Static electricity often just seems like an everyday annoyance when a wool sweater crackles as you pull it off, or when a doorknob delivers an unexpected zap. Regardless, the phenomenon is much more fascinating and complex than these simple examples suggest. In fact, static electricity is direct observable evidence of the actions of subatomic particles and the charges they carry.
While zaps from a fuzzy carpet or playground slide are funny, humanity has learned how to harness this naturally occurring force in far more deliberate and intriguing ways. In this article, we’ll dive into some of the most iconic machines that generate static electricity and explore how they work.
It is hard to imagine that a handful of decades ago, TV wasn’t a thing. We’ve talked a few times about the birth of television. After an admittedly slow slow start, it took over like wildfire. Of course, anything that sells millions will spawn accessories. Some may be great. Then there are others.
We wanted to take a nostalgic look back at some of the strange add-ons people used to put on or in their TVs. Sure, VCRs, DVD players, and video game consoles were popular. But we were thinking a little more obscure than that.
Rabbit Ears
A state-of-the-art set of rabbit ears from the 1970s
Every once in a while, we see an ad or a box in a store touting the ability to get great TV programming for free. Invariably, it is a USB device that lets you watch free streaming channels or it is an antenna. There was a time when nearly all TVs had “rabbit ears” — so called because they made an inverted V on the top of your set.
These dipoles were telescoping and you were supposed to adjust them to fit the TV station you were watching but everyone “knew” that you wanted them as long as possible at all times. Holding one end of them gave it a ground and would give you a major improvement in picture. People also liked to wrap tin foil around the tips. Was it like a capacitive hat? We aren’t sure.
The better rabbit ears had knobs and switches along with multiple elements. If you lived close to a TV station, you probably didn’t need much. If you didn’t, no number of fancy add-ons would likely help you. Continue reading “Retro Gadgets: Things Your TV No Longer Needs”→
There are a lot of fantastic things about Hackaday Supercon, but for me personally, the highlight is always seeing the dizzying array of electronic bits and bobs that folks bring with them. If you’ve never had the chance to join us in Pasadena, it’s a bit like a hardware show-and-tell, where half the people you meet are eager to pull some homemade gadget out of their bag for an impromptu demonstration. But what’s really cool is that they’ve often made enough of said device that they can hand them out to anyone who’s interested. Put simply, it’s very easy to leave Supercon with a whole lot more stuff than when you came in with.
Most people would look at this as a benefit of attending, which of course it is. But in a way, the experience bummed me out for the first couple of years. Sure, I got to take home a literal sack of incredible hardware created by members of our community, and I’ve cherished each piece. But I never had anything to give them in return, and that didn’t quite sit right with me.
So last year I decided to be a bit more proactive and make my own Simple Add-On (SAO) in time for Supercon 2023. With a stack of these in my bag, I’d have a personalized piece of hardware to hand out that attendees could plug right into their badge and enjoy. From previous years I also knew there was something of an underground SAO market at Supercon, and that I’d find plenty of people who would be happy to swap one for their own add-ons for mine.
To say that designing, building, and distributing my first SAO was a rewarding experience would be something of an understatement. It made such an impression on me that it ended up helping to guide our brainstorming sessions for what would become the 2024 Supercon badge and the ongoing SAO Contest. Put simply, making an SAO and swapping it with other attendees adds an exciting new element to a hacker con, and you should absolutely do it.
So while you’ve still got time to get PCBs ordered, let’s take a look at some of the unique aspects of creating your own Simple Add-On.
You probably think of them as “Ziploc” bags, but, technically, the generic term is zipper bag. Everything from electronic components to coffee beans arrive in them. But they weren’t always everywhere, and it took a while for them to find their niche.
Image from an early Madsen patent
A Dane named Borge Madsen was actually trying to create a new kind of zipper for clothes in the 1950s and had several patents on the technology. The Madsen zipper consisted of two interlocking pieces of plastic and a tab to press them together. Unfortunately, the didn’t work very well for clothing.
A Romanian immigrant named Max Ausnit bought the rights to the patent and formed Flexigrip Inc. He used the zippers on flat vinyl pencil cases and similar items. However, these still had the little plastic tab that operated like a zipper pull. While you occasionally see these in certain applications, they aren’t what you think of when you think of zipper bags.
Zipping
Ausnit’s son, Steven, figured out how to remove the tab. That made the bags more robust, a little handier to use, and it also rendered them less expensive to produce. Even so, cost was a barrier because the way they were made was to heat seal the zipper portion to the bags.
That changed in the 1960s when the Ausnits learned of a Japanese company, Seisan Nippon Sha, that had a process to integrate the bags and zippers in one step which slashed the production cost in half. Flexigrip acquired the rights in the United States and created a new company, Minigrip, to promote this type of bag.
A month ago, I’ve talked about using computers to hack on our day-to-day existence, specifically, augmenting my sense of time (or rather, lack thereof). Collecting data has been super helpful – and it’s best to automate it as much as possible. Furthermore, an augment can’t be annoying beyond the level you expect, and making it context-sensitive is important – the augment needs to understand whether it’s the right time to activate.
I want to talk about context sensitivity – it’s one of the aspects that brings us closest to the sci-fi future; currently, in some good ways and many bad ways. Your device needs to know what’s happening around it, which means that you need to give it data beyond what the augment itself is able to collect. Let me show you how you can extract fun insights from collecting data, with an example of a data source you can easily tap while on your computer, talk about implications of data collections, and why you should do it despite everything.
Like many people who solder regularly, I decided years ago to upgrade from a basic iron and invest in a soldering station. My RadioShack digital station has served me well for the better part of 20 years. It heats up fast, tips are readily available, and it’s a breeze to dial in whatever temperature I need. It’s older than both of my children, has moved with me to three different homes, and has outlived two cars and one marriage (so far, anyway).
When I got this, Hackaday still used B&W pictures.
As such, when the new breed of “smart” USB-C soldering irons started hitting the scene, I didn’t find them terribly compelling. Oh sure, I bought a Pinecil. But that’s because I’m an unrepentant open source zealot and love the idea that there’s a soldering iron running a community developed firmware. In practice though, I only used the thing a few times, and even then it was because I needed something portable. Using it at home on the workbench? It just never felt up to the task of daily use.
So when iFixit got in contact a couple weeks back and said they had a prototype USB-C soldering iron they wanted me to take a look at, I was skeptical to say the least. But then I started reading over the documentation they sent over, and couldn’t deny that they had some interesting ideas. For one, it was something of a hybrid iron. It was portable when you needed it to be, yet offered the flexibility and power of a station when you were at the bench.
Even better, they were planning on putting their money where their mouth is. The hardware was designed with repairability in mind at every step. Not only was it modular and easy to open up, but the company would be providing full schematics, teardown guides, and spare parts.
In the early 1990s I was privileged enough to be immersed in the world of technology during the exciting period that gave birth to the World Wide Web, and I can honestly say I managed to completely miss those first stirrings of the information revolution in favour of CD-ROMs, a piece of technology which definitely didn’t have a future. I’ve written in the past about that experience and what it taught me about confusing the medium with the message, but today I’m returning to that period in search of something else. How can we regain some of the things that made that early Web good?
We All Know What’s Wrong With The Web…
It’s likely most Hackaday readers could recite a list of problems with the web as it exists here in 2024. Cory Doctrow coined a word for it, enshitification, referring to the shift of web users from being the consumers of online services to the product of those services, squeezed by a few Internet monopolies. A few massive corporations control so much of our online experience from the server to the browser, to the extent that for so many people there is very little the touch outside those confines. Continue reading “A Look At The Small Web, Part 1”→
