Even for those with paraskevidekatriaphobia, today is your lucky day as Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney sit under ladders with umbrellas while holding black cats to talk about the week in awesome hacks. And what a week it was, with a Scooby Doo code review, mushrooms in your PCBs, and the clickiest automatic transmission that never was. Have you ever flashed the firmware on a $4 wireless sensor? Maybe you should try. Wondering how to make a rotary Hall sensor detect linear motion? We’ll answer that too. Will AI muscle the dungeon master out of your D&D group? That’s a hard no. We’ll talk about a new RISC-V ESP32, making old video new again, nuclear reactor kibble, and your least satisfying repair jobs. And yes, everyone can relax — I’m buying her a new stove.

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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!

Episode 201 Show Notes:

News:

• You Can Now Fix Your Deere

What’s that Sound?

• Congratulations to [blessedcustardwaffler] for recognizing the sound of a Portal gun!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Classic Video Chip Drives A Modern TFT
• Retrotechtacular: Critical Code Reading, 70s Style
  • Technology Connextras – YouTube
• Spaceballs Get Serialized
  • GitHub – FreeSpacenav/spacenavd: Free user-space driver for 6-dof space-mice.
  • Quick and dirty Spacemouse test · GitHub
• Replace Your Automatic Transmission With A Bunch Of Relays
• New Part Day: ESP32-P4 Espressif RISC-V Powerhouse
• Clever Mechanism Makes A Linear Control From A Rotary Hall Sensor
  • Turns out this kind of fuel gauge goes back at least as far as the Model T

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  • Variable Width 3D Printing The Hard Way
  • ImHex: An Open Hex Editor For The Modern Hacker
  • Forth Cracks RISC-V
  • Can AI Replace Your DM?
    • Betteridge’s Law of Headlines
• Dan’s Picks:
  • A Practical Glue Stick Oscillator
  • MycelioTronics: Biodegradable Electronics Substrates From Fungi
  • Low-Cost 433 MHz Door Sensors Get Open Firmware

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Ask Hackaday: What’s Your Worst Repair Win?
• The Intricacies Of Creating Fuel For Nuclear Reactors
  • Collection of Mining And Refining pieces (so far)