Guess what’s happening next weekend? The SoCal Linux Expo. SCALE is in its 16th year, and is the second greatest convention happening this year at the Pasadena Convention Center. The first, of course, is AlienCon this summer, with a special guest appearance by the guy with the hair on Ancient Aliens. What’s cool at SCALE? Tons of stuff! Tindie and Hackaday will have a booth, you’ll be able to check out the new stuff from System 76, and this is where I first picked up my most cherished possession, a Microsoft (heart) Linux sticker. NEED A TICKET? Cool, use the code ‘HACK’ to get 50% off!
[Muth] over on hackaday.io has been working on a very, very, very cool high voltage display. It’s a ИГГ1-64x64M, or a Gazotron, or something. What is it? It’s a two-color (green and red) 64×64 pixel VFD bitmap display. You want the king of all vacuum-based displays? Here you go. Progress on driving this display is slow, but it’s happening, and it will result in the coolest clock ever created.
Need a pick and place machine? Don’t want to shell out thousands for a Neoden? Here’s an Indiegogo campaign for the Open Placer, a machine that works with OpenPNP software. It’s got vision and a 295x195mm working area.
A few months ago, news came from Havana that the US embassy was under attack. Staffers at the US embassy in Cuba were feeling sick and apparently suffered neurological damage. Explanations ranged from poisoning to some sort of non-lethal weapon. Now, there might be a banal explanation. Researchers at the University of Michigan think it could simply be two ultrasonic sensors placed just the right distance apart. Acoustic interference happens, and that inaudible 35kHz signal becomes a maddening audible signal.
Last week, we had a great talk with OSH Park about PCBs. These Hack Chats are getting out of control, but at least we have a transcript. The biggest takeaway? They’re out of jellybeans, but OSH Park is working on new stickers.
Open Hardware Summit is the greatest con for all things Open Hardware. This year, it’s going to be in Boston. The Summit will be held on September 27th, 2018 at MIT Stratton Student Center. If you’d like to get there a week and a half early, the MIT ham flea market is the third Sunday of the month.
Yeah, the Hack Chat format is disorderly to use a polite term, a clusterf*** to use a less polite one. I feel like they might be better as just a normal interview with questions asked by Hackaday readers.
If a couple ultrasonic sensors can make the embassy workers in Cuba sick, wait until UBeam starts blasting people with 145-155dB of sound to charge their phones. Not that that will actually ever happen…
I think that ultrasonic thing is not from a tone in the air or it would have been easily detected and tracked. Undertones from two ultrasonic (or two high pitches) can be heard as beats. But apparently other things can be “heard” from nonlinear mixing by the bones and hairs in the inner ear. I had a physics prof who did demonstrations. Anyway, the curious want to know.
IIRC one theory was that the 2nd ultrasonic transmitter was a listening bug instead of some random occupancy sensor.
SO the bug was not always turned on and thus the problems ware not continuous.
ultrasonic sensors give me headaches and make me nauseous. ive avoided using them for some time now.
hc sr04 sensors like im using in my technology project?
Attention ‘open’ subjects conference speakers. Please learn to make public presentations. Perhaps a few toastmaster sessions would help. Some IEEE societies conduct speakers’ tutorials at their annual symposiums. Another suggestion is the U.S. military instructor training courses available online. During my military years, had a ‘podium’ course at NCO school (now called corporals and sergeants courses).
Looking at the linked speakers’ youtube stuff for the coming SCALE was much less than inspirational. You do not have to be a brilliant charismatic presenter; but you do need to be a competent speaker and be focused.
A common theme for comments about my IEEE symposium sessions was for my succinct and direct style, and my enthusiasm and knowledge for the subject matter. This is part of being a tolerable speaker.