In case you can’t wait for your flash memory to die from write cycling, TeamGroup now has a drive that, via software or hardware, can destroy its own flash chips with a surge of voltage. If you wonder why you might want this, there are military applications where how you destroy a piece of equipment is right up there in the manual with how to use it.

They have obviously put a lot of thought into it, as you can see in the video below. Apparently, if you are in the middle of blowing up the flash and power cuts out, the chip will resume frying itself when you restore power.

According to reports, the chip takes about ten seconds and, Mission Impossible style, it emits smoke as it takes itself out.

So, the obvious question for you is: what would you build with such a thing? A place to store your passwords? Or your cooked accounting? The security revolves around you telling it to destroy itself. That’s fine if you have time.

But we wonder how useful this would be against a motivated adversary. After all, you could unplug it and plug it into something else that doesn’t know how to send the “fry yourself” command. Then don’t push the button. It seems like it would be better to require a challenge/response with a cryptography key and, without it, you fry yourself after a certain number of failures. Or are we just paranoid?

Not the first time this has come up, by the way. Maybe these will be the new way to distribute protected media.

youtube.com/embed/SGzQIzuuvXI?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/16/this-s…

Brunnian links are a type of nontrivial link – or knot – where multiple linked loops become unlinked if a single loop is cut or removed. Beyond ‘fun’ disentanglement toys and a tantalizing subject of academic papers on knot theory, it can also be used for practical applications, as demonstrated by [Anthony Francis-Jones] in a recent video. In it we get a safe that is locked with multiple padlocks, each of which can unlock and open the safe by itself.

This type of locked enclosure is quite commonly used in military and other applications where you do not want to give the same key to each person in a group, yet still want to give each person full access. After taking us through the basics of Brunnian links, including Borromean rings, we are introduced to the design behind the safe with its six padlocks.

As a demonstration piece it uses cheap luggage padlocks and Perspex (acrylic) rods and sheets to give a vibrant and transparent view of its workings. During the assembly it becomes quite apparent how it works, with each padlock controlling one direction of motion of a piece, each of which can be used to disassemble the entire locking mechanism and open the safe.

Brunnian links are also found in the braids often made by children out of elastic bands, which together with this safe can be used to get children hooked on Brunnian links and general knot theory.

youtube.com/embed/81H6bVd0I14?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/16/openin…

Quality 3D printing is a common hobbyist tool nowadays, and [wontonnn]’s mini arcade car racing game really shows off how 3D printing can bring parts from functional to fantastic. There are quite a few details we like in [wontonn]’s design, so let’s take a closer look.

The mini mechanical game is one of those treadmill-based car racing games in which the player navigates a little car between an onslaught of belt-borne obstacles. A little DC motor spins things up in a modular side assembly, and a hand-cranked option is available. The player’s car attaches via a magnet to a steering arm; if the player’s car gets knocked off the magnet, game over.

Treadmill belt segments print as large pre-assembled pieces, with ends that snap together without connectors. Belts like this are sometimes tricky, so this is worth keeping in mind should one ever need a similar part. Since there are no external fasteners or hardware to depend on, one could resize it easily to suit their own project purposes.

The finishing touches on the whole assembly look great. It used to be that the sort of colors and lettering seen here would come from a sticker or label, but [wontonn] gets clean lines and colors by raising (or sinking) different parts of the design. The checkerboard pattern, for example, has the light squares raised for printing in a different color.

Electromechanical arcade games have an appeal all their own, being a fusion of both mechanical and electric design that comes together in a special way. Want to make your own? Get inspired by the classic Lunar Lander reimagined, or check out this LEGO treadmill racer that takes an entirely different approach to the concept.

youtube.com/embed/O_E6rC1JlwA?…

hackaday.com/2025/07/16/mini-c…

Alleen met voldoende ondersteuningsverklaringen (OSV) zetten we de Piratenpartij op het stemformulier. Een OSV heet ook wel een H4-formulier. De periode waarin je een OSV-formulier kunt invullen en ondertekenen op het gemeentehuis is van maandag 1 tot en met vrijdag 12 september. In dit formulier kun je aangeven dat je een ondersteuningsverklaring (OSV) wilt tekenen […]

Het bericht Help mee met ondersteuningsverklaringen verscheen eerst op Piratenpartij.

This week Jonathan and Katherine talk with Jamie Abrahams about Drupal, and how AI just makes sense. No, really. Jamie makes a compelling case that Drupal is a really good tool for building AI workflows. We cover security, personal AI, and more!

• drupal.org/u/yautja_cetanu
• drupal.org/project/ai
• freelygive.io/

youtube.com/embed/dnKFN6eIJ5I?…

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

play.libsyn.com/embed/episode/…

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.

Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:

• Spotify
• RSS

Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

hackaday.com/2025/07/16/floss-…

Remember when President Donald Trump derided the news media and flatly declared that “what they do is illegal” during a speech at the Department of Justice?

Turns out, he meant it.

The Trump administration is increasingly accusing journalists of inciting violence or lawlessness — and possibly breaking the law — by simply reporting the news. It’s now made these claims at least three times, all related to reporting on the government’s immigration crackdown.

It’s bad enough that the administration wants to jail journalists for refusing to reveal their sources or for obtaining and publishing classified information. But these recent accusations seem to raise a third possibility: prosecuting journalists for incitement, the crime of instigating others to break the law.

Unsurprisingly, none of the reporting that the government has attacked comes anywhere close to the legal definition of incitement under the First Amendment. But even baseless accusations aren’t harmless. They can chill reporting and leave the public less informed.

A trio of troubling threats

The most recent example of the Trump administration accusing reporters of incitement for straightforward journalism is its attack on CNN for reporting on ICEBlock, an app that alerts users when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are nearby.

In response to a question from The Daily Wire suggesting that CNN’s report was “promoting” ICEBlock, press secretary Karoline Leavitt directly accused CNN of inciting “further violence against our ICE officers.”

Leavitt admitted that she hadn’t actually watched the CNN segment before she made this accusation. If she had, she would have seen that nothing in CNN’s report comes even remotely close to encouraging violence against ICE officers.

Rather, CNN spoke to ICEBlock’s creator, who described how the app works and, crucially, how it could allow people to avoid encountering ICE officers, who have been known to violently attack people and arrest U.S. citizens. The CNN reporter also quoted a warning from the app that said it’s not to be used to interfere with law enforcement or incite violence.

Yet the Department of Justice is reportedly considering prosecuting CNN, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem flatly declared, “What they’re doing is illegal.”

Similarly, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr strongly implied to Fox News that radio station KCBS had encouraged violence against ICE agents by reporting on an immigration raid in east San Jose earlier this year. KCBS is now the subject of an unconstitutional investigation by the FCC for its report, which the station appears to have removed from its website.

When discussing the KCBS broadcast on Fox, Carr made sure to note both that the area of the city being raided was known for “violent gang activity,” and that the broadcast was made “against the backdrop of Democratic leaders in Congress saying it’s time for people to take fights to the street against Trump’s agenda.” What Carr didn’t mention is that there was no evidence of any violence against ICE agents during or after the raid.

Finally, the White House recently rebuked The New Yorker for its reporting on the Trump administration’s targeting of Democratic lawmakers and their staff who’ve opposed the immigration crackdown, like Rep. LaMonica McIver, who was charged with assaulting a federal officer outside of an immigration detention facility in a case that she’s called “political intimidation.”

In response to the New Yorker’s reporting about these and other incidents, a White House spokesperson said, “It’s alarming Democrats think they can obstruct federal law enforcement, assault ICE agents, or physically push law enforcement officers while charging a cabinet secretary, without consequence—it’s even more alarming that the New Yorker is encouraging this lawless behavior.”

Again, nothing in the New Yorker’s report “encouraged” anything. The magazine relied on regular journalistic techniques for its reporting, such as interviewing sources, and reviewing videos and past reporting to report straightforwardly on what’s happened to Democrats detained or arrested while opposing the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

None of this is incitement

Not only does none of this reporting actually encourage anyone to do anything illegal, it also fails to meet the legal standards for “incitement,” which the First Amendment sets incredibly high.

Under the First Amendment, a person can be found guilty of incitement only if they advocate for imminent lawless action and their speech is likely to incite or produce such action. It also requires intent to induce another to break the law. To protect against governmental overreach and censorship, general advocacy — even of violence or another crime—can’t be criminalized.

Writing a news story about someone else’s conduct, even if their actions are illegal, obviously doesn’t meet this standard. Reporting on something isn’t an endorsement of it, let alone advocacy for others to immediately break the law. Even editorials or op-eds praising illegal conduct would fall under the category of general advocacy, protected by the First Amendment.

But the officials slinging these accusations against the press don’t care as much about the law as they do about chilling reporting. It’s not surprising, then, that they’ve focused on journalism about ICE.

As the public’s approval for Trump’s handling of immigration drops, the government knows that the more people learn about the cruel, illegal, and deadly tactics it’s using to deport their neighbors, the more blowback it will face. It’s counting on its spurious accusations to silence reporting. The only antidote? For journalists to keep reporting.

freedom.press/issues/no-report…