Hackaday Podcast

ditors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi are back in the (virtual) podcast studio to talk the latest phase of the 2023 Hackaday Prize, the past, present, and future of single-board computers, and a modern reincarnation of the Blackberry designed by hardware hackers. They'll also cover the current state of toothbrush NFC hacking, the possibilities of electric farm equipment, and a privately funded satellite designed to sniff out methane. Stick around till the end to find out if there really is such a thing as having too many tools.

Check out the links and tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

It was quite the cornucopia of goodness this week as Elliot and Dan sat down to hash over the week in hardware hacking. We started with the exciting news that the Hackaday Prize is back -- already? -- for the tenth year running! The first round, Re-Engineering Education, is underway now, and we're already seeing some cool entries come in. The Prize was announced at Hackday Berlin, about which Elliot waxed a bit too. Speaking of wax, if you're looking to waterproof your circuits, that's just one of many coatings you might try. If you're diagnosing a problem with a chip, a cheap camera can give your microscope IR vision. Then again, you might just use your Mark I peepers to decode a ROM. Is your FDM filament on the wrong spool? We've got an all-mechanical solution for that. We'll talk about tools of the camera operator's trade, the right to repair in Europe, Korean-style toasty toes, BGA basics, and learn just what the heck a Bloom filter is.

Head on over to the show notes for links and more!

Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start this week's episode off with the announcement of Hackaday Berlin on March 25th. It's been quite some time since we've been on the other side of the pond, because we had to cancel 2020's Hackaday Belgrade due to COVID-19, so excitement is high for all three days of this "one-day" event.

After a new What's that Sound, discussion moves on to an impressive collection of DIY sundials, the impact filament color has on the strength of 3D printed parts, the incredible retrocomputer replicas of Michael Gardi, and the Arduino FPGA that you've probably never heard of. We'll wrap things up with the unexpected difficulties of mixing multiple cheap audio sources in Linux, and try to figure out why our kitchen appliances need to be connected to the Internet.

Check out the links and tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Under the weather though they both were, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney got together to take a look under the covers of this week's best and brightest hacks. It was a banner week, with a look at the changes that KiCad has in store, teaching a CNN how to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors," and going deep into the weeds on JPEG.

We dipped a toe into history, too, with a look at one of the sexiest early hobbyist computers, seeing how citizen scientists are finding ancient burial mounds, and looking at the cryptography that cost a queen her head. Rather look to the future? We get it -- which is why we talked about a greener, cleaner way of making hydrogen from methane, as well as a generatively designed five-axis 3D printer. From laser-precise knife sharpening to circuit simulation with Python to clear plastic TVs of the 1930s, there's something for everyone!

It was one of those weeks, where Elliot and Dan found a bounty of interesting hacks to choose from for the podcast, making it hard to pick. But pick we did, and we found so many deep and important questions. What good is a leaky HCMI cable? Good for falling down a TEMPEST-like rabbit hole, that's what. Why would you use a ton of clay to make a car? Because it's cool, that's why. What does an electron look like? A little like a wiggling wire, but mostly it looks like a standing wave... of waves.

Is artificial intelligence going to take over all the code and start suing us for copyright violations? Maybe yes, maybe no, but we're definitely in a strange, new world. And when all our media is on demand, what is the spectrum that broadcasters currently use going to be good for?

It's not all heavy questions, of course; we found a lot of fun hacks, like an extreme drill press makeover, a couple of low-power cyberdecks, the return of Norm Abram in glorious AI-generated HD, getting up close and personal with flip dot displays, and a sled that lets you go uphill as easily as going downhill.

For links and more, head on over to Hackaday.