In Praise Of “Just Because” Hacks

December 31, 2022 by Elliot Williams 25 Comments

Sometimes you pick a project because the world needs it to be done. Or maybe you or a friend need it. Or maybe you don’t really need it, but it fulfills a longstanding dream. In my mind, the last stop before you reach “why am I doing this” is the “just because” hack.

The ideal “just because” hack is limited in scope. You don’t want to spend years on a whimsical project, and because of this a “just because” hack isn’t usually motivating enough to keep you going that long anyway, except for the tenacious few. A “just because” doesn’t necessarily have to be an easy win, but it makes sense for you to see your way out before you get in too deep.

I’m not sure if it’s the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or not, but in the last week or so in the Hackaday universe, a lot of people have been singing the praises of “just because” hacks. (Check out this one discussion, for instance.) Mostly, it’s a combination of them turning out better than initially thought, or it’s about the learning that came along for the ride. Of course, many of them spin off into longer, serious projects even if they didn’t start that way.

Not everything in life can be frivolous, of course. But that makes the “just because” hack that much sweeter, and you should try to make mental room for them if you can. When the stakes are low, creativity can be high. You might still want to impose a deadline, lest you fall into eternal yak shaving, but take it easy. You don’t need a justification all the time: the journey can be the destination.

This Week In Security: 11,000 Gas Stations, TrustZone Hacks Kernel, And Unexpected Fuzzing Finds

September 16, 2022 by Jonathan Bennett 6 Comments

Automated Tank Gauges (ATGs) are nifty bits of tech, sitting unseen in just about every gas station. They keep track of fuel levels, temperature, and other bits of information, and sometimes get tied into the automated systems at the station. The problem, is that a bunch of these devices are listening to port 10001 on the Internet, and some of them appear to be misconfigured. How many? Let’s start with the easier question, how many IPs have port 10001 open? Masscan is one of the best tools for this, and [RoseSecurity] found over 85,000 listening devices. An open port is just the start. How many of those respond to connections with the string In-Tank Inventory Reports? Shodan reports 11,113 IPs as of August of this year. [RoseSecurity] wrote a simple Python script that checked each of those listening IPs came up with a matching number of devices. The scary bit is that this check was done by sending a Get In-Tank Inventory Report command, and checking for a good response. It seems like that’s 11K systems, connected to the internet, with no authentication. What could possibly go wrong? Continue reading “This Week In Security: 11,000 Gas Stations, TrustZone Hacks Kernel, And Unexpected Fuzzing Finds” →

The Philly Maker Faire Is Back And Wants Your Hacks

September 12, 2022 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

After two years of waiting out the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philadelphia Maker Faire is officially back for 2022. The one-day event will take place on Saturday, the 15th of October, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Independence Seaport Museum.

We don’t have a schedule or full list of what will be on display this far out, but given what we saw during our 2019 visit, we’re confident you’ll get your tickets worth. While we keenly felt the loss of the flagship Maker Faires in California and New York, we can take some solace in the fact that their absence has given these smaller Faires a chance to move in and grow in ways that might not have been possible before.

For those looking to take an active role in what’s often been called the “Greatest Show & Tell on Earth”, organizers will be accepting proposals until September 15th for individuals, groups, and companies that want to share their creations with attendees. Participation is free, so long as you aren’t trying to sell anything, and offers a fantastic way to show off those pandemic projects. That said, proposals aren’t limited to just hardware projects — artwork, live performances, and workshops will also be considered. Basically, if it’s something the STEAM crowd would be interested in checking out, consider it fair game.

If you can spare some time after seeing everything that will be on display at the Maker Faire, the Independence Seaport Museum itself sounds like a pretty fascinating place to check out. Beyond the exhibits and collection of maritime artifacts, the Seaport also offers the chance to take tours aboard a pair of unique vessels: the USS Olympia saw service in the Spanish–American and First World Wars, and USS Becuna is one of only eight surviving WWII Balao-class submarines currently available for public viewing.

Planning on attending the 2022 Philadelphia Maker Faire? Maybe even presenting? Let us know in the comments. Who knows, you might just run into a Hackaday writer in the wild and score yourself some coveted Wrencher stickers.

Organise Your Hacks With TreeSheets: An Open Source Hierarchical Spreadsheet

September 7, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 42 Comments

Some people may have heard of Dutch programmer [Wouter Van Oortmerssen] since he’s the creator of the Amiga-E programming language, as well as being involved with several game engines. Heard of SimCity? How about Borderlands 2 or Far Cry? Having had clearly a long and illustrious career as a programmer for a variety of clients — including a long stint at Google, working on Web Assembly — many people will be familiar with at least some of his work. But you may not have heard of his TreeSheets productivity tool. Which would be a shame, as you’ve been missing out on something pretty darn useful.

TreeSheets is described as a hierarchical spreadsheet, which is intended as a replacement for several distinct tools; think spreadsheets, mindmaps and text editors and similar. In [Wouter]’s words:

It’s like a spreadsheet, immediately familiar, but much more suitable for complex data because it’s hierarchical.
It’s like a mind mapper, but more organized and compact.
It’s like an outliner, but in more than one dimension.
It’s like a text editor, but with structure.

Having been in development for about a decade, TreeSheets might look a bit dated here and there, but the design is clear and distraction-free, which is exactly what you need when you’re trying to focus on the task in hand. Why not give it a try and see if it works for you? After the break, you can see a video tutorial by YouTube user [DrilixProject].

No strangers to productivity hacks, here’s Pomodachi, a cute pomodoro timer crossed with a Tamagotchi. Sometimes productivity isn’t solved with software tools, but more to do with your attitude to projects. Finally sometimes the route to greater productivity is a little closer to home, like inside your head.

Continue reading “Organise Your Hacks With TreeSheets: An Open Source Hierarchical Spreadsheet” →

Simple Hacks To Make LEGO Train Track Out Of Other Pieces

August 30, 2022 by Lewin Day 27 Comments

LEGO trains are fun to play with, but as with any model train, you so seldom have enough track to fulfill your greatest desires. YouTuber [brick_on_the_tracks] has come up with some creative ideas of his own to make track compatible with Lego trains using other techniques.

TRAINED LEGO PROFESSIONALS! DO NOT ATTEMPT IN REAL LIFE!

The most straightforward is to use the LEGO fence piece, first released in 1967. They can be laid in two rows, four studs apart, and they’ll serve as perfectly functional train track. It’s a 100% legal building technique as per the official LEGO rules, too. Official track pieces can be linked up by placing them on a 1-stud-high booster. [brick_on_the_tracks] argues that it’s up to nine times cheaper than using official track, but it depends on how you’re building your layout, and you need to take into account the need for a base plate.

On the sillier side of things, it’s actually possible to use mini-figures as track, too. Again, it’s a 100% legal technique, though the trains don’t run as smoothly compared to the fence track. It’s very amusing, though, and could be a fun addition to a build you’re taking to a local LEGO convention.

If you’re really strapped for cash though, you can go as far as using cardboard. It’s not legal in the LEGO world, and it’s pretty basic, but you could literally make up a layout using nothing but a craft knife and pizza boxes. We’ve actually featured other LEGO train hacks before, like this neat automatic decoupler design.

Continue reading “Simple Hacks To Make LEGO Train Track Out Of Other Pieces” →

Mouse Charging Mod Shows Even Simple Hacks Can End Up Complex

June 9, 2022 by Donald Papp 16 Comments

Hardware hacks have something in common with renovations that involve taking down a wall: until one actually gets started and opens things up, there’s no telling what kind of complications might be lurking. [voussoir] has a project that demonstrates this nicely: modifying a rechargeable mouse to use USB-C instead of micro-B turned out to have quite a few little glitches in the process. In fact, changing the actual receptacle was the simplest part!

On one hand, the mouse in question seems like a perfect candidate for easy modification. The enclosure isn’t too hard to open, there is ample space inside, and USB is used only for recharging the battery. So what was the problem? The trouble is something familiar to anyone who has worked on modifying an existing piece of hardware: existing parts are boundaries to hacking work, and some are less easily modified than others. Continue reading “Mouse Charging Mod Shows Even Simple Hacks Can End Up Complex” →

Monochrome LCD Video Hacks Galore!

May 12, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 23 Comments

[Wenting Zhang] is clearly a fan of old school STN LCD displays, and was wondering how various older portable devices managed to drive monochrome LCDs panels with multiple grey levels. If the display controller supports multiple bits per pixel, it can use various techniques, such as PWM, in order to produce a pseudo-grayscale image. But, what if you have a monochrome-only display controller? With a sufficiently high pixel clock, can you use software on the application side of things to flip those pixels in such a manner as to give a reasonable looking grayscale image?

Simple dithering – don’t look too close!

PDM greyscale approximation in a 1-bit display

[Wenting] goes through multiple techniques, showing the resulting image quality in a clear, systematic manner. The first idea is to use a traditional dithering technique. For each pixel, it is set to black if the grey value is below some threshold. The resulting error value, is then propagated to neighbouring pixels. This error diffusion process smears the error out over the whole display, so spatially speaking, on average the pixel values correspond roughly to the original gray values. But, the pixels themselves are still either on or off. This isn’t quite enough. The next idea is to PWM the individual pixels over multiple frames, to approximate different grey levels. But, that gives a worst case effective refresh rate of 8 Hz with a PWM period of 15 frames, at 120 fps, and that flickers. Badly. One way to mitigate that is to switch to PDM (pulse density modulation) which selects different length sequences to give the same duty cycle but at higher frequency, at least for some grey values. Slightly better, but there’s more that can be done. Continue reading “Monochrome LCD Video Hacks Galore!” →