Linux Fu: Build A Better Ls

September 8, 2023 by Al Williams 27 Comments

Ask someone to name all the things they can find in a room. Only a few will mention air. Ask a Linux command line user about programs they use and they may well forget to mention ls. Like air, it is seemingly invisible since it is so everpresent. But is it the best it can be? Sure, you can use environment variables and aliases to make it work a little nicer, but, in fact, it is much the same ls we have used for decades. But there have always been moves to make better ls programs. One of them, exa, was recently deprecated in favor of one of its forks, eza.

One thing we liked about eza is that it is a single file. No strange installation. No multiple files to coordinate. Put it on your path, and you are done. So installation is easy, but why should you install it?

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Hacker Dosed With LSD While Restoring Historical Synth

May 28, 2019 by Adam Fabio 54 Comments

[Eliot Curtis] found himself a little too close to 1960’s counterculture while restoring a vintage modular synthesizer — he began tripping out on acid. The instrument in question is a Buchla Model 100. The Buchla is a modular synth. Instead of a keyboard, it used capacitance-sensitive touch plates. This particular model 100 was purchased by California State University East Bay Campus. The synth was popular for a while, but eventually fell into disuse, and was stored in a classroom closet.

Modular synths are experiencing a renaissance, as can be seen right here on Hackaday. The Buchla was pulled out of storage and given a proper restoration. [Eliot Curtis] is the Broadcast Operations Manager at KPIX 5, the San Francisco CBS TV station. He also is the hacker who volunteered to restore the Buchla.
During the restoration, [Curtis] found residue and crystals stuck under one of the knobs of the Control Voltage Processing Module. Was it flux, conformal coating, or something else? [Eliot] hit the board with contact cleaner and wiped it down. Within 45 minutes, he was feeling a strange tingling. It was the beginning of a nine-hour LSD trip. Three independent tests on the module came back positive for LSD.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD for short) can be readily absorbed through the skin, which is exactly what happened to [Eliot]. Synth designer [Don Buchla] was friends with [Owsley Stanley], who worked for the Grateful Dead and allegedly cooked up some very potent LSD. Some of Buchla’s modules even found their way into Ken Keesey’s hands, where they wound up on his famous bus “further”. As it turns out there were rumors that modules had been dipped in LSD back in the ’60s. Why someone would do that to an electronic module, we’re not sure — they must have been on drugs. [Eliot] recovered from his brush with the ’60s and continued with the restoration with gloves on.

If there is a moral here, it should be to take precautions when working on equipment which might contain dangerous substances. We’ve learned this lesson ourselves cracking open broken laptops. You might find anything from coffee to soda, to pet urine or worse. A box of nitrile gloves definitely should be standard equipment in any hacker’s lab.

Different Differentials & The Pitfalls Of The Easy Swap

April 25, 2017 by Lewin Day 70 Comments

I dig cars, and I do car stuff. I started fairly late in life, though, and I’m only just starting to get into the whole modification thing. Now, as far as automobiles go, you can pretty much do anything you set your mind to – engine swaps, drivetrain conversions, you name it – it’s been done. But such jobs require a high level of fabrication skill, automotive knowledge, and often a fully stocked machine shop to match. Those of us new to the scene tend to start a little bit smaller.

So where does one begin? Well, there’s a huge realm of mods that can be done that are generally referred to as “bolt-ons”. This centers around the idea that the install process of the modification is as simple as following a basic set of instructions to unbolt the old hardware and bolt in the upgraded parts. Those that have tread this ground before me will be chuckling at this point – so rarely is a bolt-on ever just a bolt-on. As follows, the journey of my Mazda’s differential upgrade will bear this out.

The car in question, currently known as the “Junkbox MX-5” until it starts running well enough to earn a real name. It somehow looks passable here, but in person I promise you, it looks awful. Credit: Lewin Day

It all started when I bought the car, back in December 2016. I’d just started writing for Hackaday and my humble Daihatsu had, unbeknownst to me, just breathed its last. I’d recently come to the realisation that I wasn’t getting any younger, and despite being obsessed with cars, I’d never actually owned a sports car or driven one in anger. It was time to change. Continue reading “Different Differentials & The Pitfalls Of The Easy Swap” →