy drinks typically contain a couple hundred milligrams of caffeine. When someone drinks a few grams of caffeine it can cause seizures, dangerous heart rhythms, and possibly death. Some quick math – if a redbull contains about 100mg of caffeine then concentrating it by 100x gives you a dose of 10 grams, which can kill an adult if they drink it. Keeping dangerous substances in food or beverage containers has caused a lot of poisonings over the years.This is similar to concentrating other substances and creating something newly dangerous. For example a bottle of vape juice may have a dangerous or lethal dose of nicotine if someone drinks it. This is because it’s much more highly concentrated than the nicotine in a cigarette and the dose surpasses a toxic threshold.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178818",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:13:09",
"content": "You can say the same thing about the way I make coffee.‘When french presses are outlawed, only outlaws will own french presses.’Better example is Kratom.Weak opiate, so legal in some places.Now available in 100x concentrate at your local gas station.Which will kill you dead…‘Think of it as evolution in action!’",
"parent_id": "8178714",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178848",
"author": "GameboyRMH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:38:09",
"content": "Came here to mention the potential danger of the resulting caffeine concentration, can now leave satisfied.",
"parent_id": "8178714",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178876",
"author": "Jan_W",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:20:55",
"content": "I don’t know if you’ve ever tasted pure coffeine. It should be really really hard to swallow those amounts without entering a vomiting contest. That stuff is bitter a frick.",
"parent_id": "8178714",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179276",
"author": "Spritle",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:42:05",
"content": "redbull only 100mg of caffine. that’s only half a no-doz pill.",
"parent_id": "8178714",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178715",
"author": "tiopepe123",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:10:51",
"content": "is dangerous?https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4102",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178740",
"author": "threeve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:07:19",
"content": "There’s a chance drinking the whole thing would be a fatal dose of caffeine.But it’s OK, he made a decaf version toohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o",
"parent_id": "8178715",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178719",
"author": "Mortimer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:31:27",
"content": "Hmmphh… amateur ! Daffy is the expert, here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRMrlFRRJgYCaveat: you can only do it once.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178720",
"author": "Mamx",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:31:49",
"content": "Pathetic beyond words. WTF is doing that here ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178741",
"author": "threeve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:08:00",
"content": "I wonder if this comment refers to the video, youtuber, finished product, or the red bull?",
"parent_id": "8178720",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178766",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:24:30",
"content": "Yes, it does",
"parent_id": "8178741",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178917",
"author": "AZdave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:09:26",
"content": "All of the above, plus whichever HaD editor decided it was a useful hack.",
"parent_id": "8178741",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178822",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:18:15",
"content": "Still better than the twine wrapped old tire coffee table.That was an ‘Arts&CraftsaDay’ low.Strong caffeine is a traditional Hacker subject.But generally has to be in consumable form, preferably coffee.This is just an idiots attempt at a chemistry experiment.",
"parent_id": "8178720",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178737",
"author": "Gill bates",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T12:57:26",
"content": "Wow basically an AI that simply phoned it in, over a static sounding line and the SNR to match.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178768",
"author": "Joel B",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:29:01",
"content": "all the carbon dioxide diffused in the water fell out of solution.Wouldn’t it technically rise out of suspension?A little was lost after the Redbull was lostWhat?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178790",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:46:08",
"content": "“HOW STRONG OF A REDBULL CAN YOU MAKE?”Raise your hand if you read this title and then expected to read an article about container modifications or homebrew techniques/tools to corrugate sheet metal harvested from Redbull cans?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178791",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:46:45",
"content": "“HOW STRONG OF A REDBULL CAN YOU MAKE?”Raise your hand if you read this title and then expected to read an article about container modifications or homebrew techniques/tools to corrugate sheet metal harvested from Redbull cans?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178800",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T16:17:16",
"content": "This is basically “How to Take Something Off the Shelf and Make it Poison”Feel free to check my maths, and it’s a little hard to get an exact number, but it looks like LD50 on caffeine is estimated to be 150-200 mg/kg with fatalities identified as low as 57 mg/kg.Depending on the can used, the caffeine in a single can is between 80-112 mg.Take the multiplier for concentration of between 37 (the actual result) and 100 (the attempted concentration) and the sludge had, or could have had anywhere from about 3000 to 11000 mg of caffeine.So, for say 65 kg person, LD50 is range of 3700 to 13000 mg of caffeine.Presumably the broad range in LD50 is age, fitness, muscle mass, tolerance, etc.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178801",
"author": "threeve",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T16:31:18",
"content": "Not sure if this is better or worse than his usual MO of “How to take off the shelf posion and make something edible”",
"parent_id": "8178800",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178824",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:25:53",
"content": "Woot!By my math, I can push my coffee even stronger.I had been backing off the strength based on heart palpitations.Doubt it’s much over 2000mg/day.",
"parent_id": "8178800",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178820",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:14:47",
"content": "Ain’t easier to drop some acid in it? Sulfuric, hexafluoride, nitric, and maybe plain, mix a bit and taste the rainbow.At least you can be the first (and only one) to enjoy (briefly) something new.After things will settle, we’ll diy “real lava, lamps”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178919",
"author": "AZdave",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:13:10",
"content": "Idiocy purely for the sake of being idiotic. Likely a future Darwin Award candidate … hopefully before he breeds.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179080",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:50:42",
"content": "At a certain point crack cocaine is a lot cheaper, simpler and probably has less risk of heart attack",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179086",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T06:33:22",
"content": "pfff. I could have done that with a…oh. wrong site. sorry…. i thought i was on hackaday.com",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179155",
"author": "Bart",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T13:06:56",
"content": "Standard RedBull gives you wings. That one would give you fins and a nozzle. However, drinking hydrazine seems little safer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179279",
"author": "SnarkyRealist",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:49:19",
"content": "That guy must stay away from anything food related. Food is simply not his domain. He has terrible taste, obnoxious methodology when it comes to “food” in general, and his sense of “palatable” is comparable to the rotten scent emanating from a carcass attracting a vulture.Besides, al this is technically “a wonderful idiosyncratic waste of time and resources” since all energy drinks are basically a solution of caffeine and as such it would only require caffeine and a solvent to create the “desired ultra-concentrate” and the inevitable trip to the emergency room of your nearest hospital. But hey…natural selection works in mysterious ways!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179305",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T21:28:13",
"content": "His goal isn’t to make food. It’s to make entertainment.",
"parent_id": "8179279",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179376",
"author": "J ODell",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T03:29:18",
"content": "Or clickbait. I suspect he succeeded.",
"parent_id": "8179305",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179444",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:30:38",
"content": "Wow, this one was from a while ago. I enjoyed his “pink gold” project.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.25189
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/how-the-ti-99-4a-home-computer-worked/
|
How The TI-99/4A Home Computer Worked
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"hardware",
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"home computer",
"texas instruments",
"TI-99/4A"
] |
Over on YouTube [The 8-Bit Guy] shows us
how the TI-99/4A home computer worked
.
[The 8-Bit Guy] runs us through this odd 16-bit home computer from back in the 1980s, starting with a mention of the mysterious extra “space” key on its antiquated keyboard. The port on the side is for two joysticks which share a bus, but you can find boards for compatibility with “newer” hardware, particularly the Atari-style joysticks which are easier to find. The AV port on the back is an old 5-pin DIN such as was typical from Commodore and Atari at the time (also there is a headphone port on the front). The other DB9 port on the back of the device is the port for the cassette interface.
The main cartridge interface is on the front right of the machine, and there’s a smaller expansion socket on the right hand side. The front interface is for loading software (on cartridges) and the side interface is for peripherals. The system boots to a now famous “press any key” prompt. (We know what you’re thinking: “where’s the any key!?” Thanks Homer.)
One curiosity is that when the system is waiting for a command the screen background color is a light blue, and when it’s running a command the background color changes to a light green. [The 8-bit Guy] demos some equation calculator software which has support for variables and expressions. In addition to the equation calculator the same cartridge has a version of BASIC (called TI BASIC) and a version of Space Invaders (called TI INVADERS). (Yes, the interface is all uppercase.)
When they were designing the system the TI-99/4A engineers had been considering an 8-bit CPU but they settled on the 16-bit TMS9900 instead. However, much of the board had already been designed for an 8-bit CPU, which lead it to being a bit of a weird hybrid. The CPU only has 15 address lines but it makes up for it by addressing two bytes at a time, allowing it to read up to 64K.
[The 8-Bit Guy] goes on to discuss the computer architecture, the Graphic Programming Language (GPL), and its various BASIC implementations. Also the internals of the cartridges are explored along with the Video Display Processor (VDP) which supported rudimentary graphics mode (32×24 characters with 15 colors and 32 sprites) in addition to a text mode (40×24 characters). The 4-voice sound generator chip was the SN76489, this chip proved to be useful in many other products as well.
[The 8-Bit Guy] finishes his video with a look at the expansion capabilities, which basically just daisy chain off the right hand side. Each of the peripheral devices demands its own power supply too!
If you’re interested in the TI-99/4A check out
Persistence Pays In TI-99/4A Cassette Tape Data Recovery
and
Don’t Mess With Texas – The TI-99/4A Megademo
.
| 59
| 18
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178649",
"author": "Oliver",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:44:47",
"content": "Omg we used tot have ons of these. Came with some big box on the side too. I remember my dad sitting there hours to an end typing in code , by hunt and peck, (to this day he cant type properly)from a magazine, and surprised the game actually worked. I know I was in kindergarten at the time. Ah the memories.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178651",
"author": "Conor O'Neill",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:52:23",
"content": "I don’t want to be a troll but this reads like a Gemini generated summary of the video transcript, particularly the constant use of [The 8-bit Guy]. Please tell me Hackaday isn’t going down this path.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178699",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:11:18",
"content": "We are not.",
"parent_id": "8178651",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178703",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:21:10",
"content": "Sorry about that. I find myself saying [The 8-Bit Guy] because I don’t want to guess at people’s gender… as for it reading like a transcript, it kind of is! My job is to give you a summary of what is in the article in case you don’t have time to read/watch the whole thing.",
"parent_id": "8178651",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178750",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:29:54",
"content": "Appreciate your posting this … brings back fond memories. :-)",
"parent_id": "8178703",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178767",
"author": "Zangar the Pangarian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:28:08",
"content": "Honest question here, not trying to offend anyone. Would someone who identifies as female use a YouTube handle with “Guy” in it? Is that a thing? Or just force of habit?Anyone who reads this.. you be you… just asking.",
"parent_id": "8178703",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178805",
"author": "Gus Mueller",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T16:50:34",
"content": "I thought wondering about pronouns was so 2023! Men are back to being men and sheep are back to being nervous!",
"parent_id": "8178767",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178837",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:16:50",
"content": "If you don’t ask the question, then you should never assume.This may seem like malicious compliance to make a point, but you should remember Poe’s law. The extremists who demand it cannot tell the difference between serious parody and compliance either.",
"parent_id": "8178767",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178671",
"author": "emuboy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:25:02",
"content": "why would you choose that image of all the available.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178688",
"author": "George Graves",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:01:25",
"content": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV0t4QIINLI",
"parent_id": "8178671",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178831",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:51:44",
"content": "Why does HackaDay refuse to post a link to ‘Bill and Bill’s Gentleman’s Club’?THAT was a brutal and apt burn.",
"parent_id": "8178688",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178706",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:36:46",
"content": "I assume you’re talking about the thumbnail with a photo from an ad featuring Bill Cosby. I picked that because I thought it was fun! Haven’t seen Bill Cosby in a while! :)",
"parent_id": "8178671",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178712",
"author": "NFM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:56:08",
"content": "Do you know why that is?…………..It’s not a good reason… ;)",
"parent_id": "8178706",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178738",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:04:39",
"content": "Nerds can be a bit clueless about pop culture, but jeez.",
"parent_id": "8178712",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178793",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:53:16",
"content": "It’s kind of in poor taste, given what we know about Cosby. The guy was everywhere in the 80s and if he had been just what we all thought he was it would’ve been a fun throwback.But he is a convicted serial rapist, with dozens of victims, and I think giving him visibility in this way is dismissive of that fact.I don’t want to turn this into a whole thing, but I don’t want to ignore it either.",
"parent_id": "8178706",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178815",
"author": "Gus Mueller",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:08:11",
"content": "You apparently didn’t get the memo. Serial rape has totally been normalized, and coercing your secretary (or ChatGPT if you don’t have one) into sex just part of being manly man!",
"parent_id": "8178793",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178816",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:11:41",
"content": "It’s entirely possible that the author of the piece was unaware of Cosby’s criminal history.",
"parent_id": "8178793",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178927",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:27:07",
"content": "As of 2025, Bill Cosby is not a convicted felon.It’s OK to go back to laughing at the ‘Spanish Fly’ bit on his early comedy album.https://youtu.be/FH7uDNR_TBc?si=1cLG2JNMulQ_he6F",
"parent_id": "8178816",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178957",
"author": "John Elliot V",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T23:45:21",
"content": "Oh dear, yes, I didn’t know!",
"parent_id": "8178816",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178973",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T00:19:39",
"content": "What I wonder, is, how common this was behind the stage in general.What if most celebrities had such dirty secrets, in general?I mean, by the sheer number of fans they have/had it’s not too unlikely that they had affairs of all kind during their careers.Blaming that one guy because had bad luck of being found out isn’t fair, isn’t it?I mean, even officials and big leaders in human history that their dark stories..Not that this is ethically right, but it’s nothing out of ordinary, I mean.",
"parent_id": "8178793",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179198",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T17:46:03",
"content": "Yeah that sort of thing is pretty much par for the course for actors, directors, CEOs, politicians, etc. Power corrupts, and bad people rise to the top.",
"parent_id": "8178973",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178672",
"author": "FransAtFrance",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:31:53",
"content": "for the sprites you needed the extended basic cartridge. However when generating a memory overflow it was possible to somehow get those sprites working by loading values at some video memory. I thought it was rather strange that those sprites were already available on the machine without the extended basic cartridge. The user club was not interested in this discovery however",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178924",
"author": "Niklas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:20:23",
"content": "That sounds interesting! Do you have more info on this?",
"parent_id": "8178672",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179446",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:39:43",
"content": "“for the sprites you needed the extended basic cartridge”I bought one when they were $49 on clearance. Found that out and gave it away as a gift.",
"parent_id": "8178672",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178680",
"author": "Wayne Thomason",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:28:38",
"content": "The photo in the article was not the 99/4A. It was the earlier 99/4 that had a chicklet-style keyboard instead of the true full-stroke typewriter keyboard that the 99/4A had.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178733",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T12:28:23",
"content": "^^^THIS",
"parent_id": "8178680",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178739",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:05:22",
"content": "The 99/4A dropped the Equation Editor as well.",
"parent_id": "8178680",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178681",
"author": "Mr T",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:37:03",
"content": "I used to do consulting for an oil-exploring organisation in Norway, programming a navigation computer for a survey ship. The computer used the available maritime navigation systems at the time (before GPS), i.e. Decca (passive and active), Syledis, Pulse8, and Loran. My program (running on an old HP computer) took the input from the different navigation systems and used the data from all of them plus data on pitch, roll and yaw to improve the precision of the position data.Now to the tie-in to the article: the output from my program was sent to a TI-99 on the bridge and another in the computer room. The TIs showed the expected course as a curve on the screen and the current position of the ship so the captain or first officer could navigate based on that. The TI was chosen for its colour capability and because we had a guy who could program it.(As an aside, we knew who was steering the ship just by watching how well the ship followed the expected course — the captain was way better than the first officer.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178752",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:32:14",
"content": "Funny story!!",
"parent_id": "8178681",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178687",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:00:04",
"content": "The photo is the original TI 99/4, with the “chiclet” style keyboard. The 99/4A had the “IBM Selectric” style keyboard. The console originally sold for $1000. When they were liquidating inventory they were selling in our TI plant for $25.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178692",
"author": "Steve Schafer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:08:55",
"content": "This was the first computer that I owned. As grad students, my wife and I couldn’t afford much, but when TI unloaded the last batch of these for $99, I went for it. I wrote assorted BASIC programs on it, calculating pi to a few hundred decimal places, running simple population dynamics simulations (with graphics, sort of), etc. But I had access to much more powerful computers at the university, so I didn’t do anything “serious” with it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178753",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:35:10",
"content": "Parents got us one as teenagers. I got hooked on programming when I realized that the “DATA” statement in BASIC allowed me to input the actual ASCII values of the cubes in the game BOGGLE so I could generate believable BOGGLE letter layouts on the screen. So thanks, parents and TI, for launching my interest in technology. :-)",
"parent_id": "8178692",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178742",
"author": "takeyourvalium",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:12:20",
"content": "Did A.I. Write this? Serious question.Where is the author’s personal voice?And who decided that Bill the Abuser Cosby would be a good idea?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178743",
"author": "takeyourvalium",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:18:41",
"content": "I went and checked out about 10 the other articles posted by the Author of this one, I don’t what it is about this one that sticks out as odd.",
"parent_id": "8178742",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178915",
"author": "MartinU",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:06:37",
"content": "Maybe its just me but I didn’t find anything unusual in the voice, the 8 bit name or even the use of Bill Cosby in the print ads from that period. We’re talking about stuff that was around 45 years ago. You’ve all got to learn to roll with it, put it in context — you can’t go around ignoring the past just because it makes you feel uncomfortable. If you think this is weird try going back a bit further!I quite liked the 9900 processor architecture but this ‘thing’ was obviously designed by people who’d only ever seen calculators. As the video pointed out there were plenty of more normal architectures around at the time, architectures that offered promises of real programming in languages other than BASIC.",
"parent_id": "8178742",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178748",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:25:26",
"content": "Still have mine from the early teenager years. Works perfectly but sits up in the closet most of the time. :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178789",
"author": "OH3MVV",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:45:16",
"content": "I used to wonder why it was always noted that “no machine language programming”. Sure they must be a way, intentional or not, to jump into user code.Learning that only RAM on CPU bus were a 256 byte scratchpad, and the rest 16K was only accessible via the video chip through 2 registers made it clear. For the Basic interpreter (which itself was interpreted), I guess that was enough. Reminds me a bit of 1802 Basics, that used a virtual machine to run Basic. Maybe also Apple II’s Sweet Sixteen .",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178809",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:02:11",
"content": "The TI-99 wasn’t supposed to have the TMS9900, its intended CPU wasn’t ready so they hurriedly shoved the 9900 in there where it didn’t really fit, hence the weird design.Problem was the TMS9900 is meant for a minicomputer, hence the scratchpad RAM. For multi-user its great because you can swap out the registers as you switch between users. Doesn’t make much sense for a home computer.TI didn’t want a little toy computer competing with its business computers (same CPU!), so they hobbled the design with 8 bit RAM, limited software etc. They also wanted strict control of software, even updating the TI-99/4A so it would lock out existing 3rd party cartridges.So yeah, end result is a whole load of WTF. Had they stepped back and designed it properly around the TMS-9900 without the weird stuff, full 16-bit and not tried to lock out developers they’d have wiped the floor with everyone else.",
"parent_id": "8178789",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178834",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:03:48",
"content": "That’s how I remember it, too.Especially the part that TI initally didn’t want to support the electronic hobbyists/computer hobbyists.Sometimes I really wonder what was wrong with those people making such decissionsand if it was mainly an US phenomenon to produce inferior products on purpose (“market segmentation”).Because, where I live, the reputation of a company used to have priority over profits.Building a loyal user base that lasts for a long time was more important than quick profits.That’s why I struggle to understand this kind of business model, I guess.To my understanding, the reputation, the legacy of a company is what matters in bad times.Same way, it’s important to treat (and reward) the own employees very well.Because if a company does that, the employees are more likelyto keep the company together and the work environment is much friendlier, too. They’re the very heart of the company, after all.The most valuable thing the company has (besides the customers).Happy employees will be much more likely to make valuable suggestions, too, if they’re not afraid of being laid off for having an own opinion.Anyway, in case of TI it’s really not understandable why they made this decission back then.If the original TI99 design truely was a rival to the mainframe business, who cares?TI could have advertised the TI99 as a “mainframe for the desktop” and make software products that could exchange data between the TI99 and mainframes.Or use TI99 technology to improve the big iron in mainframe business even further.It could have been a win-win scenario if just interpreted in a positive way.It could also be used to win new users for TI mainframes.It really makes me wonder why US companies always did put so much effort into marketing and tricking customerswhen they just could have played with open cards, be honest and produce good things.Or are US customers slightly different than the rest of us, maybe?Do they secretly want to be tricked by marketing slogans, pretty diagrams and popular actors? I seriously don’t know.It just seems unlogical to me to produce something inferior just to be able offer “something” in a given market.Because if it’s predictable that users will be disappointed,the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they loose respect for said company, isn’t it?Again, no idea what was wrong with those people.If you can’t build proper airplanes that don’t crash land, then just don’t do enter airplane business? Right?",
"parent_id": "8178809",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178854",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:00:13",
"content": "Really?Let me point you to the German car companies.They used to make good, but expensive cars.Not for decades now.They are good at ‘marketing and tricking customers’.Keeping them coming back for yet another unreliable, bottomless money pit.German car customers arestupidstatus obsessed twits.Can’t blame Benz for taking suckers money, it would be immoral and unethical to let them keep it.Not like the Germans think it can last forever.They think cars are a dying industry anyhow and highest present value of the corporation is full tilt balls deep customer BFing, right now (no lube, just ghost peppers).Like a big iron shop in 1980, the realistic ones think it’s all over but the end squeeze.Know they can’t compete with new competitors, just from peter principle and their corporations age/high % senior people at level of incompetence.It’s hard for many business to loot their own markets.IBM’s PC business was kind of an accident…at that it didn’t work out great for them.Look at the laughable electric cars coming from VW and Benz.See also Kodak.What happened to Agfa?Are they dead or a digital camera company?The simple fact is: ‘If you don’t loot your own business, someone else will.’Hard to deal with, when nearly the entire hierarchy is working to hide the fact they are faking it.",
"parent_id": "8178834",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178926",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:24:25",
"content": "Really?Yeah! 😃Just have a look at the company philosophies of Mr. Bosch here:“I would rather lose money than trust.”“I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.”https://tinyurl.com/5n7wxrwvI don’t remember that Siemens and Bosch had built poor tools or equipment on purpose back then (20th century, same century as TI here).For example, the Bosch electric driller we have at home is from the 1970s and still works like new.The Krups handy mixer from same time, too!This used to be normal, before the 1990s.Appliances and tools were supposed to last 10 years and beyond.Modern German companies don’t count in my opinion (car industry etc),they’re nolonger “German” by any means but just some random international companies.Which have copied bad business practices so common internationally, sadly.Telefunken, for example, now belongs to a Chinese company, I think?It’s brand for Chinese TV sets, I think?",
"parent_id": "8178854",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178940",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T23:01:41",
"content": "About modern German cars and manufacturers..It’s a bit complicated, I think. The car companies still live in the past, I think, either by accident or because they’re still succesfulenough in their business by not changing.Their research centers aren’t bad, though, paradoxically.The prototypes shown at car fairs are quite promising.Anyways, to our defense, at least the German cars made over here in Germany are rain-proof. 😂🥲They’re being guaranteed tonot rust from the inside to the outside. 😂Sorry. Old joke.",
"parent_id": "8178854",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179005",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:50:42",
"content": "Rain proof?IIRC a certain vintage Porsche manual wished the owner ‘many sunny days’.Also: Many new Benzes have the engine computer in the console.So if you do leave the sunroof open, or it leaks, or you spill coffee, it’s a 10k++ bill.Which is still better than VW engine computers under the wipers on the firewall.So if you don’t clean out leaves, it floods.First step to replace a ‘new Bug’ brake master cylinder?Remove front bumper.They’re laughing at their customers.That said: Honda or Toyota. Pre 2014. Learn the car.Not Ford, GM or FIAT.German cousin has a nice Toyota 4×4 w electric truck nuts (blinkers and brakes…I might have wired them up).I bet the other doctors are jealous.Makes the patients extra secure, they’re in serious hands.",
"parent_id": "8178854",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178870",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:56:35",
"content": "TI wanted the education market (losing to Apple in US & BBC in the UK). Start with the Speak & Spell, move on to the 99. Made sense. (I must say the TI-BASIC manuals were fantastic for learning programming.)They weren’t interested in the tinkerers, and also didn’t want to cannibalize their business sales, plus had the IBM attitude of “everything is ours and you use it our way”.They were smart enough to realize the money was in software, not hardware, but keeping such a tight grip on that aspect didn’t help them. They’re not alone in that of course.They also wanted the machine released yesterday which was the icing on the cake,Just corporations being corporate.",
"parent_id": "8178834",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178935",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:46:20",
"content": "So the guys at TI opted to rather risk to alienate the whole professional user base, like Commodore did? 🤨Is that really so clever? Because, from a customer’s point of view it might not.AFAIK, In late 70s Commodore had its renowed PET line and tried hard to be abusinesscompany (-> CBM, as a play on IBM),yet by early 80s they decided to make the mediocre VIC-20 toy computer.Which then lead to the famous C64 (built using recycled VIC-20 parts) and created Commodore’s eternal reputation as a toy maker.With a few exceptions, I mean. I don’t mean to be unfair.The Commodore PC line gained some recognition, I admit.Deutsche Bahn and some other gov. agencies had PC 10s and later models, I read.Thats when CBM cosplayed as IBM, literally (IBM PC look-a-likes).They weren’t interested in the tinkerers, and also didn’t want to cannibalize their business sales, plus had the IBM attitude of “everything is ours and you use it our way”.Sure, makes sense. The hobbyists and “nerds” who bought their TI calculators (TI Programmer etc).What’s better than to exclude all those loyal customers by basically telling them they’re not welcome.Just corporations being corporate.[..] in the US.In my country,- at the time-, companies still had certain standards.Profits weren’t everything. The founder and the family managing their company still had a say.",
"parent_id": "8178870",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178945",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T23:16:00",
"content": "Thank you for the information, btw. 🙂I didn’t know about the education sector.I didn’t meant to say that TI was incompetent or something.IT in its role as an IC and calculator manufacturer was fine, I think.It’s especially the story TI99 that confuses me.If IT aimed at education sector, then why didn’t it found a subsidiary orcreate a real education computer based on schools’ or teachers’ needs?To avoid harming the own reputation, I mean.The TI99 was full of costly chips but didn’t even have a basic internal serial port by default. For an acoustic coupler.If it had, then it would have been a nice looking serial terminal, at least.",
"parent_id": "8178870",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178967",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T00:07:47",
"content": "TI wanted the education market (losing to Apple in US & BBC in the UK). Start with the Speak & Spell, move on to the 99. Made sense. (I must say the TI-BASIC manuals were fantastic for learning programming.)Hi, speaking of TI-BASIC on TI99, it reminds me of the Thomson line of computers of the 80s.The TO 7-70, TO 8 and 9 had advanced Basics on cartridges, too!The overall look was a bit similar, too.",
"parent_id": "8178870",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178963",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T00:01:28",
"content": "Or let’s use this analogy.:If the TI99 was a piece of art, then I would ask myself “what did the artist mean to express?”Likewise about markets and US companies.:To me, it looks like a candy maker is suddenly trying to make rat poison... because the new “market” must be entered and conquered.The consequence that existing customers nolonger might buy candyfrom same company (for obvious reasons) is happily being accepted as risk.Seriously, what kind of business logic is this? 🤨",
"parent_id": "8178834",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179849",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:09:29",
"content": "TI didn’t alienate business users, they already had them from their mini-computer stuff and they want to keep them there. Education was an entirely new and massive market. Then focus moved to the home, but back then it was well understood that computers were a bit too expensive for that. (That’s why Sinclair/Timex went really cheap.)You have to remember TI invented all of this stuff, from the transistor (*) to the microchip to the CPU to computers to everything else, so of course they knew what they were doing, and they could do it better than everyone else, especially those little toy makers like Commodore or Atari, or those Apple hippies .It’s just the usual arrogance, greed, short-sightedness and stupidity that companies do. It’s easy to see that in hindsight, but eh, it is what it is.(* silicon transistor, Bell Labs did as well independently.)",
"parent_id": "8178963",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179001",
"author": "LWATCDR",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:27:51",
"content": "Well not exactly. The TMS9900 used ram as the registers. To do that you needed fast static ram which was expensive at that time so that is why you only got 256 bytes of ram and then the rest was hung off the video controller. What is crazy to day made sense in 1979. It is true that they didn’t want to make it too good aka they didn’t want to eat the highend sales.Not like they were the only ones. DEC could have made a PDP-8 pc cheaply about the same time but never did because the business market was to Profitable.",
"parent_id": "8178809",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179843",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T08:54:32",
"content": "Holding the registers in RAM made sense in multi-user or process control, point to a different address and off you go as a totally different process.It was a crazy CPU to use for a home computer, but they wanted to get the machine out the door ASAP.",
"parent_id": "8179001",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178817",
"author": "arcadeshopper",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:11:41",
"content": "Unfortunately, he made some mistakes in this videoExtended basic has both ROM and GROM and is mostly GPL with some assembly routines to speed it up..Groms are 6K or 8K not 1800 bytesMany people have expanded TI systems these days with the advent of modern side car systems like the tipi or the nano peb.. he grossly underestimates the amount of users out there for software.He adds the speech synthesizer to the end of the expansion “train” which doesn’t work as the speech synthesizer requires the console for power. It has to be first..He misrepresents the Homebrew pitfall homage program as an actual release from Activision",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178819",
"author": "arcadeshopper",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:13:57",
"content": "unfortunately some inaccurate info in there:speech synth at the end of the train.. doesn’t work.. has to be firstgrom size is wrong.. they are 6k not 1800 bytesxb is not just assembly language, its also gpl some routines are in assemblyhe’s misrepresenting pitfall as from activision when its a homebrewhe’s misrepresenting how many people have 32k and a drive capability",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178821",
"author": "DJSN",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:17:49",
"content": "At one point, TI decided to give a complete system to all their senior technical people. The console, monitor, expansion box. Everything except games as I recall. They held a two hour training session on how to setup and use the system. Two hours for their best technical people! And this was supposed to be used by your average person? Who were a lot less computer literate than now. The cable to the expansion box could be plugged in 8 different ways. 7 of them wouldn’t work. I knew it was in trouble.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178855",
"author": "Andy Frueh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:07:08",
"content": "The video has a number of errors or omissions so you can tell it wasn’t produced by someone with a lot of experience.The photo in this article is a 99/4 not a 4A (which replaced the chiclet keys with an actual keyboard). Also, an expansion chassis was available so that you could use cards instead of the sidecar style peripherals. There’s also a number of newer cards made after TI dropped it including USB, IDE, SCSI, an MFM hard drive controller, an interface to the raspberry pi, and a 1mb RAM card.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178958",
"author": "Leigh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T23:49:22",
"content": "I worked on Logo for the 99/4 (and C64, Apple II, Mac, etc). The Sprite chip work had been done with a grad student in our lab and there was a deal with TI to come out with Logo. The 99/4 architecture had one big issue: all RAM except 256 bytes required 6 clock cycles to fetch over an internal serial bus. The 256 bytes were used for register windows in lieu of an explicit stack (BLWP instruction vs JSR from the PDP-11 instruction set) but Logo used some of it for subroutines that implemented fundamental data and control structures, in order to be fast. Mostly I worked on the last phase of the project with the TI folks, helping with source code questions, but I also proposed a version upgrade and implemented it, cross coding on a 9900 desktop machine, but alas the new version was not to be.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179069",
"author": "Hank Mishkoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:18:35",
"content": "I went to work for TI in Lubbock in 1978, developing some of the original applications for the 99/4. However, my main contribution wasn’t the software, it was the music — as the only musician in the department (that’s how I got the job), I composed the original snippets of tunes that you hear behind most of the early programs. My favorite was the three-part composition I put together for the Demonstration program, a piece of which appears in the video. I don’t know many people have the opportunity to crank up a YouTube video and get to listen to music they wrote 47 years ago — but I gotta tell you, it was a thrill for me.The “Demonstration” tune, BTW, was entitled “MJ”; I named it after a neighbor I had a brief crush on. MJ was a grad student at Texas Tech, and I don’t think she ever knew that she was immortalized in a tune that was probably heard by millions (OK, thousands) of computer geeks all over the world.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179101",
"author": "Mr D Kerr",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:28:00",
"content": "That computer that was pictured is a true 16bit personal computer unlike the other home computers that were around during that time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179449",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:43:35",
"content": "In a design that was slower in BASIC than the 8-bits of the time.",
"parent_id": "8179101",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,427.99815
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/analog-optical-computer-for-inference-and-combinatorial-optimization/
|
Analog Optical Computer For Inference And Combinatorial Optimization
|
Maya Posch
|
[
"computer hacks"
] |
[
"analog computing",
"inference",
"optical computing"
] |
Although computers are overwhelmingly digital today, there’s a good point to be made that analog computers are the more efficient approach for specific applications. The authors behind
a recent paper
in
Nature
are arguing that inference – essential for LLMs – can be done significantly more efficiently using an analog optical computer (AOC).
As the authors describe it, the function of this AOC is to perform a fixed-point search using only optical and analog electronic components. The optics handle the matrix-vector multiplications, while the analog components handle the non-linear operations, subtractions and annealing. This is performed in 20 ns cycles until noise has been reduced to an acceptable level, considering the analog nature of the computer. A big advantage here is that no analog-digital conversions are required as with other (digital) hybrid systems.
So far a small-scale AOC has been constructed for tasks like image classification and non-linear regression tasks, with the authors claiming the AOC being over a hundred times more efficient than current GPU-derived vector processors.
| 17
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178654",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T06:15:50",
"content": "If I understand correctly, it’s basically a row of LEDs, the light projected into lines onto grayscale TFT, and gathered again into points on photodetector in the perpendicular direction. Fairly simple tech actually.But I have to wonder, wouldn’t it be alotmore efficient to replace it all with transistors, and stay in the electronic domain? The TFT acts as a not-very-precise multiplier, which can be done by controlling FET gate voltage, and the optics just take an average, which can be done with resistors. If you get fancy with CCDs, the computation can be kept in analog domain through multiple matrix operations.Optics could theoretically have some speed advantage, but you still need electronics to drive the LEDs and to gather the output. The real bottleneck would probably be update speed of the TFT (assuming you don’t dedicate one computational unit to one set of matrix values).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178710",
"author": "Iván Stepaniuk",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:49:18",
"content": "It’s not that pure analog electronics aren’t possible, they are. But optics helps push the scaling further, reduces some of the electrical overhead (wiring, parasitics, datapath), and enables operations that would be less efficient (or nearly impossible) in purely electronic analog hardware at large size.Optics + analog electronics give a better “sweet spot” for doing large, dense, linear operations (matrix multiplication, etc) very efficiently in parallel.",
"parent_id": "8178654",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178757",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:51:49",
"content": "Now wondering if it would make sense to make a hybrid of the two. Phototransistors used as photodetectors.",
"parent_id": "8178654",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178814",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T17:08:01",
"content": "I guess the big question, in my mind at least, is an analog fiber optic system built to run an LLM have any benefits over GPU RAM? Costs aside, how do these 2 systems compare? Is anyone working on analog systems to run AI?",
"parent_id": "8178654",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178655",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T06:33:55",
"content": "(Not sure where my earlier comment was lost)I think this could be done faster with analog electronics. There is no reason to believe that driving LEDs and sampling protodiodes would be faster than just doing the approximate multiplication with FETs. Controlling FET resistance through gate voltage is not linear, but neither is TFTs, so both would need some compensation curve.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178758",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:52:17",
"content": "It is almost trivial to perform real-time 2D Fourier transforms with a lens. And if you can do an FT, you can do all the related transforms plus matrix multiply, which is notoriously time consuming in digital systems.",
"parent_id": "8178655",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179559",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T17:57:45",
"content": "RE: multiplication with FETs.I believe that’s what FPAAs where invented for (FPAA = Field Programmable Analog Arrays).",
"parent_id": "8178655",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178683",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:38:01",
"content": "It’s neat and all, but there’s a huge and oft-overlooked reason digital computers won out over analog computers in the 50’s, even the analog computers that were electronic.With analog computers it’s very hard to make more than a few of something and actually have them work. You’re working with raw values represented by physical quantities, so the physical properties of everything that influences them has to be within a tight spec. Digital circuits? they couldn’t give a toss if your beta value is 50 or 300. That’s a 600% swing instead of say 10%. With that kind of tolerance it’s very easy to make millions of them at a time and have them all work, and for them to STAY working for very long service lives, with no adjustment even as components age. Components hand-trimmed at the factory are already expensive. Just imagine if you needed to hand-tune every logic gate in your computer after 3-5 years too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178787",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:43:48",
"content": "Biology works well within those limitations.",
"parent_id": "8178683",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178936",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:49:32",
"content": "Biology is useless for building computers.",
"parent_id": "8178787",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179047",
"author": "esgv",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T03:14:55",
"content": "Well, one could argue that artificial neural networks are better suited to run on biology, than on computers…",
"parent_id": "8178936",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178684",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:51:40",
"content": "Very cool, can’t wait for 1$ 700B parameter LLM ASIC connected to a speaker telling me sweet lies all day 24/7 and pretending to be my loving wife",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178788",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:45:13",
"content": "Cheapest relationship one ever had.",
"parent_id": "8178684",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178759",
"author": "Sammie Gee",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:56:25",
"content": "If I recall correctly, in “Star Trek” (the new generation, obviously) they had this exact thing implemented as etched crystals. (of course, it was fake movie prop, really, a credit-card sized transparent plastic thingie with colored patches, but you get the idea).Gives me an idea now, off to the drawing board …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178763",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:14:48",
"content": "Early synthetic aperture RADAR was computed optically in real-time with the RADAR signal scanned to film or a storage display with one scan-line per RADAR pulse as raw data. Satellite versions “dropped” film canisters for re-entry and capture from parachutes(?). The data film was moved through an optical system with output being the processed image. The same optics can do synthetic aperture SONAR. The film step can be skipped for continuously output SAR imaging.https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Components-of-an-optical-SAR-processing-system-a-collimated-beam-illuminates-the-film_fig1_246836455",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178885",
"author": "Timothy Bowman",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:38:13",
"content": "Absolutely fascinating history, thanks for the link!",
"parent_id": "8178763",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178893",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T20:58:23",
"content": "Clever lads back then! Digitally this is a very math and array intensive process of deconvolutions and FFT’s on big data. Optically it is practically done before you turn it on. Any thin lens produces a 2D Fourier pattern at the focal point. This is pretty good. Note the collimation lens and the parts to the left also do a FT. The microscope objective plus pinhole is a “spatial filter” and only the center of any diffraction pattern gets through to the collimation lens to get “clean” light.https://www.cis.rit.edu/class/simg455/lab7-20073-fourier-optics.pdf",
"parent_id": "8178885",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,428.094985
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/6502-puts-on-an-sdr-hat/
|
6502 Puts On An SDR Hat
|
Bryan Cockfield
|
[
"Radio Hacks"
] |
[
"40-meter",
"6502",
"ham",
"microprocessor",
"radio",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] |
The legendary 6502 microprocessor recently turned 50 years old, and to celebrate this venerable chip which brought affordable computing and video gaming to the masses [AndersBNielsen] decided to put one to work doing something well outside its comfort zone. Called the PhaseLoom,
this project uses a few other components to bring the world of software-defined radio (SDR) to this antique platform
.
The PhaseLoom is built around an Si5351 clock generator chip, which is configurable over I2C. This chip is what creates the phase-locked loop (PLL) for the radio. The rest of the components, including antenna connectors and various filters, are in an Arduino-compatible form factor that let it work as a shield or hat for
the 65uino platform
, an Arduino-form-factor 6502 board. The current version [Anders] has been working on is dialed in to the 40-meter ham band, with some buttons on the PCB that allow the user to tune around within that band. He reports that it’s a little bit rough around the edges and somewhat noisy, but the fact that the 6502 is working as an SDR at all is impressive on its own.
For those looking to build their own, all of the schematics and code are available on
the project’s GitHub page
. [Anders] has some future improvements in the pipe for this project as well, noting that with slightly better filters and improved software even more SDR goodness can be squeezed out of this microprocessor. If you’re looking to experiment with SDR using something a little bit more modern, though,
this 10-band multi-mode SDR based on the Teensy microcontroller
gets a lot done without breaking the bank.
| 11
| 7
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178643",
"author": "Anders Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:19:55",
"content": "Thanks for the mention!I think it’s more my “two pieces of wire in the attic” antenna that’s picking up noise rather than the design.The quadrature sampling detector doesn’t have as much selectivity as the alternatives but the sensitivity is probably a good thing.The question is if I can get a reasonable amount of analog bandwidth out of it – stay tuned for tests :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178657",
"author": "David H",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T06:36:39",
"content": "It’s a cool project, well done. I shall check out the github repository.Seeing this has brought back long-dormant memories of the time, back in ’93-94, when I wrote a front-end to control a multiband radio scanner in AMOS Basic for the Amiga. It seemed impossibly high-tech (to me) at the time but is something that would be trivial today.Thanks for sharing this!",
"parent_id": "8178643",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178645",
"author": "MarkB",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:23:56",
"content": "“6502-controlled radio receiver front-end” is by itself a really nice project, nothing to sneeze at. I know it’s not litereally stated anywhere in the original post, but this 6502 has nothing to do with SDR, or any other kind of receiver you connect up to it.(So I guess I am now also “that guy”. I promise I will get my morning coffee ASAP.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178665",
"author": "MarkB",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T06:48:48",
"content": "Coffee is done.@Anders: first of all, thanks for the write-up and sharing/sources/etc. Hope that comments like mine do not discourage you to do stuff and write about it.I think my assumption is that the word SDR was added to get peoples attention. If that’s not true, I can stop here.Now I’m fighting a battle with myself. I really like these articles and reading about other peoples endeavours. I enjoy the reading and from time to time learn something new. I think sharing these experiences is also vital to get people interested in technology.However, getting to understand difficult technical subjects is often quite an involving process. Getting the facts straight and developing a thorough understanding of the subject does not need to get more difficult by the need to filter out marketing/SEO buzz words.But in order to share and teach, we need people to actually start reading and get the word out. So I am now asking myself: where should we draw the line between “getting the story out” and “keeping the facts straight”. I honestly don’t know if I would have read the article if the word “SDR” was to be omitted.(Or maybe I am just disappointed that I misjudged the contents by its title?)TLDR: this is getting way too philosophical for my taste ;) I won’t comment without having my coffee anymore. Keep sharing cool stuff!",
"parent_id": "8178645",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178679",
"author": "Anders Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:26:32",
"content": "So the MCU in the HackRF One has nothing to do with SDR? Of course it does – and the 6502 has the same role here :)Without it, it would just be.. a radio.",
"parent_id": "8178645",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178718",
"author": "Rob Ward",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:21:36",
"content": "Anyone who does anything these days with a 6502 has my admiration. Keep the spirit of discovery alive.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178773",
"author": "KC8KVA",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:02:36",
"content": "This makes me want to get out one of my VIC-20’s and make a GUI for a radio front end. Nice job.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178783",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:31:21",
"content": "So the 6502 is working as the controller/front-end/computer interface? Reminds me of a CAT circuit.^^https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_aided_transceiver",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178794",
"author": "Anders Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:54:55",
"content": "Well, the 6502 handles setting the mixer frequency and ensuring the quadrature phase of the other channel.It has the same job as the NXP MCU in the HackRF One.",
"parent_id": "8178783",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179021",
"author": "alanrcam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:11:30",
"content": "I think a dab of paint (on the PCB labels), would be easier than physically swapping the I and Q channels.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179196",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T17:39:25",
"content": "So with everyone ” banging on” about the ol 6502 why don’t they design a giga hertz clocked version. It would make a great RISC, ease of use, make the instructions 32 or64 bit and get on with it.?????",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.385009
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/multi-use-roof-eliminates-roof/
|
Multi-Use Roof Eliminates Roof
|
Bryan Cockfield
|
[
"green hacks"
] |
[
"building",
"elevated",
"garden",
"roof",
"solar",
"solar panel"
] |
One of the biggest downsides of installing solar panels on a rooftop is that maintenance of the actual roof structure becomes much more difficult with solar panels in the way. But for many people who don’t have huge tracts of land, a roof is wasted space where something useful could otherwise go. [Mihai] had the idea of simply eliminating traditional roofing materials altogether
and made half of this roof out of solar panels directly, with the other half being put to use as a garden
.
Normally solar panels are installed on top of a roof, whether it’s metal or asphalt shingles or some other material, allowing the roof to perform its normal job of keeping weather out of the house while the solar panels can focus on energy generation. In this roof [Mihai] skips this step, having the solar panels pull double duty as roof material and energy generation. In a way this simplifies things; there’s less to maintain and presumably any problems with the roof can be solved by swapping out panels. But we would also presume that waterproofing it might be marginally more difficult.
On the antisolar side of the roof, however, [Mihai] foregoes the solar panels in favor of a system that can hold soil for small garden plants. Putting solar panels on this side of the roof wouldn’t generate as much energy but the area can still be useful as a garden. Of course we’d advise caution when working on a garden at height, but at least for the solar panels you can save some trips up a ladder for maintenance by using something
like this robotic solar panel scrubber
.
| 57
| 8
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178505",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:17:57",
"content": "Story is useless without picture of room ceiling below panels.How waterproof is this setup?Closeup of how he flashed the panel joins?I’d overlap and overlay them a half inch, like large fragile tiles.AmateurRooferaDay?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178517",
"author": "Joel",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:48:21",
"content": "Presumably you would put insulation on the inside, which in most cases is aluminum (painted or not – you could always paint it). In some setups you run cooling (hybrids) to cool the panels and save excess heat for later (useful during the night).It’s not a novel thing, ppl are putting panels on walls as well, wrapping the entire building. It’s an emerging trend in PVT. You can save a lot on construction costs if you can skip the outer part of the walls.",
"parent_id": "8178505",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179112",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T08:09:57",
"content": "That was my plan too: to reduce the cost of the building by removing one layer (the tiles)I plan to remove the heat with some cooler at the top of the roof.",
"parent_id": "8178517",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178520",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:56:18",
"content": "Also I assume no air conditioning or heating, because if there were then the energy generated by the solar panels would be quickly squandered by lack of good insulation. This seems like more of a Gilligan’s Island type situation, though, so maybe some pots and pans catching drips and no HVAC is the order of the day..",
"parent_id": "8178505",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178532",
"author": "D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:16:36",
"content": "Air conditioning is moot because the “building” is open to the air. One wall is entirely missing.",
"parent_id": "8178520",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179014",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:01:51",
"content": "The building and roof are still under construction. The roof is still open on one side.",
"parent_id": "8178532",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178673",
"author": "Jo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:33:58",
"content": "What? Please do some numbers on that.Heatpumps for heating are totally a thing (aircons are heatpunps, just running the other way). PV can cover much of the electricity for this (until you get heavy snow fall, and it’s covered under a foot of snow, or if you live in e.g. Tromso and it’s dark for three months). Solar heating works as well. My parents had that in their last home. Very low energy bills.So please stop spouting FUD.",
"parent_id": "8178520",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178851",
"author": "Clancy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:52:33",
"content": "Did they change their comment or something, because none of what you said at all conflicts with their claim that an uninsulated roof made only of a single layer of solar panels would mean that the extra energy used by heating and cooling would exceed that generated by the panels, which is probably true, albeit incomplete because there’s no rule that says you can’t put insulation under solar panels",
"parent_id": "8178673",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179015",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:04:39",
"content": "There is no problem with heating of cooling the house, because it is half buried in the ground! So, during summer is quite cool and during winter is quite warm.",
"parent_id": "8178851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179067",
"author": "Thomas Gauthier",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T05:09:10",
"content": "I assume this is an unconditioned attic, so the floor of the attic is the only part insulated… No need to insulate the panels or grass sides.",
"parent_id": "8178851",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178711",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:50:07",
"content": "What about this idea requires a lack of good insulation?",
"parent_id": "8178520",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179016",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:05:19",
"content": "The house is half-buried in the ground which provides a good insulation.",
"parent_id": "8178711",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179496",
"author": "Lucas Altic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:03:49",
"content": "Who insulates their roof? In most conventional construction, the roof is uninsulated in favor of batt or blown insulation laying on top of the ceiling joists. Same concept would apply here.",
"parent_id": "8178520",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179501",
"author": "DurDurDur",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T14:15:52",
"content": "People with finished attics.",
"parent_id": "8179496",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178525",
"author": "T.T.",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:08:33",
"content": "Have you considered following the links the article gave? A bunch of pictures are on the github page…https://github.com/f-roof/.github/tree/main/picturesAs for the waterproofing, thought was put into it, but it doesn’t look very robust.",
"parent_id": "8178505",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178587",
"author": "Lee Wiscovitch",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T00:38:36",
"content": "Yeah I expect that kinda response on MSN, but come on man, follow the provided links! You giving us a bad rep",
"parent_id": "8178525",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181161",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:00:27",
"content": "GTF out FL follower!We don’t like your kind.Reading articles, following links…",
"parent_id": "8178587",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179019",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:06:57",
"content": "Here is a new movie during a heavy rain:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JjJXp-amtsAs you can see, there is no water inside.",
"parent_id": "8178525",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8181164",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-18T00:11:39",
"content": "How about under the solar panels.That’s the terracing.Which isn’t leaking, yet.How much slope on the flat part of the plant terraces?Going to want at least a bubble, assuming it freezes at some time during the year.I would also want some overhang on the ends and bottom.It’s often windy along with rain here.Also: how much aluminum in that roof?Roughly (e.g. ‘roof is aluminum sheet folded down terrace steps’ or ‘just flashing’).Thanks.",
"parent_id": "8179019",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178541",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:08:19",
"content": "With regular domestic scale panels you’d not want to overlap them – way too thick a frame around them, which is likely to cause heaps of trouble, and in many cases the active area is really close to the edge – shading that area is a bad idea for efficient solar generation. But if you could source just the silicon and glass stack or ones with a better mounting frame for the purpose I can’t see a problem with the concept.Though I don’t really see the need to worry about the watershedding of the panels alone – just put them ontop of a membrane and the small cracks around each panel that can let water in just don’t really matter, or if you have the money to make a new product create a zinc roof style crimping ready solar panel production line or something similar.The real issue is solar panels get really really hot if you don’t have lots of airflow around them, and don’t work very well at those elevated temperatures. So using them as the waterproof outer surface and the ceiling below in a traditional building at the same time would be a challenging task – think you’d need to actively watercool them (which is a PV panel type you can just buy). Can then use the heat for something useful too. That would I suggest end up being about equivalent to the normal uninsulated roof tiles and loft space most building have – going to get really toasty inside still on the sunny day, and cold over night as insulation value is terrible (though the waters thermal mass will even that out a fair bit).",
"parent_id": "8178505",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178937",
"author": "blacksmithtb",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:57:39",
"content": "Yes, lack of airflow under the panels would make for heat issues (and panels are less efficient at power generation at high temps, aside from transmitting heat into the structure).",
"parent_id": "8178541",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179023",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:14:37",
"content": "My plan is to remove the heat through some pipes and coolers placed at the top of the roof. A cooler does not consume too much energy … and is needed only during the full summer-time when there is enough energy production.",
"parent_id": "8178937",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179359",
"author": "S O",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T02:18:32",
"content": "Consider a resovoir , you can use it as heat storage for night and cooler weather, and the only complication is how large it should be, which can be scaled down by the efficiency of your cooler arrangement.",
"parent_id": "8179023",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179771",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T04:19:34",
"content": "@S.O. What kind of reservoir? With water? How to I move heat from panels/air to water? By using pipes? It seems complicated …",
"parent_id": "8179023",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178707",
"author": "Etched Pixels",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:38:18",
"content": "There is “proper” tray solar and that works the same way. It’s now the normal way solar is put into new roofs in the UK and also when solar is added during a re-roofing of an older property as it’s usually cheaper.There are some distinct disadvantages though – having solar as your roof reduces the amount of cooling on the panels a lot (not a big deal most of the year here), and also stops them acting as parasols keeping the worst of the suns heat off the true roof and the rooms below. So “on roof” solar still outperforms it somewhat but costs a lot more.",
"parent_id": "8178505",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179024",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:16:36",
"content": "My house is half-buried in the ground, so during summer is cold inside and during winter is not very cold. Also, I plan to remove the excess heat using some vents at the top of the roof.",
"parent_id": "8178707",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179013",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:59:48",
"content": "I have used bituminous tape for the garden part and silicon for the solar panels part.Pictures with inside the roof are here:https://github.com/f-roof/.github/blob/main/pictures/IMG_3316.JPGhttps://github.com/f-roof/.github/blob/main/pictures/IMG_3355.JPEGAlso, more details can be seen in the movie that is posted in blog post.A new movie during a heavy rain is here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JjJXp-amtsAs you can see there is no water inside the roof, even if there is a heavy rain outside.",
"parent_id": "8178505",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178511",
"author": "snewzkJammy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:33:14",
"content": "That doesn’t look like anywhere that a building inspector is required.Also, with a high wind some neighbor will be cleaning up broken solar panels from their garden.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178693",
"author": "frenchone",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:09:44",
"content": "You mean more than usual installation ?",
"parent_id": "8178511",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179026",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:18:36",
"content": "The solar panels are well connected inside the roof.Here is a picture:https://github.com/f-roof/.github/blob/main/pictures/IMG_3358.JPEGAlso, I tried to remove one of them because initially I have incorrectly applied silicon, but I simply could not remove it!",
"parent_id": "8178511",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179782",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T04:33:39",
"content": "Replacing a broken solar panel from roof could be a serious problem! I currently do not know how I’ll handle that situation if arrises!",
"parent_id": "8179026",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178531",
"author": "D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:15:20",
"content": "The link contains a video where you can see some of the info you want.To summarize: the “building” is open to the air. I think it was made specifically as a solar array first, and perhaps a toolshed second. It is not waterproof.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179135",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:19:11",
"content": "Yes, I built the solar part first (in 2024) and in 2025 I built the garden.",
"parent_id": "8178531",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178554",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:35:53",
"content": "I would love to get a structural engineer’s take on this. I stopped being able to take this project seriously when I read “Wood should not be utilized for construction purposes. Trees are more important than for building houses!” He specifies it uses “tubes” and that it’s mostly made of “metal” but never actually specifies which type of metal. It’s probably steel but there are many different variants of steel with different properties. When you are building something, it matters which type of steel you use.There is a good chance this is a deathtrap in the making.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178562",
"author": "JustSayin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:53:39",
"content": "“Trees are more important than for building houses!”Most wood today comes from “lumber farms,” which are managed forests where trees are harvested after relatively short growth periods. We aren’t building homes from old growth timber and haven’t been for a very long time.",
"parent_id": "8178554",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178669",
"author": "Marcin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:18:46",
"content": "Where does wood come from?– from trees.Where does steel come from?– from China.;-)",
"parent_id": "8178562",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179030",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:22:38",
"content": "I live in Romania. Our steel comes from a local manufacturer.",
"parent_id": "8178669",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179028",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:21:55",
"content": "In the past 2 years, the temperatures rose significantly into our country (with at least 5 degrees Celsius during peak summer). We were very lucky that we had a lot of trees inside our yard and garden, which really helped us to survive to such temperatures. I prefer to keep trees alive no matter what!",
"parent_id": "8178562",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179136",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:20:33",
"content": "Our tree comes from the nearby forest, which is abused! I stay away from using trees, because in the last 2 years it was very hot during the summer and only trees from our yard have protected us.",
"parent_id": "8178562",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178779",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:24:16",
"content": "Looks like theirs was steel tubing which is commonly used for carports. Truth be told, it’s stronger than CFS which is often used for framing houses. One of the terrible trade offs of steel is thermal bridging though. I could see this being something like with prepackaged roof panels like they do with structural SIP. Where the solar panels provide structural rigidity with a water proofing layer underneath. You’d need some type of air channel to dry it out though.",
"parent_id": "8178554",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179033",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:24:45",
"content": "There is no need for a layer behind. Silicon between panels is enough!",
"parent_id": "8178779",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179138",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:23:03",
"content": "I utilized S235JRG2 steel.",
"parent_id": "8178554",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178565",
"author": "Dale Puch",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T23:00:24",
"content": "Nice to see panels as roofing being done. I have seen it offered commercially in the UK before, and a quick google search came up with this companyhttps://www.bmigroup.com/uk/solar-range/There are probably several integrating the panels into tile and slate roofing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179139",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:25:13",
"content": "That is way to go, but you must be careful with isolation between panels. Initially I applied silicon in the wrong way and I had water leakage inside roof. Then I fixed the problem using a bituminous tape placed over the silicon!",
"parent_id": "8178565",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178675",
"author": "Joe",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:41:08",
"content": "My mind always boggles when reading about the roofing practices in other countries. Asphalt? Put a real roof on it, and it will last for a century. Easily. It’s not magic, the Romans had roof tiles already. Maintenance? Really? OK, we had to get somebody to close a hole where once a chimney of a gas (not gasoline for those who like to misunderstand me) powered water heater was. The roof is about 60 years old, and I’m pretty sure it will last another 60. The wooden structure is still going strong, and the tiles will outlast me.Other than that: for an addition / shed it looks really cool! Our shed is in the shade, so it won’t really work, but I might raise a plattform on top as a “tree” fort and put PV on that roof. I need to bury a proper power line to the shed then (and look at the regulations for those), so far it runs off a 12V solar light.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178690",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:06:15",
"content": "Might I suggest you don’t bury just that armoured cable but a conduit (assuming suck things are legal in your area – can’t see why they wouldn’t be but logic in legal restrictions don’t always apply), we didn’t do that and I’ve regretted it many times since.",
"parent_id": "8178675",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178732",
"author": "Bob the builder",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T12:19:52",
"content": "We got a social club here in the Netherlands and the previous cable was put into the ground, without conduit, around 1970. This area is flooded very often in the fall and winter and when I mean flooded, I mean flooded. Too much rainfall and the river grows and the entire area is flooded with a layer of water on it. So the cable is constantly being wet dry wet dry. It’s probably the worst condition you can put it in. We recently replaced it not because the cable was bad, but because we wanted more cables to spread the load over groups and the old one couldn’t provide that. The cable goes onto another property that provides us with electricity. We have huge parties with multiple stages and all sorts of equipment, from a whole bunch of refrigerators to large sound systems, deep fryers, etc. And that cable lived in the ground without a conduit for 55 years without a problem.I know that most places in the US are very strict on what you can and cannot do. A American YouTuber I watch had to use metal (!!!) conduit inside his workshop and wasn’t allowed to install his own (also metal!) power outlets. It’s the weirdest thing to me. I rewired a large part of my house myself, installed a new breaker panel, build a new kitchen and did all the electrics, replaced all the gas lines myself, replaced my gas boiler, I even installed a diesel heater in my workshop. I don’t need to and would never inform the government.",
"parent_id": "8178690",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178755",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:43:13",
"content": "The point of a conduit to me is 99.9% because its so much easier to fish say an Ethernet or phone cable down a conduit alongside the power, or even another power line if you need more juice – which in the USA with low amp and voltage on their breakers wouldn’t shock me at all considering I’m at the edge if not over limit of my 32A UK breaker should I use everything at the other end without consideration – The armoured cable being good for years isn’t my concern, its that its a real pain to dig everything up to add more cables later when your needs change, especially if its running under a real garden you will have to actively repair afterwards – digging up and backfilling a grassy meadow is easy enough, if still more work than just pulling a new run through the conduit..",
"parent_id": "8178732",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178769",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:32:38",
"content": "I’m sure that the Netherlands has building codes intended to ensure safe construction and electrical wiring. You can get away with ignoring it and not getting construction permits. You’ll probably never be bothered by the government.If the electrical wiring you installed goes up in flames, however, your insurance company will probably be really sticky about paying out. No permits for the installation of the diesel heater? No proof that a qualified electrician installed the wiring or the outlets? Tough. No insurance payout for you to replaced your house and goods. If someone dies in the resulting fire, then there could also be criminal charges brought.Pretty much every country in Europe has building codes and standards, and the insurance companies use any excuse they can find to avoid paying out on a claim.I live in Germany. When we built our house, I did a lot of the electrical work. I installed the wiring in each room and installed the outlets and lights.The wiring was completed by a qualified electrician, who double checked my work (which was all OK.) Officially, he installed all of the wiring. I have the receipts to prove it. If there had ever been a problem with it, he’d have had questions to answer.",
"parent_id": "8178732",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179036",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:30:32",
"content": "I purchased very good solar panels that have 25 years warranty for energy production. So, definitively the mechanical part will survive even more!",
"parent_id": "8178675",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179144",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T11:03:42",
"content": "Also, I did NOT utilized asphalt. I do not know how this idea was connected to my roof.",
"parent_id": "8178675",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179629",
"author": "J. Samson",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T21:52:21",
"content": "bitumen and asphalt are the same.",
"parent_id": "8179144",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179718",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T01:47:09",
"content": "ok, but I utilized (75mm wide) bituminous tape, which has 1mm thick layer of bitumen … and I did not placed it everywhere … only between 2 consecutive gutters.",
"parent_id": "8179629",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178778",
"author": "Kevin Wang",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:18:33",
"content": "Yeah, not how you waterproof or use non galvanized steel in exterior locations. I would estimate 3-7 years before the wood rots, collapses, and needs a complete rebuild.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179140",
"author": "Mihai Oltean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:29:18",
"content": "I painted the steel with good paint … also all screws and nuts are from stainless steel.",
"parent_id": "8178778",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178842",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:23:09",
"content": "Roofing materials are generally engineered for the purpose. So if you list the required properties of a roof would panels tick off the boxes?Consider that Tesla did the r&d to make solar tiles that have the properties of roof tiles. You still need the rest of the roof even then.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178850",
"author": "Actually...",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T18:49:29",
"content": "Consider that tesla merely copied the efforts of Dow Chemical which unveiled their powerhouse solar shingle in 2009, going to market in 2011, five years before tesla announced theirs.",
"parent_id": "8178842",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
}
] | 1,760,371,428.342517
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/round-and-round-with-a-tape-delay-synth/
|
Round And Round With A Tape Delay Synth
|
Jenny List
|
[
"Musical Hacks"
] |
[
"delay",
"loop",
"synth",
"tape loop"
] |
Over the years we’ve been entertained by an array of musical projects from [Look Mum No Computer], and his latest is no exception.
It’s a tape delay, loop generator, and synth all in one
. Confused? That’s what you get if you position a load of tape heads around a rotating disk with magnetic tape on its perimeter.
Taking a circular piece of inch-thick Perspex, he wraps a length of one inch tape round its perimeter. This is placed as though it were a turntable on a stepper motor with variable speed, and the tape heads are positioned around its edge. Each read head feeds its own preamp which in turn drives a mixer array, and there’s also a record head and an erase head. If you’ve ever played with tape loops you’ll immediately understand the potential for feedback and sequence generation to make interesting sounds. There’s a lot of nuance to the build, in designing the mount for the motor to stop the enclosure flexing, in using a gearbox for increased torque, and in balancing the disk.
The result is as much an effect as it is an instrument in its own right, particularly in its prototype phase when the read head was movable. We’re treated to a demo/performance, and we look forward to perhaps seeing this in person at some point. There’s a future video promised in which a fix should come for a click caused by the erase circuitry, and he’ll make a more compact enclosure for it.
| 7
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178476",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T18:49:46",
"content": "The first image is beautiful! “He’ll male” what now?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178521",
"author": "YoDrTentacles",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:00:32",
"content": "Everything Sam does is worth a watch, especially since he shows himself building and fine-tuning everything he does.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178563",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:56:51",
"content": "I want to see it hooked up to the Furbies!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178647",
"author": "DougM",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:32:25",
"content": "Suddenly makes me wonder if one could use old hard drive platters for this…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178786",
"author": "nullnullbryx",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:42:05",
"content": "THAT is a good idea!",
"parent_id": "8178647",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8181620",
"author": "ytrewq",
"timestamp": "2025-09-19T09:47:54",
"content": "Not sure about HD platters as they need very specific heads and driving electronics that makes the analog approach difficult if not impossible, at least if one wants to preserve linearity, but ages ago I thought of making the exact same thing with floppy disks, whose material and magnetic layer should be compatible with decks heads and their circuitry that can go full analog.",
"parent_id": "8178647",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179354",
"author": "Majorvariola",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T01:34:36",
"content": "Fripp",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.486208
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/dragon-is-the-latest-and-final-craft-to-reboost-iss/
|
Dragon Is The Latest, And Final, Craft To Reboost ISS
|
Tom Nardi
|
[
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Space"
] |
[
"commercial space",
"international space station",
"iss",
"reboost",
"shuttle"
] |
The International Space Station has been in orbit around the Earth, at least in some form, since November of 1998 — but not without help. In the vacuum of space, an object in orbit can generally be counted on to remain zipping around more or less forever, but the Station is low enough to experience a bit of atmospheric drag. It isn’t much, but it saps enough velocity from the Station that without regular “reboosts” to speed it back up , the orbiting complex would eventually come crashing down.
Naturally, the United States and Russia were aware of this when they set out to assemble the Station. That’s why early core modules such as Zarya and Zvezda came equipped with thrusters that could be used to not only rotate the complex about all axes, but accelerate it to counteract the impact of drag. Eventually the thrusters on Zarya were disabled, and its propellant tanks were plumbed into Zvezda’s fuel system to provide additional capacity.
An early image of ISS, Zarya module in center and Zvezda at far right.
Visiting spacecraft attached to the Russian side of the ISS can transfer propellant into these combined tanks, and they’ve been topped off regularly over the years. In fact, the NASA paper
A Review of In-Space Propellant Transfer Capabilities and Challenges for Missions Involving Propellant Resupply
, notes this as one of the most significant examples of practical
propellant transfer between orbital vehicles
, with more than 40,000 kgs of propellants pumped into the ISS as of 2019.
But while the thrusters on Zvezda are still available for use, it turns out there’s an easier way to accelerate the Station; visiting spacecraft can literally push the orbital complex with their own maneuvering thrusters. Of course this is somewhat easier said than done, and not all vehicles have been able to accomplish the feat, but over the decades several craft have taken on the burden of lifting the ISS into a higher orbit.
Earlier this month
, a specially modified SpaceX Cargo Dragon became the newest addition to the list of spacecraft that can perform a reboost. The craft will boost the Station several times over the rest of the year, which will provide valuable data for when it comes time to reverse the process and de-orbit the ISS in the future.
Reboosting the Russian Way
By far the easiest way for a visiting spacecraft to reboost the ISS is to dock with the rear of the Zvezda module. This not only places the docked spacecraft at what would be considered the “rear” of the Station given its normal flight orientation, but puts the craft as close as possible to the Station’s own thrusters. This makes it relatively easy to compute the necessary parameters for the thruster burn.
Progress 72 in 2019
Historically, reboosts from this position have been performed by the Russian Progress spacecraft. Introduced in 1978, Progress is essentially an uncrewed version of the Soyuz spacecraft, and like most of Russia’s space hardware, has received various upgrades and changes over the decades. Progress vehicles are designed specifically for serving long-duration space stations, and were used to bring food, water, propellants, and cargo to the Salyut and Mir stations long before the ISS was even on the drawing board.
Reboosts could also be performed by the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). Built by the European Space Agency (ESA), the ATV was essentially the European counterpart to Progress, and flew similar resupply missions. The ATV had considerably greater cargo capacity, with the ability to bring approximately 7,500 kg of materials to the ISS compared to 2,400 kg for Progress.
Only five ATVs were flown, from 2008 to 2014. There were several proposals to build more ATVs, including modified versions that could potentially even carry crew. None of these versions ever materialized, although it should be noted that the design of the Orion spacecraft’s Service Module is based on the ATV.
American Muscle
Reboosting the ISS from the American side of the Station is possible, but involves a bit more work. For one thing, the entire Station needs to flip over, as the complex’s normal orientation would have the American docking ports facing fowards. Of course, there’s really no such thing as up or down in space, so this maneuver doesn’t impact the astronauts’ work. There are however various experiments and devices aboard the Station that are designed to point down towards Earth, so this reorientation can still be disruptive.
Depending on the spacecraft, simply flipping the Station over might not be sufficient. In the case of the Space Shuttle, which of the American vehicles performed the most reboost maneuvers by far, the entire complex had to be rotated into just the right position so that the thrusters on the spaceplane would be properly aligned with the Stations’ center of mass.
As described in the “AUTO REBOOST” section of the
STS-129
Orbit Operations Checklist
, the Shuttle’s computer would actually be given control of the maneuvering systems of the ISS so the entire linked structure can be rotated into the correct position. A diagram in the Checklist even shows the approximate angle the vehicle’s should be at for the Shuttle’s maneuvering thrusters to line up properly.
With the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, maintaining the Station’s orbit became the sole domain of the Russians until 2018, when the Cygnus became the first commercial spacecraft to perform a reboost. The cargo spacecraft had a swiveling engine which helped get the direction of thrust aligned, but the Station did still need to rotate to get into the proper position.
After performing a second reboost in 2022, the Cygnus spacecraft was retired. It’s replacement, the upgraded Cygnus XL — is currently scheduled to
launch its first mission to the ISS no earlier than September 14th
.
Preparing for the Final Push
That brings us to the present day, and the Cargo Dragon. SpaceX had never designed the spacecraft to perform a reboost, and indeed, it would at first seem uniquely unsuited for the task as its “Draco” maneuvering thrusters are actually located on the front and sides of the capsule. When docked, the primary thrusters used for raising and lowering the Dragon’s own orbit are essentially pressed up against the structure of the ISS, and obviously can’t be activated.
Crew Dragon approaching the ISS, note four Draco thrusters around docking port.
To make reboosting with the Dragon possible, SpaceX added additional propellant tanks and a pair of rear-firing Draco thrusters within the spacecraft’s un-pressurized “trunk” module. This hollow structure is usually empty, but occasionally will hold large or bulky cargo that can’t fit inside the spacecraft itself. It’s also occasionally been used to deliver components destined to be mounted to the outside of the ISS, such as the for the outside of the ISS, such as the
International Docking Adapter (IDA)
and the
roll-out solar panels
.
Additional propellant tanks mounted in the trunk of the Cargo Dragon.
While the ability to have the Dragon raise the orbit of the International Space Station obviously has value to NASA, the implications of this experiment go a bit farther.
SpaceX has already been awarded the contract to
develop and operate the “Deorbit Vehicle”
which will ultimately be used to slow down the ISS and put it on a targeted reentry trajectory sometime after 2030. Now that the company has demonstrated the ability to add additional thrusters and propellant to a standard Dragon spacecraft via a module installed in the trunk, it’s likely that the Deorbit Vehicle will take a similar form.
So while the development of this new capability is exciting from an operational standpoint, especially given deteriorating relations with Russia, it’s also a reminder that the orbiting laboratory is entering its final days.
| 48
| 11
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178461",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T17:56:17",
"content": "Those tanks don’t look like they take up nearly the volume of the cargo bay. I know it’s all they need and it doesn’t make sense to add more, but I wonder what kind of range the lil guy would have if you packed the entire bay.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178465",
"author": "Florian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T18:16:10",
"content": "Well, as soon as you reached escape velocity you can keep going without having to push (burn fuel) the vehicle. Range then becomes – more or less – infinite. You probably might still want to maneuver ever now and then to avoid hitting stuff (planets, stars, …).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178470",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T18:42:15",
"content": "A modern day Space 1999.",
"parent_id": "8178465",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178483",
"author": "Davidp",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:11:45",
"content": "Bringing it down is a waste, in my opinion. It’s refined material mass in orbit. How many dollars per kilogram does it take to get from sea level to LEO? No one wants a Kessel event so common sense says something has to be done with it. I don’t know about escape velocity but why not boost it into a Lagrange orbit or crash it on the moon and save the resources for later use?",
"parent_id": "8178465",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178516",
"author": "regent",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:45:20",
"content": "Yeah, it makes no sense to drop it. But it does make people a bunch of money.I agree that it should be pushed to the moon. Even just left orbiting there would be more useful than turning it into slag.",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178564",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:58:40",
"content": "Send it 250,000 miles away so we can harvest it sometime in the future?On the Moon?That is the opposite of a good idea. Where was Akismet?",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179389",
"author": "ATDT",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T05:28:36",
"content": "While I’ll agree it’s a bad idea, Akismet is of course not designed to stop bad ideas or negative replies to bad ideas.Three choices:planned, deliberate, aimed deorbit, where we try to land it in the vast, mostly empty Pacificunplanned deorbit by orbital decay — cheapest option is to do nothing, but you might hit something important or kill people.Spend vastly more money than a planned deorbit to boost into a “graveyard” orbit (significantly more mass to move than a NOAA weather sat. I would assume it would be costly.)I suppose there might be a fourth option of disassembly in orbit such that the parts wholly burn up on re-entry, but that might not be possible. Besides, you would want the parts to “reentry” rather soon rather than hang around and become even more space junk. NASA Astronauts have already lost a $100,000 tool bag in space, disassembly alone would probably be crazy expensive.",
"parent_id": "8178564",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178570",
"author": "Joseph Shaw",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T23:24:14",
"content": "The delta V to get from LEO to L2 is roughly 3.4 km/s. The delta V from the Dragon boost is about 10 m/s.",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178723",
"author": "phuzz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:35:59",
"content": "NASA calculate they’ll need 57m/s to de-orbit the ISS, so I assume the Dragon-deorbit craft will have roughly that much.“Boosting the International Space Station would require 120-140 m/s delta-V for a 100-year target orbit lifetime and 760 m/s delta-V for a greater than 10,000 year orbit lifetime, in comparison to 57 m/s for a controlled deorbit. ” (https://www.nasa.gov/faqs-the-international-space-station-transition-plan/)And of course, if you were boosting the orbit, you wouldn’t have to do it all in one go. Multiple craft could be sent up one after the other. Just three Dragon-deorbit craft would be enough to safeguard the ISS for a century.",
"parent_id": "8178570",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178591",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T00:41:22",
"content": "Station will continue to degrade over time due to micrometeorites and other space junk. If they moved it to lagrange point, there would still need a way to shield it until it can be salvaged for scrap. Taking it to the moon would take far more fuel and more expense than just letting the station fall back to Earth.",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178636",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T03:35:57",
"content": "If there’s a Kessler syndrome eventually,it’s likely not caused by ISS but rather some of the thousand SpaceX satellites or some space debris from China.It’s just kind of sad that the ISS won’t be lifted in grave yard orbit,were all the other massive junk roams around.If all involved nations would really support the idea financially and logistically, it could be possible.If things will continue to evolve the way they do right now,the ISS will be the last of its kind, like a real world equivalent to B5.There won’t be another international peace project like this,every nation rather will be into its own space exploitation from now on.In big parts thanks to private space programs, too, which are all about profits rather than symbolism and principles of scientific society.In this hindsight it’s sad that the wrack of the ISS can’t somehow remain in orbit,as a shining star on night sky to remember future generationsabout was international team work used to accomplish.",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178677",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:51:31",
"content": "“it’s likely not caused by ISS but rather some of the thousand SpaceX satellites or some space debris from China.”This massively depends on the altitude. Starlink, unless they massively raise the altitude, isn’t going to contribute because any satellites that get smashed up would quickly deorbit, due to the drag compared to the mass.",
"parent_id": "8178636",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179127",
"author": "Robert Heffernan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T09:50:12",
"content": "Kessler won’t be caused by SpaceX. Starlink is too low to cause any type of lasting issues, and the satellites will passively deorbit given any issues within a reasonable period of time.",
"parent_id": "8178636",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178644",
"author": "daid",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:20:35",
"content": "Where it is, drag will being it down eventually (think years, not centuries) so, you would have to boost it, which would be hella expensive.Then you would leave this junk outside of the magneatosphere, getting bombarded by radiation. Not sure if it will be useful after that.It is sad, but a controlled decent is the best option. Or just keep using it…",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178682",
"author": "Hobbes",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:37:09",
"content": "You’d have to accelerate 400 tons by 3.7 km/s to get to geostationary orbit. That’s alotof fuel, guesstimate over a thousand tons. Lagrange points are a little farther.",
"parent_id": "8178483",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178499",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:55:59",
"content": "Please play some GD KSP.Escape velocity from what exactly?Sheriff Rosco?",
"parent_id": "8178465",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178527",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:09:45",
"content": "That game is seriously one of the best ways to get your mind around orbital mechanics and make it into an intuitive thing. It’s not 100% accurate but it’s definitely close enough for most purposes. Solar escape velocity is 42 kilometers per second, maybe they meant once you get over that measly, trivial little barrier you can go wherever… Which is still not true.",
"parent_id": "8178499",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178590",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T00:41:19",
"content": "There’s a mod that helps with that. Me? My little astronaut is still up there, years later.",
"parent_id": "8178527",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178523",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:02:09",
"content": "That’s a popular misconception, but not how orbital mechanics work I’m afraid. If you point at the sun and thrust a few meters per second, you will not actually reach the sun in a few thousand years. you will simply alter the shape of your orbit slightly. Maybe your apogee will be a bit higher up, but the next time you come back around the Earth you’ll still be in the same trajectory as before. There are in fact fuel requirements (well, to be specific, change in velocity requirements) to get places in space, it’s not a gravity-free zone.",
"parent_id": "8178465",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178486",
"author": "Grawp",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:22:57",
"content": "If I’m not mistaken Dragon had tested reboost one time before even without the trunkthrusters just using normal maneuvring thrusters it uses to accelerate docking-port-forward accepting cosine losses in addition to already lower thrust compared to its main thrusters.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178496",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:44:50",
"content": "For fun I looked up how much fuel a 747 holds- about 180,000 kg which is insane. Alllllll the propellant dumped into ISS since 2019 wouldn’t get you a quarter tank on a 747. Space is hard AF.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178530",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:12:55",
"content": "“atmospheric drag […] saps enough velocity from the Station”Uh, no, it doesn’t. Though it may seem paradoxical, atmospheric dragincreasesthe orbital velocity.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178566",
"author": "ialonepossessthetruth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T23:03:44",
"content": "By reducing the size (altitude) of the orbit. A sufficiently fast projectile could orbit the Earth at 6 feet above the ground.",
"parent_id": "8178530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178670",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T07:22:33",
"content": "There’s a short story about that. It takes place on Mars.“The Holes Around Mars” by Jerome Bixby:https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32360/32360-h/32360-h.htm“Inasmuch as Mars’ outermost moon is called Deimos, and the next Phobos,” he said, “I think I shall name the third moon of Mars—Bottomos.”",
"parent_id": "8178566",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178772",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T14:50:20",
"content": "what? the station is moving considerably faster than the atmosphere that surrounds it? can you explain what you mean?",
"parent_id": "8178530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178988",
"author": "D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:08:42",
"content": "I’m not sure exactly what you mean. And I have an unused degree in astrophysics.The station experiences air drag, and air drag reduces velocity.Maybe you are saying that reducing velocity in orbit will reduce your perigee altitude, which results in a high velocity at that particular future point in your orbit?But there is no denying that air drag reduces your velocity in the moment while it is happening.",
"parent_id": "8178530",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179027",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:19:09",
"content": "D and Greg: Air drag reduces orbitalenergy, but not (necessarily) velocity. In a circular orbit (which the ISS is in) and low drag (true in this case), air resistance will tend to reduce orbital altitude slowly. Lower orbital altitude requires higher orbital speed.So at low air drag, when you’re maintaining a circular orbit and not promptly re-entering, air resistance really doesincreaseorbital velocity. (and also note that an orbit will naturally circularize when air drag is present, because drag at perigee causes altitude loss at apogee, until they’re equal)It’s not much: a 1 km drop in altitude raises the velocity about 2 m/s, but it’s real.",
"parent_id": "8178988",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179154",
"author": "Embcla",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T13:06:34",
"content": "Ok but then what exactly is changing in terms of physics?Air should cause friction, which should cause heat, which means lost energy, which means lost speed, which means lower perigee. E=1/2mv^2Since mass doesn’t change, to reduce energy you can only reduce speed.ONLY THEN, you’d have a slightly higher speed at perigee than the previous orbit. In theory at least. Because lower perigee means higher drag, which means higher friction which means… Less speed and lower perigee.Ain’t that right?",
"parent_id": "8179027",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179264",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T19:16:09",
"content": "In a stable circular orbit, air drag burns off gravitational potential energy, not kinetic energy.To orbit at lower perigeeneedshigher velocity.",
"parent_id": "8179154",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179564",
"author": "Embcla",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T18:15:02",
"content": "PaulAFAIK gravitational potential energy is mgh. Why would friction, something that depends on speed, erode potential energy? Friction always erodes kinetic energy since it depends on kinetic energy.No kinetic energy, no friction.It saps from the forward velocity vector thus the dot product of the reduced forward vector with the radial one dependent on the gravity field changes to point more inwards into the orbit, which means it leans more into the field which means this will LATER be stronger and LATER accelerate the object faster.It seems to me you’re forgetting that there is a time period between the friction taking effect and the speed at perigee becoming faster.",
"parent_id": "8179154",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179585",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T19:06:04",
"content": "Short impulses of force (momentum change) will act like you describe, where a change in orbital energy will manifest in a change in altitude a half orbit later.But a small, continuous force will act continuously: The total energy of an object in orbit is the sum of its kinetic and potential energy. Decreasing that total energyslowlywill manifest in a slow decrease in orbital radius, which produces an increase in velocity, even though the total energy is decreasing.In a circular orbit (constant velocity, constant altitude, perigee = apogee), the process is continuous — there isn’t a braking phase and an acceleration phase a half orbit later. The speed increase is continuous while total energy is being reduced.",
"parent_id": "8179154",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179862",
"author": "Embcla",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T10:11:34",
"content": "Ah right, the marvel of integrations 😆Thanks Paul!",
"parent_id": "8179154",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178550",
"author": "Ject",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:24:54",
"content": "I wonder what the advantage is of using the capsule thrusters instead of thrusters on the iss.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178616",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T02:26:45",
"content": "To show it can be done.Because when it comes time for the Big Push to nudge the ISS into the atmosphere, the on-station thrusters aren’t big enough (it’s said) to give a suitably precise reentry footprint.The Dragon-derived deorbit vehicle will use something like 25 Draco engines (at 400 N each) to give that shove.Which is a bit weird, because Zvezda’s thrusters can make 6000 N themselves, 60% of the Draco thrust, so it smells a bit like pork barrels to have to invent a new solution.",
"parent_id": "8178550",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178995",
"author": "D",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:13:59",
"content": "Well, it’s also a really good idea to have two independent systems. Imagine you get part way through the burn and Zvezda’s Russian engineering gives out and now the ISS is coming down somewhere random on Earth. 70% odds it’s water, I guess.But it makes some sense, maybe just from a PR point of view, to have a 2nd set of thruster there that can do the job.",
"parent_id": "8178616",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178617",
"author": "Bunsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T02:29:28",
"content": "They have a finite lifetime. Better to wear out the visiting vehicle’s thrusters, which have mostly been single-use vehicles anyway, than the station’s own.",
"parent_id": "8178550",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178624",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T02:47:53",
"content": "Finite indeed: They’ll be ions in the atmosphere or rapidly-cooling slag in the pacific ocean about 40 minutes after that final burn…",
"parent_id": "8178617",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178630",
"author": "Bunsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T03:03:47",
"content": "That depends on whether the question was about reboost, where wear is the concern, or deorbit, where the on-board tanks aren’t sufficient and they don’t trust the station’s own systems to operate properly late in the process since it will be deeper in the atmosphere than it was designed for.",
"parent_id": "8178624",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178632",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T03:07:10",
"content": "Swesda is the Russian segment of the ISS and under Russian control, so to say.And if memory serves, there used to be different opinions between NASA and Roskosmos about the final date for end of mission of ISS.So perhaps it’s also a little bit about politics, not sure.But it could be that the Russian side doesn’t really agree with another boost, so it doesn’t like to assist here.Again, just speculation. There had been so many news in the past 10 years it’s hard to remember everything.",
"parent_id": "8178550",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178797",
"author": "Woo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T16:09:43",
"content": "I don’t see why you’d deorbit the ISS unless you’re giving up on space capability completely. My understanding is that anything that can dock with another ship can be repurposed as a ship of theseus to create another station. Ignoring the bulk weight of the station structure, thrusters, power generation, and life support, the sensors and electronics aboard are a GREAT source of spare parts if you run into trouble during construction of a new station, as well as lowering payload mass by reusing as many supplies as possible",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178925",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T22:21:51",
"content": "Mold spores.IIRC there’s an age for a human occupied zero G space where the spores become a big problem.Evolution in action.If it was me, I’d try evacuating an old part of ISS for a year.Just to see if the orbit spores really are that tough.",
"parent_id": "8178797",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179051",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T03:26:00",
"content": "Mir space station had it worse, I think. It was really smelly torwards the end, I believe.And yet, some brave individuals still had the optimism to attempt to turn it into a space hotel. Love that optimism! ❤️https://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/646921.stm",
"parent_id": "8178925",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179457",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T11:57:15",
"content": "Grok calculates that based up cost to build and support over it’s existence, every person-HOUR on the ISS cost $146k. It costs very nearly as much per year to support as the total spent thus far on the 13 year old Curiosity Mars rover mission. The cost thus far is almost twice the amount spent on every unmanned probe launched by NASA since 1958. A HUGE waste of money like all “Spam in a can” human spaceflight as Chuck Yeager called the Mercury missions where the hugely expensive to maintain biological payload was mostly there for the ride just like today.NASA wastes 50% of its funding on that. Book: The End of Astronauts: Why Robots are the Future of Exploration to which I’ll add if it weren’t for corporate lobbies, astronauts in leadership positions, and politicians. And, no, humans aren’t needed to maintain public interest. People quickly bored of the Apollo missions, but the largest web site hits now have been on unmanned missions where people get to see the surfaces of other worlds through robotic eyes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179459",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T12:00:34",
"content": "“based up” > “based upon”",
"parent_id": "8179457",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179858",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T09:46:13",
"content": "Money isn’t everything. Also, the whole purpose of money is to be spent.It’s a trade instrument, nothing more and nothing less.If lots of money is being spent on the people or basic research, it’s good.The more, the better. Same goes for taxes. They should be spent as much as possible, for the well being of people.And the people are society as a whole, with all their different opinions.So individuals here have no say what’s wrong or right or “worth it”.If they think it’s “waste” they should go into politics or contact a politican and explain why they think so. IMHO.PS: I’m not from North America.",
"parent_id": "8179457",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179657",
"author": "Rob Hafernik",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T22:51:11",
"content": "I also passed the orbital mechanics course. Paul is correct, as unintuitive as it seems. Drag reduces energy, but velocity goes up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179908",
"author": "IT-Wizard",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T12:07:13",
"content": "It came to my mind while reading that to compensate that constant drag, it could be usefull to have a (small) constant pull. Would not an ion thruster fit the perfect match in that senario ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8182269",
"author": "Heckruler",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T10:53:38",
"content": "Still think we should splurg for a little bit of gas money to push the thing into a graveyard orbit. Keep it there forever as a testament to our achievements. A memory of better times.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.574283
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/4-bit-single-board-computer-based-on-the-intel-4004-microprocessor/
|
4-bit Single Board Computer Based On The Intel 4004 Microprocessor
|
John Elliot V
|
[
"computer hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"4-bit microprocessor",
"intel 4004",
"Intel 4040",
"SBC",
"single board computer"
] |
[Scott Baker] is at it again and this time he has
built a 4-bit single board computer based on the Intel 4004 microprocessor
.
In the board design [Scott] covers the CPU (both the Intel 4004 and 4040 are supported), and its support chips: the 4201A clock-generator, its crystal, and the 4289 Standard Memory Interface. The 4289 irons out the 4-bit interface for use with 8-bit ROMs. Included is a ATF22V10 PLD for miscellaneous logic, a 74HCT138 for chip-select, and a bunch of inverters for TTL compatibility (the 4004 itself uses 15 V logic with +5 V Vss and -10 V Vdd).
[Scott] goes on to discuss the power supply, ROM and page mapper, the serial interface, the RC2014 bus interface, RAM, and the multimodule interface. Then comes the implementation, a very tidy custom PCB populated with a bunch of integrated circuits, some passive components, a handful of LEDs, and a few I/O ports. [Scott] credits
Jim Loo’s Intel 4004 SBC project
as the genesis of his own build.
If you’re interested in seeing this board put to work check out the video embedded below. If you’d like to know more about the 4004 be sure to check out
Supersize Your Intel 4004 By Over 10 Times
,
The 4004 Upgrade You’ve Been Waiting For
, and
Calculating Pi On The 4004 CPU, Intel’s First Microprocessor
.
| 8
| 5
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178437",
"author": "Tim McNerney",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T16:42:12",
"content": "Excellent work, Scott!–Tim (founder of 4004 anniversary project: 4004.com)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179041",
"author": "Scott Baker",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T02:58:54",
"content": "Thanks Tim, and great site at 4004.com ! :D",
"parent_id": "8178437",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178458",
"author": "plandemia",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T17:48:08",
"content": "I have 32 bit not 4my computer is better, and more power eficient",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179151",
"author": "Rod Nussbaumer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T12:00:06",
"content": "Love to see the old school hardware being kept alive. I’d all but forgotten about some of the parts that were needed to get the CPU to run. Were PLDs a thing when those CPUs were actually used?",
"parent_id": "8178458",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178467",
"author": "Mr T",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T18:28:51",
"content": "Back in the day I was working on a business computer system where the computers sold to customers were 4004-based and the development system 8008-based.I can’t say the computers were fast but the integrated printer and document handling mechanics were. And the mechanical components were beautifully made with split platens for having two sets of continuous forms, often wide Leporello paper (probably better known as fanfold paper — actually more likely completely unknown — these days) at one side and narrower audit roll on the other. The platen could be split at 1 cm (just under ½ inch) intervals to support different paper widths. It could also handle individual ledger sheets, loading a sheet to the first free line with a system that made cuts in the edge of the sheet for every line printed, and using a mechanical contraption to sense the first missing cut and stop the feeding at just the right time.I sometimes miss those mechanical contraptions with all their beauty on display as opposed to modern equipment where the ingenuity is hidden behind sterile enclosures. (I know, a generalisation.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178860",
"author": "Jeffrey Greenly",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T19:32:04",
"content": "Cool and all, but can it run Linux? Doom? ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8182445",
"author": "Cuvtixo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T19:44:37",
"content": "I’m guessing it might be possibly emulated in a game, like the terminals in Fallout.",
"parent_id": "8178860",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179956",
"author": "Zoo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-15T15:05:51",
"content": "They’re on ali express, china beat you to it lmao",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.617464
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/freecad-foray-good-practices/
|
FreeCAD Foray: Good Practices
|
Arya Voronova
|
[
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] |
[
"freecad",
"tips"
] |
Last time, we built a case for a PCB that handles 100 W of USB-C power, an old project that I’ve long been aiming to revive. It went well, and I’d like to believe you that the article will give you a much-needed easy-to-grasp FreeCAD introduction, Matrix knowledge upload style, having you designing stuff in no time.
Apart from my firm belief in the power of open-source software, I also do believe in social responsibilities, and I think I have a responsibility to teach you some decent FreeCAD design practices I’ve learned along the way. Some of them are going to protect your behind from mistakes, and some of them will do that while also making your project way easier to work with, for you and others.
You might not think the last part about “others” matters, but for a start, it matters in the ideal world that we’re collectively striving towards, and also, let’s be real, things like documentation are half intended for external contributors, half for you a year later. So, here’s the first FreeCAD tip that will unquestionably protect you while helping whoever else might work with the model later.
Okay, we’re all hackers, so I’ll start with zero-th FreeCAD tip – press Ctrl+S often. That’ll help a ton. Thankfully, FreeCAD’s autorecovery system has made big leaps, and it’s pretty great in case FreeCAD does crash, but the less you have to recover, the better. Now, onto the first tip.
Name Your Bodies, Always
The button is F2. That’s it. Click on your models in the tree view and give them a name. Do it for all extrudes, cuts, and even fillets/chamfers. You don’t have to do it for sketches, since those are always contained within an extrusion. If at all possible, do it immediately, make it a habit.
Why? Because names make it clear what the extrusion/cut/fillet is for, and you’ll be thankful for it multiple times over when modifying your model or even just looking at it the next morning. Also, it makes it way easier to avoid accidentally sending the wrong 3D model to your printer.
They’re the same picture.
How to make naming easier? I’ve figured out an easy and apt naming scheme, that you’ve seen in action in the previous article. For Fusions, I do “primary object +addition” or “with addition”, mentioning just the last addition. So, “Bottom case +cutouts” is a cut that contains “Bottom case +logo” and “Cutouts”, “Bottom case +logo” is a cut that contains “Bottom case” and “Logo”, and “Bottom case” contains “Bottom floor” and “Bottom walls”.
It’s not a perfect scheme, but it avoids verbosity and you have to barely think of the names. Don’t shy away from using words like “pip” and “doohickey” if the word just doesn’t come to your mind at the moment – you’re choosing between a project that’s vaguely endearing and one that’s incomprehensible, so the choice is obvious. Naming your models lets you avoid them becoming arcane magic, which might sound fun at a glance until you realize there’s already an object of arcane magic in your house, it’s called a “3D printer”, and you’ve had enough arcane magic in your life.
Last but not least, to hack something is know learn its true name, and whatever your feature is, there’s no truth in “Cut034”. By the way, about FreeCAD and many CAD packages before it, they’ve been having a problem with true names, actually, it’s a whole thing called Topological Naming Problem.
Naming Is Hard, Topology Is Harder
How do you know where a feature really is? For instance, you take a cube, and you cut two slots into the same side. How does the CAD package ensure that the slots are on the same side? One of the most popular options for it is topological naming. So, a cube gets its faces named Face1 through Face6, and as you slowly turn that cube into, say, a Minecraft-style hand showing a middle finger, each sketch remembers the name of the side you wanted it attached to.
Now, imagine the middle finger hand requires a hole inside of it, and it has to be done at from very start, which means you might need to go back to the base cube and add that hole. All of a sudden, there will be four new faces to the internal cube that holds the finger sketches, and these new faces will need names, too. Best case, they’ll be named Face7 through Face10 – but that’s a best case and the CAD engine needs to ensure to always implement it properly, whereas real world models aren’t as welcoming. Worst case, the faces will be renumbered anew, the sketch-to-face mapping will change which faces get which names, and the model of the hand will turn into a spider. Spooky!
It’s not Halloween just yet, and most regretfully, people don’t tend to appreciate spiders in unexpected places. Even more sadly, this retrospective renaming typically just results in your sketches breaking in a “red exclamation mark” way, since it’s not just sketch-to-face mappings that get names, it’s also all the little bits of external geometry that you’ll definitely invoke if you want to avoid suffering. Every line in your sketch has an invisible name and a number, and external geometry lines will store – otherwise, they couldn’t get updated when you change the base model under their feet, as one inevitably does.
Before FreeCAD v1.0, I sometimes had to make “plug” solids instead of removing cutouts. Nowadays, I have to do that way less often.
This used to be a big problem with FreeCAD, and it still kind of is, but it’s by no means exclusive to FreeCAD. Hell, I remember dealing with something similar back when my CAD (computer-aided despair) suite of choice was SolidWorks. It’s not an easy problem to solve, because of the innumerable ways you can create and then modify a 3D object; every time you think you’ll have figured out a solution to the horrors, your users will come up with new and more intricate horrors beyond your comprehension.
FreeCAD v1.0 has clamped down on a large amount of topological naming errors. They still exist; one simple way I can trigger it is to make a cutout in a cube, make a sketch that external-geometry-exports the cut-in-half outwards-facing line of the cube, and then go back and delete the cutout. It makes sense that it happens, but oh do I wish it didn’t, and it makes for unfun sketch fixing sessions.
How To Stay Well Away
Now, I’m no stranger to problems caused by name changes, and I’m eager to share some of what I’ve learned dealing with FreeCAD’s names in particular.
The first solution concerns cutouts, as they specifically might become the bane of your model. If you have a ton of features planned, just delay doing the cutouts up until you’ve done all the basics of the case that you might ever want to rely on. Cutouts might and often will change, and if your board changes connector or button positions, you want to be able to remake them without ever touching the rest of the sketch. So, build up most of your model, and closer to the end, do the case cutouts, so that external geometry can rely on walls and sides that will never change.
Next, minimize the number of models you’re dealing with, so that you have less places where external geometry has to be involved. If you need to make a block with a hole all the way through, do it in one sketch instead of doing two extrudes and a cut. You’ll thank yourself, both because you’ll have less opportunity for topo naming errors, but also because you have fewer model names to think up.
In case you wondered what the “bad naming” example was about, it’s from this part. It’s a perfectly fine part because no external geometry relies on it in practice, but it’s also absolutely a good example of a part you can instead do in a single sketch-extrude and a (not shown) fillet.
The third thing is what I call the cockroach rule. If you see a cockroach in your house, you back off slowly, set the house on fire, and then you get yourself a different house, making sure you don’t bring the cockroach into the new house while at it. Same can apply here – if you remove a feature in the base model and you see the entire tree view light up with red exclamation marks, click “Close” on the document, press “Discard changes”, open the document again, and do whatever you wanted to do but in a different way.
Why reload? Because Ctrl+Z does not always help with such problems, as much as it’s supposed to. This does require that you follow the 0th rule – press Ctrl+S often, and it also requires that you don’t press Ctrl+S right after making those changes, so, change-verify-enter. Thankfully, FreeCAD will unroll objects in the model tree when one of the inner object starts to, so just look over the model tree after doing changes deep inside the model, and you’ll be fine. This is also where keeping your models in a Git repo is super helpful – that way, you can always have known-good model states to go back to.
Good Habits Create Good Models
So, to recap. Save often, give your models names, understand topo naming, create cutouts last if at all possible, keep your models simple, and when all fails, nuke it from orbit and let your good habits cushion the fall. Simple enough.
I’ll be on the lookout for further tips for you all, as I’ve got a fair few complex models going on, and the more I work with them, the more I learn. Until then, I hope you can greatly benefit from these tips, and may your models behave well through your diligent treatment.
| 26
| 9
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178369",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:16:04",
"content": "In short, prefer using PartDesign to Part workbench. If you think in boolean operation too much (Cut / Union / Intersect), you’ll end up with unsolvable and unmodifiable mess. Make the most you can in PartDesign (with sketches) and only reserve the most complex task to Part workbench.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178395",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:43:39",
"content": "I’m with you on this one! Because the CSG workflow is comfy for me (OpenSCAD), I tried to use Part like this a lot when I was starting out in FreeCAD.But in the name of simplicity of defining the specs, and making things easily alterable later, I learned the Part Design / Sketch workflow. It seems like FreeCAD really wants you to go that way.",
"parent_id": "8178369",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178413",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:19:26",
"content": "I will have to agree. Even if its a quirk of FreeCAD, I think its still worthwhile building a mental model and workflow where everything is based on modifying the original sketch. This lets you think about the model in a systematic way, which is an important part of planning anywayThe “adding/subtracting primitives until it looks like you want” is quite akin to how CAD was done in the past. It makes sense for OpenSCAD but for FreeCAD you don’t want to do that…",
"parent_id": "8178369",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178381",
"author": "Julian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:26:54",
"content": "Any good tutorials on FreeCAD? I’m using Onshape but FreeCAD is free and performs way better than a web-based software like the latter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179133",
"author": "MichaelK",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T10:16:28",
"content": "My tip for FreeCAD is to try to avoid attaching sketches to faces in PartDesign. Attach them to the axis planes or datum planes instead and add offsets if necessary. Makes it less likely to mess up the whole model if you change things later…",
"parent_id": "8178381",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179156",
"author": "pgp",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T13:08:04",
"content": "+1, it really changes everything, ans with the help of spreadsheets you can have incredible parametric models that don’t break easely. With little python scripts you can also re export all the parts in one button clic :)",
"parent_id": "8179133",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178405",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:05:57",
"content": "haha yeah i try to make projects readable for other people because the other people are always me a year later. i’ve got build diaries up into the tens of thousands of words so i can look back and figure out what that stranger who sits in my chair was thinking a decade ago.i don’t use freecad, and the ctrl-z discourse in this article makes me really glad for it! i want robust change management foreverythingi do on the computer. i am always checking things into git, and i need the diffs to be intelligible. that’s why i could only use a script-based cad, and for me that’s openscad. idobreak the whole model for a simple change, but i always can see exactly how that happened and i never have to superstitiously kill the program just in case its own change management has side effects and can’t unroll the past with veracity.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178427",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:58:46",
"content": "Learning FreeCAD now. Fully agree with the need to name things. You will be thankful when, not if, a tiny change breaks any or all fillets/chamfers.If I’ve only learned one thing about FreeCAD, it’s that you do chamfers and fillets last. (Oh, and look carefully after using them because they have a habit of making parts of your model disappear.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178432",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T16:17:10",
"content": "If you’re learning, don’t forget about Spreadsheet workbench (that’s where the magic of parametric design goes). In fact, FreeCAD should refuse to type a number that’s not from a spreadsheet cell, because if you do so, chance are high you’ll make a mistake and modify this number (or forget about it) later on and this will break the constraints.In all CAD software I’ve used, you need to follow the robust modeling rules (described everywhere, search for google, likehttps://www.engineersrule.com/building-an-unbreakable-model-by-laying-the-foundation/). In short, you’ll start your design with the most important features first (no details, only primary features, all the mechanical architectural stuff first), and then add the secondary features (cuts/pocket/…) and finish by the details (like fillet/chamfer). That way, if anything breaks due to a parameter change, only the latter steps needs to be redone.Said differently, the part number of face must only increase in construction order, and not the opposite. Most problem arise from removing faces, not adding them.",
"parent_id": "8178427",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178518",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:50:12",
"content": "I’ve seen, but haven’t played with the spreadsheet feature yet. It does seem enticing and highly useful. The concept of “parametric” modeling was a little bit lost on me. Then I saw that. It’s on my to do list.In my experience/ignorance, FreeCAD has broken things in very unexpected ways. For example: I have a 10mm thick, about 40×50 base (below some other stuff) with a bottom-up counterbore through the base. When I chamfered the outer edge of the bottom of the base, the counterbore broke (and I completed a 4-5 hour print before I noticed it). I still don’t get that one. It seems that something went unhappy related to the face with the pockets that was later chamfered. V1.x is still early days. I’m not yet asking for a full refund of my purchase price.Chamfers/fillets and “wire not closed” are my biggest headaches so far. Oh, and wrapping my head around “fully constrained” without hitting “over constrained”. Oh, and putting text on/in my models. Oh, and keeping track of which workbench I need for what…You can teach an old brain new tools, if a bit slowly.I’ve simultaneously been learning Fusion 360. I have to say it’s easier for me to use at my elementary level, but I’m not able/willing to pay the price of admission once I (ifI) manage to creep past that “non-commercial use” threshold. I don’t expect to ever leapfrog past it to where the cost is comfortably absorbed by my meager commercial dabblings. So, I’m living and learning FreeCAD. I also prefer to have full access to, and control over my drawings.It’s irrelevant to the topic at hand, but for some reason my brain has, today, taken to typing “Fred” while it’s supposed to be typing “FreeCAD”.Thank you to any FreeCAD contributors who might be reading this.",
"parent_id": "8178432",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178524",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:02:47",
"content": "If you change a chamfer in a complicated part it can change the part’s edge numbers and break chamfers higher up on the hierarchy.They’re usually still there, but on the wrong edge.Sometimes, they make the whole part disappear.",
"parent_id": "8178518",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178685",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T08:56:41",
"content": "Oh, and wrapping my head around “fully constrained” without hitting “over constrained”. Oh, and putting text on/in my models. Oh, and keeping track of which workbench I need for what…Yeah that constraint one is always interesting, especially on the complex sketches you add a feature too. Fortunately for most projects if you can’t figure out how to get a comfortably constrained sketch you can still work with it ‘broken’, so knowing when it is worth fixing that problem rather than just taking a fresh save as backup and working forward. The others are more just learning the logic and structure of FreeCAD, you’ll get there if you keep using it.Thank you to any FreeCAD contributors who might be reading this.Indeed, can’t echo that thought strongly enough. Including the many folks that are not directly FreeCAD contributors but helped me get over that initial learning curve with the now horrible outdated version of their guides to something back when I first started trying to use it..",
"parent_id": "8178518",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178698",
"author": "Arya Voronova",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T10:03:36",
"content": "Quick thought – fully constrained is nice, but it’s mostly for your own benefit (making sure the sketch adapts to future changes to the underlying faces and reference geometry) than anything else.",
"parent_id": "8178685",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178745",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:24:20",
"content": "@Arya indeed, but its all about knowing when it is worth the effort to chase down a properly constrained sketch.For instance I have a sketch on a project that is overconstrained, but that sketch really isn’t worth restarting the constraint setup again after the change that lead to overconstraint – its a finished part now, any future changes to anything else in the project can’t break it, and should I ever need to really adjust that part with how skeletal it must be to function the new version wouldn’t bear any great resemblance to the current one – its a complex fan bracket so minimal material in the blade path while being able to accommodate I think its 3 sizes of PC fan – but if I wanted to say pivot to a 2×3 grid of the smaller fans or have the single huge fan overhang the rest of the part to get enough cooling as the 1×2 or 1×3 grid of currently supported sizes are insufficient everything would have to change.But in that same project I also have an underconstrained sketch, and that one is one of the most likely to change – all the most crucial tolerances that are parametrically adjustable interact with that sketch, and one of the changes I needed to make broke it. So that one is essential to work on before doing anything else – I think with how fiddly the sketch is I will end up breaking it into 3 or 4 sketches, which will mean I could end up with some fillets I’ll have to add in manually afterwards, or just accept less than smooth transition between the important mating surfaces in the CAD knowing 10 seconds with a file in the real world will fix the problems…",
"parent_id": "8178685",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179245",
"author": "pgp",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:35:51",
"content": "For the “wire ils not closes” issues, i use the sketcher_validate-sketch tool, it shows problematic intersection of a sketch. Magic!",
"parent_id": "8178518",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178462",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T17:58:40",
"content": "As somebody who works a lot with other people’s CAD, coming from professionals and plenty of nice and expensive stock models, I can say that the number of models where any parts are labeled is very easily within the margin of error of 0%.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178695",
"author": "Arya Voronova",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T09:22:18",
"content": "yeahhhhh it used to be the same with open-sourcing 3D models, too. I think we can change that and we ought to change that, and the first step is talking about it, I suppose.",
"parent_id": "8178462",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178534",
"author": "Urgon",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:18:45",
"content": "The best practice for FreeCAD user is to uninstall it and get something that is actually user-friendly…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178542",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:09:30",
"content": "Oh, you.",
"parent_id": "8178534",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178607",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T01:54:47",
"content": "Are you buying?",
"parent_id": "8178534",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179003",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T01:48:32",
"content": "LOL!My thoughts exactly.Every now and again, I think about giving FreeCAD a try and then I’ll read something like this.Yikes",
"parent_id": "8178534",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179048",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T03:20:12",
"content": "There aren’t any.It’s just a complicated problem, solved with tedium, industry wide.Closest I’ve found to ‘user-friendly CAD’ is ‘artsy-fartsy VR sculpting’ like ‘Shapelab’. Where everything is about extruding or removing virtual clay and undo. You can’t do a part in it, but boobies! Right tool for the job.First CAD program I used was AutoCAD for DOS.Worst ‘CAD program’ I’ve ever used is Blender.",
"parent_id": "8178534",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180869",
"author": "Sid",
"timestamp": "2025-09-17T13:13:39",
"content": "I can kind of agree with this. Though, I went through 3 different pieces of CAD software on my computer before settling down on my current choice at the end.Sketchup to start out before I even knew what CAD meant and it was still owned by Google at the time and ran locally, Autodesk Inventor 2017 since I had a free license for it in high school but has since been expired but was still fantastic to use at the time, Fusion360 which felt limited and made me increase my hate for cloud based software and SaaS that Adobe had ignited in me beforehand, FreeCAD well before the 1.0 version and before they even had the ability to do chamfers (which made me drop it once I realized it wasn’t ready for showtime yet), and Alibre Atom3D.Alibre Atom3D was what I am currently on and has felt so familiar to a fusion of Fusion and Inventor with more features than the first and less features than the second, respectively. Even though I’m financially fine with the upfront cost of each new license that I realized I had to get when my old computer had done it’s last power down when I was away, and the yearly fee of $50 to get updates, I’d like to see FreeCAD reach that level so I can switch my yearly subscription to a yearly donation to help them out instead for helping me out of a majority-on-top SaaS world and some other terrible business practices for hobbyists and at-home users who aren’t really using it to make money or be a business but just to make things to make life easier. I’ll give it another spin soon and hopefully see it reach a primetime level for hobbyists in the near future.",
"parent_id": "8178534",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8179492",
"author": "Shara",
"timestamp": "2025-09-14T13:54:08",
"content": "In freecad you MUST care about topology by yourself. I mean instead:1. make cube2. attach sketch on cube side and draw circle3. make circle hole4. attach sketch on cube side with hole and draw octagon5. make octagon hole6. remove circle hole and break octagon sketchyou need1. make cube2. attach sketch on cube side (maybe instead plane enough for you?) and draw circle3. make circle hole3.1 switch to cube in tree again4. attach sketch on cube side without hole exists and draw octagon5. make octagon hole6. remove circle hole and octagon hole still exists",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180274",
"author": "Beowulf Shaeffer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T02:46:14",
"content": "Thanks. Definitely keep the tips coming!I really prefer the mildly buggy free software to still buggy paid services, but it can be a hassle to change tools.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8180443",
"author": "Mr Nobody",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T09:44:35",
"content": "Another tip: Other than saving using ctl + s, do some versioning every hour or so or at least before a big and dangerous change. Once you get to Version_999, you can start deleting the older ones … or use Github.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.875142
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/old-phone-upcycled-into-pico-projector-asmr/
|
Old Phone Upcycled Into Pico Projector, ASMR
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Cellphone Hacks"
] |
[
"cell phone display",
"diy projector",
"home theatre",
"lcd"
] |
To update an old saying for the modern day, one man’s e-waste is another man’s bill of materials. Upcycling has always been in the hacker’s toolkit, and cellphones provide a wealth of resources for those bold enough to seize them. [Huy Vector] was bold enough, and transformed an old smartphone into a
portable pico projector
and
an ASMR-style video
. That’s what we call efficiency!
Kidding aside, the speech-free video embedded below absolutely gives enough info to copy along with [Huy Vector] even though he doesn’t say a word the whole time. You’ll need deft hands and a phone you really don’t care about, because one of the early steps is pulling the LCD apart to remove the back layers to shine an LED through. You’ll absolutely need an old phone for that, since that trick doesn’t apply to the OLED displays that most flagships have been rocking the past few years.
It looks like he’s specifying a 20 W LED (the bill of materials is in the description of the video on YouTube), so this projector won’t be super bright, but it will certainly be usable in darkened rooms. At least that lower wattage also means the batteries salvaged from an old power bank should give enough runtime to finish a movie… as long as it’s not the director’s cut, anyway. A heatsink and fan keep the LED from cooking itself and what’s left of the cell phone inside the foam board case.
The projected image looks surprisingly good considering the only optics in this thing are the LCD and the lens from a 5x magnifying glass from AliExpress.
(Editor’s Note: Indeed. Surprisingly good. We’re guessing the image was “improved” in post-production, which is a bit of a bummer. See the discussion in the comments, and please keep it civil and/or constructive.)
The foam board case, too, ends up looking surprisingly good once the textured vinyl wrap is applied. That’s a quick and easy way to get a nice looking prototype, if you don’t particularly need durability.
It’s not the
brightest screen
you can build, nor
the highest resolution
projector we’ve seen– but it might just be the easiest such build we’ve featured. As long as you handle the tricky LCD disassembly step, this is absolutely something we could see doing with children, which isn’t always the case on Hackaday.
| 29
| 11
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178330",
"author": "Cricri",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T11:14:07",
"content": "At 3min07 he says a 50W LED cob. He’s got a small cooler and a 40mm (I think?) fan to cool it down.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178333",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T11:57:09",
"content": "Those who do not study optics are doomed to make crappy optics.No condenser lenses, simple biconvex projection lens.There’s no way on god’s green earth he can project that image with those optics.I’m calling it faked, doin’ it for the clicks…Sadly, thiscouldwork with a bit more attention to the engineering and a lot less to the video production.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178335",
"author": "Bernd das Brot",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T12:12:18",
"content": "I concur. The projection looks far too good for something created from using a roughly 30×30 cm emissive surface with hotspots as light source. The projection should show a lot of artifacts from that.",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178336",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T12:17:00",
"content": "Yeah, there’s no way you can get a sharp projected image with a big array LED like that. And the inside of the box is white and reflective, that’s going to tank the contrast ratio. It’s also telling that there’s no shot of the finished unit projecting that image, just the projected image itself.This is absolutely fake.",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178339",
"author": "k",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T12:26:50",
"content": "Calling BS on this one. There is no way the projection is without artifacts. only ONE lens is used. The apparent image is not inline with the wall dimensions.Prol’y used a AI oderous S to stich a image and screen capture video.Sad that people do BS just for views, and it is listed on HAD :(",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178356",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T13:37:49",
"content": "Yeah… I’m looking at the video image, and itdoeslook too good to be true. I bet theyareretouched in post. That’s a shame. He should have mentioned that.If you look at the rest of the guy’s channel, the videos all seem to be legit, though. And I bet the box does work, just not nearly as well as it’s presented.Bummer.",
"parent_id": "8178339",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178370",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:17:54",
"content": "Yeah, these are the guys who defended the SOAP router on Kickstarter despite it being an obvious scam. But hey, a click is a click and keeps that ad impression money rolling in.",
"parent_id": "8178356",
"depth": 4,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178415",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:34:41",
"content": "Being able to build a LED lamp in another video doesn’t speak much for being able to build a projector in this one..If they didn’t remove the diffuser, this could have worked as a brighter version of those “shoebox projectors” that use the smartphone backlight itself. Unlike real projectors that pass collimated light through a transparent TFT, these form an image of the diffuse light coming out of the panel. Most of the light gets wasted, but at least it can work with a larger LED.In the video, the diffuser is removed at 1:17. Then at 7:45 the screen again appears as if it had the diffuser. And then magically we get perfectly sharp projection without even subpixel artefacts.",
"parent_id": "8178356",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178435",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T16:33:43",
"content": "Yeah. That was going to be my devil’s advocate answer to the “no condenser” crowd: LCD screens have diffusers essentially in contact with the LCD element, meaning the only light rays coming out the front are essentially normal to the surface, which is what you want from the condenser anyway. But then the images with and without it…Maybe he ruined that first screen and then re-did it with one that he left the diffuser on? And didn’t realize that was the secret sauce? But you’d notice that it doesn’t work the second you light the thing up.I was also thinking that the internal bounce inside the first white box might help with some of that — it’s basically a huge diffuser. But you’d still see hot spots on the screen, and should see them in the image, where the direct light from the LED passes through.You should be able to see the white screen that’s holding the LCD frame — that second box has to be very well illuminated. And it should be in rough focus b/c it’s on the same plane.I can’t convince myself that the sharp detail on the black letters looks plausible.",
"parent_id": "8178415",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178660",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T06:45:29",
"content": "Just to make it clear, a diffuser diffuses light – it spreads it to all angles so you could see the LCD from other sides than just straight in front of it.But the LCD itself does not collimate light to be “normal to the surface”. It still exits the screen over a somewhat narrower cone than what the diffuser would produce. A diffuser is not strictly necessary – it just improves the viewing angles of cheaper LCDs.The point of the condenser lens, typically a fresnel lens, is to direct the light cone from the backlight towards the projecting lens, with the LCD in the middle, so the light from the far edges of the LCD panel wouldn’t miss the aperture and cause vignetting (fading out). Without a condenser lens, you would expect the picture to be very unevenly lit. A diffuser would help against this, but it would reduce contrast and the picture would still appear brighter in the middle.",
"parent_id": "8178415",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178342",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T12:43:48",
"content": "heh, i thought the optics were too simple but i just shrugged and said seeing is believing :)",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178357",
"author": "Arjan",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T13:38:50",
"content": "I made a similar projector about 20 years ago and It works just like that. I had a gasdischarge lamp, fresnel lenses and, old 15″ LCD screen and a simple lens in the output. The resolution was only 1280×1024 or something like that, but it looked just as ok as the image you see in the video. You can also see a lot of light leaking on the wall next to it.Oh…. wait. I just opened the above video in 2160p and the projected image is even clearer than the rest of the room… Please ignore my above opinion and add me to the non-believers…",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178359",
"author": "amateur",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T13:42:54",
"content": "i guess the lack of condenser is really the “tell” here. i had to remind myself of how overhead projectors work but after that the main problem that i could see was that the image of the lcd is way bigger than the projector – even if you could focus an image of the screen with the front lens onto a (flat) screen, it would be of some small portion of the middle of the lcd and certainly not the whole thing",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178364",
"author": "amateur",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:05:45",
"content": "…well, actually now that i’m thinking about it i guess there only needs to be a path from the projection screen through the lens to a given pixel on the lcd. you’d still want a condenser to actually get the light onto the focusing lens but it’s not absolutely necessary as long as you can actually see the lcd through the lens",
"parent_id": "8178359",
"depth": 3,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178408",
"author": "amateur",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:11:37",
"content": "to recover from the embarrassing mistake of “completely forgetting elementary optics” i’ve drawn some diagrams and sufficiently convinced myself that simple projectors like this are, in fact, entirely possible.as other commenters note you’d expect to see chromatic aberration. i’m trying to figure out how you’d ensure this thing was in focus, though. it seems like the lcd was just attached at Some Distance from the lens, without any ability to adjust it – perhaps we are to assume that the correct distance was measured off-screen? it doesn’t seem very precise in any case",
"parent_id": "8178364",
"depth": 4,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178439",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T16:46:16",
"content": "Move back and forth from the wall until it focuses?",
"parent_id": "8178408",
"depth": 5,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178387",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:32:55",
"content": "The killer bit of evidence is the fact that ordinary single lens magnifying glasses are not achromatic.There should be a lot of chromatic aberration in the image, because the lens cannot focus red, blue and green at the same distance. The fact that there isn’t says the image was projected with an actual doublet from an actual projector, or added in post.",
"parent_id": "8178333",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178355",
"author": "Mikko Hirvonen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T13:31:35",
"content": "I was wondering how the heatsink is supposed to work properly with the LED-cob superglued on. I thought there was supposed to be some kind of mounting pressure involved",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178358",
"author": "Curious Gregg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T13:38:59",
"content": "Let’s say it did work… somehow… then what in the optics world would be needed to make it look so sharp on the wall?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178792",
"author": "helge",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T15:52:17",
"content": "zero Petzval sum, f/8",
"parent_id": "8178358",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178398",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:45:50",
"content": "It won’t be with a cell phone but anyone who wants to see an ACTUAL projector build, this one is pretty cool and definitely goes into the difficulty involved:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfvTjQ9MCwY&t=167s",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178403",
"author": "alnwlsn",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:55:44",
"content": "I happen to have the exact same magnifying glasses on hand (came from Amazon or something) so I figured I would give it a quick try with my phone brightness up all the way in a dark room.Only about the middle 30% is in focus, both edges are very blurry. So this is clearly a fake, but it’s a pretty decent one.knows projected image will be flipped, puts phone screen in backwards to compensatewith the screen and lens inline, the projector will have to be raised up off the ground like it is in the videoblurring at the edges of the “projected image”My guess is that they did the project, then realized the quality would not be “good enough” to post. Which is a shame, because besides the outer parts of the screen being blurry, my 2 minute experiment is actually better quality that I would have expected. Maybe if they had gone with a smartwatch sized screen instead.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178422",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:51:49",
"content": "If it doesn’t look like a project from mid 90s it’s fake.Even then it would be at the low end of optical quality, only the resolution would be improved (and based on the optics, irrelevant mush).Reminds me of those comic book ads…",
"parent_id": "8178403",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178438",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T16:44:43",
"content": "A small enough screen that you can get it all within the width of a big lens like thiscouldwork. But it’ll be dark b/c you can’t get much light through it without burning it up.Double-plus the “it’s a shame” sentiment though, because playing around with the simplest optics yields really pretty-OK results. This project demonstrates amazing results, however, and that’s where it becomes hard to believe. I bet you’re right on the sequence of events.I’m imaging the die from a COB LED on the wall quite nicely as we speak. But that’s not an source that’s physically larger than the lens…",
"parent_id": "8178403",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178414",
"author": "Commenter",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:26:50",
"content": "Why it also can not work…The Screen he uses did broke mid teardown :DVisible at 6:23 and more",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178522",
"author": "helge",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:00:46",
"content": "Fresnel lenses on both sides of the panel and a Cooke triplet are the ticket. The clickbait in the video… isn’t.Thin lens-facing plastic Fresnel lenses can be subjected to some bending in an appropriate frame to attempt to improve the field curvature or aberrations uniaxially when a doublet lens is used, but this will add astigmatism.Fresnel lenses are really just there to get perpendicular incidence across the panel and then to stuff the light into the projection lens entrance pupil at its focused position.I’m happy to still have an absolute monster 400mm f/4 triplet from an epidiascope for such occasions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178545",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:13:57",
"content": "The moment I saw those fingernails I knew something was afoot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179097",
"author": "Tweepy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:17:59",
"content": "Fake, broken LCD (at 6.23), aberration, as posted above.Shame to HaD to post such clickbait video.I’ve been a reader for almost 20years, but, the quality is going down the drain, I’m afraid we need to leave this boat (moving to hackernews, but I miss the hardware oriented part)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8184573",
"author": "defdefred",
"timestamp": "2025-09-26T10:49:59",
"content": "Or you can re-use old phone/tablet without destroying it as a remote wifi display for your ESP32 project…https://github.com/defdefred/UDisPlay",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.687271
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/11/debugging-vs-printing/
|
Debugging Vs Printing
|
Al Williams
|
[
"Software Development"
] |
[
"debugger",
"debugging"
] |
We’ll admit it. We have access to great debugging tools and, yes, sometimes they are invaluable. But most of the time, we’ll just throw a few print statements in whatever program we’re running to better understand what’s going on inside of it. [Loop Invariant] wants to point out to us that there are things a proper debugger can do that you
can’t do with print statements
.
So what are these magical things? Well, some of them depend on the debugger, of course. But, in general, debuggers will catch exceptions when they occur. That can be a big help, especially if you have a lot of them and don’t want to write print statements on every one. Semi-related is the fact that when a debugger stops for an exception or even a breakpoint, you can walk the call stack to see the flow of code before you got there.
In fact, some debuggers can back step, although not all of them do that. Another advantage is that you can evaluate expressions on the fly. Even better, you should be able to alter program flow, jumping over some code, for example.
So we get it. There is more to debugging than just crude print statements. Then again, there are plenty of Python libraries to make
debug printing
nicer (including
IceCream
). Or
write your own debugger
. If gdb’s user interface puts you off, there are
alternatives
.
| 26
| 14
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178286",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T08:30:58",
"content": "All correct as far as it goes.Nothing beats good logging for debugging problems that somebodyelsehas with your software. I can’t connect a debugger to somebody else’s computer and minitor it 24/7 until that once in a blue moon error occurs.In development and while debugging things that the logging has give me hints about, a good debugger is enormously helpful.For getting an approximate location and condition to start searching the code and debugging, nothing beats good logging.I am a proponent of “log too much.” If you log it but don’t need to know it, no problem. Filter it out while searching for the cause of the problems. If you don’t log it but need it to find a problem, then you are stuck.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178404",
"author": "Yep",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T14:59:13",
"content": "Please include a mechanism to limit log size as well, I’m sure we’re all aware of this, but log too much, and constrain each log’s size based on time or something.Logrotate on Linux is wonderful.",
"parent_id": "8178286",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8179090",
"author": "El Gru",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T07:00:28",
"content": "If you are on a modern Linux just log into journalctl. Best centralised logging tool around.",
"parent_id": "8178404",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178481",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:07:03",
"content": "Plus there",
"parent_id": "8178286",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178482",
"author": "Steve Kovner",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:09:15",
"content": "OK, so it asked me to log in and then went ahead and posted what I had typed so far.There are real-time and multithreaded applications where just using a debugger, setting breakpoints, etc. mess up timing so the program behaves differently, if it runs at all.Logging is essential there.",
"parent_id": "8178481",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178287",
"author": "Marvin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T08:33:07",
"content": "I use IntelliJ and I like the feature of non-suspending breakpoints where I can simply choose to log that the breakpoint was reached, or generate my own message.debug prints you can add on the fly!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178332",
"author": "vic",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T11:44:56",
"content": "Here’s a few more comments on debugging:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45156414",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178341",
"author": "Darren",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T12:40:06",
"content": "I don’t use debuggers as much as I used to. There’s something to be said for the simplicity of print statements and logging or, in the case of an embedded microcontroller, wiggling spare I/O pins and looking at them on a scope.Debuggers also got me into bad habits: typing in crap code and then looking to see where it went wrong. I’ve found that it saves time to engage my brain and write better code in the first place. Those who live by the debugger die by the debugger.I grant that pausing execution, walking the stack and looking at live memory values can be helpful in specific applications, such as reverse engineering malware. However, I’ve been successful at tracking down some pretty nasty stuff–even compiler bugs–without a debugger.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178443",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T17:05:28",
"content": "Sometimes the fastest way to an answer is a debugger.I’m currently working on a project to swap a no longer supported library with a similar one that does the same job. The difficulty is that the documentation sucks – for the old library and the new one.It helps to be able to step through our software using the old library to see what the objects deliver then compare them to what new library delivers so that I can find the needed data.Both libraries are for reading an old file format with lots of properties and lots of cruft.Our software has to read a file in the old format, extract certain pieces of data, then write it to another file in a different format. The files are both complicated, so we use libraries both for reading and writing.",
"parent_id": "8178341",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178344",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T12:50:16",
"content": "i don’t think it’s true “that there are things a proper debugger can do that you can’t do with print statements.”but man! a lot of things are really onerous with printf debugging.i sometimes work on platforms where i don’t have a debugger, or the debugger is buggy. detecting a memory overwrite bug is a lot easier with “watch” but you can do it by printing the value of the memory at every step and watching when it changes. you can view previous stack frames by putting printfs in all the callers. you can even use inline asm to load up the frame base register and actually dump the whole stack. i’ve never met a question i couldn’t answer with printf debugging. just a question of how much time it will take. only time it’s truly painful is when you’re on an embedded platform and you need to don’t have any i/o (or the problem happens before it’s initialized)…doing all your debugging through a single LED or two pins hooked up to the two channels on my oscope…ugh.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178548",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:21:49",
"content": "What the article doesn’t mention is that you can put the printf in an if statement.If you consider the printf as what you would do in the debugger, then the if statement can be wildly complex and detect exactly the error you’re looking for.Additionally, there’s also usually some sort of “DebugBreak()” function call, which can be put in an if statement, that will cause the debugger to breakpoint when the conditions are met. Possibly entering a breakpoint when the print is executed, for the best of both worlds.I’ve sometimes used multiple prints in a long module, showing “printf(“A”)” at the top, “printf(“B”)” after the 1st step, and so on. With a module containing 10 steps it’s sometimes useful to knowwhichstep is causing the memory access area.And finally, sometimes you just don’t have access to a debugger, but almost every program has access to some sort of I/O that can be used to show status. The printf really shines here.",
"parent_id": "8178344",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178347",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T13:00:47",
"content": "Printf is just so much more accessible compared to an actual debugger, but anything serious (memory leaks, race conditions, etc) are all better with GDB. I highly recommend using GDB with vscode. The UI makes it very easy to set breakpoints, view variables etcIn python, you can actually drop into interactive mode when an exception occurs so that you can play around with variables and objects in real time and figure out what’s wrong. Super helpful!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178406",
"author": "pauldaoust",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T15:07:46",
"content": "I agree; debuggers are very cool. I love them so much when they work.Now if only I could configure PlatformIO + GDB toBreak at the actual breakpoint, rather than three lines before or ahead (no idea what’s going on there)Actually skip stdlib and 3rd-party lib code on the way to code that I care about on the native platform, like I asked it toReliably unwind the stack and give me some meaningful output and, I dunno, pause for a bit before FreeRTOS reboots after a gnarly uncatchable errorThen I could actually use it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178561",
"author": "rndsort",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T22:50:43",
"content": "Break at the actual breakpoint, rather than three lines before or aheadAre you building with optimization enabled? This tends to produce such results, because the machine code is no longer a linear translation of your source. Also causes single-stepping to jump around wildly instead of advancing one line after the other.Of course, disabling optimizations changes timing and can either make it impossible to run successfully at all, or mask the bug. So sometimes there’s no way around debugging optimized builds. If in doubt, look at the assembly and don’t let the IDE fool you.",
"parent_id": "8178406",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178454",
"author": "TerryMatthews",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T17:41:33",
"content": "I have to agree. Good tools save a lot of time and hassle. I still use print statements mainly when I am trying to integrate a new device or sensor bit and things go wrong with the library the first shot. You can kinda tell which errors are going to be a multi hour head banger vs an errant semi colon. I still use commenting too to take things in and out of the code as I rule out the angry bit. As I always try to tell people though, use the thing that works for you. It just depends on the mission at hand :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178475",
"author": "Jack Dansen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T18:46:50",
"content": "Since Python was mentioned, I wanted to point out pdb, as for me, it is the perfect marriage of debugger and print statement debugging.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178489",
"author": "Iván Stepaniuk",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T19:32:29",
"content": "Professional software developer here. I would like to add that there is a third way which is often FASTER than debugging in some contexts: TDD (Test Driven Development).Iterating complex business logic by following a strict red-green-refactor cycle negates the need for a debugger. If unit tests are not coupled to the implementation, they can also prevent future regressions and even help understand (document) the application behavior.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178514",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:42:13",
"content": "By debugging on production you can force your developers to get better, fast!Debug, testing, staging, unit testing, source control, bug tracking, debuggers?You are setting low expectations, no wonder you get bugs.If you have a good crew, you can ship anything that compiles and links.",
"parent_id": "8178489",
"depth": 2,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178526",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:08:50",
"content": "Yeah. It’s also fun to write code on the plane ride to a client site and roll it into production upon arrival, pretending like it’s stable or even tested. Absolutely no pressure!Yeah, that was a job for 20-something me.",
"parent_id": "8178514",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178717",
"author": "Sean",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T11:20:19",
"content": "“If you have a good crew, you can ship anything that compiles and links.”( I’m assuming sarcasm font on that :P )As an ex-SysOp; The good devs in my team, and boy I worked with so many brilliant people, knew it so did try to get their latest compilation through the test rigs and proper QA/UAT processes. But sometimes silly sales promises did unfortunately force a (fr)agile “if it compiles, ship it!” situation.Logs and ‘–debug’ always had their place as the first thing to check and ~90% of the time were enough for me, but GDB was still an essential tool. When those mission-critical international systems abend’ed at 3am on some unexpected garbage and wouldn’t come back up cleanly; GDB usually quickly exposed the errant data, which I could then seek permission to correct/purge.I strongly feel, from many decades of experience, a good dev should absolutely put a pile of prints behind a –debug switch, especially in those ;TODO sections that will nevercoughbe triggered.Some SLAs are not very forgiving.",
"parent_id": "8178514",
"depth": 3,
"replies": []
}
]
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178508",
"author": "Dev Jorgy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T20:26:04",
"content": "Another Professional Software Developer here,I’ll emphatically proclaim that having a good debugger (and environment) is wortheveryeffort in getting one setup!!There will always come some scenario where we are ask ourselves the question of: ‘why is this not working the way it should’. Having the ability to step thru the code, view each variable, and watch the process misbehave gives more valuable insights and is faster than the cycle of guessing where to add a ‘print’, [compile,] and re-run.I’ve worked a lot in the ‘old-world’ languages of: C++, Perl, php, Java. I’m now diving into the newer languages of Python, TypeScript (aka JavaScript), Scala, and even Apache Spark. Every one of these I’ve worked with have a debugger, and for good reasons. When the process results or behavior are unexpected, the root problem is not usually obvious with simple ‘print’s. This can also apply to TDD, when your tests fail for unexpected reasons.If you don’t already know them, these are some of your friends:* python -pdm* perl -d* node -inspect (for TypeScript / JavaScript)* gdb (for C/C++/Fortran/etc…)* For Java & Scala there’s is the JVM option of “-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=XXXX” JVM optionAdditionally* valgrind (for C/C++/Fortran/etc…) , helps with finding memory leaks, and thread race conditions, and profiling of compiled (ELF format) binaries. Valgrind also works with Python.And lastly there’s an entire subject of profiling your process. Again, every one of these languages have a profiler. Know thy code!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178666",
"author": "Greg Law",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T06:50:54",
"content": "Time travelling debuggers are a game changer.http://undo.iohttp://rr-project.orghttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debuggercmds/time-travel-debugging-overview(I am a cofounder of Undo.)",
"parent_id": "8178508",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178536",
"author": "MartinU",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T21:46:47",
"content": "I only use a debugger for debugging algorithms. Its a useful tool but even the best tools interfere slightly with execution timings which can have disastrous results in a system, especially one with multiple processors. All tools are useful, just avoid the temptation to just throw code together and ‘debug on the fly’ — especially with MCU type projects the problem’s rarely in the actual code.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178598",
"author": "garlicbready",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T01:21:33",
"content": "For embedded rust there’s also probe-rs in place of gdbhttps://github.com/probe-rs/probe-rs",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178760",
"author": "Casplantje",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T13:58:42",
"content": "Besides that, there’s also defmt for when you don’t want to use the debugger. It’s pretty lightweight and you only need some single-direction stream to get the messages from the mcu to your pc.",
"parent_id": "8178598",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8180623",
"author": "The Terminal Man",
"timestamp": "2025-09-16T17:35:48",
"content": "I’m sorry to say that I haven’t dealt with a debugger in ages and even then I never mastered the ones I used. I mostly limp along using the print/printf method.But: There are times where adding print lines actually causes – or hides – a problem, especially where memory corruption/misaddressing is involved.In the early 1990s I ran a lab where college students wrote Fortran programs for a graduate-level Image Processing class. It was primitive by today’s standards. The students started by writing a simple program at the beginning of the semester and built more stuff into it until the final graded project at the end.I helped many, many students deal with memory corruption issues due to Fortran’s default of having array subscripts starting at [1], and our specific compiler didn’t allow an alternative. Invariably, somewhere in the code they would write and reference data at subscript [0], and Fortran’s lack of seat belts meant that would corrupt data used by some other variable that just happened to be be in memory right next to the array they were using. (Sometimes they would reference elements beyond the end of their array with similar results.)Their code would give weird, unexpected results, or sometimes the whole thing would blow up badly and just plain crash. Without a debugger at the time, the students would rely on print statements to help track down their problem, hopefully eventually leading them to discover their unintended [0] subscript.But: sometimes – actually quite often – the addition of a print statement shuffled things around in the program’s variable data just enough that their problem would just… disappear. This was a constant battle with the students; despite my insistence that they probably had a subscript out-of-bounds issue, they’d add a print to troubleshoot, the problem would go away, and they’d call it good and move on.Obviously that was a faulty “fix”, and Murphy’s Law dictated that their memory issue would lie hidden until the last days of the semester working on their final project with a very hard deadline. Their bug would re-appear, I’d tell them what they likely did wrong, and they’d have to go hunting through three months’ worth of coding to find the original problem. I’ve seen many sleep-deprived, coffee-infused graduate students cry, and it ain’t a pretty sight.30+ years later I’m coding Arduinos and ESP32 for retirement fun, and I’m still mindful of that old lesson from my past whenever I debug with print statements.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.748989
|
||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/65f02-is-an-fpga-6502-with-a-need-for-speed/
|
65F02 Is An FPGA 6502 With A Need For Speed
|
Tyler August
|
[
"Retrocomputing"
] |
[
"6502 processor",
"65c02",
"fpga"
] |
Does the in 65F02 “F” stand for “fast” or “FPGA”? [Jurgen] doesn’t know, but his drop-in replacement board for the
6502 and 65c02 is out there and open source
, whatever you want it to stand for.
The “f” could easily be both, since at 100 MHz, the 65f02 is blazing fast by 6502 standards–literally 100 times the speed of the first chips from MOS. That speed comes from the use of a Spartan 6 FPGA core to implement the 6502 logic; making the “f” stand for “FPGA” makes sense, given that the CMOS version of the chip was dubbed the 65c02. The 65f02 is a tiny PCB containing the FPGA and all associated hardware that shares the footprint of a DIP-40 package, making it a drop-in replacement. A really fast drop-in replacement.
You might be thinking that that’s insane, and that (for example) the memory on an Apple ][ could never run at 100 MHz and so you won’t get the gains. This is both true, and accounted for:
the 65F02 has an internal RAM “cache” that it mirrors
to external memory at a rate the bus can handle. When memory addresses known to interact with peripherals change, the 65f02 slows down to match for “real time” operations.
The USB adapter board for programming is a great touch.
Because of this the memory map of the external machine matters; [Jurgen] has tested the Commodore PET and Apple ][, along with a plethora of German chess computers, but, alas, this chip is not currently compatible with the Commodore 64, Atari 400/800 or BBC Micro (or at least not tested). The
project is open source
, however, so you might be able to help [Jurgen] change that.
We admit this project isn’t totally new– indeed, it looks like [Jurgen]’s last update was in 2024– but a fast 6502 is just as obsolete today as it was when [Jurgen] started work in 2020. That’s why when [Stephen Walters] sent us the tip (
via electronics-lab
), we just had to cover it, especially considering the
6502’s golden jubilee
.
We also recently featured
a 32-bit version of the venerable chip
that may be of interest, also on FPGA.
| 8
| 6
|
[
{
"comment_id": "8178236",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T06:12:55",
"content": "I am immediately start wondering if I make this a drop in replacement for my project car’s 6502 based ECU. Reading data from the ECU is severely limited by serial bandwidth, this may allow the reading of much more data (memory) without impacting the ECUs ability to do it’s engine control thing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178242",
"author": "Anders Braüner Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T06:32:22",
"content": "Lewin covered this in 2021 :)https://hackaday.com/blog/?s=65f02",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178252",
"author": "Needleroozer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T06:54:18",
"content": "But now we have design files and a chance at buying the Spartan6!Certainly a worthy reason for an update, although it would have definitely been nice to link prior Hackaday coverage in the post itself.",
"parent_id": "8178242",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178441",
"author": "calculus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T16:51:03",
"content": "The project is open source, however, so you might be able to help [Jurgen] change that.I can’t quite grok this statement. Is there a “not” missing or are you asking to go from open source to closed source?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8178442",
"author": "calculus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T17:00:02",
"content": "Now more awake. It is about adding support for the other chips.",
"parent_id": "8178441",
"depth": 2,
"replies": []
}
]
},
{
"comment_id": "8178588",
"author": "Kevin",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T00:40:05",
"content": "I think this could work with the Atari 800/xl/xe series computers if you can run the chip at normal speed and turn off the Atari’s custom co-processors when you accelerate the cpu do your calculations and then return the cpu to a acceptable speed and turn the co-processors back on. Something similar was done in order to allow the normal 65c02 in the Atari to run faster for things like software voice synthesis, rendering graphics and to accommodate faster (14.4 modems).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8178735",
"author": "Tim",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T12:34:13",
"content": "It might also need to detect spin-loops. These were way too common, and tied software behavior to hardware speed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8179223",
"author": "kc5tja",
"timestamp": "2025-09-13T18:11:57",
"content": "The F in 65F02 originally meant Forth, as in it was intended to be a microcontroller with a built-in Forth 83 interpreter baked into ROM.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,428.810558
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.