There’s a famous old story about [Charles Steinmetz] fixing a generator for [Henry Ford]. He charged a lot of money for putting a chalk X in the spot that needed repair. When [Ford] asked for an itemization, the bill read $1 for the chalk, and the balance for knowing where to draw the X. With today’s PCB layout tools, it seems easy to put components down on a board. But, as [Kasyan TV] points out in the video below, you still have to know where to put them.

The subject components are inductors, which are particularly picky about placement, especially if you have multiple inductors. After all, inductors affect one another — that’s how transformers work. So there are definite rules about good and bad ways to put a few inductors on a board.

However, in the video, air-core coils go through several orientations to see which configuration has the most and least interference. Using a ferrite core showed similar results. The final examples use toroids and shielded inductors.

One reason ferrite toroids are popular in radio designs is that coils made this way are largely self-shielding. This makes placement easier and means you don’t need metal “cans” to shield the inductors. How much do they shield? The orientation makes a little difference, but not by much. It is more important to give them a little space between the coils. Shields work, too, but note that they also change the inductance value.

While we like the idea of grabbing a breadboard and a scope to measure things, we want to point out that you can also simulate. If you didn’t understand the title, you probably don’t listen to Propellerheads.

youtube.com/embed/VhruG2Hu7iY?…

hackaday.com/2025/06/18/a-numb…

This week Jonathan chats with Geekwife! What does a normal user really think of Linux on the desktop and Open Source options? And what is it really like, putting up with Jonathan’s shenanigans? Watch to find out!

youtube.com/embed/2sPOsnGacAE?…

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/2025/06/18/floss-…

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s the 87th day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like, and journalists covering protests are still facing aggression from law enforcement. Read on to learn how you can help.

Five ways to help journalists covering protests

Like other protests, recent immigration raid protests in Los Angeles and elsewhere have proven to be dangerous places for journalists. Reporters and protestors are especially vulnerable to attacks by the police. In response, we’ve put together five ideas for how anyone who cares about press freedom and doesn’t want to see the authorities abuse the First Amendment can help.

From providing financial support to reporters and news outlets to filming attacks when it’s safe to filing public records requests, there are many things people can do to stand up for journalists and freedom of the press in this moment. With your help, journalists can and will continue to report the truth. Read more here.

And a shoutout to the California journalists and press freedom groups taking the Los Angeles Police Department to court over its abuses.

Remembering Daniel Ellsberg

Monday marked the second anniversary of the passing of legendary whistleblower, anti-war hero, and FPF co-founder Daniel Ellsberg. His courageous decision to leak the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971 led to the most important Supreme Court case for press freedom in the century.

Read the moving tribute that our executive director, Trevor Timm, wrote for the Guardian after Ellsberg’s passing. You can also check out The Classifieds to see the work that Harper, our Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, has been doing.

And if you’re considering following in Ellsberg’s footsteps, here’s a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” about how the public can safely share information with the press and use available tools to do so, featuring FPF’s Chief Information Security Officer and Director of Digital Security Harlo Holmes and SecureDrop Staff Engineer Kevin O’Gorman.

Agencies hijack the ‘public interest’ to attack free speech

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has turned the investigatory power of the agency against the press, while the Department of Justice is pursuing investigations into nonprofits connected to left-leaning causes.

One hook both are using to intrude on First Amendment activity is requirements that broadcast licensees and nonprofits operate in the “public interest” or for the “public benefit,” which the Trump administration interprets to mean kowtowing to its political agenda. To learn more, we spoke to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and nonprofit lawyer Ezra Reese. Read more and watch the conversation here.

Preparing devices for travel through a US border

Our digital security team at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, put together a detailed checklist to help journalists prepare for transit through a U.S. port of entry while preserving the confidentiality of their most sensitive information, such as unpublished reporting materials or source contact information. Read it here. FPF and its partners are also conducting two in-person training programs for journalists and freelancers who cover migration and events on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Public records shouldn’t be blocked by copyright

FPF joined an amicus brief led by Americans for Prosperity in a case that raises the increasingly common issue of whether the Copyright Act allows government agencies to withhold public records. In short, it doesn’t. Read the brief here.

Pushing back on secrecy through public records

Join us on June 24 at 1 p.m. ET for an online conversation about using public records to push back on government secrecy, featuring Nate Jones, Freedom of Information Act Director at The Washington Post, Michael Morisy, CEO of MuckRock, investigative journalist and author Miranda Spivack and FPF’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, Lauren Harper. Register here.

What we’re reading

Arrested in Georgia protest, immigrant journalist now in ICE custody (WRDW). There is absolutely no reason to deport a longtime journalist who is authorized to work in the United States. The Dekalb County Sheriff’s Office should not have released Mario Guevara to ICE.

Australian deported from US says he was ‘targeted’ due to writing on pro-Palestine student protests (The Guardian). The administration is using every tool at its disposal to retaliate against journalists and others who expose facts it wants kept secret or hold opinions it doesn’t like.

Trump to again extend TikTok’s reprieve from U.S. ban (The New York Times). Isn’t it weird how all the national security hawks have gone silent about the imminent, serious threat to the U.S. that TikTok supposedly poses? It’s almost like it was BS the whole time.

Mayor Adams says he’s banning Daily News reporter from pressers for ‘calling out’ questions (New York Daily News). What can we say about Eric Adams that a grand jury hasn’t already said? Not much, but here’s something: He’s a thin-skinned bully who apparently can’t handle unexpected questions from the press without throwing a tantrum.

Israeli strike on Iranian state TV fills studio with dust and debris during live broadcast (Associated Press). News outlets, even propagandist ones, are not legitimate military targets. Bombing a studio during a live broadcast will not impede Iran’s nuclear program. It’s not the work of the world’s “most moral army” and is not something the U.S. should support.

In a Sacramento federal courtroom, immigration hearings evoked the Dark Ages (Sacramento Bee). “At a time when there is great public interest in ICE and the Trump Administration’s plan for mass deportations, keeping the public and the press at bay will only stoke mistrust and is in no one’s best interest.”

Court dismisses father’s lawsuit against Burlington newspaper over lack of basketball coverage (VTDigger). The worst part is that this random Vermont basketball dad’s nonsense lawsuit objectively isn’t any more frivolous than legal theories advanced by our president.

freedom.press/issues/how-to-he…

You might think that a nuclear explosion is not something you need a detector for, but clearly not everyone agrees. [Bigcrimping] has not only built one, the BhangmeterV2, but he has its output publicly posted at hasanukegoneoff.com, in case you can’t go through your day without checking if someone has nuked Wiltshire.

The Bhangmeter is based on an off-the-shelf “nuclear event detector”, the HSN-1000L by Power Device Corporation.
The HSN 1000 Nuclear Event Detector at the heart of the build. We didn’t know this thing existed, never mind that it was still available.
Interfacing to the HSN-1000L is very easy: you give it power, and it gives you a pin that stays HIGH unless it detects the characteristic gamma ray pulse of a nuclear event. The gamma ray pulse occurs at the beginning of a “nuclear event” precedes the EMP by some microseconds, and the blast wave by perhaps many seconds, so the HSN-1000 series seems be aimed at triggering an automatic shutdown that might help preserve electronics in the event of a nuclear exchange.

[Bigcrimping] has wired the HSN-1000L to a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W to create the BhangmeterV2. In the event of a nuclear explosion, it will log the time the nuclear event detector’s pin goes low, and the JSON log is pushed to the cloud, hopefully to a remote server that won’t be vaporized or bricked-by-EMP along with the BhangmeterV2. Since it is only detecting the gamma ray pulse, the BhangmeterV2 is only sensitive to nuclear events within line-of-sight, which is really not where you want to be relative to a nuclear event. Perhaps V3 will include other detection methods– maybe even a 3D-printed neutrino detector?

If you survive the blast this project is designed to detect, you might need a radiation detector to deal with the fallout. For identifying exactly what radionuclide contamination is present, you might want a gamma-ray spectrometer.

It’s a sad comment on the modern world that this hack feels both cold-war vintage and relevant again today. Thanks to [Tom] for the tip; if you have any projects you want to share, we’d love to hear from you whether they’d help us survive nuclear war or not.

hackaday.com/2025/06/18/bhangm…

Il 2 giugno 2025, l’Institute for the Study of War (ISW) ha pubblicato un’analisi secondo cui Russia e Ucraina si trovano impegnate in una competizione strategica per sviluppare droni dotati di intelligenza artificiale (IA) e apprendimento automatico (machine learning), con l’obiettivo di ridurre la dipendenza dagli operatori umani, superare i limiti del riconoscimento visivo tradizionale e contrastare l’interferenza delle contromisure elettroniche.

Entrambi i Paesi stanno cercando di integrare tali tecnologie in nuovi modelli, puntando a una progressiva automazione delle operazioni. Tuttavia, nessuna delle due nazioni ha ancora implementato questi sistemi su vasta scala nei teatri di guerra.

Dal 2023, la Russia ha aumentato gli sforzi per dotare i suoi droni di capacità di visione artificiale. Il drone “Tyuvik“, ad esempio, rappresenta uno dei primi tentativi russi di produrre un velivolo leggero d’attacco con guida autonoma basata sul riconoscimento visivo.

Equipaggiato con moduli NVIDIA Jetson, telecamere ad alta risoluzione e dischi rigidi ad alta capacità, il Tyuvik è in grado di identificare e colpire bersagli senza intervento umano. Il 18 maggio 2025, un esperto ucraino ha osservato l’impiego di sciami di sei droni russi in configurazione autonoma, rivelando un salto di qualità significativo nell’applicazione della tecnologia IA sul campo.
Drone da attacco leggero Tuvik
Anche l’Ucraina ha intrapreso con determinazione la strada della dronistica intelligente. Già nel 2024, il Ministro della Trasformazione Digitale Fedorov annunciava il progetto di un drone con capacità simili al russo Lancet-3. Un anno dopo, il drone “Gogol-M“, sviluppato da una startup ucraina, ha completato con successo la sua prima missione autonoma. Questo drone-madre è in grado di trasportare e rilasciare due droni FPV, con attacchi a una distanza di oltre 300 km, dimostrando un’elevata capacità operativa. Tuttavia, come nel caso russo, anche le soluzioni ucraine sono ancora in fase di test operativo e non rappresentano un asset consolidato.

Entrambe le parti devono affrontare ostacoli significativi nello sviluppo e nell’uso operativo di droni IA. Malfunzionamenti nei sistemi di aggancio automatico, limiti nella visione artificiale, problemi di riconoscimento a lunga distanza e incapacità di seguire bersagli in movimento sono difficoltà comuni. A ciò si aggiunge la crescente efficacia delle contromisure elettroniche.
Aeromobili senza pilota dotati di FPV
Dal punto di vista organizzativo, la Russia sta cercando di colmare il divario attraverso la creazione di un ecosistema digitale militare. Il progetto “Russian Digital Sky“, sostenuto da GLONASS e dalla National Technology Initiative, mira a costruire una rete satellitare e un’infrastruttura cloud capace di raccogliere, processare e utilizzare i dati provenienti dal campo di battaglia in tempo reale. L’obiettivo è fornire ai droni una consapevolezza situazionale autonoma, simile a quella umana, per distinguere amici, nemici e obiettivi strategici, potenziando ulteriormente le capacità decisionali delle unità autonome.

In sintesi, la corsa tra Russia e Ucraina per il dominio dei cieli attraverso droni autonomi rappresenta una nuova fase della guerra tecnologica. Le implicazioni sono enormi: se queste tecnologie dovessero maturare, potrebbero cambiare radicalmente il modo in cui si combattono i conflitti, riducendo il tempo di reazione, aumentando la letalità e ridefinendo le regole dell’ingaggio. Tuttavia, al momento, sia Mosca che Kiev si trovano ancora in una fase embrionale, dove ogni avanzamento tecnologico è accompagnato da sfide operative e morali ancora tutte da risolvere.

L'articolo La corsa ai droni autonomi e la sfida tecnologica tra Russia e Ucraina proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

La Cina è diventata il secondo Paese al mondo ad avviare la sperimentazione clinica di un’interfaccia cervello-computer invasiva sugli esseri umani. Secondo CCTV, l’impianto è stato eseguito su un uomo di 37 anni che ha perso tutti gli arti a causa di una scossa elettrica ad alto voltaggio più di dieci anni fa. Ora, per la prima volta dopo molti anni, può di nuovo interagire con il mondo esterno, non con le mani, ma direttamente, con i pensieri.

A marzo di quest’anno, i ricercatori hanno impiantato nel cervello del paziente un dispositivo delle dimensioni di una moneta e i sottilissimi elettrodi che costituiscono un’interfaccia neurale. Poche settimane dopo l’operazione, il paziente ha imparato a controllare un cursore su uno schermo, a giocare ai videogiochi, ad avviare applicazioni e persino a giocare a scacchi, con una precisione prossima a quella di un utente normale. Tutte le azioni vengono eseguite esclusivamente tramite l’attività neurale.

Il lavoro è coordinato dal Centro di Eccellenza per le Neuroscienze e le Tecnologie Intelligenti dell’Accademia Cinese delle Scienze (CAS), dall’Ospedale Huashan dell’Università Fudan di Shanghai e da partner industriali. In precedenza, solo il progetto Neuralink di Elon Musk aveva dimostrato una svolta simile.

Tuttavia, per un aspetto, lo sviluppo cinese ha superato i suoi concorrenti: secondo il professor Zhao Zhengtao del CAS, il neuroelettrodo inserito nel cervello del paziente è diventato il più flessibile e miniaturizzato al mondo. Il suo diametro è pari a solo 1/100 della larghezza di un capello umano, cinque volte inferiore a quello dell’analogo americano. Il sensore può quindi piegarsi liberamente senza danneggiare i tessuti o causare infiammazioni.

Ogni elettrodo contiene 32 sensori che registrano i segnali neurologici. L’intero sistema percepisce gli impulsi elettrici microscopici che si verificano quando determinate aree del cervello sono attive e trasmette istantaneamente i dati al dispositivo, che li interpreta in comandi.

L’intero impianto misura 26 millimetri di diametro e meno di 6 millimetri di spessore. A titolo di paragone, il dispositivo Neuralink ha uno spessore quasi doppio. Per installare l’impianto, i neurochirurghi hanno prima assottigliato una sezione del cranio appena sopra la corteccia motoria, l’area che controlla il movimento. Un elettrodo flessibile è stato quindi inserito nella finestra di 5 millimetri di diametro risultante.

Naturalmente, prima dell’intervento, l’équipe ha eseguito una serie di scansioni per costruire un modello 3D accurato del cervello del paziente. Durante la procedura, è stato utilizzato un sistema di navigazione in tempo reale per garantire un posizionamento preciso al millimetro. L’intero processo ha richiesto meno di mezz’ora.

Ma la precisione chirurgica è solo l’inizio. Nei prossimi mesi, il paziente sarà sottoposto a un programma di adattamento. I ricercatori gli insegneranno a controllare le protesi robotiche: prima semplici movimenti delle mani, poi lavorare con oggetti nello spazio fisico. La fase successiva sarà la padronanza di dispositivi complessi: robot autonomi, cani meccanici e altri agenti di intelligenza artificiale “incarnati” a cui è possibile impartire comandi direttamente dalle profondità della coscienza.

È importante notare che lo sviluppo è stato sottoposto a test preliminari su roditori e macachi. Solo in seguito è stato considerato pronto per l’uso sugli esseri umani. Nel 2024 sono previsti diversi altri interventi su piccola scala su persone affette da paralisi e SLA. Entro il 2026, il team prevede di estendere il campione a 40 pazienti.

Secondo Zhao, il tessuto nervoso è praticamente inconsapevole della presenza di qualcosa di estraneo, il che riduce drasticamente il rischio di rigetto e consente una funzionalità a lungo termine senza dover ricorrere a interventi chirurgici ripetuti. Considerando che la maggior parte degli impianti invasivi moderni presenta reazioni immunitarie dopo pochi mesi, questa proprietà rappresenta un vantaggio fondamentale.

Gli obiettivi a lungo termine del team vanno ben oltre le semplici capacità motorie. Gli scienziati stanno già sviluppando protocolli che consentirebbero l’ utilizzo di tali interfacce per trattare ictus e morbo di Alzheimer, ripristinare l’attività motoria in individui con gravi lesioni spinali e, potenzialmente, persino ripristinare parzialmente la vista nei non vedenti.

Tuttavia, sullo sfondo della continua rivalità tecnologica tra Stati Uniti e Cina, questo sviluppo è anche una dichiarazione di grande ambizione. Allo stesso tempo, la Cina non si concentra sull’integrazione industriale, come Elon Musk, ma sull’efficacia clinica e sulla miniaturizzazione.

L'articolo BCI (Brain Computer Interface). La Cina supera Neuralink in precisione e miniaturizzazione proviene da il blog della sicurezza informatica.

When [daniely101] wanted a split keyboard, he decided to build his own. It wound up costing $25 to create a wireless board with no custom PCB required. Each half has its own microcontroller, and the whole thing connects via Bluetooth. While we don’t mind making a PCB, we can appreciate that you could change your mind easily with this wiring scheme.

The 3D printed case holds the keys, and then it is just a matter of carefully soldering the keys to the microcontrollers. Of course, each side also has to have its own battery. The ZMK firmware is split in half, one part for each side of the keyboard. The nRF52840 CPUs have plenty of wireless connectivity. The keys are set in rows and columns, so the amount of soldering back to the controller is manageable.

While we applaud the wireless design, it does seem odd that you have to charge both halves and turn them on and off separately. But that’s the nice thing about a design like this — you could modify the design to not have a split. Or, you could allow one flexible wire pair to run across for power. Of course, you could modify the layout, including adding or deleting keys.

You might consider adding a pointing device. At least you don’t have to pull out a saw.

youtube.com/embed/VS1WQ7kv4qA?…

hackaday.com/2025/06/18/split-…

One of the most frustrating things to me is looking at a freshly-flashed and just powered up single board computer. My goal with them is always getting to a shell – installing packages, driving GPIOs, testing my proof of concept code, adjusting the device tree to load peripheral drivers. Before I can do any of that, I need shell access, and getting there can be a real hassle.

Time after time, I’ve struggled trying to get to a shell on an SBC. For best results, you’d want to get yourself a keyboard, monitor, and an Ethernet cable. Don’t have those, or there’s no space to place them? Maybe a UART connection will work for you – unless it’s broken or misconfigured. Check your pinouts twice. Sure, nowadays you can put WiFi credentials into a text file in /boot/ – but good luck figuring out the IP address, or debugging any mistakes you might make formatting the file. Nowadays, Pi 4 and 5 expose a USB gadget connection on the USB-C port, and that helps… unless you’re already powering the Pi from that port. There’s really no shortage of failure modes here.

If you put a Pi on your network and it goes offline, you generally just don’t know what happened unless you reboot it, which can make debugging into a living hell. I’ve dealt with single-board computers mounted above fiberglass lifted ceilings, fleets of Pi boards at workshops I organized, pocket-carried Pi boards, and at some point, I got tired of it all. A hacker-aimed computer is meant to be accessible, not painful.

Server-Grade Interfaces For All

That’s why, for years now, I’ve been working on a cheap and accessible embedded UI, called ZPUI (Zippy UI) – with its help, a cheap I2C screen and a few buttons is all it takes to keep track of your Pi or other Linux device.

A separate lightweight control interface isn’t a new concept. Back in the glorious era of character LCDs and non-standard mounting boxy cute servers, you could get a 16×2 display and five arrow keys on a Sun machine, and with help of a little bespoke software, you could do basic management actions on your server without having to break out a KVM.

One of my first semi-serious projects, way back in 2014, was a HD44780 library for Raspberry Pi use, universal and lightweight, supporting both direct GPIO access and I2C backpacks with ease. People have had used those for IP address display for a while by then, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to easily power off my boards to avoid SD card corruption (which was way worse back in the day), figure out my boards’ IP addresses without Nmap scans, and connect to WiFi networks without SD card machinations. All throughout, it felt like a piece of software someone should’ve had written years ago. It’s a simple concept – if I have physical access to my SBC, I should be able to take control of it.

So, with a HD44780, a USB numpad, and a heap of Python code, I’ve built the first version of the software I called pyLCI – for Linux Control Interface. I gave it app loading support, then wrote code to parse commands like ip addr, wpa_cli for WiFi connection management, tvservice for HDMI monitor connection debug, reboot and poweroff, as well as an ability to run arbitrary pre-defined scripts from a menu. I made sure it’d only require 5 buttons at all times – up, down, left, right, and enter, and that it’d work with character LCDs from as small as 16×2 to as big as 20×4.

pyLCI quickly became a useful tool in my SBC forays, and I’ve built it into a number of my portable devices, most of them Pi-powered. I’ve added it to a portable hardware hacking workbench I built for SPI flash and general hardware tinkering, home automation Pi boards I’d run, and even a desktop/pocket Pi 2 that served as only computer for almost half a year. When I ran Raspberry Pi workshops in our hackerspace, I bought a few character-LCD-and-button HATs and used them to determine IP addresses of student-issued Pi boards, so that I wouldn’t need to drag a monitor around or do USB-UART interventions.

Entering WiFi passwords with arrow keys wasn’t ideal, but it was miles ahead of the frustration I used to routinely experience before it, every time I brought a Pi somewhere for a project – only to get effectively locked out of a computer I own.

Bigger Screens, Bigger Ambitions

When I worked on ZeroPhone, an open-source Raspberry Pi Zero-based numpad phone, naturally, I forked pyLCI into a base for the UI, called it ZPUI (for ZeroPhone UI), and decided to target the super common 128×64 screens. Initially, I made the color screen imitate a character screen – it worked kind of well as a stopgap but resulted in tiny text. It took a good while to make the screen readable, make apps work passably well and write new better-working ones, implement numpad input in addition to arrow keys input, and I’ve ended up learning a ton from building an UI framework where none was intended to be.

Recently, I’ve reignited my portable platform building ambitions, and as part of a hacker collective, I’ve been working on a Beepy derivative device – a QWERTY PDA-like Pi Zero-based pocket Linux terminal. Just like many portable Linux devices in this form-factor, it’s badly missing a low-frills graphical UI, with three or four people having attempted to write one, and one in particular getting pretty far. I ported ZPUI to a larger screen, borrowed a UI layout mockup from one of the more successful Beepy UI projects, and I’m now porting ZPUI to larger screens. My goal with ZPUI is making your Linux devices accessible and friendly, and the Beepy community could definitely benefit from a software boost like that.

My goal is creating a UI that you can use to make any of your Linux devices accessible – no matter if you’re building a home automation panel with a Pi at its heart, or an OpenWRT-powered pocket router, putting together an overpowered Meshtastic node you want to adjust on the fly, or a PWN4Pi device that you want to manually pick RubberDucky scripts for, designing failsafes for a robot with computer vision, or simply organizing workshops where seeing your Pi’s IP address is important, in circumstances of twenty students who all want your attention during setup. This year, I’ve started working on ZPUI again, bringing it up to speed with modern software realities, and I invite you to try it out in your projects.

How ZPUI Can Help You

Cheap enough to order a dozen, for $5, only needs an OLED and buttons, and it’s very JLC-compatible
At minimum, you only need a small 128×64 OLED screen and give buttons – for instance, if you have a Waveshare Pi Zero hat, it will do just fine. In case you’re ordering PCBs anytime soon, I’ve also designed a businesscard form-factor Pi shield, which fits on any Pi and even works over QWIIC if you want – throw the board into your next JLC order, solder an OLED and a few jellybean buttons to it, follow the install instructions, and enjoy the extra point of control over your Linux install.

As-is, ZPUI can do most of the basic tasks for you – show network info, connect to WiFi networks (and even display known network passwords), manage system services with help of a systemctl API, poweroff/reboot, unmount partitions so you don’t have to SSH in to unplug that one flash drive, list USB devices so you know if your favourite device fell off the bus, and do a number of other things (there’s even an AVRDUDE app!). It will even let you input console commands through arrow keys in a pinch.
Example ZPUI apps, complete with instructions, coming soon!
Currently, apart from UI improvements, I’m working on a heap of mechanisms to make third-party app designs easier. You already can develop ZPUI apps, and you can even distribute ZPUI apps as Python packages, but there’s still work to do. If you want to help contribute and tackle goals like, say, a raspi-config app or a Bluetooth config interface, you’re most welcome to join in and help – there’s even a ZPUI emulator for app development purposes!

ZPUI is a project aimed to make your other projects easier. I invite you to try it out, especially if you’ve faced the kind of problems I’ve told about in the article intro. If it were up to me, SBCs like Raspberry Pi would come with these kinds of interfaces out of the box, simply because of the insanely large amount of problems I’ve had it solve and figure out.

Unexpectedly Cyberpunk

Here’s a cool demo! I’ve assembled a ZPUI businesscard into a palm-sized shield, with a QWIIC cable connected to it. On my SBCs, I have QWIIC sockets exposed, with ZPUI installed and configured to expect such a shield. When I plug it in, ZPUI detects it on the I2C bus and shows up on the screen. This palm-sized shield feels surprisingly cyberpunk to use, akin to having a cable in your wrist that lets you tap into any device of your choice. For a while now, all my devices come with QWIIC connectors, because of just how much ZPUI helps me in bringup and development.

If you have any questions, ask away, and I hope ZPUI can help you. If not – let me know! This year, I’m aiming to seriously upgrade it, building it into a fully-featured UI it is meant to be, and if there’s a feature you’re looking for, it could very well get implemented alongside.

The immigration raid protests that began on June 6, 2025, in Los Angeles and spread to other cities across the U.S. have shown, once again, that protests are one of the most dangerous places for journalists in America.

As of today, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented more than 20 press freedom incidents involving journalists covering protests in California, most of them instigated by law enforcement, and is investigating numerous others in California and other states.

Demonstrations have lessened recently, but they’re likely to resume as the Trump administration continues to push unpopular immigration raids in Democratic cities. Journalists — as well as protesters — remain vulnerable.

When the police detain, assault, and attack journalists covering protests, it can prevent them from reporting the news and the public from learning about newsworthy events. That’s why we all must condemn police attacks on the press and take action to stop them in the future.

If you don’t want to see the authorities abuse journalists and the First Amendment during protests, here are five things you can do to help.

1. Support local journalism.

Many of the journalists covering recent protests have been freelancers or reporters for smaller, local outlets. They could undoubtedly use your financial support. In recent years, many local news sources have struggled or even shuttered completely because they simply can’t make enough money to support themselves.

Your monetary support is what keeps the lights on and pays for the journalists who report from protests. Consider buying a subscription to news outlets that are sending journalists to cover protests in your community, or subscribing or donating to freelance journalists.

In Los Angeles, journalists for the small news outlets L.A. Taco and The Southlander have faced press freedom aggressions while covering recent protests, as have freelancers like Joey Scott. Journalists at commercial broadcasters like KTLA, KVEA, and KNBC, and larger outlets like the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, CNN, and the New York Post have also experienced press freedom incidents.

If you can’t support local outlets monetarily, you can also contribute to them through letters to the editor and op-eds making clear that you value their work and want them to be able to report safely. Even social media posts and reposts help.

2. Support injured journalists and journalists’ legal defense funds.

In addition to providing financial support to news outlets, individual journalists injured by law enforcement could use your help, as could the legal defense services that assist them.

For example, independent photojournalist Nick Stern suffered a severe injury at the recent LA protests. Stern is recovering from emergency surgery after being shot in the leg with a crowd-control munition. His friends started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover his medical bills.

In addition, The Intercept, in partnership with CalMatters and the National Press Photographers Association, has launched a rapid response fund to provide financial help for emergency medical support, among other costs, for journalists covering protests in LA.

Other journalists will need legal help to respond to unjustified arrests. The Intercept’s rapid response fund can be applied to legal expenses, as can the Society of Professional Journalists’ Legal Defense Fund. Both groups accept donations.

Another organization you may want to support is the Los Angeles Press Club, which, with help from another group worthy of your donations, the First Amendment Coalition, is suing local law enforcement for violating journalists’ First Amendment rights.

3. Film or record attacks and arrests of journalists, if it’s safe to do so.

Of course, financial support isn’t the only way you can help. If you witness law enforcement arresting or attacking journalists covering a protest and it is safe for you to do so, you should consider recording the incident.

Creating a record of journalists’ arrests and assaults can help hold police accountable. Publishing videos or photographs deters misconduct by bringing negative attention to police. Recordings, pictures, and witness statements can also be useful in future lawsuits. So, if possible, you should give copies of your recordings and contact information directly to the journalist or their news outlets.

Even if you see others recording, your recording may capture a useful angle that rebuts false narratives. For example, in this video an officer adamantly accuses ABC’s Matt Guttman of having provoked an altercation by “touching” him, but this video shows that it was the officer who pushed Guttman, who, at most, reflexively grabbed the officer’s arm to steady himself after being assaulted.

The public has a First Amendment right to record police in the performance of their official duties in public, including at protests. Of course, the existence of that right doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe to exercise it. Police have been known to attack or arrest people who film them or take their pictures, and other laws may allow police to require non-journalists to disperse or move back. You should assess your personal risk and the laws in your jurisdiction before deciding to take pictures or videos of police arresting or attacking journalists.

4. Submit requests for public records and bodycam footage.

Even if you can’t document police action against journalists at protests while they’re underway, you may be able to unearth valuable documentation after the fact using public records requests.

If your state classifies bodycam footage as a public record, requests for police body-worn camera footage from protests could be particularly useful. (Even if your state does not consider bodycam footage a public record, you may be able to request it under a specific provision in state law governing such footage.) In the past, bodycam footage has shown police targeting journalists at demonstrations or ignoring reporter’s statements that they are press.

You don’t have to be a journalist to submit a records request. Organizations like MuckRock have easy-to-follow tools and guidance for submitting and tracking requests, and examples of requests from others that you can crib from.

5. Call on lawmakers to end qualified immunity.

Finally, one of the reasons that police feel emboldened to violate First Amendment rights of both protesters and journalists is because they know they can get away with it. A legal doctrine known as qualified immunity often protects police and other government officials from civil claims that they’ve violated a person’s constitutional rights. Police have invoked qualified immunity in cases brought by journalists alleging violations of their First Amendment rights, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

After the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, many called for an end to qualified immunity. Unfortunately, that reform effort has largely stalled.

Today, a few states ban or limit the ability of the police to invoke qualified immunity. Congress has introduced, but not passed, a bill to end qualified immunity. If you don’t want police to be able to attack protesters and journalists with impunity, contact your state and federal representatives and tell them to end qualified immunity.

What all five of these ideas have in common is that they call on you to exercise your First Amendment rights to protect journalists who are using theirs. Whether you’re supporting journalists’ work, documenting abuses, or contacting your representatives, your voice matters. With your help, journalists can and will continue to report the truth.

freedom.press/issues/journalis…

Filomena Gallo, Segretaria nazionale dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni partecipa assieme a Marco Perduca, responsabile delle attività internazionali dell’Associazione Luca Coscioni, e all’avvocata Angela Scaglione, attivista dell’Associazione, al dibattito Diritti scomodi: le leggi sul Fine vita e sulla Cannabis in Toscana, organizzato dal Partito Democratico della Toscana in collaborazione con i Giovani Democratici di Firenze.

L’appuntamento è per lunedì 23 giugno 2025, alle ore 18:30 presso il SMS di Rifredi in via Vittorio Emanuele II 303 a Firenze.

Sono previsti anche gli interventi di Iacopo Melio, consigliere regionale della Toscana, Enzo Brogi, responsabile Diritti Toscana PD e Andrea Raglianti, attivista dei Giovani Democratici di Firenze. Modera la giornalista de La Nazione, Sarah Esposito. Sono previsti, inoltre, i saluti iniziali dell’onorevole Marco Furfaro

L'articolo Filomena Gallo, Marco Perduca e Angela Scaglione partecipano al dibattito “Diritti scomodi: le leggi sul Fine vita e sulla Cannabis in Toscana” proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.

The original ESP32 may be a little long in the tooth by now, but it remains a potent tool for connected devices. We were drawn to [Max Pflaum]’s ESP32 Dashboard as a great example, it’s an ESP32 hooked up to an e-paper display. The hardware is simple enough, but the software is what makes it interesting.

This is deigned as a configurable notification tool, so to make it bend to the user’s will a series of widgets can be loaded onto it. The device runs MicroPython, making it easy enough to write more than the ones already on place. The screen is divided into four zones, allowing for a range of widgets to be used at once. All the details can be found in a GitHub repository.

We like it for its configurability and ease of programming, and because it delivers well on the promise of a useful device. An ESP32 and e-ink combination with MicroPython apps is something we’ve seen before in the world of badges.

hackaday.com/2025/06/18/esp32-…

La Cellula Coscioni di Catania, in collaborazione con l’Unione degli Atei e Agnostici Razionalisti, Rivolta Pagina, il Centro antiviolenza Galatea, Sham Officine e le federazioni locali del Partito Democratico, Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra, Rifondazione Comunista e Potere al Popolo! promuovono il lancio della campagna Aborto senza ricovero.

L’appuntamento è per mercoledì 25 giugno 2025 alle ore 18:30 presso il Cinema King, in via Antonio De Curtis 14 a Catania.

Interverranno Walter Venti, ginecologo consultoriale, e Giorgia Landolfo, scrittrice e giornalista. Contestualmente avverrà la proiezione del film Mai raramente a volte sempre di Eliza Hittman. L’ingresso è di 5 euro.

L'articolo Lancio della campagna “Aborto senza ricovero” e proiezione del film “Mai raramente a volte sempre” proviene da Associazione Luca Coscioni.

I ran into an old episode of Hogan’s Heroes the other day that stuck me as odd. It didn’t have a laugh track. Ironically, the show was one where two pilots were shown, one with and one without a laugh track. The resulting data ensured future shows would have fake laughter. This wasn’t the pilot, though, so I think it was just an error on the part of the streaming service.

However, it was very odd. Many of the jokes didn’t come off as funny without the laugh track. Many of them came off as cruel. That got me to thinking about how they had to put laughter in these shows to begin with. I had my suspicions, but was I way off!

Well, to be honest, my suspicions were well-founded if you go back far enough. Bing Crosby was tired of running two live broadcasts, one for each coast, so he invested in tape recording, using German recorders Jack Mullin had brought back after World War II. Apparently, one week, Crosby’s guest was a comic named Bob Burns. He told some off-color stories, and the audience was howling. Of course, none of that would make it on the air in those days. But they saved the recording.

A few weeks later, either a bit of the show wasn’t as funny or the audience was in a bad mood. So they spliced in some of the laughs from the Burns performance. You could guess that would happen, and that’s the apparent birth of the laugh track. But that method didn’t last long before someone — Charley Douglass — came up with something better.

Sweetening

The problem with a studio audience is that they might not laugh at the right times. Or at all. Or they might laugh too much, too loudly, or too long. Charley Douglass developed techniques for sweetening an audio track — adding laughter, or desweetening by muting or cutting live laughter. At first, this was laborious, but Douglass had a plan.

He built a prototype machine that was a 28-inch wooden wheel with tape glued to its perimeter. The tape had laughter recordings and a mechanical detent system to control how much it played back.

Douglass decided to leave CBS, but the prototype belonged to them. However, the machine didn’t last very long without his attention. In 1953, he built his own derivative version and populated it with laughter from the Red Skelton Show, where Red did pantomime, and, thus, there was no audio but the laughter and applause.

Do You Really Need It?

There is a lot of debate regarding fake laughter. On the one hand, it does seem to help. On the other hand, shouldn’t people just — you know — laugh when something’s funny?

There was concern, for example, that the Munsters would be scary without a laugh track. Like I mentioned earlier, some of the gags on Hogan’s Heroes are fine with laughter, but seem mean-spirited without.

Consider the Big Bang theory. If you watch a clip (below) with no laugh track, you’ll notice two things. First, it does seem a bit mean (as a commenter said: “…like a bunch of people who really hate each other…” The other thing you’ll notice is that they pause for the laugh track insertion, which, when there is no laughter, comes off as really weird.

youtube.com/embed/jKS3MGriZcs?…

Laugh Monopoly

Laugh tracks became very common with most single-camera shows. These were hard to do in front of an audience because they weren’t filmed in sequence. Even so, some directors didn’t approve of “mechanical tricks” and refused to use fake laughter.

Even multiple-camera shows would sometimes want to augment a weak audience reaction or even just replace laughter to make editing less noticeable. Soon, producers realized that they could do away with the audience and just use canned laughter. Douglass was essentially the only game in town, at least in the United States.

The Douglass device was used on all the shows from the 1950s through the 1970s. Andy Griffith? Yep. Betwitched? Sure. The Brady Bunch? Of course. Even the Munster had Douglass or one of his family members creating their laugh tracks.

One reason he stayed a monopoly is that he was extremely secretive about how he did his work. In 1960, he formed Northridge Electronics out of a garage. When called upon, he’d wheel his invention into a studio’s editing room and add laughs for them. No one was allowed to watch.

You can see the original “laff box” in the videos below.

youtube.com/embed/tpY0Muy_1qI?…

youtube.com/embed/yCUCBkVG-Dw?…

The device was securely locked, but inside, we now know that the machine had 32 tape loops, each with ten laugh tracks. Typewriter-like keys allowed you to select various laughs and control their duration and intensity,

In the background, there was always a titter track of people mildly laughing that could be made more or less prominent. There were also some other sound effects like clapping or people moving in seats.

Building a laugh track involved mixing samples from different tracks and modulating their amplitude. You can imagine it was like playing a musical instrument that emits laughter.

Before you tell us, yes, there seems to be some kind of modern interface board on the top in the second video. No, we don’t know what it is for, but we’re sure it isn’t part of the original machine.

The original laff box wound up appearing on Antiques Roadshow where someone had bought it at a storage locker auction.

End of an Era

Of course, all things end. As technology got better and tastes changed, some companies — notably animation companies — made their own laugh tracks. One of Douglass’ protégés started a company, Sound One, that used better technology to create laughter, including stereo recordings and cassette tapes.

Today, laugh tracks are not everywhere, but you can still find them and, of course, they are prevalent in reruns. The next time you hear one, you’ll know the history behind that giggle.

If you want to build a more modern version of the laff box, [smogdog] has just the video for you, below.

youtube.com/embed/hsSoumV7Ucw?…

hackaday.com/2025/06/18/just-f…

The European Pirates have appointed Mattias ” Mab” Bjärnemalm as the first Secretary General for the organisation. Mattias Bjärnemalm, a senior member of the first Pirate Party in Sweden, has until recently been working as a Policy Advisor and Pirate Network Officer for the Pirate Delegation in the European Parliament. He was instrumental in negotiating the agreement between the Pirates and the Greens/EFA Group that lays out the details of the collaboration between the two political families. Previously, he worked as Head of Office for two Pirate Members of Parliament. He is the founder of the Young Pirates in Sweden, and was involved in the founding of both the European Pirate Party and the Young Pirates of Europe.

– We are very lucky to have appointed Mab for this role. His organisational skills and his long experience within the movement will be central to building up the office of the European Pirates and defining the role of the Secretary General, says Florian Roussel, Chairperson of the European Pirates.

The position of Secretary General was created this year to develop the office of the European Pirates into a thriving and inclusive volunteer-led organisation, and to respond to the results of the 2024 European elections.

– I am thrilled for this chance to build something new in the pirate movement! We are still a young political movement, with a lot of potential. It will be exciting to see how we best utilise all that potential, together with the board and all our activists. says Mattias Bjärnemalm.

The Secretary General will be responsible for the day-to-day running of the office of the European Pirates. The position is appointed annually, and reports directly to the board.

For more information please contact Mab:
by email: secretary.general@european-pirateparty.eu
phone: +46704385046
The post Mattias Bjärnemalm new Secretary General for the European Pirates first appeared on European Pirate Party.