Ep 261: Rickroll Toothbrush, Keyboard Cat, Zombie Dialup

03/08/24 • 36 min

1 Listener

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up in a new disposable location to give the lowdown on this week's best hacks. First up in the news -- the Home Sweet Home Automation contest is still going strong. You've still got plenty of time, so get on over to Hackaday.IO and start your entry today. In the news, the UK is asking how powerful an electric bike should be (more than 250 Watts, certainly), and legal pressure from Nintendo has shut down two emulators.

Then it's on to What's That Sound. Kristina failed again, although she was pretty confident about her answer. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound this week? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

But then it's on to the hacks, beginning with a Wi-Fi toothbrush hack from [Aaron Christophel]. This can only mean the beginning of some epic toothbrush firmware, right? From there, we marvel at moving cat food, the ultimate bulk material, and the idea of spoofing a whole cloud of drones. Finally, we examine one of Jenny's Daily Drivers in the form of Damn Small Linux (the other DSL), and reminisce about dial-up (speaking of DSL).

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!

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!

Previous Episode

Ep 260: KiCad 8, Two Weather Stations, and Multiple I2Cs

It's a leap year, so Elliot and Dan put the extra day to good use tracking down all the hottest hacks from the past week and dorking out about them. There's big news in the KiCad community, and we talked about all the new features along with some old woes. Great minds think alike, apparently, since two different e-ink weather stations made the cut this week, as did a floating oscilloscope, an automated film-developing tank, and some DIY solar panels. We talked about a hacker who figured out that water makes a pretty good solar storage medium, and it's cheaper than lithium, another who knows that a crappy lathe is better than no lathe, and what every hacker should know about Ethernet. Is there a future for room-temperature superconductors? Maybe it just depends on how cold the room is.

Check out the links over on Hackaday.

Next Episode

Ep 262: Wheelchair Hacking, Big Little Science at Home, Arya Talks PCBs

Join Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi as they go over their favorite hacks and stories from the past week. This episode starts off with an update on Hackaday Europe 2024, which is now less than a month away, and from there dives into wheelchairs with subscription plans, using classic woodworking techniques to improve your 3D printer’s slicer, and a compendium of building systems. You’ll hear about tools for finding patterns in hex dumps, a lusciously documented gadget for sniffing utility meters, a rare connector that works with both HDMI and DisplayPort, and a low-stress shortwave radio kit with an eye-watering price tag. Finally, they’ll take a close look at a pair of articles that promise to up your KiCAD game.

Check out the links on Hackaday if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!