Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams is joined this week by newly minted Development Editor (and definitely not brother) Al Williams to bring you the weekly highlights from our little corner of the Internet. Between the rapidly approaching deadline for the Low-Power Challenge to Samsung creating a fake Moon with artificial intelligence, there’s plenty in the news to get this episode started. From there, the Williams plural discuss using a webcam for cheap virtual reality thrills, an impressive expansion for the Flipper Zero, and whether or not finding a bug in the Nintendo DSi browser counts as retrocomputing. Stick around to hear about the fascinating work Joshua Vasquez has been doing with DIY light guide plates, and Arya Voronova’s deep-dive into PCI-Express.
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 210 Show Notes:
News:
What’s that Sound?
- Congratulations to [Tjørnild] for knowing what Tom’s radiator sounds like!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
- AI And Savvy Marketing Create Dubious Moon Photos
- Immersive Virtual Reality From The Humble Webcam
- Flipper Zero Mayhem Hat Adds Camera, More Radios
- A Love Letter To The Sphere Computer
- Breaking Into The Nintendo DSi Through The (Browser) Window
- The USB Protocol, Explained
Quick Hacks:
- Elliot’s Picks:
- Al’s Picks:
For those who might need some context, here is the noisemaker in question:
That’s a beaut!
An elegant weapon from a more civilized age.
I have baseboard heat from a boiler and our flow control has made a very similar noise all winter. If I would release air from the purge valve, the noise would disappear. Over the course of the past ~2 months, the noise was more frequent and I was constantly purging air… little did I know it was because the system was drying up.
Eventually our heat stopped working late last week. The makeup valve on the expansion tank (and the pressure gauge) clogged and was addressed with a good system flush. I now have a quiet system without any chatter from the system.
I’m not sure I could ever get used to that sound.
Did you change your mic this week, Elliot? There’s some noise on your side of the recording that wasn’t canceled out. Dunno why I associate that type of noise with USB.
Al sounds great though!
Back to the podcast…
Yeah, about halfway through I noticed that there was some horrible interference noise on the computer audio. You’re probably right that it was USB.
Swapped up afterwards, so the second half is clean.
But it took no small amount of filtering and other noise reduction foolery to make the first half even listenable.
Just listened to the latest podcast Friday. MUST HAVE Al on more. He was great, showed yet another side of HaD that we don’t get to typically see. Very nice job Al. Texas is well represented now.
>> François-Philippe , is the 54-year old Canadian Minister of Innovation (sic), Science and Industry, once “young global leader” is your typical ignorant Maber of Parliament (equivalent to the American House of Representatives) shooting his mouth off on nothing h knows about.
>> He proposes “banning” the Flipper, a multi-purpose piece of electronic equipment much akin to a common volt/ammeter in it’s utility.
>> Following Champagne’s “thought” process he should ban hammers, knives, etc., since they, too, can be dangerous. Take a hammer – it’s great for banging nails, starting screws, shaping metal etc. Horror of horrors it can be used to kill people? Basically anything can be used for good and bad.
>> The Flipper can be used for many beneficial purposes. Car theft occurs because vehicle security is illusory. a cheap attempted solution. The keys (watch your eyes) can be copied by street vendors, the glass can be broken. If the vehicle security really concerned vehicle manufacturers. they would do much more than rolling code remotes.
>> I have 2 & 4 wheel vehicles which take me about a day to really make theft-proof. Doesn’t cost much either. Even my service mechanics haven’t found a way to avoid asking me (an electronics tech) to off the alarm.
>> The answer to our (I am Canadian) brain-dead minister is to require car manufacturers to beef up their vehicles.
>> Banning doesn’t work. Remember “Blue Boxes” well I have still have a couple. But I also have an App on my HUAWEI Mate (also on a Android) that generates BB Tones. One of my guys has Flapper App for those smartphones. What are you going to do, you poutain-eating sad-sack.
The term Flipper is the name of our Apps and substituted for the commercial name Flapper.