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!

Or download in DRM-free MP3 playable even over 56K modems.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 340: The Best Programming Language, Space Surgery, And Hacking Two 3D Printers Into One” →

This week, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos met up over the tubes to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous seven days or so.

In Hackaday news, we’ve got a new contest running! Read all about the 2025 Component Abuse Challenge, sponsored by DigiKey, and check out the contest page for all the details. In sad news, American Science & Surplus are shuttering online sales, leaving just the brick and mortar stores in Wisconsin and Illinois.

On What’s That Sound, it’s a results show, which means Kristina gets to take a stab at it. She missed the mark, but that’s okay, because [Montana Mike] knew that it was the theme music for the show Beakman’s World, which was described by one contestant as “Bill Nye on crack”.

After that, it’s on to the hacks and such, beginning with a really cool way to smooth your 3D prints in situ. JWe take a much closer look at that talking robot’s typewriter-inspired mouth from about a month ago. Then we discuss several awesome technological feats such as running code on a PAX credit card payment machine, using the alphabet as joinery, and the invention of UTF-8 in general. Finally, we discuss the detection of spicy shrimp, and marvel at the history of email.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Download in DRM-free MP3 and savor at your leisure.

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 338: Smoothing 3D Prints, Reading CNC Joints, And Detecting Spicy Shrimp” →

Fresh hacks here! Get your fresh hot hacks right here! Elliot and Dan teamed up this week to go through every story published on our pages to find the best of the best, the cream of the crop, and serve them up hot and fresh for you. The news this week was all from space, with the ISS getting its latest push from Dragon, plus <<checks notes>> oh yeah, life on Mars. Well, maybe, but it’s looking more and more like we are not alone, or at least not a few million years ago.

But even if we are, plenty is still going on down here to keep you interested. Like homebrewing? Good, because we looked at DIY inductors, wire nuts, and even a dope — but nope — ultralight helicopter. Into retro? We’ve got you covered with a loving look at IRC, a 60s bedside computer guaranteed to end your marriage, and a look at the best 8-bit language you never heard of.

We looked at a rescued fume hood, sensors galore on your phone, a rug that should have — and did, kind of — use a 555, and raytracing for the rest of your natural life. As for “Can’t Miss Articles,” Elliot could barely contain himself with the bounty of projects written up by our Hackaday writers, not to mention Arya’s deep dive into putting GPS modules to work in your builds.

Download this MP3, full of twisty little podcasts, all alike. Plugh!

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast Episode 337: Homebrew Inductors, Teletypes In The Bedroom, And Action!” →