Randomness is hard. To be precise, without dedicated hardware, randomness is impossible for a computer. This is actually important to keep in mind when writing software. When there’s not hardware providing true randomness, most rnd implementations use a seed value and a pseudo random number generator (PRNG). A PRNG is a function that takes a […]
Once upon a time, home computers were low-powered enough that they barely needed any cooling at all. An Amiga 500 didn’t even have a heatsink on the CPU, while the early Macintosh got by with a single teeny little fan. Modern smartphones are far more powerful than these ancient machines, packed with multi-core processors running […]
This week Jonathan and Rob chat with Paulus Schoutsen about Home Assistant, ESPHome, and Music Assistant, all under the umbrella of the Open Home Foundation. Watch to see Paulus convince Rob and Jonathan that they need to step up their home automation games! https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://esphome.io/ https://www.music-assistant.io/ https://www.openhomefoundation.org/ Did you know you can watch the live […]
Of the many great technological leaps made in the middle of the 20th century, one of the ones with perhaps the greatest impact on our modern life takes a back seat behind the more glamorous worlds of electronics, aeronautics, or computing. But the ancestor of the modern tractor has arguably had more of an impact […]
Can you feel the nip of fall in the air? That can only mean one thing: Supercon is just around the corner. The next few weeks are going to bring a blitz of Supercon-related reveals, and we’re starting off with a big one: the workshops. Supercon is the Ultimate Hardware Conference, and you need to […]
Remember AOL? For a lot of folks, America Online was their first ISP, the place where they got their first exposure to the Internet, or at least a highly curated version of it. Remembered by the cool kids mainly as the place that the normies used as their ISP and for the mark of shame […]
This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over the tubes to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous seven days or so. In Hackaday news, we’ve got a new contest running! Read all about the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge, sponsored by […]