If we asked you to think of a device that converts a chemical reaction into electricity, you’d probably say we were thinking of a battery. That’s true, but there is another device that does this that is both very similar and very different from a battery: the fuel cell. In a very simple way, you […]
If legend is to be believed, three disparate social forces in early 20th-century America – the temperance movement, the rise of car culture, and the Scots-Irish culture of the South – collided with unexpected results. The temperance movement managed to get Prohibition written into the Constitution, which rankled the rebellious spirit of the descendants of […]
In the early days of the World Wide Web – with the Year 2000 and the threat of a global collapse of society were still years away – the crafting of a website on the WWW was both special and increasingly more common. Courtesy of free hosting services popping up left and right in a […]
The seeds of the Internet were first sown in the late 1960s, with computers laced together in continent-spanning networks to aid in national defence. However, it was in the late 1990s that the end-user explosion took place, as everyday people flocked online in droves. Many astute individuals saw the potential at the time, and rushed […]
It was such an innocent purchase, a slightly grubby and scuffed grey plastic box with the word “P O L A R O I D” intriguingly printed along its top edge. For a little more than a tenner it was mine, and I’d just bought one of Edwin Land’s instant cameras. The film packs it […]
There was a time when version control was an exotic idea. Today, things like Git and a handful of other tools allow developers to easily rewind the clock or work on different versions of the same thing with very little effort. I’m here to encourage you not only to use version control but also to […]
The life of a Hackaday writer often involves hours spent at a computer searching for all the cool hacks you love, but its perks come in not being tied to an office, and in periodically traveling around our community’s spaces. This suits me perfectly, because as well as having an all-consuming interest in technology, I […]
The world’s militaries have always been at the forefront of communications technology. From trumpets and drums to signal flags and semaphores, anything that allows a military commander to relay orders to troops in the field quickly or call for reinforcements was quickly seized upon and optimized. So once radio was invented, it’s little wonder how […]
The word “Schlieren” is German, and translates roughly to “streaks”. What is streaky photography, and why might you want to use it in a project? And where did this funny term come from? Think of the heat shimmer you can see on a hot day. From the ideal gas law, we know that hot air […]
Not too long ago, I was searching for ideas for the next installment of the “Big Chemistry” series when I found an article that discussed the world’s most-produced chemicals. It was an interesting article, right up my alley, and helpfully contained a top-ten list that I could use as a crib sheet for future articles, […]