Elliot Williams and Al Williams got together to share their favorite hacks of the week with you. If you listen in, you’ll hear exciting news about the upcoming SuperCon and the rare occurrence of Al winning the What’s That Sound game.

For hacks, the guys talk about the IEEE’s take on the “best” programming languages of 2025 and how they think AI is going to fundamentally transform the job of a programmer. On a lighter note, there’s an industrial robot who retired to bartending, a minimal drum machine, a high-powered laser, and a Fortran flight simulator reborn with Unity 3D.

In the “can’t miss” category, you’ll learn how not to switch Linux distributions and what to expect when you need surgery while on your next mission to outer space.

There’s lots more. Want to follow along? Check out the links below. As always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

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Episode 340 Show Notes:

News:

• 2025 Hackaday Speakers, Round One! And Spoilers

What’s that Sound?

• Al made short work of the sound again this week, racking up an uncharacteristic streak of two. Congrats to [Absolutely the Best Podcast: A Work in Progress] for getting the printing press right too!

Interesting Hacks of the Week:

• Ask Hackaday: What’s The Top Programming Language Of 2025
• Robot Bartender Is The Life Of The Party
• The Making Of A Minimalist Analog Drum Machine
  
  • Logic Noise: Sweet, Sweet Oscillator Sounds

  
  

• Improved 3D Printer Cannibalizes Two Older Printers
• Driving A Laser At 200 Volts For Nanoseconds
  
  • lasersam.org/sam/lasersam.htm

  
  

• Porting A Fortran Flight Simulator To Unity3D

Quick Hacks:

• Elliot’s Picks:
  
  • 3D Print Smoothing, With Lasers
  • Segger’s Awkward USB-C Issue With The J-Link Compact Debugger
  • YouTube… Over Dial Up
  • Kinethreads: A Low Cost Haptic Exo-Suit

  
  

• Al’s Picks:
  
  • An FPGA-Based Mechanical Keyboard
  • Creating Python GUIs With GIMP
  • NTRON Plays Games, Music

  
  

Can’t-Miss Articles:

• Ask Hackaday: How Do You Distro Hop?
  
  • Distrobox

  
  

• A Cut Above: Surgery In Space, Now And In The Future

hackaday.com/2025/10/03/hackad…