Il 29 marzo 2025 si tenne a Roma un congresso di partito. Vi sono intervenuti vari ben vestiti nutriti più o meno bene, per motivi che in questa sede non è né necessario né utile descrivere nel dettaglio.
Circolarono alcune dichiarazioni di un certo Carlo Calenda in cui si assicurava che "l'unico modo per avere a che fare con il Movimento 5 Stelle è cancellarlo".

Carlo Calenda non è propriamente un Machiavelli e sul suo conto esistono molti scritti sprezzanti. Vive in un mondo in cui vigono comportamenti di consumo già eccepibili per conto proprio.
Solo per fare un esempio, alcuni anni fa in un "paese" in cui l'ascensore sociale sta portando allo sprofondo milioni di sudditi e con i redditi in picchiata da decenni, non trovò di meglio che affidare un lavoretto di ramazzamento voti a un certo Roman Pastore, che credette bene svolgere l'incombenza con al polso un pezzo di metallo che segna le ore ma che costa quanto un appartamento.
Il "partito" di questo Calenda gioca nel democratismo rappresentativo. E quelli del democratismo rappresentativo tacciano da decenni di terrorista chiunque non procuri loro un reddito, così come considerano comunismo qualsiasi cosa non gli piaccia. Se intende davvero farsi largo in quel contesto, magari a spese di un Movimento 5 Stelle che ha l'unica colpa oggettiva di essersi rivolto ai sudditi in modo più efficace, sarà il caso che prenda in considerazione un registro linguistico diverso.

Music consumption has followed a trend over the last decade or more of abandoning physical media for online or streaming alternatives. This can present a problem for young children however, for whom a simpler physical interface may be an easier way to play those tunes. Maintaining a library of CDs is not entirely convenient either, so [JakesMD] has created the Yaydio. It’s a music player for kids, that plays music when a card is inserted in its slot.

As you might expect, the cards themselves do not contain the music. Instead they are NFC cards, and the player starts the corresponding album from its SD card when one is detected. The hardware is simple enough, an Arduino Nano with modules for MP3 playback, NFC reading, seven segment display, and rotary encoder. The whole thing lives in a kid-friendly 3D printed case.

Some thought has been given to easily adding albums and assigning cards to them, making it easy to keep up with the youngster’s tastes. This isn’t the first such kid-friendly music player we’ve seen, but it’s certainly pretty neat.

hackaday.com/2025/03/29/yaydio…

Split keyboards are becoming more popular, but because they’re still relatively niche, they can be rather expensive if you want to buy one. So why not make your own? Sure, you could assemble one from a kit, but why not take a cheap mechanical keyboard, slice it in half and just [em]waves hands[/em] connect the two halves back together? If this thought appeals to you, then [nomolk]’s literal hackjob video should not be ignored. Make sure to enable English subtitles for the Japanese-language video.
Easy split keyboard tip: just reconnect both halves… (Credit: nomolk, YouTube)
In it, the fancy (but cheap) mechanical keyboard with Full RGB functionality is purchased and tested prior to meeting its demise. Although the left side with the cable and controller still works, the right side now needs to be connected, which is where a lot of tedious wires have to be soldered to repair traces.

Naturally this will go wrong, so it’s important to take a (sushi) break and admire the sunset before hurling oneself at the tracing of faulty wiring. This process and the keyboard matrix is further detailed on the blog entry (in Japanese) for this process.

Although this was perhaps easier than the other split keyboard project involving a membrane keyboard, this tongue-in-cheek project demonstrates the limits of practicality with this approach even if it could be cleaned up more with fancier wiring.

We give it full points for going the whole way, however, and making the keyboard work again in the end.

youtube.com/embed/8VDWwFVJIfA?…

hackaday.com/2025/03/29/diy-sp…

The Pomdoro technique of time management has moved on a little from the tomato-shaped kitchen timer which gave it a name, as [Rukenshia] shows us with this nifty ESP32 and e-paper design. It’s relatively simple in hardware terms, being a collection of off-the-shelf modules in a 3D printed case, but the software has a custom interface for the friend it was built for.

At its heart is a NodeMCU board and a Waveshare display module, with a rotary encoder and addressable LED as further interface components. A lot of attention has been paid to the different options for the interface, and to make the front end displayed on the screen as friendly and useful as possible. Power comes via USB-C, something that should be available in most working environments here in 2025.

We’ve tried a variant on this technique for a while now with varying success, maybe because a mobile phone doesn’t make for as good a timer as a dedicated piece of hardware such as this. Perhaps we should follow this example. If we did, the Hackaday timer couldn’t possibly use an ESP32.

hackaday.com/2025/03/29/an-esp…

Quando Jeffrey Goldberg dell’Atlantic ha fatto trapelare accidentalmente un messaggio di gruppo privato di alti funzionari statunitensi su un possibile attacco contro gli Houthi nello Yemen, ha suscitato molto scherno sui social media.

Ma al di là dell’imbarazzo e del commento politico, l’incidente ha lanciato un messaggio importante: le agenzie di intelligence americane utilizzano Signal, una popolare app crittografata, e ritengono che sia sicura.

Sebbene siano regolarmente in corso dibattiti sulla sicurezza della crittografia nei servizi di messaggistica come Signal, Telegram e WhatsApp, il fatto che vengano utilizzati anche dagli ufficiali dei servizi segreti parla da sé. Soprattutto se si considera che alla recente chat a porte chiuse di Signal erano presenti il ​​vicepresidente J.D. Vance, il direttore dell’intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, il segretario alla Difesa Pete Hegseth, il direttore della CIA John Ratcliffe, il consigliere per la sicurezza nazionale Mike Waltz e altri funzionari dell’amministrazione.

Come ha ammesso Waltz su Fox News, è stato lui stesso a creare il gruppo e ad aggiungervi inavvertitamente Goldberg, poiché il numero era salvato nei suoi contatti con un nome diverso, presumibilmente quello di un dipendente governativo.

Il problema non è Signal, ma il modo in cui le persone gestiscono i contatti. Come notato Secondo il professor Ryan Ellis della Northeastern University, nessuna protezione potrà mai salvarvi se qualcuno invia segreti al destinatario sbagliato.

Durante un’audizione al Senato del 25 marzo, il direttore della CIA Ratcliffe ha confermato che Signal era stato installato sul computer della sua azienda, come quello della maggior parte dei dipendenti, fin dall’inizio del suo mandato presso l’agenzia. L’applicazione è ufficialmente approvata per la corrispondenza interna e viene utilizzata non solo dalla CIA, ma anche da altre agenzie governative.

È stato addirittura raccomandato dalla Casa Bianca e dalla CISA, l’agenzia statunitense per la sicurezza informatica, per i funzionari che potrebbero essere presi di mira dalle agenzie di intelligence straniere.

Signal non è l’unico in questa lista. Professore Frederick Scholl della Quinnipiac University aggiunge , tra i messenger sicuri troviamo anche Briar, Session, SimpleX, Telegram, Threema, Viber, Wire e altri. Ed è in pieno svolgimento anche il passaggio di massa ai messaggi RCS criptati al posto dei normali SMS: ora anche Apple e Google supportano una protezione compatibile dei messaggi tra le loro piattaforme.

Tuttavia, la popolarità della crittografia suscita anche critiche. I giornalisti dell’Associated Press hanno scoperto che i servizi di messaggistica sicura sono utilizzati attivamente da funzionari a tutti i livelli, dai governatori ai senatori, fino ai consigli scolastici. Ciò solleva il timore che il processo decisionale si stia spostando nell’ombra, al di fuori dei canali ufficiali. Ma nonostante ciò, le agenzie governative continuano a insistere sul fatto che la sicurezza richiede la crittografia, soprattutto nell’era dello spionaggio digitale.

Nessuno può dare la garanzia assoluta che nessun messenger verrà hackerato. Una cosa è certa: se anche la CIA consiglia di utilizzare Signal, allora vale sicuramente la pena prenderlo in considerazione. La cosa principale è controllare attentamente chi aggiungi alla chat.

L'articolo Signal è abbastanza sicuro per la CIA e per il CISA. Lo è anche per te? proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

When the AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7) amateur radio satellite was launched in 1974, its expected lifespan was about five years. The plucky little satellite made it to 1981 when a battery failure caused it to be written off as dead. Then, in 2002 it came back to life. The prevailing theory being that one of the cells in the satellites NiCd battery pack, in an extremely rare event, shorted open — thus allowing the satellite to run (intermittently) off its solar panels.

In a recent video by [Ben] on the AE4JC Amateur Radio YouTube channel goes over the construction of AO-7, its operation, death and subsequent revival are covered, as well as a recent QSO (direct contact).
The battery is made up of multiple individual cells.
The solar panels covering this satellite provided a grand total of 14 watts at maximum illumination, which later dropped to 10 watts, making for a pretty small power budget. The entire satellite was assembled in a ‘clean room’ consisting of a sectioned off part of a basement, with components produced by enthusiasts associated with AMSAT around the world. Onboard are two radio transponders: Mode A at 2 meters and Mode B at 10 meters, as well as four beacons, three of which are active due to an international treaty affecting the 13 cm beacon.

Positioned in a geocentric LEO (1,447 – 1,465 km) orbit, it’s quite amazing that after 50 years it’s still mostly operational. Most of this is due to how the satellite smartly uses the Earth’s magnetic field for alignment with magnets as well as the impact of photons to maintain its spin. This passive control combined with the relatively high altitude should allow AO-7 to function pretty much indefinitely while the PV panels keep producing enough power. All because a NiCd battery failed in a very unusual way.

youtube.com/embed/7wSEgHYWmMI?…

hackaday.com/2025/03/29/amsat-…

We recently got a note in the tips line from [Tavis Gustafson], who is one of the developers of Tronbyt — a replacement firmware and self-hosted backend that breaks the Tidbyt smart display free from its cloud dependency. When they started the project, [Tavis] says the intent was simply to let privacy-minded users keep their data within the local network, which was itself a goal worthy enough to be featured on these pages.

But now that Tidbyt has been acquired by Modal and has announced they’ll no longer be producing new units, things have shifted slightly. While the press release says that the Tidbyt backend is going to stay up and running for existing customers, the writing is clearly on the wall. It’s now possible that the Tronbyt project will be able to keep these devices from ending up in landfills when the cloud service is inevitably switched off, especially if they can get the word out to existing users before then.

What’s that? You say you haven’t heard of Tidbyt? Well, truth be told, neither had we. So we did some digging, and this is where things get really interesting.

A look inside the original Tidbyt.
It turns out, Tidbyt started its life as a project on Hackaday.io by [Rohan Singh] back in 2020. The hardware consists of a 64×32 HUB75 LED panel and a small custom PCB holding an ESP32 inside of a wooden box, and while it doesn’t appear to have ever been an open source device per se, how it worked internally was hardly a secret. The software side of things however was released on GitHub, which likely made creating the custom firmware that much easier for [Travis] and co.

By March of 2021, Tidbyt was on Kickstarter, where it blew past its goal in 48 hours and ultimately brought in just shy of one million dollars. In October of 2023, they were back on Kickstarter with a second generation of Tidbyt hardware, and this time brought in even more money than the first time.

So what’s the takeaway from all of this? Well, first of all we can’t believe this whole thing was developed right under our noses without us even realizing it. This seems like a good time as any to remind folks to drop us a line if you’re working on something cool and you want to share it with the class. We would’ve loved to connect with [Rohan] as Tidbyt was on the rise.
Rohan Singh (center) poses with Modal founders, three years after posting the project on Hackaday.io
But more importantly, it’s a great example of just how much better devices that were developed in the open can weather a storm than their proprietary counterparts. [Rohan] kept enough of Tidbyt open to the community that they were able to successfully create their own firmware and backend — a decision which now might end up being the only thing keeping some of these devices up and running in the future.

Oh yeah, and keep starting awesome projects on Hackaday.io and turning them into multi-million dollar ventures too. We like that also.

hackaday.com/2025/03/29/open-s…

Our next member meeting is Sunday, April 6th. We start at 8pm and will end once our agenda is complete or 9pm, whichever comes sooner.

To participate:

• go to communitybridge.com/bbb-room/m…;
• enter your name;
• enter the access code listed on the page;
• click the Join button.

Summaries of the meetings and agendas are at our wiki. You can view the 2025, 2024, 2023 and 2022 meeting recordings.

masspirates.org/blog/2025/03/2…

Gli scienziati del Korea Institute of Science and Technology di Daegu hanno creato una batteria nucleare compatta in grado di generare elettricità per decenni senza i rischi solitamente associati alla radioattività.

Il nuovo dispositivo è una cella a colorante beta-voltaico alimentata dal carbonio-14, un isotopo radioattivo che emette particelle beta. Queste particelle, essenzialmente elettroni ad alta energia, colpiscono un semiconduttore di biossido di titanio rivestito con un colorante a base di rutenio, facendone uscire gli elettroni e creando una corrente elettrica.

L’emivita del carbonio-14 è di circa 5.730 anni, il che consente teoricamente alla batteria di conservare metà della sua capacità iniziale dopo migliaia di anni. Ma nella pratica la produzione diminuisce molto più rapidamente: i materiali sono ancora soggetti a distruzione. Tuttavia, il potenziale della tecnologia è impressionante. Il prototipo attuale fornisce 20,75 nanowatt per centimetro quadrato per millicurie con un’efficienza del 2,86%. In parole povere, questa batteria delle dimensioni di un’aspirina fornisce circa lo 0,4% della potenza necessaria per far funzionare una calcolatrice tascabile. Per funzionare, sarebbero necessari altri 240 elementi circa.

Sebbene la sua potenza sia modesta, è sufficiente ad alimentare dispositivi medici impiantabili come pacemaker o sensori per la raccolta di dati ambientali. La tecnologia può essere utilizzata anche per alimentare tag RFID, microcircuiti e caricare condensatori in dispositivi che richiedono un impulso energetico breve ma potente. Questa direzione è promettente per l’elettronica ad altissima efficienza energetica, ma è ancora nelle prime fasi di sviluppo.

Il vantaggio principale è la sicurezza. Contrariamente a quanto si pensa comunemente del termine “nucleare“, il dispositivo non richiede una protezione complessa. Le particelle beta del carbonio-14 sono deboli e si trovano ovunque, anche nel corpo umano. Per la schermatura è sufficiente uno strato sottile di alluminio. La batteria è completamente solida, priva di materiali infiammabili e, in termini di sicurezza, può addirittura superare le batterie agli ioni di litio, soggette a surriscaldamento ed esplosioni.

In generale, l’idea delle batterie nucleari non è nuova. I primi dispositivi di questo tipo apparvero negli anni ’50, quando negli USA venne sviluppato un elemento basato sullo stronzio-90. Successivamente, negli anni ’60, i generatori termoelettrici a radioisotopi con plutonio-238 iniziarono a essere utilizzati nelle missioni spaziali. Uno dei primi esempi fu il satellite Transit 4A, utilizzato in uno dei primi sistemi di navigazione satellitare, il predecessore del GPS.

Negli ultimi anni l’interesse per le batterie nucleari è tornato a crescere. Ad esempio, Betavolt ha introdotto una batteria da 3 volt con nichel-63 e un semiconduttore al diamante, progettata per durare 50 anni. E Arkenlight sta sviluppando batterie basate sui diamanti al carbonio-14. Sebbene i principi rimangano gli stessi, i progressi nei materiali e nella sicurezza stanno avvicinando la tecnologia all’uso nel mondo reale, senza la necessità di costruire reattori nucleari.

L'articolo Batterie nucleari sicure? Gli scienziati creano una batteria che può durare migliaia di anni proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

We ran a story about a wall-mounted plotter bot this week, Mural. It’s a simple, but very well implemented, take on a theme that we’ve seen over and over again in various forms. Two lines, or in this case timing belts, hang the bot on a wall, and two motors drive it around. Maybe a servo pulls the pen in and out, but that’s about it. The rest is motor driving and code.

We were thinking about the first such bot we’ve ever seen, and couldn’t come up with anything earlier than Hektor, a spray-painting version of this idea by [Juerg Lehni]. And since then, it’s reappeared in numerous variations.

Some implementations mount the motors on the wall, some on the bot. There are various geometries and refinements to try to make the system behave more like a simple Cartesian one, but in the end, you always have to deal with a little bit of geometry, or just relish the not-quite-straight lines. (We have yet to see an implementation that maps out the nonlinearities using a webcam, for instance, but that would be cool.) If you’re feeling particularly reductionist, you can even do away with the pen-lifter entirely and simply draw everything as a connected line, Etch-a-Sketch style. Maslow CNC swaps out the pen for a router, and cuts wood.

What I love about this family of wall-plotter bots is that none of them are identical, but they all clearly share the same fundamental idea. You certainly wouldn’t call any one of them a “copy” of another, but they’re all related, like riffing off of the same piece of music, or painting the same haystack in different lighting conditions: robot jazz, or a study in various mechanical implementations of the same core concept. The collection of all wall bots is more than the sum of its parts, and you can learn something from each one. Have you made yours yet?

(Fantastic plotter-bot art by [Sarah Petkus] from her write-up ten years ago!)

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hackaday.com/2025/03/29/contag…

Our colleague from the Pirate Party of Germany in Munich, Alexander Kohler, recently attended the Paris Defence and Strategy Forum (PDSF). The event was held at the École Militaire in Paris from March 11 to 13. The 2025 forum was themed “Europe at the Crossroads”. The event focused on defense alliances, geopolitical challenges, and the evolving global landscape. Mr. Kohler is the leader of the Pirate Security Conference, which takes place in February each year. For over 10 years the PSC has provided a space to discuss how technological advancements redefine security. ​The event takes place alongside the Munich Security Conference, drawing in experts who participate in both events. The insights gained from the PDSF help to engage diverse perspectives on digital rights and security policies.​

If you are interested in learning more about the PDSF, please read here: parisdefenceandstrategyforum.c…

For more information about the PSC, please read here: events.pirate-secon.net/

pp-international.net/2025/03/p…

Tektronix must have been quite a place to work back in the 1980s. The company offered a bewildering selection of test equipment, and while the digital age was creeping in, much of their gear was still firmly rooted in the analog world. And some of the engineering tricks the Tek wizards pulled off are still the stuff of legend.

One such gem of analog design was the SG505, an ultra-low-distortion oscillator module that [Paul] is trying to replicate with modern parts. That’s a tall order since not only did the original specs on this oscillator call for less than 0.0008% total harmonic distortion over a frequency range of 20 Hz to 20 kHz, but a lot of the components it used are no longer manufactured. Tek also tended to use a lot of custom parts, especially mechanical ones like the barrel switch used to select attenuation levels in the SG505, leaving [Paul] no choice but to engineer his way around them.

So far, [Paul] has managed to track down most of the critical components or source suitable substitutes. One major win was locating the original J-FET Tek used in the oscillator’s AGC circuit. One part that’s proven more elusive is the potentiometer that Tek used to adjust the frequency; who knew that finding a dual-gang precision wirewound 10k single-turn pot with no physical stop would be such a chore?

[Paul] still seems to be very much in the planning stages of this project yet, and that’s probably for the best since projects such as these live and die on proper planning. We’re keen to see how this develops, and we’re very much looking forward to seeing the FFT results. We also imagine he’ll be busting out his custom curve tracer at some point in the build, too.

hackaday.com/2025/03/29/recrea…