A Tale Of Two Car Design Philosophies

As a classic car enthusiast, my passion revolves around cars with a Made in West Germany stamp somewhere on them, partially because that phrase generally implied a reputation for mechanical honesty and engineering sanity. Air-cooled Volkswagens are my favorites, and in fact I wrote about these, and my own ’72 Super Beetle, almost a decade ago. The platform is incredibly versatile and hackable, not to mention inexpensive and repairable thanks to its design as a practical, affordable car originally meant for German families in the post-war era and which eventually spread worldwide. My other soft-spot is a car that might seem almost diametrically opposed to early VWs in its design philosophy: the Mercedes 300D. While it was a luxury vehicle, expensive and overbuilt in comparison to classic Volkswagens, the engineers’ design choices ultimately earned it a reputation as one of the most reliable cars ever made.

As much as I appreciate these classics, though, there’s almost nothing that could compel me to purchase a modern vehicle from either of these brands. The core reason is that both have essentially abandoned the design philosophies that made them famous in the first place. And while it’s no longer possible to buy anything stamped Made in West Germany for obvious reasons, even a modern car with a VIN starting with a W doesn’t carry that same weight anymore. It more likely marks a vehicle destined for a lease term rather than one meant to be repaired and driven for decades, like my Beetle or my 300D.

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2025 Hackaday Supercon: Crafting The Final Frontier Keynote Event

In the history of entertainment, few properties have made the sort of indelible mark on popular culture as Star Trek has. In 950 episodes across the twelve television series that have carried the name, the franchise has made a spectacle not of explosions and machismo, but of competent professionals working together to solve complex problems. In the world of Star Trek, the coolest people in the room are the scientists, engineers, physicists, and doctors — is it any wonder so many in the sciences credit the show for putting them on their career path?

Hardware hacker, maker, and Trekkie Andrew [MakeItHackin] will lead the panel.
To celebrate the impact of Star Trek, we’re proud to announce our keynote event for the 2025 Hackaday Supercon: Crafting the Final Frontier. This round-table discussion led by Andrew [MakeItHackin] will bring together some of the artists that have helped cultivate the look and feel of the final frontier since Star Trek: The Next Generation and all the way into the modern era with Star Trek: Picard.

While the art direction of the original Star Trek series from 1966 was remarkably ahead of its time, these are some of the key individuals who were brought in to refine those early rough-hewn ideas into cultural touchstones. Their work ended up becoming more than simple entertainment, and ultimately helped inspire some of the real-world technology we use on a daily basis. The iconic LCARS computer interface predicted the rise of the touch screen, while its impossible to look at props such as the PADD and Tricorder and not see the parallels with modern tablets and smartphones.

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Hackaday Links: October 12, 2025

We’ve probably all seen some old newsreel or documentary from The Before Times where the narrator, using his best Mid-Atlantic accent, described those newfangled computers as “thinking machines,” or better yet, “electronic brains.” It was an apt description, at least considering that the intended audience had no other frame of reference at a time when the most complex machine they were familiar with was a telephone. But what if the whole “brain” thing could be taken more literally? We’ll have to figure that out soon if these computers powered by miniature human brains end up getting any traction.

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 341: Qualcomm Owns Arduino, Steppers Still Dominate 3D Printing, And Google Controls Your Apps

The nights are drawing in for Europeans, and Elliot Williams is joined this week by Jenny List for an evening podcast looking at the past week in all things Hackaday. After reminding listeners of the upcoming Hackaday Supercon and Jawncon events, we take a moment to mark the sad passing of the prolific YouTuber, Robert Murray-Smith.

Before diving into the real hacks, there are a couple of more general news stories with an effect on our community. First, the takeover of Arduino by Qualcomm, and what its effect is likely to be. We try to speculate as to where the Arduino platform might go from here, and even whether it remains the player it once was, in 2025. Then there’s the decision by Google to restrict Android sideloading to only approved-developer APKs unless over ADB. It’s an assault on a user’s rights over their own hardware, as well as something of a blow to the open-source Android ecosystem. What will be our community’s response?

On more familiar territory we have custom LCDs, algorithmic art, and a discussion of non-stepper motors in 3D printing. Even the MakerBot Cupcake makes an appearance. Then there’s a tiny RV, new creative use of an ESP32 peripheral, and the DVD logo screensaver, in hardware. We end the show with a look at why logic circuits use the voltages they do. It’s a smorgasbord of hacks for your listening enjoyment.

Download yourself an MP3 even without a Hackaday Listeners’ License.

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This Week In Security: ID Breaches, Code Smell, And Poetic Flows

Discord had a data breach back on September 20th, via an outsourced support contractor. It seems it was a Zendesk instance that was accessed for 58 hours through a compromised contractor user account. There have been numbers thrown around from groups claiming to be behind the breach, like 1.6 Terabytes of data downloaded, 5.5 million user affected, and 2.1 million photos of IDs.

Discord has pushed back on those numbers, stating that it’s about 70,000 IDs that were leaked, with no comments on the other claims. To their credit, Discord has steadfastly refused to pay any ransom. There’s an interesting question here: why were Discord users’ government issued IDs on record with their accounts?

The answer is fairly simple: legal compliance. Governments around the world are beginning to require age verification from users. This often takes the form of a scan of valid ID, or even taking a picture of the user while holding the ID. There are many arguments about whether this is a good or bad development for the web, but it looks like ID age verification is going to be around for a while, and it’ll make data breaches more serious.

In similar news, Salesforce has announced that they won’t be paying any ransoms to the group behind the compromise of 39 different Salesforce customers. This campaign was performed by calling companies that use the Salesforce platform, and convincing the target to install a malicious app inside their Saleforce instance. Continue reading “This Week In Security: ID Breaches, Code Smell, And Poetic Flows”

Meshtastic: A Tale Of Two Cities

If I’m honest with myself, I don’t really need access to an off-grid, fault-tolerant, mesh network like Meshtastic. The weather here in New Jersey isn’t quite so dynamic that there’s any great chance the local infrastructure will be knocked offline, and while I do value my privacy as much as any other self-respecting hacker, there’s nothing in my chats that’s sensitive enough that it needs to be done off the Internet.

But damn it, do I want it. The idea that everyday citizens of all walks of life are organizing and building out their own communications network with DIY hardware and open source software is incredibly exciting to me. It’s like the best parts of a cyberpunk novel, without all the cybernetic implants, pollution, and over-reaching megacorps. Well, we’ve got those last two, but you know what I mean.

Meshtastic maps are never exhaustive, but this gives an idea of node density in Philly versus surrounding area.

Even though I found the Meshtastic concept appealing, my seemingly infinite backlog of projects kept me from getting involved until relatively recently. It wasn’t until I got my hands on the Hacker Pager that my passing interest turned into a full blown obsession. But it’s perhaps not for the reason you might think. Traveling around to different East Coast events with the device in my bag, it would happily chirp away when within range of Philadelphia or New York, but then fall silent again once I got home. While I’d get the occasional notification of a nearby node, my area had nothing like the robust and active mesh networks found in those cities.

Well, they say you should be the change you want to see in the world, so I decided to do something about it. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to build up an entire network by myself, but I figured that if I started standing up some nodes, others might notice and follow suit. It was around this time that Seeed Studio introduced the SenseCAP Solar node, which looked like a good way to get started. So I bought two of them with the idea of putting one on my house and the other on my parent’s place down the shore.

The results weren’t quite what I expected, but it’s certainly been an interesting experience so far, and today I’m even more eager to build up the mesh than I was in the beginning.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 850: One ROM To Rule Them All

This week Jonathan and Aaron chat with Piers Finlayson about One ROM! Why does the retro-computing world need a solution for replacement ROMs? How difficult was it to squeeze a MCU and layout into the original ROM footprint? And what’s next for the project? Listen to find out!

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