Hackaday Podcast

This week Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi will discuss the return of the East Coast RepRap Festival, the scientific application of slices of baloney, and the state of the art in homebrew e-readers. The discussion weaves its way through various reimaginings of the seven (or more) segment display, an impressive illuminated headboard that comes with its own science-fiction film, and the surprising difficulty of getting a blinking LED to actually look like a flame. Stick around to the end to find out why iPhones are freaking out on amusement park rides, and to hear all the details about this year's Supercon badge. Check out all the links and join the discussion over on Hackaday!

In this episode you'll get to hear not one, not two, but three Hackaday Editors! Now that the dust has mostly settled from the 2024 Hackaday Supercon, Al Williams joins Elliot and Tom to compare notes and pick out a few highlights from the event. But before that, the week's discussion will cover the questionable patents holding back a promising feature for desktop 3D printers, a new digital book from NODE, and the surprisingly limited history of welding in space. You'll also hear about the challenge of commercializing free and open source software, the finicky optics of the James Web Space Telescope, and the once exciting prospect of distributing software via pages of printed barcodes.

With Superconference 2024 in the books, Dan joined Elliot, fresh off his flight back from Pasadena, to look through the week (or two) in hacks. It was a pretty good crop, too, despite all the distractions and diversions. We checked out the cutest little quadruped, a wireless antenna for wireless communications, a price-tag stand-in for paper calendars, and a neat way to test hardware and software together. We take the closest look yet at why Arecibo collapsed, talk about Voyager's recent channel-switching glitch, and find out how to put old Android phones back in action. There's smear-free solder paste application, a Mims-worthy lap counter, and a PCB engraver that you've just got to see. We wrap things up with a look at Gentoo and pay homage to the TV tubes of years gone by -- the ones in the camera, for the TV sets.

With the 2024 Hackaday Supercon looming large on the horizon, Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start this episode off by talking about this year's badge and its focus on modular add-ons. From there they'll go over the results of a particularly challenging installment of What's that Sound?, discuss a promising DIY lathe that utilizes 3D printed parts filled with concrete, and ponder what the implosion of Redbox means for all of their disc-dispensing machines that are still out in the wild. You'll also hear about custom macropads, lifting SMD pins, and how one hacker is making music with vintage electronics  learning kits. Finally, they'll reassure listeners that the shifting geopolitical landscape probably won't mean the end of Hackaday.io anytime soon, and how some strategically placed pin headers can completely change how you approach designing your own PCBs. Check out the links over at Hackaday, and tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

This week on the Podcast, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: we've extended the 2024 Supercon Add-On contest by a week! That's right, whether you were held up by Chinese fall holidays or not, here's your chance to get in on this action. We love to see the add-ons people make for the badge every year, so this time around we're really embracing the standard. The best SAOs will get a production run and they'll be in the swag bag at Hackaday Europe 2025. What's That Sound pretty much totally stumped Kristina once again, although she kind of earned a half shirt. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Then it's on to the hacks, beginning with what actually causes warping in 3D prints, and a really cool display we'd never heard of. Then we'll discuss the power of POKE when it comes to live coding music on the Commodore64, and the allure of CRTs when it comes to vintage gaming. Finally, we talk Hackaday comments and take a look at a couple of keyboards. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Here we are in October, improbably enough, and while the leaves start to fall as the goblins begin to gather, Elliot and Dan took a break from the madness to talk about all the wonderful hacks that graced our pages this week. If there was a theme this week, it was long-term projects, like the multiple years one hacker spent going down dead ends in the quest for DIY metal 3D printing. Not to be outdone, another hacker spent seven years building a mirrorless digital camera that looks like a commercial product. And getting a solderless PCB to do the blinkenlight thing took a long time too. Looking to eliminate stringing in your 3D prints? Then you'll want to avoid the "pause and attach" approach, which intentionally creates strings in your prints. Wondering if you can 3D print bearings? You can, but you probably shouldn't unless you have a particular use in mind. And what happens when you have an infinitely large supply of Lego? Why, you build a Turing machine on steroids, of course. Finally, we take a look at this week's "Can't-Miss" articles with a look into plastic recycling and why we can't have nice things yet, and we take a trip out into orbit and examine the ins and outs of Lagrange points. And a little mea culpa from the editing desk: Sorry the podcast is coming out late this week. Audacity ate my files. If you're ever in a similar circumstance, you can probably halfway save your bacon with audacity-project-tools. Ask me how I know. Check out the links over at Hackaday.

What have you missed on Hackaday this week? Elliot Williams and Al Williams compare notes on their favorites from the week, and you are invited. The guys may have said too much about the Supercon badge this year -- listen in for a few hints about what it will be about. For hacks, you'll hear about scanning tunneling microscopes, power management for small Linux systems, and lots of inertial measurement units. The guys talked about a few impossible hacks for consumer electronics, from hacking a laptop, to custom cell phones. Of course, there are plenty more long-form articles of the week, including a brief history of what can go wrong on a spacewalk and how to get the lead out (of the ground). Don't forget to take a stab at the What's That Sound competition and maybe score a sweet Hackaday Podcast T-shirt. Check out the links over on Hackaday if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

This week, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off by acknowledging an incredible milestone: 20 years of Hackaday! Well, probably. When a website gets to be this old, it's a little hard to nail down when exactly things kicked off, but it seems like September of 2004 is about right. They'll also go over the latest updates for the fast-approaching Hackaday Supercon, and announce the winner of another tough What's That Sound challenge. From there, the conversation makes its way from the fascinating electrically-activated adhesive holding the latest iPhone together to pulsed-power lasers and a high flying autonomous glider designed and built by a teenager. You'll also hear about 3D printing on acrylic, home biohacking, and the Tiny Tool Kit Manifesto. Stick around to the end to hear the duo discuss the fine art of good documentation, and an incredible bodge job from Arya Voronova. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!  

This week on the Podcast, Hackaday's Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos joined forces to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. First up in the news: we've announced the 2024 Tiny Games Contest winners! We asked you to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM, and you did so in spades. Congratulations to all the winners and Honorable Mentions, and thanks to DigiKey, Supplyframe, and all who entered! We also announced the first round of Supercon speakers, so if you haven't gotten your ticket yet, now's the second best time. But wait, there's more! We're already a few weeks into the next contest, where we want you to show us your best Simple Supercon Add-On. We love to see the add-ons people make for the badge every year, so this time around we're really embracing the standard. The best SAOs will get a production run and they'll be in the swag bag at Hackaday Europe 2025. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which completely stumped Kristina once again. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Now it's on to the hacks, beginning with non-planar ironing for smooth prints, and a really neat business card that also plays tiny games. Then we'll discuss USB modems, cool casts for broken wrists, and archiving data on paper. Finally, we ask two big questions -- where do you connect the shield, and what's the Next Big Thing gonna be? Inquiring minds want to know. 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!

It's Friday the 13th, and despite having to dodge black cats and poorly located ladders, Elliot and Dan were able to get together and run down the best hacks of the first week of September. Our luck was pretty good, too, seeing how we stumbled upon a coffee table that walks your drink over to you on Strandbeest legs, a potato that takes passable photographs, and a cool LED display three times better than a boring old seven-segment. If you've never heard of the Voynich manuscript, you're in luck too, because we got a chance to look inside this medieval comic book literally, with multispectral analysis. Is your cruise ship too short? No worries, just lop it in two and add a section. Speaking of cutting things up, that's what you need to do to see how your plus-size DIY rocket engine performed after test firing. And finally, it was a sweep for Jenny this week with our "Can't Miss" articles, where she both pines for a simpler, smaller web experience and wonders what the future holds for biomass fuels.

Elliot Williams is back from vacation, and he and Al Williams got together to talk about the best Hackaday posts from the last week. Of course, the Raspberry Pi RP2350 problem generated a bit of discussion. On a lighter note, they saw laser lawn care, rooting WiFi devices, and some very black material made from wood. Need more current-sinking capability from a 555? They talked about that, too, along with a keyboard you use with your feet. The guys had a lot to say about Klipper, why you might want to move your 3D printer to it, and the FCC's stance on ham radio antennas in restricted neighborhoods. Oh, and don't forget to play "What's that Sound?"  

Even when the boss is away, the show must go on, so Dan slid back behind the guest mic and teamed up with Tom to hunt down the freshest of this week's hacks. It was a bit of a chore, with a couple of computer crashes and some side-quests down a few weird rabbit holes, but we managed to get things together in the end. Tune in and you'll hear us bemoan HOAs and celebrate one ham's endless battle to outwit them, no matter what the golf cart people say about his antennas. Are you ready to say goodbye to the magnetic stripe on your credit card? We sure are, but we're not holding our breath yet. Would you 3D print a 55-gallon drum? Probably not, but you almost can with a unique Cartesian-polar hybrid printer. And, if you think running MS-DOS on a modern laptop is hard, guess again -- or, maybe you just have to get really lucky. We also took a look at a digital watch with a beautiful display, a hacked multimeter, modern wardriving tools, switchable magnets, and debate the eternal question of v-slot wheels versus linear bearings. And finally, you won't want to miss our look at what's new with 3D scanning, and the first installment of Kristina's new "Boss Byproducts" series, which delves into the beauty of Fordite.

This week on the Podcast, we have something a little different for you. Elliot is on vacation, so Tom was in charge of running the show and he had Kristina in the hot seat. First up in the news: the 2024 Tiny Games Challenge is still underway and has drawn an impressive 44 entries as of this writing. You have until 9AM PDT on September 10th to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which Tom and Kristina came up with together, so there will be no pageantry about guessing. But can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Now it's on to the hacks, beginning with an open-source liquid-fueled rocket and a really cool retro trackball laptop. Then we'll discuss screwdriver mange, the Wow! signal, and whether you're using you're calipers incorrectly. Finally, we look at a laptop that that isn't really a laptop, and one simple trick to keep things aligned on your laser engraver.

The summer doldrums are here, but that doesn't mean that Elliot and Dan couldn't sift through the week's hack and find the real gems. It was an audio-rich week, with a nifty microsynth, music bounced off the moon, and everything you always wanted to know about Raspberry Pi audio but were afraid to ask. We looked into the mysteries of waveguides and found a math-free way to understand how they work, and looked at the way Mecanum wheels work in the most soothing way possible. We also each locked in on more classic hacks, Elliot with a look at a buffer overflow in Tony Hawks Pro Skater and Dan with fault injection user a low-(ish) cost laser setup. From Proxxon upgrades to an RC submarine to Arya's portable router build, we've got plenty of material for your late summer listening pleasure.

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams reflect on the fact that, as humans, we have--at most--two eyes and no warp drives. While hacking might not be the world's most dangerous hobby, you do get to work with dangerous voltages, temperatures, and frickin' lasers. Light features prominently, as the guys talk about LED data interfaces, and detecting faster-than-light travel. There's also a USB sniffer, abusing hot glue, and some nostalgia topics ranging from CRT graphics to Apollo workstations (which have nothing directly to do with NASA). The can't miss articles this week cover hacking you and how you make the red phone ring in the middle of a nuclear war. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

In this episode, the CrowdStrike fiasco has Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi pondering the fragility of our modern infrastructure. From there the discussion moves on to robotic sailboats, the evolving state of bespoke computers, and the unique capabilities of the Super Nintendo cartridge. You'll also hear about cleaning paintings with lasers, the advantages of electronic word processors, stacking 3D printed parts, and the joys of a nice data visualization. They'll wrap the episode up by marveling at the techniques required to repair undersea fiber optic cables, and the possibilities (and frustrations) of PCB panelization using multiple designs. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

This week on the Podcast, it's Kristina's turn to bloviate alongside Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news: our fresh new contest has drawn three entries already! That's right, the 2024 Tiny Games Challenge is underway. You have until September 10th to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM. Then it's on to What's That Sound, which sounded familiar to Kristina, but she couldn't place it. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what's making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt. Then it's on to the hacks, beginning with a hack to print metal and a way to weld wood, along with a photo-resistor-based, single-pixel camera. We'll talk desiccants carbon fiber, and Baron Harkonnen. Finally, we discuss the troubles of keeping hygroscopic materials from degrading, and have a klatch about Keebin' with Kristina. Check out the links over on Hackaday if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Despite the summer doldrums, it was another big week in the hacking world, and Elliot sat down with Dan for a rundown. Come along for the ride as Dan betrays his total ignorance of soccer/football, much to Elliot's amusement. But it's all about keeping the human factor in sports, so we suppose it was worth it. Less controversially, we ogled over a display of PCB repair heroics, analyzed a reverse engineering effort that got really lucky, and took a look at an adorable one-transistor ham transceiver. We also talked about ants doing surgery, picking locks with nitric acid, a damn cute dam, and how to build one of the world's largest machines from scratch in under a century. Plus, we answered the burning question: can a CRT be used as an audio amplifier? Yes, kind of, but please don't let the audiophiles know or we'll never hear the end of it.  

Get your weekly fix of great hacks with your guides, Elliot Williams and Al Williams. This week, the guys talk about hacking airline WiFi, vanishing cloud services, and hobbies adjacent to hacking, such as general aviation. Things go into the weird and wonderful when the topic turns to cavity filters, driving LEDs with a candle, and thermite. Quick hacks? Everything from vintage automated telescopes to home fusion reactors and ham radio mobile from a bicycle. Then there's the can't miss articles about the Solar Dynamics Observatory and an explainer about flash memory technology. Check out the links over on Hackaday and leave your favorite hack of the week in the comments!

In this episode, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi kick things off with a reminder about the impending deadline for Supercon talk and workshop proposals. From there discussion moves on to the absolutely incredible tale of two brothers who solved a pair of missing person cases with their homebrew underwater vehicle, false data sneaking into OctoPrint's usage statics, and an organic input device that could give the classic mouse a run for its money. You'll also hear about cheap radar modules, open source Xbox mod chips, and lawnmowers from the grocery store. The episode wraps up with a look at the enduring mystique of perpetual motion devices, and the story of a legendary ship that might soon end up being turned into paper clips. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!