When [Terence Grover] set out to build a Tamagotchi-inspired simulator, he didn’t just add a few modern tweaks. He ditched the entire concept and rebuilt it from the ground up. Forget cute wide-eyed blobby animals and pixel-poop. This Raspberry Pi-powered project ditches nostalgia in favour of brutal realism: inflation, burnout, capitalism, and the occasional existential crisis. Think Sims meets cyberpunk, rendered charmingly in Python on a low-res RGB LED matrix.

Instead of hunger and poop meters, this dystopian pet juggles Maslow’s hierarchy: hunger, rest, safety, social life, esteem, and money. Players make real-life-inspired decisions like working, socialising, and going into education – each affecting the stats in logical (and often unfair) ways. No free lunch here: food requires money, money requires mind-numbing labour, and labour tanks your rest. You can even die of overwork à la Amazon warehouse. The UI and animation logic are all hand-coded, and there’s a working buzzer, pixel-perfect sprite movement, and even mini-games to simulate job repetition.

It’s equal parts social commentary and pixel art fever dream. While we have covered Tamagotchi recreations some time ago, this one makes you the needy survivor. Want your own dystopia in 64×32? Head over to [Terence Grover]’s Github and fork the full open source code. We’ll be watching. The Tamagotchi certainly is.

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hackaday.com/2025/05/12/work-e…

Ovvero... da una parte c'è il gruppo di chi è certo sarà il futuro dell'umanità e che grazie a lei supereremo in un attimo tutti i problemi con cui la nostra specie si è dovuta confrontare negli ultimi 10.000 anni e dall'altra il gruppo di quelli che la considerano il Maligno in formato binario.

Tra i due, il (quasi) nulla.

Ora... calcolate la media e ditemi se mi sono sbagliato.

If the Otis King slide rule in [Chris Staecker’s] latest video looks a bit familiar, you might be getting up there in age, or you might remember seeing us talk about one in our collection. Actually, we have two floating around one of the Hackaday bunkers, and they are quite the conversation piece. You can watch the video below.

The device is often mistaken for a spyglass, but it is really a huge slide rule with the scale wrapped around in a rod-shaped form factor. The video says the scale is the same as a 30-inch scale, but we think it is closer to 66 inches.

Slide rules work using the idea that adding up logarithms is the same as multiplying. For example, for a base 10 logarithm, log(10)=1, log(100)=2, and log(1000)=3. So you can see that 1+2=3. If the scales are printed so that you can easily add and then look up the antilog, you can easily figure out that 10×100=1000.

The black center part acts like a cursor on a conventional slide rule. How does it work? Watch [Chris’] video and you’ll see. We know from experience that one of these in good shape isn’t cheap. Lucky that [Chris] gives us a 3D printed version so you can make your own.

Another way to reduce the scale is to go circular, and you can make one of those, too.

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hackaday.com/2025/05/12/unwind…

Google ha accettato di pagare allo Stato del Texas 1,375 miliardi di dollari per risolvere due cause legali sulla privacy. L’azienda è stata accusata di tracciare la posizione degli utenti e di archiviare i loro dati biometrici, tra cui impronte vocali e geometrie facciali, senza il loro consenso.

L’importo del pagamento supera tutte le sanzioni precedentemente imposte da Google in casi simili. In precedenza, nel novembre 2022, la società aveva accettato di pagare 391 milioni di dollari a un gruppo di 40 stati. A gennaio 2023, 29,5 milioni di dollari all’Indiana e a Washington e a settembre, 93 milioni di dollari alla California.

La causa, intentata nel 2022, riguardava la raccolta di dati di geolocalizzazione , attività in modalità di navigazione in incognito e dati biometrici . Secondo i procuratori, Google ha monitorato gli utenti anche quando la funzione Cronologia delle posizioni era disattivata e ha memorizzato i dati biometrici senza preavviso.

“Per anni, Google ha tracciato segretamente i movimenti delle persone, le ricerche private, le impronte vocali e la geometria facciale attraverso i suoi prodotti e servizi”, ha affermato il procuratore generale del Texas Ken Paxton. Ha sottolineato che l’accordo rappresenta una “vittoria storica” ​​per la privacy dei residenti dello Stato.

In risposta alle critiche, Google ha modificato il modo in cui archivia i dati degli utenti: Maps Timeline viene ora archiviato localmente sui dispositivi anziché nel cloud. Sono stati introdotti anche nuovi strumenti che consentono di eliminare automaticamente la cronologia delle posizioni.

Meta, accusata anche di aver raccolto illegalmente i dati biometrici di milioni di utenti, in precedenza aveva pagato la somma equivalente a 1,4 miliardi di dollari al Texas.

Questa iniziativa si inserisce nel contesto della crescente attenzione rivolta alle attività di Google negli Stati Uniti e in Europa. Le autorità di regolamentazione chiedono che il monopolio dell’azienda venga limitato e che venga rivisto il suo approccio al trattamento dei dati personali.

L'articolo Google paga 1,375 miliardi al Texas: la multa sulla privacy più alta di sempre proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

For circuit simulation, we have always been enthralled with the Falstad simulator which is a simple, Spice-like simulator that runs in the browser. [Brandon] has a simulator, too, but it simulates semiconductor devices. With help from [Paul Falstad], that simulator also runs in the browser.

This simulator takes a little thinking and lets you build devices as you might on an IC die. The key is to use the dropdown that initially says “Interact” to select a tool. Then, the drop-down below lets you select what you are drawing, which can be a voltage source, metal, or various materials you find in semiconductor devices, like n-type or a dielectric.

It is a bit tricky, but if you check out the examples first (like this diode), it gets easier. The main page has many examples. You can even build up entire subsystems like a ring oscillator or a DRAM cell.

Designing at this level has its own quirks. For example, in the real world, you think of resistors as something you can use with great precision, and capacitors are often “sloppy.” On an IC substrate, resistors are often the sloppy component. While capacitor values might not be exact, it is very easy to get an extremely precise ratio of two capacitors because the plate size is tightly controlled. This leads to a different mindset than you are used to when designing with discrete components.

Of course, this is just a simulation, so everything can be perfect. If, for some reason, you don’t know about the Falstad simulator, check it out now.

hackaday.com/2025/05/12/semico…

Sometimes, a little goes a long way. I believe that’s the case with this tiny media control bar from [likeablob] that uses an ESP32-C3 Super Mini.

Image by [likeablob] via Hackaday.IOFrom left to right you’ve got a meta key that allows double functions for all the other keys. The base functions are play/pause, previous track, and next track while the knob handles volume.

And because it uses this Wi-Fi-enabled microcontroller, it can seamlessly integrate with Home Assistant via ESPHome.

What else is under the hood? Four low-profile Cherry MX Browns and a rotary encoder underneath that nicely-printed knob.

If you want to build one of these for yourself, all the files are available on GitHub including the customizable enclosure which [likeablob] designed with OpenSCAD.

Portable Endgame, If It Exists

Perhaps [Palpatine]’s one mistake in creating this 36-key portable endgame is believing in the idea of the endgame in the first place. But I’m not here to judge.

Image by [Palpatine] via redditOh wait, yes I am! I really like this keyboard, and I think it would look right at home on the desk of the centerfold below it, although it’s supposed to be a go-anywhere contraption. Be sure to check out the gallery on this one to see it folded together for transport.

It would seem that [Palpatine] learned some nice tricks while designing this keyboard. Have you heard of 10440 batteries? They’re 3.7 V and usually cheaper than the square Li-Po batteries of the same size.

This bad boy is based on the Seeed Xiao nRF52840, which [Palpatine] believes is worth spending a little bit of extra money on instead of nice!nano clones, while being cheaper than an actual nice!nano would be.

As far as open-sourceness goes, [Palpatine] seems willing to share their design files, although they don’t seem to have been published anywhere at this time.

The Centerfold: White Light Might Bite At Night

Image by [Embarrased-Yak-3766] via redditSo this one isn’t quite as wide as usual, but it’s definitely more white than usual. I suppose that wiiiide monitor makes up for the missing pixels.

What do you think? Crisp and clean, or cold and clinical? I can’t decide. I definitely feel snowbound vibes, and I want to sleep in.

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: the Munson

Image by [Martin Howard] via Antique TypewritersThe delight of the Munson typewriter is in the exposed internal workings, which come to life when the machine is in use. Those octagonal key tops aren’t too shabby, either.

You may have noticed that this machine has no typebars. Instead, it uses a horizontal cylinder about the size of a finger. The cylinder slides from side to side and rotates to find the chosen character. Then a hammer strikes from behind the paper, pushing it against the ribbon and the type cylinder.

Much like the later IBM Selectrics and the daisy wheel machines of the 1970s and ’80s, one could easily change the font by swapping out the all-steel type cylinder. The Munson has two Shift keys, one for upper case and another for figures, so only three rows of keys are needed.

The Munson came out in 1890 and was well-received. It won the highest medal awarded at the World’s Fair Chicago, 1893, but the machines are hard to find these days. Eight years after its introduction, the design of the Munson was acquired by the Chicago Writing Machine Co. and rebranded the Chicago.

Finally, the MingKwai Typewriter Emerges From Obscurity

So you get a Historical Clackers two-fer this week; lucky you! After more than half a century, this fascinating Chinese typewriter turned up while a couple was cleaning out her grandfather’s basement in New York.

Jennifer Felix and her husband Nelson posted photos on a Facebook group trying to ID the machine. A flurry of enthusiastic comments flooded the forum, with many people offering to buy the machine.
Photo by Elisabeth von Boch, courtesy of Stanford Libraries; image via This Is Colossal
As it turns out, it’s a MingKwai — the only one in existence. And it’s now in the hands of Stanford Libraries.

This machine was invented in 1947 by a writer, translator, and linguist named Lin Yutang. The MingKwai, which means “clear and fast”, was the first compact concept Chinese typewriter to have a keyboard that was capable of producing 80,000+ characters.

How is that even possible? Mechanical sort and search. Seriously! Check this out: the 72-key board is made up of strokes and shapes, and the characters are arranged in linear order, like an English dictionary. To use it, you would press one of the 36 top keys and one of the 28 bottom keys simultaneously. This triggered a series of rotations in the internals and would bring eight characters into view in a small window that Lin called the “magic eye”. Finally, you would choose your desired character using the numbered keys in the bottom row.

The only known prototype was built by the Carl E. Krum company. Lin was unable to drum up commercial interest to produce it at scale, so he sold the rights and the prototype to Mergenthaler Linotype Company, where Jennifer Felix’s grandfather worked as a machinist. So it never went into production, and the prototype went home with with Grandpa.

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Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.

hackaday.com/2025/05/12/keebin…

Lei è Flohra, una coccinella molto speciale, ed è la mascotte della nostra app

Flohra, l’app Android del riuso, è pronta per essere testata. L’app consente di visualizzare le istanze Flohmarkt come @fedimercatino
Se non hai ancora un account Flohmarkt, puoi sempre utilizzare la comunità Lemmy @Il Mercatino del Fediverso 💵♻️ anche dal tuo account Mastodon
#Flohra è un client open source basato su Kotlin Multiplatform e Compose Multiplatform che consente di accedere alle istanze basate su #Flohmarkt, un ambiente federato sviluppato da @midzer per creare nel #Fediverso un’alternativa etica e federata a eBay.

Gli annunci pubblicati su Flohmarkt sono visibili per tutti gli utenti ch hanno un account sui social del Fediverso, come Mastodon, Friendica, Pixelfed, Misskey o Pleroma

Per il momento Flohra è disponibile solo su Android, e chi vuole istallare l’ultima release alpha può farlo a questo link:

https://codeberg.org/RocketInSpace/Flohra/releases/tag/0.1.0-alpha02

NB: Al momento le funzionalità sono in sola lettura, ma prevediamo implementarne altre a breve.

Per chi è curioso, ecco un po’ di schermate:

Flohra, la schermata iniziale e l’accesso ai contenuti dell’istanza locale o delle istanze federate

Flohra: le funzionalità di scorrimento laterale e la ricerca per tag

Flohra, la schermata dei preferiti (con tanto di scorrimento laterale) e la schermata delle impostazioni

Vuoi segnalare un errore o dare un suggerimento? Scrivici su Friendica, Twitter, Mastodon o sul gruppo telegram Comunicazione Pirata

Segui il canale di InformaPirata

informapirata.it/2025/05/12/fl…

informapirata

2025-05-12 12:34:42

Flohra, l’app del riuso, consente di visualizzare le istanze Flohmarkt come Fedimercatino. Ecco come scaricarla

Ecco un’app open source per vusualizzare gli annunci di prodotti usati attraverso la piattaforma libera e federata Flohmarkt

informapirata.it/2025/05/12/fl…

#Fedimercatino #Fediverso #Flohmarkt #Flohra #Mercatino #Riuso

[ap_content

Flohra, l’app del riuso, consente di visualizzare le istanze Flohmarkt come Fedimercatino. Ecco come scaricarla

Ecco un'app open source per vusualizzare gli annunci di prodotti usati attraverso la piattaforma libera e federata Flohmarkt

^{informapirata}