No More Windows For The Dutch Government, Ze Kiezen Nu Linux

September 29, 2026 by No comments

The events of the last few years have caused many in Europe to re-evaluate their reliance on large offshore technology companies, with a corresponding move to home-grown EU-based alternatives. It’s one thing when individuals or companies do this, but another entirely when it’s an entire country. So the news that the Netherlands is building their own Linux distribution to replace Microsoft Windows in government installations, is not inconsequential. The Tweakers site linked  actively breaks out of Google Translate, so you may have to rely on your browser’s translation tool if you are not a Dutch speaker.

The Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid, or Digital Autonomous Work Environment, is a distro based upon NixOS, itself originally a product of a Dutch university. It comes complete with all the office and collaboration applications needed to replace Windows, and is reported to have been tested alreasy by a small group of Dutch government workers.

The influence of this move is likely to be a huge one for Microsoft, given that governments have huge numbers of operating system seats. But perhaps more important than the OS itself are the extras that Microsoft would like to sell to its OS customers, such as AI services. We’d expect that there will be managers in Redmond paying close attention to Europe in the wake of this move.

Meanwhile the Netherlands has a vibrant hacker community, and we can imagine that this move will be welcomed in those quarters. All Netherlands government online services are accessed through an ID verificaiton app called DigID, and it’s a lament we’ve heard from our Dutch friends that this only works with Windows, Android and Apple platforms. If this means a Linux version will appear on the back of an NL government Linux distro, we know some people who will be very happy indeed.

NL flag: SpinnerLaserzthe2nd, CC0. Tux: Larry Ewing (lewing@isc.tamu.edu) and The GIMP. Attribution.

Determining Diamond’s Properties Under Extreme Pressures

September 29, 2026 by No comments

Although graphene gives diamond a solid run for its money when it comes to being the most useful assembly of carbon atoms, both have the distinct property of material scientists still trying to figure out all their properties and potential applications. This includes something like the melting curve of diamond and potential phases beyond this diamond lattice phase that occur when exposed to extreme pressures and temperatures. Such as those experienced on a planetary scale and during inertial confinement fusion (ICF).

In this research (paywalled) by researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), it was investigated how close theoretical simulations were to physical reality by blasting diamond samples with a laser. This ablated the surface and sent a shockwave through the material that caused it to melt. Using X-ray diffraction data this entire process was followed, elucidating the exact melting temperature under such conditions.

This revealed that previous estimates based on earlier experiments had been off by many hundreds of degrees, giving a far better idea of how diamond responds to such extreme pressures and temperatures. Where such information is very relevant is in fields like planetary science where diamonds can occur naturally and being able to predict their presence can be essential.

The other application, and the primary reason why LLNL does this kind of research is for the sake of ICF at the national ignition facility (NIF), which is the best way to investigate the behavior of e.g. hydrogen isotopes under extreme conditions like those of nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately this research will have no impact on practical power generation using nuclear fusion, as the only viable path there involves forms of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF), but it’s still pretty rad to improve our understanding this carbon form.

The Deep Magic Of 3D Graphics Perspective

September 29, 2026 by No comments

Many of us of a certain age will have had their first true, good 3D video game experience with Super Mario 64. Unlike previous 3D games, the camera was an object controllable by the player, rather than a first-person-ony mode or one where the game tries to guess the best placement for the camera. We might take this mechanic for granted today, but 3D was a new technology at the time that took experimentation before settling on the norms we have today. From a programming perspective, 3D graphics can be a bit of a head-scratcher but [Gabriel] shows that perspective and the camera can be as simple as a few lines of math.

When starting out as a programmer, [Gabriel] used various tools that provided a camera somewhat automatically. But after reaching the limits of these types of frameworks, the next step is to learn how that works from scratch. It turns out that it’s a bit of matrix math, with values for foreground and background clipping planes as well as aspect, field of view, and position. This basically replicates a trapezoidal prism which can be thought of as a viewer looking at a scene from the perspective of a camera. To provide the depth effect, the X and Y coordinates are divided by the Z coordinate within this matrix system, making far-away objects smaller and generating the 3D effect.

On [Gabriel]’s site which explains this method, there are a few sliders in several examples that demonstrate how changing values of each of these variables changes the perspective and the object being displayed. For a math lesson it is very interactive and helps intuit these concepts. Cameras aside, the generation of 3D objects has its own unique set of math equations to learn about that are “equally” interesting.

Designing A Fully 3D-Printed Mechanical Calculator

September 29, 2026 by No comments

Even if almost tragically impractical in a world where digital calculators are cheap as chips, mechanical calculators and their big mechanical computer brethren remain an absolute marvel of engineering. Using nothing but elements like simple gears their motion is used to calculate everything from a simple multiplication to the proper targeting instructions for an Iowa-class battleship’s guns.

This fascination, along with the mind-bendingly high prices for commercial digital calculators led [3D all Workshop] to spend 2 months on designing his own mechanical calculator. Fully FDM 3D-printed, of course.

In the video the design process and troubleshooting step are covered along with the workings of the mechanisms for both addition and multiplication. While this may seem simple, basically converting numbers of rotations into a final indicator position, aspects like carrying a digit and adding a multiplication feature to the mechanism require some proper engineering.

Of course, using FDM printing for tolerance-sensitive things like gears meant that a lot of time was spent redesigning aspects of the mechanism, going through about a hundred design iterations until it worked, with the help from a bit of lubrication.

Naturally this isn’t the first 3D-printed mechanical calculator, not to mention ones made from wood, but always it’s pretty cool to see one made from first fundamentals.

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Improved Double-Sided Toner Transfer Method

September 29, 2026 by 1 Comment

In the era before PCB shops would make almost any PCB imaginable, as well making many other manufacturing processes for prototypes available to hobbyists, there were several ways of making PCBs at home. Many of which involve harsh chemicals and were easy to mess up. Getting a single-layer PCB using the toner transfer method, for example, took a bit of practice (and a fume hood) to get right. [Bettina Neumryr] is working on a custom two-layer PCB, and has a new trick to get it to come out right despite the added complexity of the second layer.

The method starts out as a standard single-layer board in effect. Toner is ironed onto a copper board, in this case using a laminator, which allows the board to go into an acid bath which washes away all of the un-tonered copper. But with the second layer exposed, this would wash away the other side of the board completely. [Bettina] is using a new method here to protect that layer during the first bath: covering it in ink from a magic marker. With the first board etched, the ink and toner get washed off and the second layer is carefully lined up, put through the laminator, and then the opposite side gets covered in ink for the second acid bath.

After the process is complete and many layers of ink and toner are removed, [Bettina] is left with a PCB that’s ready to receive electronic components, if a little stained from all the ink. As to what this specific board is going to be used for, she’s kept that a bit cryptic as it’s the subject of a future video. Her builds usually revolve around designs from antique elecronics magazines, so it’s almost certainly something of that nature, and that’s also why this specific design couldn’t be just sent off to a board shop.

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Electromechanical TV Goes 3D With This Light-field Display

September 29, 2026 by No comments

A mechanical TV — the kind that makes an image with a Nipkow disk and a single lamp with some help from persistence of vision — is easy enough to wrap your head around. Moving that technique into the third dimension, though? That’s a bit of a head scratcher. Luckily for us [AncientJames] provides a simple visual explanation for how the magic happens.

Instead of a disk doing a raster scan of the display, he’s using a rapidly-spinning drum with holes in it. In place of a single lamp, he’s got an array of LED matrix displays, each 32 pixels by 64 pixels in resolution. The trick is splitting the model up into a light field, so each hole projects its own image of the object at the proper angle.

In this demo there are three matrix displays, though that does limit the viewing angle as they’re arranged as one half of a hexagonal prism — you’d need more screens to get a full 360. The effective resolution through the drum is only about 100 pixels by 48 pixels per eye, but that’s still enough to play DOOM with.

This isn’t the first time this particular [Ancient] has got DOOM going on a volumetric display, and based on previous results, it probably won’t be the last time either. This implementation, which keeps the displays stationary and does not require a pricey laser projector, looks the most accessible to us, as long as you watch your fingers.

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Geothermal Cooling For New York’s Subways

September 29, 2026 by 1 Comment

You might think that if you dug some tunnels down into the ground where you could be out of the sunshine, that you might find them to be relatively cool and comfortable inside. Yet, fill those tunnels with trains and supporting equipment and millions of commuters, and you’ll instead find yourself sweltering in the heat.

New York’s subways are too hot for comfort, and have been for some time. Unfortunately, unlike any old regular building, you can’t just air condition a subway and call it done. Instead, authorities are looking for other solutions to beat the heat on the famous underground transit network.

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