Category: Hackaday Columns

Last time, I talked about how MicroPython is powerful and deserving of a place in your toolkit, and it made for a lively discussion. I’m glad to see that overall, MicroPython has indeed been getting the recognition it deserves – I’ve built a large number of wonderful projects with it, and so have people I’ve […]
Good news, bad news for Sun watchers this week, as our star launched a solar flare even bigger than the one back in May that gave us an amazing display of aurora that dipped down into pretty low latitudes. This was a big one; where the earlier outburst was only an X8.9 class, the one […]
Many smart electric meters in the US use the 900 MHz band to broadcast their usage out to meter readers as they walk the neighborhood. [Jeff Sandberg] used an RTL-SDR dongle and some software to integrate this data into his own home automation system, which lets him keep track of his home’s power usage. Half […]
In this episode, the CrowdStrike fiasco has Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi pondering the fragility of our modern infrastructure. From there the discussion moves on to robotic sailboats, the evolving state of bespoke computers, and the unique capabilities of the Super Nintendo cartridge. You’ll also hear about cleaning paintings with lasers, the advantages […]
It’s a bit of bitter irony, when a security product gets used maliciously, to pull off the exact attack it was designed to prevent. Enter Proofpoint, and the EchoSpoofing attack. Proofpoint offers an email security product, filtering spam and malicious incoming emails, and also handling SPF, DKIM, and DMARC headers on outgoing email. How does […]
In the previous article we looked at designing a lock-free ring buffer (LFRB) in Ada, contrasting and comparing it with the C++-based version which it is based on, and highlighting the Ada way of doing things. In this article we’ll cover implementing the LFRB, including the data request task that the LFRB will be using […]
This week Jonathan Bennett and Katherine Druckman chat with Andres Almiray about JReleaser, the Java release automation tool that’s for more than just Java, and more than just releases. What was the original inspiration for the tool? And how does JReleaser help avoid a string of commits trying to fix GitHub Actions? Listen to find […]
Ring buffers are incredibly useful data structures that allow for data to be written and read continuously without having to worry about where the data is being written to or read from. Although they present a continuous (ring) buffer via their API, internally a definitely finite buffer is being maintained. This makes it crucial that […]
Last time, we talked about single-PCB-design panels, all the cool aspects of it, including some cost savings and handling convenience. Naturally, you might wonder, and many did – can you put multiple different PCBs on a single panel? The answer is “yes, without a doubt!” The tool we used last time, KiKit, will not be […]
The last two years has been a particularly exciting time for KiCad, for users, casual contributors, and for the core developers too. Even so, there are many cool new features that are still in process. One bottleneck with open-source development of complex tools like KiCad is the limited amount of time that developers can devote […]