Hackaday Podcast Episode 283: Blinding Lasers, LEDs, And ETs

Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Al Williams reflect on the fact that, as humans, we have–at most–two eyes and no warp drives. While hacking might not be the world’s most dangerous hobby, you do get to work with dangerous voltages, temperatures, and frickin’ lasers. Light features prominently, as the guys talk about LED data interfaces, and detecting faster-than-light travel.

There’s also a USB sniffer, abusing hot glue, and some nostalgia topics ranging from CRT graphics to Apollo workstations (which have nothing directly to do with NASA). The can’t miss articles this week cover hacking you and how you make the red phone ring in the middle of a nuclear war.

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!

As always, please download the file to archive in your doomsday bunker.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 795: Liferay, Now We’re Thinking With Portals

This week Jonathan Bennett and Doc Searls chat with Olaf Kock and Dave Nebinger about Liferay! That’s a Java project that started as an implementation of a web portal, and has turned into a very flexible platform for any sort of web application. How has this Open Source project turned into a very successful business? And how is it connected to most iconic children’s educational show of all time? Listen to find out!

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 282: Saildrones, A New Classic Laptop, And SNES Cartridges Are More Than You Think

In this episode, the CrowdStrike fiasco has Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi pondering the fragility of our modern infrastructure. From there the discussion moves on to robotic sailboats, the evolving state of bespoke computers, and the unique capabilities of the Super Nintendo cartridge. You’ll also hear about cleaning paintings with lasers, the advantages of electronic word processors, stacking 3D printed parts, and the joys of a nice data visualization. They’ll wrap the episode up by marveling at the techniques required to repair undersea fiber optic cables, and the possibilities (and frustrations) of PCB panelization using multiple designs.

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!

As always, the Hackaday Podcast is available in DRM-free MP3 for offline listening.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 794: Release Them All With JReleaser

This week Jonathan Bennett and Katherine Druckman chat with Andres Almiray about JReleaser, the Java release automation tool that’s for more than just Java, and more than just releases. What was the original inspiration for the tool? And how does JReleaser help avoid a string of commits trying to fix GitHub Actions? Listen to find out!

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 281: Metal Clay, Desiccants, Silica Gel, And Keeping Filament Dry

This week on the Podcast, it’s Kristina’s turn to bloviate alongside Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams. First up in the news: our fresh new contest has drawn three entries already! That’s right, the 2024 Tiny Games Challenge is underway. You have until September 10th to show us your best tiny game, whether that means tiny hardware, tiny code, or a tiny BOM.

Then it’s on to What’s That Sound, which sounded familiar to Kristina, but she couldn’t place it. 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 a hack to print metal and a way to weld wood, along with a photo-resistor-based, single-pixel camera. We’ll talk desiccants carbon fiber, and Baron Harkonnen. Finally, we discuss the troubles of keeping hygroscopic materials from degrading, and have a klatch about Keebin’ with Kristina.

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 793: Keeping An Eye On Things With Hilight.io

This week Jonathan Bennett and Aaron Newcomb chat with Jay Khatri, the co-founder of Highlight.io. That’s a web application monitoring tool that can help you troubleshoot performance problems, find bugs, and improve experiences for anything that runs in a browser or browser-like environment. Why did they opt to make this tool Open Source? What’s the funding model? And what’s the surprising challenge we tried to help Jay solve, live on the show? Listen to find out!

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 280: TV Tubes As Amplifiers, Smart Tech In Sportsballs, And Adrian Gives Us The Fingie

Despite the summer doldrums, it was another big week in the hacking world, and Elliot sat down with Dan for a rundown. Come along for the ride as Dan betrays his total ignorance of soccer/football, much to Elliot’s amusement. But it’s all about keeping the human factor in sports, so we suppose it was worth it. Less controversially, we ogled over a display of PCB repair heroics, analyzed a reverse engineering effort that got really lucky, and took a look at an adorable one-transistor ham transceiver. We also talked about ants doing surgery, picking locks with nitric acid, a damn cute dam, and how to build one of the world’s largest machines from scratch in under a century. Plus, we answered the burning question: can a CRT be used as an audio amplifier? Yes, kind of, but please don’t let the audiophiles know or we’ll never hear the end of it.

Worried about attracting the Black Helicopters? Download the DRM-free MP3 and listen offline, just in case.

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