Hackaday Podcast Episode 266: A Writer’s Deck, Patching Your Battleship, And Fact-Checking The Eclipse

Before Elliot Williams jumps on a train for Hackaday Europe, there was just enough time to meet up virtually with Tom Nardi to discuss their favorite hacks and stories from the previous week. This episode’s topics include the potential benefits of having a dual-gantry 3D printer, using microcontrollers to build bespoke note taking gadgets, the exciting world of rock tumbling, and the proper care and maintenance required to keep your World War II battleship in shape. They’ll also go over some old school keyboard technologies, DIP chip repairs, and documenting celestial events with your home solar array. By the end you’ll hear about the real-world challenges of putting artificial intelligence to work, and how you can safely put high-power lithium batteries to work in your projects without setting your house on fire.

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!

Direct download for off-line listening.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 778: OctoPrint — People Are Amazing At Breaking Things

This week Jonathan Bennett and Katherine Druckman sit down with Gina Häußge to talk OctoPrint! It’s one of our favorite ways to babysit our 3D printers, and the project has come a long way in the last 12 years! It’s a labor of love, primarily led by Gina, who has managed to turn it into a full time job. Listen in to hear that story and more, including how to run an Open Source project without losing your sanity, why plugins are great, and how to avoid adding a special services employee as a co-maintainer!

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 265: Behind The Epic SSH Hack, 1980s Cyber Butler, The Story Of Season 7

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos convened once again to give the lowdown on this week’s best hacks. First up in the news — it’s giga-sunset time for Gigaset IoT devices, which simultaneously became paperweights on March 29th. And all that Flipper Zero panic? It has spread to Australia, but still remains exactly that: panic.

Then it’s on to What’s That Sound. Kristina failed again, although she was in the right neighborhood. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what’s making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with the terrifying news of an xz backdoor. From there, we marvel at a 1980s ‘butler in a box’ — a voice-activated home automation system — and at the idea of LoRa transmissions without a radio. Finally, we discuss why you don’t want to piss off Trekkies, and whether AI has any place in tech support.

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!

Download and savor at your leisure.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 777: Asterisk — Wait, Faxes?

This week Jonathan Bennett and David Ruggles sit down with Joshua Colp to talk about Asterisk! That’s the Open Source phone system software you already interact with without realizing it. It started as a side project to run the phones for Linux Support Services, and it turned out working on phone systems was more fun than supporting Linux. The project grew, and in the years since has landed at Sangoma, where Joshua holds the title of Asterisk Project Lead.

Asterisk is used in call centers, business phone systems, and telecom appliances around the world. But how does it handle faxes, WebRTC, and stopping spam calls? Just kidding on that last one, still an unsolved problem.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 264: Cheap Minimills, 65-in-1 Electronics, And Time On Moon

It was Dan’s turn behind the mic with Elliot this time as we uncovered the latest from the world of hacking, and what an eclectic mix it was. It was slightly heavy on machining, with a look at mini-mills that are better than nothing, and a DIY DRO that’s A-OK. We also kicked the nostalgia bucket over — whatever that means — and got a new twist on the old “65-in-1” concept, found hidden code in 80s music, and looked at color TV in the US and how it got that way. We’ve got ample alliteration about grep, thoughts about telling time on the Moon, and what does Canada have against the poor Flipper Zero, anyway?

Grab a copy for yourself if you want to listen offline.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 776: Dnsmasq, Making The Internet Work Since 1999

This week Jonathan Bennett and Simon Phipps sit down with Simon Kelley to talk about Dnsmasq! That’s a piece of software that was first built to get a laptop online over LapLink, and now runs on most of the world’s routers and phones. How did we get here, and what does the future of Dnsmasq look like? For now, Dnsmasq has a bus factor of one, which is a bit alarming, given how important it is to keeping all of us online. But the beauty of the project being available under the GPL is that if Simon Kelley walks away, Google, OpenWRT, and other users can fork and continue maintenance as needed. Give the episode a listen to learn more about Dnsmasq, how it’s tied to the Human Genome Project, and more!

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 263: Better DMCA, AI Spreadsheet Play, And Home Assistants Your Way

No need to wonder what stories Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams were reading this week. They’ll tell you about them in this week’s podcast. The guys revisit the McDonald’s ice cream machine issue to start.   This week, DIY voice assistants and home automation took center stage. But you’ll also hear about AI chat models implemented as a spreadsheet, an old-school RC controller, and more.

How many parts does it take to make a radio? Not a crystal radio, a software-defined one. Less than you might think. Of course, you’ll also need an antenna, and you can make one from lawn chair webbing.

In the can’t miss articles, you’ll hear about the problems with the x86 architecture and how they tried to find Martian radio broadcasts in the 1920s.

Miss any this week? Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, leave your comments!

Direct download in DRM-free MP3.

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