The 20,000th Post On Hackaday

When you love what you do it’s easy to let the days flow by. Now, with a milestone reached the Hackaday crew is excited to take a pause and recognize this, the 20,000th post published here. Here’s a look at the some of the highlights, and a few words on where we plan to go from here.

Hacks that Amaze

Hacks of all shapes and sizes are what we celebrate, but there’s a special place in our hearts for the most impressive work. Here are just four of our favorites from over the years.

[Samy Kamkar’s] keysweeper is eloquent and brilliant; a Bluetooth keyboard keysniffer hiding is a USB charger. A classic, and one of the most visited posts of all is [Joe Grand] and his colleague’s work on reverse engineering San Francisco parking meter pay systems. A great friend of Hackaday, [Sprite_TM] presented a reverse-engineered firmware keyboard backlight hack at the 2014 Hackaday Prize award presentation that was absolutely jaw-dropping. And a microscope build that can make out individual atoms — how amazing is that?

News and How-Tos

We stay on top of the news that impacts your workbench. Like the teeth-grinding driver “update” that FTDI pushed to brick devices using fake chips. Just last week [Brian] called the community to action to let the FCC know that a new WiFi rule under consideration is a really bad idea. And unfortunately, nothing could be done to save the Shack.

The writing crew has had a marvelous time sharing their skill and experience with the community. A hugely popular post from many years back showed how to make a color-coded combination door lock. [Eric] posted a huge four-part CAN hacking guide. And recently we’ve seen amazing guides from [Elliot Williams], [Bil Herd], and [Al Williams] covering everything from being a better embedded developer, to learning FPGAs, and understanding silicon.

Discovering Hardware and Celebrating Absurdity

Want to talk about the newest chips and boards? We’ve got you covered. From the announcement of the ESP8266, to the coming of Raspberry Pi 2, and the recent hubbub about the new Orange Pi board, we’ve seen many conversations about a lot of interesting hardware as it arrives on the scene. Of course, sometimes you just want something eyebrow-raising for a different reason and that is right in our wheelhouse too. Remember the SQL-injection method of making your car invisible to the authorities? How about that highly controversial mains crossover cable?

It’s been a great run. After you get done with the next segment about where we’re going, hit the comments section. We’d love to hear your favorite posts and conversations from the last twenty-thousand posts.

State of the Editorial

Our editorial voice is strong and getting stronger. This isn’t merely 20,000 posts, it’s 20,000 conversation threads and the community is what makes that happen. Our writers are selected from the community and it is their interests, experiences, and judgement that has kept Hackaday fresh for nearly eleven years now.

We have constantly been pushing to better utilize the talents of the Hackaday crew. You’ll notice that the projects we feature are covered in ever-increasing depth, we’ve grown our opinion and news offerings, and continued to make long-form content the shining star of the publishing schedule. Many of these posts have been accompanied by the amazing art of [Joe Kim], and we’ve been fortunate to have a steady stream of guest posts from some really amazing hackers. There are so many people to thank for this.

First, thank you. Thank you for making Hackaday your first stop every morning. Thank you for sharing the projects and experiments you’ve built that have been featured over the years. Next, our crew of writers and editors who work around the clock through weekends and holidays to keep the posts rolling. This is of course all supported by software engineers, designers, and a lot of other people who keep this site, and our community platform Hackaday.io, up and running. We’re grateful to our advertising sponsors who recognize that this community is special and worth supporting. This sentiment is shared most of all by our parent company Supplyframe, who have made great content a top priority. Thank you!

We’ll see you back here in three hours for post 20,001.

27 thoughts on “The 20,000th Post On Hackaday

  1. Man, I have read HaD on average 3 times per day for the last 6 years, and in that time the content has quite literally changed my life. Im amazed how HaD has grown in that time. Thanks for the awesome work guys! Keep it up!

    1. I don’t mind the odd duplicate from a few years back. The hacking scene is changing fast wtih 3D printing, Affordable CNC and Laser cutters, so sometimes something that may have been hard to reproduce getting posted again can be great because more people have the technology to reproduce or use the idea’s. When you have 20,000 posts and many different people writing these articles I would be suprised if there was no duplication.

  2. the historical stuff has been really good. Retotacular is always excellent in preserving “the old ways” but the best was computers behind the iron curtain. Seconded only slightly by Bill’s inside C= posts.

  3. I actually like the double posts or similar Hacks due to it testing my memory of all the Hacks I have read on this site. Been a fan since the inception of HAD! Keep up the great work!

  4. Hooray! I don’t know when I started reading, but I emailed myself a link to a cantenna post a little more than 6 years ago, so it’s been at least that long. During that time, many of the flag bearers for the spirit that I love about internet have disappeared, or at least seemed to fade, and when Caleb left a year or two ago I wondered if HaD was also doomed to succumb. But instead, it’s felt like the site has pulled of the impressive trick of rejuvenating itself without losing the most special parts of its character. I mean, who saw Hackaday.io coming at all, let alone being full of stuff? I don’t pay enough attention to commenter zeitgeist to really have a sense that scene, but I often find a lot that’s worthwhile there. And hey, this is still the first place I went to learn what sucks about the new RasPi display thing ;)

    Anyway: congrats, HaD!

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