Some Mondays are worse than others, but April 28 2025 was particularly bad for millions of people in Spain and Portugal. Starting just after noon, a number of significant grid oscillations occurred which would worsen over the course of minutes until both countries were plunged into a blackout. After a first substation tripped, in the […]
In the 1980s, there was a truly staggering amount of choice for a consumer looking to purchase a home computer. On the high end, something like an Apple Lisa, a business-class IBM PC, or a workstation from Sun Microsystems could easily range from $6,000 to $20,000 (not adjusted for inflation). For the time, these mind-blowing […]
For those of us who aren’t blessed with a green thumb and who are perhaps a bit forgetful, plants can be surprisingly difficult to keep alive. In those cases, some kind of automation, such as [Justin Buchanan]’s Oasis smart terrarium, is a good way to keep our plants from suffering too much. The Oasis has […]
In the world of information security, much thought goes into ensuring that no information can leave computer networks without expressly being permitted to do so. Conversely, a lot of effort is expended on the part of would-be attackers to break through whatever layers are present. [Halcy] has a way to share data between computers, whether […]
When you hear “PS2” and “Windows 95,” you probably think someone forgot a slash and are talking about peripherals, but no — this hack is very much about the Sony PlayStation 2, the best-selling game console of all time. [MeraByte] walks us through the possibly ridiculous task of installing Windows 95 on the last hardware […]
Scanners for loose papers have become so commonplace that almost every printer includes one, but book scanners have remained frustratingly rare for non-librarians and archivists. [Brad Mattson] had some books to scan, but couldn’t find an affordable scanner that met his needs, so he took the obvious hacker solution and built his own. The scanning […]
Ever since the invention of the microscope, humanity has gained access to the world of the incredibly small. Scientists discovered that creatures never known to exist before are alive in an uncountable number in spaces as small as the head of a pin. But the microscope unlocked some interesting forms of art as well. Not […]
There was a time when print-in-place moving parts were a curiosity, but [Tomek] shows that things are now at a point where a hand-cranked turbine blower with integrated planetary gears can be entirely 3D printed. Some assembly is needed, but there is no added hardware beyond the printed parts. The blower is capable of decent […]