Open Source Is Choice

If you haven’t been following along with the licensing kerfuffle surrounding the open-source Audacity audio editing software, take a sec to read Tom Nardi’s piece and get up to speed. T…

Just What Have We Become?

The world of open source software is one that often sees disputes between developers, some of which spawn lifelong schisms between devotees of different forks, and others mere storms in a teacup th…

You Can’t Fix What You Can’t Measure

Last year, as my Corona Hobby™, I took up RC plane flying. I started out with discus-launched gliders, and honestly that’s still my main love, but there’s only so much room for hackery …

The Devil Is In The Details

If you’ve taken a physics class, you’ve doubtless heard tales of mythical beasts like the massless string, the frictionless bearing, and the perfect sphere. And if you’re designin…

How Did I Live Without A Microscope?

Get yourself a decent stereo inspection microscope, preferably optical. Something that can magnify from maybe 4x to 40x is fine, anything outside this range is icing on the cake. Some people claim …

Growing Up With Computers

My son is growing up with computers. He’s in first grade, and had to list all of the things that he knows how to do with them. The list included things like mousing around, drawing ghosts wit…

Wreck Your Mail Before You Check Your Mail

Every five years or so, I think it’s time to review my e-mail flow. (Oh no!) I run my own mail server, and you should too, but this means that I get to figure out managing and searching and a…

Technical Audacity And The Phone Book

I often think we — or maybe the people who control our money — lack the audacity to take on really big projects. It is hard to imagine laying the transatlantic cable for the first time …

IRC Will Never Die

The big kerfuffle in the open source world this week surrounds the biggest IRC server operator, Freenode. Wherever the dust settles, myriad important open source projects use Freenode’s IRC s…

Do You Really Own It? Motorcycle Airbag Requires Additional Purchase To Inflate

If you ride a motorcycle, you may have noticed that the cost of airbag vests has dropped. In one case, something very different is going on here. As reported by Motherboard, you can pick up a KLIM …

Should I Automate This?

The short answer to the question posed in the headline: yes. For the long answer, you have to do a little math. How much total time you will save by automating, over some reasonable horizon? It&#82…

NFTs Are The Hope For A New Tomorrow!

Here at Hackaday, we’re always working as hard as we can to bring you the latest and most exciting technologies, and like so many people we’ve become convinced that the possibilities of…