The Problem With Passwords

By now it’s probable that most readers will have heard about LastPass’s “Security Incident”, in which users’ password vaults were lifted from their servers. We’r…

In Praise Of “Just Because” Hacks

Sometimes you pick a project because the world needs it to be done. Or maybe you or a friend need it. Or maybe you don’t really need it, but it fulfills a longstanding dream. In my mind, the last s…

A Hacker’s Christmas Story

Twas the night before Christmas, and because I decided to make everyone’s presents myself this year, I’m still working like mad to get everything done before the big deadline. Why do I do this to m…

A Love Letter To My Lost Amiga

My first love was a black wedge. It was 1982, and I had saved up to buy a Sinclair ZX81. That little computer remains the only one of the huge number that I have owned over the years about which I …

Yesterday’s Future Is Brighter Today

The demoscene never ceases to amaze. Back in the mid-80s, people wouldn’t just hack software to remove the copy restrictions, but would go the extra mile and add some fun artwork and greetz. Over t…

Students Rebel Against Heat-Sensing Crotch Monitor Surveillance Devices

Surveillance has become a ubiquitous part of modern life. Public spaces are dotted with CCTV cameras inside and out. Recent years have seen the technology spread to the suburbs with porch cameras s…

Fossil Files: My .Emacs

Last week, I wrote about cargo culting in a much more general context, so this week I’m going to come clean. The file that had me thinking about the topic was the worst case you’ve probably ever se…

Ask Hackaday: Will Your 2030 Car Have AM Radio?

Car makers have been phasing out AM radios in their cars for quite some time. Let’s face it, there isn’t much on AM these days, and electric vehicles have been known to cause interferen…

Build A Better Mousetrap… But It Better Be Better!

As creative problem solvers, we like to “think outside the box,” and we should strive for that. But what happens if your strange idea isn’t kept in check by cooler heads? There is…

Love AI, But Don’t Love It Too Much

The up-and-coming Wonder of the World in software and  information circles , and particularly in those circles who talk about them, is AI. Give a magic machine a lot of stuff, ask it a question, an…

Perhaps It’s Time To Talk About All Those Fakes And Clones

A while back, I bought a cheap spectrum analyser via AliExpress. I come from the age when a spectrum analyser was an extremely expensive item with a built-in CRT display, so there’s still a m…

Cargo Culting And Buried Treasure

I have no idea how true the stories are, but legend has it that when supplies were dropped on some Melanesian islands during WWII, some locals took to replicating runway signs in order to further p…

I Need A Hackation

In recent times, the “staycation” became a popular alternative to forays far afield: you could take time off and enjoy your local surroundings without having to get stamps in your passport. But I d…

Don’t Believe Everything You Read: The Great Electric Toaster Hoax

We’ve all looked up things on Wikipedia and, generally, it is usually correct information. However, the fact that anyone can edit it leads to abuse and makes it somewhat unreliable. Case in p…

How To Repair? The Death Of Schematics

There was a time when, if you were handy with a soldering iron, you could pretty easily open up a radio or TV repair business. You might not get rich, but you could make a good living. And if you h…

Brainstorming

One of the best things about hanging out with other hackers is the freewheeling brainstorming sessions that tend to occur. Case in point: I was at the Electronica trade fair and ended up hanging ou…

Will The Fax Machine Ever Stop Singing?

Throughout the 80s and 90s, you couldn’t swing a stapler around any size office without hitting a fax machine. But what is it about the fax machine that makes it the subject of so much derisi…

EV Sales Sticking Point: People Still Want Manual Transmissions

Call me crazy, but I’m ride or die for manual transmissions. I drove enough go-karts and played enough Pole Position as a kid to know that shifting the gears yourself is simply where it&#8217…

The Importance Of Physical Models: How Not To Shoot Yourself In The Foot Or Anywhere Else

We take shortcuts all the time with our physical models. We rarely consider that wire has any resistance, for example, or that batteries have a source impedance. That’s fine up until the poin…

Retrofitting Robots

Retrofitting Robots Al Williams wrote up a neat thought piece on why we are so fascinated with robots that come in the shape of people, rather than robots that come in the shape of whatever it is t…