This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos traded sweat for silence, recording from their respective attic-level offices in the August heat unaided by fans (too noisy). We decided there’s no real news this week that lacks a political bent, except maybe that Winamp is back with a new version that’s four years in the making. (Is Winamp divisive?) Does it still whip the llama’s ass? You be the judge.

After Elliot gives Kristina a brief math lesson in increasing area with regard to 3D printer nozzle sizes, we talk a bit about 3D pens, drool over a truly customizable macropad that uses a microcontroller for each keyswitch, and  discuss dendrometers and tree health. Then it’s back to keyboards for one incredible modular build with an e-ink display and haptic feedback knob which is soon to go open source.

Finally, we talk tiny CRTs, a USB drive that must have the ultimate in security through obscurity, discuss the merits of retrograde clocks, and wonder aloud about the utility of jumping PCBs. Don’t bounce on us just yet — not until you hear about our first electronics wins and learn the one thing Kristina doesn’t do when she’s spending all day in the heat.

Direct download. And listen with Winamp!

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!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 180: Tiny CRTs, Springy PCBs, And Measuring Trees” →

It’s podcast time again, and this week Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams sat down with Staff Writer Dan Maloney to review the best hacks on the planet, and a few from off. We’ll find out how best to capture lightning, debate the merits of freezing water — or ice cream — when it’s warm, and see if we can find out what R2D2 was really talking about with all those bleeps and bloops. Once we decode that, it’ll be time to find out what Tom Nardi was up to while the boss was away with his hidden message in episode 174, and how analog-encoded digital data survives the podcast production and publication chain. But surely you can’t watch a YouTube video on a Commodore PET, can you? As it turns out, that’s not a problem, and neither apparently is 3D printing a new ear.

The meat of Elliot’s “super secret mastering script”?  Use it on your videos too!

ffmpeg -i $infile.wav -c:v copy -af loudnorm=I=-17:LRA=5:tp=-1.5 -ar 44100 $outfile.flac

Direct download, record it to tape, and play it on your boombox.

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!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 176: Freezing Warm Water, Hacking Lenses, Hearing Data, And Watching YouTube On A PET” →

Join Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we cuss and discuss all the gnarliest hacks from the past week. We kick off this episode with a gentle reminder that the Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals Contest ends this Monday, July 4th, at 8:30 AM PDT. We’ve seen a ton of cool entries so far, including a new version of [Peter Lyons]’ Squeezebox keyboard that we’re itching to write up for the blog.

In other contest news, the Round 2 winners of the Reuse, Recycle, Revamp challenge of the 2022 Hackaday Prize have been announced. Elliot is super stoked about [Jason Knight]’s open-source recycled skateboard deck-making apparatus, and Kristina wishes she had the time and money to build some of the fundamental Precious Plastic machines.

Elliot managed to stump Kristina with this week’s What’s That Sound, though she probably should have made a semi-educated guess. From there, it’s on to missing moon rocks and the word of the day before we get into a handful of contest entries, including a mechanical keyboard to end all mechanical keyboards.

This really just scratches the surface of this week’s show, which includes some new hardware stuffed into old, as well as modern implementations of old technology. And in case you didn’t get enough of Kristina’s childhood memoirs, she goes a bit deeper into the teddy bears and telephones rooms of her memory palace.

Direct download, record it to tape, and play it on your boombox.

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!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 175: Moonrocks And Cockroach Chyme, A Raspberry Pi IPad, And A Retro-Respectful Tape Deck” →

Fresh from vacation, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams makes his triumphant return to the Hackaday Podcast! He’s joined this week by Managing Editor Tom Nardi, who’s just happy he didn’t have to do the whole thing by himself again. In this episode we’ll talk about tackling BGA components in your custom PCBs, a particularly well executed hack against Google’s Nest Hub, and why you probably don’t really want the world’s cheapest 3D printer. We’ll also take a look at an incredible project to turn the Nokia 1680 into a Linux-powered handheld computer, a first of its kind HDMI firewall, and a robot that’s pretty good at making tacos. Listeners who are into artificial intelligence will be in for quite a treat as well, as is anyone who dreams of elevating the lowly automotive alternator to a more prominent position in the hacker world.

By the way, it seems nobody has figured out the hidden message in last week’s podcast yet. What are you waiting for? One of you out there has to be bored enough to give it a shot.

Direct download, and play it offline. You don’t need no stinkin’ cloud.

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!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 174: Breaking Into The Nest, The Cheapest 3D Printer, A Spy In Your HDMI, And AI All Over The Place” →