Curated

76 Articles

Hackaday’s finest original content articles curated by the Hackaday editors

How Many Parts In A Triumph Herald Heater?

April 4, 2017 by 67 Comments

This Herald is in much better condition than my 12/50 was. Philafrenzy [CC BY-SA 4.0]
This Herald is in much better condition than my 12/50 was. Philafrenzy [CC BY-SA 4.0]
What was your first car? Mine was a 1965 Triumph Herald 12/50 in conifer green, and to be frank, it was a bit of a dog.

The Triumph Herald is a small saloon car manufactured between about 1959 and 1971. If you are British your grandparents probably had one, though if you are not a Brit you may have never heard of it. Americans may be familiar with the Triumph Spitfire sports car, a derivative on a shortened version of the same platform. It was an odd car even by the standards of British cars of the 1950s and 1960s. Standard Triumph, the manufacturer, had a problem with their pressing plant being owned by a rival, so had to design a car that used pressings of a smaller size that they could do in-house. Thus the Herald was one of the last British mass-produced cars to have a separate chassis, at a time when all other manufacturers had produced moncoques for years.

My 12/50 was the sporty model, it had the high-lift cam from the Spitfire and a full-length Britax sunroof. It was this sunroof that was its downfall, when I had it around a quarter century of rainwater had leaked in and rotted its rear bodywork. This combined with the engine being spectacularly tired and the Solex carburetor having a penchant for flooding the engine with petrol made it more of a pretty thing to look at than a useful piece of transport. But I loved it, tended it, and when it finally died irreparably I broke it for parts. Since then I’ve had four other Heralds of various different varieties, and the current one, a 1960 Herald 948, I’ve owned since the early 1990s. A piece of advice: never buy version 0 of a car.

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When The Grid Goes Dark

April 3, 2017 by 92 Comments

If you lived through the Y2K fiasco, you might remember a lot of hype with almost zero real-world ramifications in the end. As the calendar year flipped from 1999 to 2000 many forecast disastrous software bugs in machines controlling our banking and infrastructure. While this potential disaster didn’t quite live up to its expectations there was another major infrastructure problem, resulting in many blackouts in North America, that reared its head shortly after the new millennium began. While it may have seemed like Y2K was finally coming to fruition based on the amount of chaos that was caused, the actual cause of these blackouts was simply institutional problems with the power grid itself.

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Cerebrum: Mobile Passwords Lifted Acoustically With NASB

April 1, 2017 by 35 Comments

 

There are innumerable password hacking methods but recent advances in acoustic and accelerometer sensing have opened up the door to side-channel attacks, where passwords or other sensitive data can be extracted from the acoustic properties of the electronics and human interface to the device. A recent and dramatic example includes the hacking of RSA encryption  simply by listening to the frequencies of sound a processor puts out when crunching the numbers.

Now there is a new long-distance hack on the scene. The Cerebrum system represents a recent innovation in side-channel password attacks leveraging acoustic signatures of mobile and other electronic devices to extract password data at stand-off distances.

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Ask Hackaday: Which Balaclava Is Best For Hacking?

April 1, 2017 by 86 Comments

At Hackaday, we’re tapped into Hacker Culture. This goes far beyond a choice of operating system (Arch Linux, or more correctly, ‘Arch GNU/Linux’, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, ‘Arch GNU plus Linux’).  This culture infects every fiber of our soul, from music (DEF CON’s station on Soma FM), our choice in outerwear (black hoodies, duh), and our choice in laptops (covered in stickers). We all wear uniforms, although a gaggle of computer science and electronics nerds all wearing black t-shirts won’t tell you that. We all conform, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Despite a standardized uniform for this subculture, one small detail of this Hacker Uniform has remained unresolved for decades. Are one-hole or three-hole balaclavas best for hacking? Which balaclava is best for stealing bank accounts and hacking into NASA computers? What offers the best protection from precipitating ones and zeros in a real-life Matrix screensaver?

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Review: The O-scope Mayer D4/WG5 Calibrated Fleshy Test Probe

April 1, 2017 by 54 Comments

A selection of probes, from [Jim Williams'] Linear Technology app note 72.
A selection of probes, from [Jim Williams’] Linear Technology app note 72.
It’s not often that we are shown an entirely new class of test equipment here at Hackaday, so it was with some surprise that we recently received the new O-scope Mayer offering. If your most simple piece of test equipment is your own finger, able to measure temperature, detect voltage, and inject a 50 or 60 Hz sine wave, then what they have done is produce a synthetic analogue with a calibrated reading. The idea is that where previously you could only say “Too hot!”, or “High voltage!”, you should now be able to use their calibrated probe to gain an accurate reading.

The O-scope Mayer D4/WG5 Calibrated Fleshy Test Probe is a roughly 4″ (100mm) long cylinder of their InteliMeat™ synthetic finger analogue terminated with a calibrated matching unit and a BNC socket. In the box aside from the instruction leaflet is a BNC lead through which you can connect it to your oscilloscope.

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Introducing The Hackaday Passive Aligned Ferrite Active Quantum Crystal Nanoparticle Reference Sticker

April 1, 2017 by 60 Comments

As you know, here at Hackaday we take our audio equipment very seriously indeed. We’ve seen it all over the years and have a pretty jaded view of a lot of the audiophile products that come past our door, but once in a while along comes something that’s a bit special. That’s why today we’d like to introduce you to a new product, The Hackaday Passive Aligned Ferrite Active Quantum Crystal Nanoparticle Reference Sticker.

Here’s the problem: we’re surrounded by electrical noise. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it, and you can’t hear it, but your audio equipment can, and when that happens it will degrade your listening experience without your realising it. You might have shelled out your life savings on a top-end Hinari amp, Marc Vincent surround sound processor, Friedland carillon wire cables and a set of Saisho floor-standing speakers, but if you haven’t dealt with your system’s magnetic compatibility they’re never quite going to reach their potential and you’ll always be left wondering why your broader soundstage just doesn’t zing. You need an HPAFAQCNRS.

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An Introduction To Differential I²C

March 31, 2017 by 45 Comments

A few weeks back, we talked about the no-nos of running I²C over long wires. For prototyping? Yes! But for a bulletproof production environment, this practice just won’t make the cut. This month I plucked my favorite solution from the bunch and gave it a spin. Specifically, I have put together a differential I²C (DI²C) setup with the PCA9615 to talk to a string of Bosch IMUs. Behold: an IMU Noodle is born! Grab yourself a cup of coffee and join me as I arm you with the nuts and bolts of DI²C so that you too can run I²C over long cables like a boss.

What’s so Schnazzy about Differential Signals?

There’s a host of ways to make I²C’s communication lines more noise resistant. From all of the choices we covered, I picked differential signals. They’re simple, fairly standardized, and just too elegant to ignore. Let’s take a moment for a brief “differential-signals-101” lecture. Hopefully, you’re already caffeinated! Continue reading “An Introduction To Differential I²C” →