Towering behemoths are prowling the docks of Auckland, New Zealand, in a neverending shuffle of shipping containers, stacking and unstacking them like so many out-sized LEGO bricks. And they’re doing it all without human guidance. It’s hard to overstate the impact containerized cargo has had on the modern world. The ability to load and unload […]
Linux! Such a wonderful, rich, capable operating system has blessed us, and all for the low, low cost of absolutely free. It’s under the hood of countless servers, computers, phones, and embedded devices, and is the go-to solution for when you want to get the job done right. Why, then, does it curse me so? Prologue […]
Engineering isn’t just about inventing new things. Sometimes, it is all about doing things better, cheaper and faster. That was what Elsie MacGill did for the “Hurricane” fighter plane in World War II, earning her the nickname of “Queen of the Hurricanes”. Elsie Gregory MacGill / Library and Archives Canada [Public domain] Elizabeth MacGill was […]
Often it feels as if soldering is deemed to be more of an art form than something that’s underpinned by the cold, hard reality of physics and chemistry. From organic chemistry with rosin, to the material properties of fragile gold bond wires and silicon dies inside IC packages and the effects of thermal stress on […]
This week marks the twenty-five year anniversary of the demise of Commodore International. This weekend, pour one out for our lost homies. Commodore began life as a corporate entity in 1954 headed by Jack Tramiel. Tramiel, a Holocaust survivor, moved to New York after the war where he became a taxi driver. This job led […]
The world’s largest aircraft is flying. Stratolaunch took to the skies in test flights leading up to its main mission to take rockets up to 20,000 feet on the first stage of their flight to space. But the Stratolaunch is a remarkable aircraft, a one-of-a-kind, and unlike anything ever built before. It can lift a […]
Regular Hackaday readers will know that the clearance section of your local big box retailer is a great place to pick up oddball gadgets and gizmos for dirt cheap. In an era where manufacturers are rushing to make their products “smart” whether they need to be or not, the occasional ideas which fail to gain […]
The United States is going back to the moon, and it’s happening sooner than you would think. NASA is going back to the moon in 2024, and they might just have the support of Congress to do so. Getting to the moon is one thing, and since SpaceX launched a car to the asteroid belt, […]
An interesting part of working on the Building Management and Control (BMaC) project – as previously covered on this site – was the reverse-engineering and ultimately the gaining of full control over the coffee machines at the office. Not the boring filter coffee machines, mind you, but the fully automatic espresso machine type that grinds […]