Running a nuclear power plant isn’t an easy task, even with the level of automation available to a 1980s Soviet RBMK reactor. In their continuing efforts to build a full-sized, …read more
If you’ve ever used a ballpoint pen with a clip on the top, you’ve probably noticed they bend pretty easily. The clip relies on you only bending it a small …read more
If all you want is just a basic WiFi extender that gets some level of network connectivity to remote parts of your domicile, then it might be tempting to get …read more
One of the ongoing rumors and scandals in professional cycle sport concerns “motor doping” — the practice of concealing an electric motor in a bicycle to provide the rider with …read more
Nobody likes power cords, and batteries always need recharging or replacing. What if your device could run on only the power it could gather together by itself from the world …read more
Before it became viable to distribute and play music tracks on home computers, the use of FM and Wavetable synthesis was very common, with MIDI Wavetable-based devices like the Roland …read more
A lot of making goes on in this community these days, but sometimes you’ve just gotta do some old fashioned hacking. You might have grabbed an old Speak and Spell that …read more
A hackerspace is a place that generally needs to be accessed by a wide group of people, often at weird and unusual hours. Handing around keys and making sure everything …read more
The construction of a large language model (LLM) depends on many things: banks of GPUs, vast reams of training data, massive amounts of power, and matrix manipulation libraries like Numpy. …read more
If you want to pull apart a program to see how it ticks, you’re going to need a disassembler. [Ricardo Quesada] has built Regenerator 2000 for just that purpose. It’s …read more
Unlike on Earth there aren’t dozens of satellites whizzing around Mars to provide satellite navigation functionality. Recently NASA’s JPL engineers tried something with the Perseverance Mars rover that can give …read more
Historically, moving and pointing a camera while filming was the job of a highly-skilled individual. However, there are machines that can do that, enabling all kinds of fancy movement that …read more
Considering that the Serial Peripheral Interface bus semi-standard has been around since the early 1980s, it’s perhaps not that shocking that the controllers of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) …read more
There are many chess robots, most of which require the human player to move the opposing pieces themselves, or have a built-in mechanism that can slide the opposing pieces around …read more
Many different types of printers have entered the market over the years. Most of us are intimately familiar with the common inkjet and laser, both of which can be found …read more
Liquid nitrogen isn’t exactly an everyday material, but it’s acquired conveniently enough to be used in extreme overclocking experiments, classroom demonstrations, chemistry and physics experiments, and a number of other …read more
For many decades humankind has entertained the notion that we can maybe tweak the Earth’s atmosphere or biosphere in such a way that we can for example undo the harms …read more
[Yeckel] recently put the finishing touches on an ambitious implementation of a simple D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) transceiver using some very accessible and affordable hardware. The project …read more
There aren’t many speed records that remain unbroken for the greater part of a century, but one of them is that of the fastest steam locomotive. As with so many …read more
Everyone loves Wago connectors for how versatile and effective they are for quickly and securely connecting conductors, but it can be tempting to buy a bag of the significantly cheaper …read more