Despite the summer doldrums, it was another big week in the hacking world, and Elliot sat down with Dan for a rundown. Come along for the ride as Dan betrays his total ignorance of soccer/football, much to Elliot’s amusement. But it’s all about keeping the human factor in sports, so we suppose it was worth it. Less controversially, we ogled over a display of PCB repair heroics, analyzed a reverse engineering effort that got really lucky, and took a look at an adorable one-transistor ham transceiver. We also talked about ants doing surgery, picking locks with nitric acid, a damn cute dam, and how to build one of the world’s largest machines from scratch in under a century. Plus, we answered the burning question: can a CRT be used as an audio amplifier? Yes, kind of, but please don’t let the audiophiles know or we’ll never hear the end of it.

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Episode 280 Show Notes:

News:

• Congratulations To The 2024 Business Card Challenge Winners!
• Show Us Your Minimalist Games, And Win
  
  • Simple Version Of Pong Played On A Row Of LEDs

  
  

• Time’s Up For Mbed

What’s that Sound?

• First gravity wave detected by LIGO: Congrats to [Lil Trashpanda]
• Keynote Video: Dr. Keith Thorne Explains The Extreme Engineering Of The LIGO Hardware

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Five Ways To Repair Broken PCB Traces
• Build Your Own Hydroelectric Dam
• Hacking An IP Camera To Run Your Own Software
• You Can Use A CRT As An Audio Amplifier Tube
  
  • VFD As A Sound Amplifier

  
  

• Flexures Make Robotic Fingers Simpler To Print
  
  • Print Your Own Flexures
  • 3D Mouse With 3D Printed Flexures And PCB Coils
  • 3D Printed Flexure Shows Precision In Action

  
  

• How The Bell System Was Built

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks
  
  • Seiko Had A Smartwatch In 1984
  • A Look At The DEC VT220, A Proper Serial Terminal
  • Playing Rock, Paper Scissors With A Time Of Flight Sensor

  
  

• Dan’s Picks:
  
  • Tiny Transceiver Gets It Done With One Transistor
  • Surgery — Not Just For Humans Anymore
  • Nitric Acid Is The Hot New Way To Pick Locks

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Embedded Python: MicroPython Is Amazing
• Smart Ball Technology Has Reached Football, But The Euros Show Us It’s Not Necessarily For The Better
  
  • Germany vs. Denmark Highlights (worked in the US at least; play in question is about 10 minutes in)