Hackaday Podcast 190: Fun With Resin Printing, Tiny Tanks, Lo-Fi Orchestra, And Deep Thoughts With Al Williams

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos rendezvoused in yet another secret, throwaway location to rap about the hottest hacks from the previous week. We start off by gushing about the winners of the Cyberdeck Contest, and go wild over the Wildcard round winners from the Hackaday Prize.

It’s the What’s That Sound? results show, and Kristina was ultimately stumped by the sound of the Kansas City Standard, though she should have at least ventured a guess after shooting down both modem and fax machine noises.

Then it’s on to the hacks, which feature an analog tank-driving simulator from the 1970s, much ado about resin printing, and one cool thing you can do with the serial output from your digital calipers, (assuming you’re not a purist). And of course, stay tuned for the Can’t-Miss Article discussion, because we both picked one of resident philosopher Al Williams’ pieces.

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Hackaday Podcast 189: Seven Segments Three Ways, Candle Code, DIY E-Readers, And The Badge Reveal

This week Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi will discuss the return of the East Coast RepRap Festival, the scientific application of slices of baloney, and the state of the art in homebrew e-readers. The discussion weaves its way through various reimaginings of the seven (or more) segment display, an impressive illuminated headboard that comes with its own science-fiction film, and the surprising difficulty of getting a blinking LED to actually look like a flame. Stick around to the end to find out why iPhones are freaking out on amusement park rides, and to hear all the details about this year’s Supercon badge.

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Hackaday Podcast 188: Zapping Cockroaches, Tricking AIs, Antique 3D Scanning, And Grinding Chips To QFN

It’s déjà vu all over again as Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams gets together with Staff Writer Dan Maloney to look over the best hacks from the past week. If you’ve got a fear of giant cockroaches, don’t worry; we’ll only mention the regular ones when we talk about zapping them with lasers. What do you need to shrinkify an NES? Just a little sandpaper and a lot of finesse.

Did you know that 3D scanning is (sort of) over a century old? Or that the first real microcomputer dates all the way back to 1972 — and isn’t one of those blinkenlight deals? And watch out for what you tell GPT-3 to ignore — it might just take you very seriously. We’ll touch on solar-powered cameras, a compressor of compressors, and talk about all the unusual places to find lithium batteries for your projects. It’s an episode so good you might just want to listen to it twice!

(In case you’re wondering about all this “twice” stuff — Elliot forgot to hit record on the first take and we had to do the entire podcast over again. Oh, the humanity!)

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 187: The Sound Of Gleeful Gerbils, The Song Of The Hard Drive, And A Lipstick Pickup Lullaby

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos gushed about NASA’s live obliteration of minor planet Dimorphos using a probe outfitted with a camera. Spoiler alert: the probe reaches its rock-dappled rocky target just fine, and the final transmitted image has a decidedly human tinge.

Kristina brought the mystery sound again this week, much to Elliot’s sonic delight. Did he get it? Did he figure it out? Well, no. The important thing is one of you is bound to get it.

We kick off the hacks with a really neat 3D printed linkage that acts as an elevator for a marble run, and then we discuss a mid-century hack that helps you decide whether it’s time to emerge from the fallout shelter using the contents of your typical 1950s pockets. We spent a few minutes comparing our recent radiation exposure levels  — Kristina wins with about a dozen x-rays so far this year, but no full-body CT scans. Then we talk guitars for a bit, remember a forgotten CPU from TI, and spend a few cycles talking about a tone-wheel organ that sounds like a chorus of gleeful gerbils.

Finally, we talk toner transfer for 3D prints, argue in defense of small teams versus large committees, and get all tangled up in cursive.

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Hackaday Podcast 186: Weighing Cats, Slamming VU Meters, Slimmer Skimmers, And Clean Air On The Cheap

Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams took time out from Supercon planning to join Staff Writer Dan Maloney for a look through the hacking week that was. We always try to keep things light, but it’s hard sometimes, especially when we have to talk about wars past and present and the ordnance they leave behind. It’s also not a lot of fun to talk about a continent-wide radio outage thanks to our angry Sun, nor is learning that a wafer-thin card skimmer could be lurking in your ATM machine.

But then again, we did manage to have some fun by weighing cats to make sure they’re properly fed, and making music by pegging VU meters. We also saw how to use PCBs to make a beautiful yet functional circuit sculpture, clean up indoor air on a budget, and move microns with hardware store parts. And we also got to celebrate a ray of international hope by looking back on the year that taught us much of what we know about the Earth.

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!

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Hackaday Podcast 185: A 2022 Rotary Phone, How AI Imagines Zepplin, Are We Alone In The Universe

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi start off by talking about the chip shortage…but not how you think. With a list that supposedly breaks down all of the electronic components that the Russian military are desperate to get their hands on, we can see hackers aren’t the only ones scrounging for parts. If you thought getting components was tricky already, imagine if most of the world decided to put sanctions on you.

We’ll also talk about kid-friendly DIY stereoscopic displays, the return of the rotary cellphone, and using heat to seal up 3D printed parts for vacuum applications. Join us as we marvel over the use of rubbery swag wristbands as tank treads, and ponder an array of AI-created nightmares that are supposed to represent the Hackaday writing crew. Finally we’ll talk about two iconic legacies: that of the 3.5 inch floppy disk, and astrophysicist Frank Drake.

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Hackaday Podcast 184: What Is Art, Bulk Tape Eraser Go Brr, And The Death Of Email

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos had a lot of fun discussing the best of the previous week’s hacks in spite of Elliot’s microphone connectivity troubles. News-wise, we busted out the wine and cheese to briefly debate whether a Colorado man should have won an art competition by entering an image created by AI. Afterward, we went around a bit about floppies, which are being outlawed in Japan.

Then it’s on to the What’s That Sound Results Show, but since Elliot can’t find a 14-sided die, he pulled on the Internet for our random number needs. Congratulations to our big winner [D Rex], who will receive one our coveted Hackaday Podcast t-shirts (Ed. note: Heck, I don’t even have one! That’s how special these babies are).

Is the food-safety-of-3D-printing debate over once and for all? It is as far as Elliot’s concerned. You know what else is over? The era of distributed, independent email servers. Bah! We’re not kidding about that last one — and we discuss a lie-detecting app that may or may not prove our innocence.

Finally, we talk active foot cooling, heat barriers for hot shops, and big, strong magnets. What are they for? Fixing floppies, fool!

 

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