Hackaday Podcast Episode 268: RF Burns, Wireless Charging Sucks, And Barnacles Grow On Flaperons

How not to program an EPROM

Elliot and Dan got together to enshrine the week’s hacks in podcast form, and to commiserate about their respective moms, each of whom recently fell victim to phishing attacks. It’s not easy being ad hoc tech support sometimes, and as Elliot says, when someone is on the phone telling you that you’ve been hacked, he’s the hacker. Moving on to the hacks, we took a look at a hacking roadmap for a cheap ham radio, felt the burn of AM broadcasts, and learned how to program old-school EPROMs on the cheap.

We talked about why having a smart TV in your house might not be so smart, especially for Windows users, and were properly shocked by just how bad wireless charging really is. Also, cheap wind turbines turn out to be terrible, barnacles might give a clue to the whereabouts of MH370, and infosec can really make use of cheap microcontrollers.

Grab a copy for yourself if you want to listen offline.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 780: Zoneminder — Better Call Randal

This week Jonathan Bennett and Aaron Newcomb chat with Isaac Connor about Zoneminder! That’s the project that’s working to store and deliver all the bits from security cameras — but the CCTV world has changed a lot since Zoneminder first started, over 20 years ago. The project is working hard to keep up, with machine learning object detection, WebRTC, and more. Isaac talks a bit about developer burnout, and a case or two over the years where an aggressive contributor seems suspicious in retrospect. And when is the next stable version of Zoneminder coming out, anyway?

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 267: Metal Casting, Plasma Cutting, And A Spicy 555

What were some of the best posts on Hackaday last week? Elliot Williams and Al Williams decided there were too many to choose from, but they did take a sampling of the ones that caught their attention. This week’s picks were an eclectic mix of everything from metal casting and plasma cutters to radio astronomy and space telescope budgets. In between? Some basic circuit design, 3D printing, games, dogs, and software tools. Sound confusing? It won’t be, after you listen to this week’s podcast.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download an audiophile-quality oxygen-free MP3 file here.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 779: Errata Prevention Specialist

This week Jonathan Bennett and Dan Lynch sit down with Andy Stewart to talk about Andy’s Ham Radio Linux (AHRL)! It’s the Linux distro designed to give hams the tools they need to work with their radios. What’s it like to run a niche Linux distro? How has Andy managed to keep up with this for over a decade? And what’s the big announcement about the project breaking today?

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 266: A Writer’s Deck, Patching Your Battleship, And Fact-Checking The Eclipse

Before Elliot Williams jumps on a train for Hackaday Europe, there was just enough time to meet up virtually with Tom Nardi to discuss their favorite hacks and stories from the previous week. This episode’s topics include the potential benefits of having a dual-gantry 3D printer, using microcontrollers to build bespoke note taking gadgets, the exciting world of rock tumbling, and the proper care and maintenance required to keep your World War II battleship in shape. They’ll also go over some old school keyboard technologies, DIP chip repairs, and documenting celestial events with your home solar array. By the end you’ll hear about the real-world challenges of putting artificial intelligence to work, and how you can safely put high-power lithium batteries to work in your projects without setting your house on fire.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download for off-line listening.

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FLOSS Weekly Episode 778: OctoPrint — People Are Amazing At Breaking Things

This week Jonathan Bennett and Katherine Druckman sit down with Gina Häußge to talk OctoPrint! It’s one of our favorite ways to babysit our 3D printers, and the project has come a long way in the last 12 years! It’s a labor of love, primarily led by Gina, who has managed to turn it into a full time job. Listen in to hear that story and more, including how to run an Open Source project without losing your sanity, why plugins are great, and how to avoid adding a special services employee as a co-maintainer!

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Hackaday Podcast Episode 265: Behind The Epic SSH Hack, 1980s Cyber Butler, The Story Of Season 7

This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos convened once again to give the lowdown on this week’s best hacks. First up in the news — it’s giga-sunset time for Gigaset IoT devices, which simultaneously became paperweights on March 29th. And all that Flipper Zero panic? It has spread to Australia, but still remains exactly that: panic.

Then it’s on to What’s That Sound. Kristina failed again, although she was in the right neighborhood. Can you get it? Can you figure it out? Can you guess what’s making that sound? If you can, and your number comes up, you get a special Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.

Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with the terrifying news of an xz backdoor. From there, we marvel at a 1980s ‘butler in a box’ — a voice-activated home automation system — and at the idea of LoRa transmissions without a radio. Finally, we discuss why you don’t want to piss off Trekkies, and whether AI has any place in tech support.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download and savor at your leisure.

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