When you’re driving a car with a stickshift, it’s pretty easy to keep track of which gear you’re in. That can be a little bit more difficult on something like a motorcycle with a sequential shifter. [decogabry] built a neat gearshift indicator to solve this issue. An ESP32 devboard is used as the brain of […]
If you were asked to pick the most annoying of the various Microsoft Windows interfaces that have appeared over the years, there’s a reasonable chance that Windows 8’s Metro start screen and interface design language would make it your choice. In 2012 the software company abandoned their tried-and-tested desktop whose roots extended back to Windows […]
Space telescopes are all the rage, and rightfully so. The images they take are spectacular, and they’ve greatly increased what we know about the universe. Surely, any picture taken of, say, the Andromeda galaxy before space telescopes would be little more than a smudge compared to modern photos, right? Maybe not. One of the most […]
Modern cellular networks are built to serve millions upon millions of users, all while maintaining strict encryption across all communications. But earlier cellular networks were by no means so secure, as [Nostalgia for Simplicity] demonstrates in a recent video. The video begins with an anecdote — our narrator remembers a family member who could listen […]
You’ve likely at least heard of Marion Stokes, the woman who constantly recorded television for over 30 years. She comes up on reddit and other places every so often as a hero archivist who fought against disinformation and disappearing history. But who was Marion Stokes, and why did she undertake this project? And more importantly, […]
It is a movie staple to see an overworked air traffic controller sweating over a radar display. Depending on the movie, they might realize they’ve picked the wrong week to stop some bad habit. But how does the system really work? [J. B. Crawford] has a meticulously detailed post about the origins of the computerized […]
3D scanners rely on being able to identify physical features of an object, and line up what it saw a moment ago with what it sees now in order to build a 3D model. However, not every object is as distinct and visible as others at all angles, particularly in IR. One solution is reflective scanning […]
We are always amused that we can run emulations or virtual copies of yesterday’s computers on our modern computers. In fact, there is so much power at your command now that you can run, say, a DOS emulator on a Windows virtual machine under Linux, even though the resulting DOS prompt would probably still perform […]
Silicone bakeware has become a staple in many kitchens due to its flexible, yet temperature-tolerant nature. New research from Canada shows it could be causing trouble for your liver and lungs, however. The siloxanes that make up silicone bakeware can target “the liver through oral exposure, as well as the liver and lungs through inhalation […]
If you ever built a line following robot, you’ll be nostalgic about [Jeremy’s] light-seeking robot. It is a very simple build since there is no CPU and, therefore, also no software. The trick, of course, is a pair of photo-sensitive resistors. A pair of motors turns the robot until one of the sensors detects light, […]