Reboots be damned, Stranger Things shows a better way to do nostalgia

This trailer is completely fine, but the series is so much more charming.

Warning: This post contains minor spoilers for Stranger Things' first season.

New Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things wastes no time transporting viewers to a time, place, and feeling. There are vinyl records and cassette tapes, endless freedom via fixed gear bikes, and AV Club devotees with ham radios and walkie-talkies. The first episode even uses an epic, demogorgon-loaded Dungeons & Dragons campaign as both a delightful pop-culture reference and as an obvious call-out to some expected character tropes from the '80s.

Our four kid heroes represent well-established kid-movie roles: the quiet one (Will), the cynic (Lucas), the optimist (Mike), and the realist (Duncan). They have awkward, older siblings at opposite ends of the popularity spectrum, and they interact with adults we already kind of know at first blush—a flawed but capable sheriff, a stressed but determined single mom, a sage-like science teacher. Add allusions to Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and a bevy of other era-appropriate pop culture entities, and you'd be forgiven for thinking you know how this "set in 1983" series will play out.

One of many, many videos you can find citing and explaining the pop culture allusions in Stranger Things

After all, this is a story that could happen (and has happened) in any era. A kid has gone missing, some dark forces seem to be at play, and it'll take a village (or at least a team of adults, our D&D nerds, and their siblings) to figure everything out. But what makes Stranger Things stand out after its eight-episode first season is that the show only uses the familiar as a backdrop; it doesn't wallow in it or simply retread known stories. This isn't Ready Player One, new Ghostbusters, or any of the upcoming Star Wars onslaught. Instead, Netflix's lovely homage to 1980s genre fiction deploys nostalgia only to speed up and deepen world-building. Its story, by contrast, feels fresh by including enough twists and turns to keep even the most capable pop-culture detectives guessing and entertained.

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Blindingly Fast ADC for Your BeagleBone

[Jason Holt] wrote in to tell about of the release of his PRUDAQ project. It’s a dual-channel 10-bit ADC cape that ties into the BeagleBone’s Programmable Realtime Units (PRUs) to shuttle through up to as much as 20 megasamples per second for each channel. That’s a lot of bandwidth!

The trick is reading the ADC out with the PRUs, which are essentially a little bit of programmable logic that’s built on to the board. With a bit of PRU code, the data can be shuttled out of the ADC and into the BeagleBone’s memory about as fast as you could wish. Indeed, it’s too fast for the demo code that [Jason] wrote, which can’t even access the RAM that fast. Instead, you’ll want to use custom kernel drivers from the BeagleLogic project (that we’ve covered here before).

But even then, if you don’t want to process the data onboard, you’ve got to get it out somehow. 100 mbit Ethernet gets you 11.2 megabytes per second, and a cherry-picked flash drive can save something like 14-18 megabytes per second. But the two 10-bit ADCs, running full-bore at 20 megasamples per second each, produces something like 50-80 megabytes per second. Point is, PRUDAQ is producing a ton of data.

So what is this cape useful for? It’s limited to the two-volt input range of the ADCs — you’ll need to precondition signals for use as a general-purpose oscilloscope. You can also multiplex the ADCs, allowing for eight inputs, but of course not at exactly the same time. But two channels at high bandwidth would make a great backend for a custom SDR setup, for instance. Getting this much ADC bandwidth into a single-board computer is an awesome trick that used to cost thousands of dollars.

We asked [Jason] why he built it, and he said he can’t tell us. It’s a Google Research project, so let the wild conjecture-fest begin!

Filed under: hardware

Nvidia offers $30 to GTX 970 customers in class action lawsuit over RAM

Escalating To CNC Through Proxxon’s Tool Line

Proxxon is a mostly German maker of above average micro tools. They do sell a tiny milling machine in various flavors, from manual to full CNC. [Goran Mahovlić] did not buy that. He did, however, combine their rotary tool accessory catalog into a CNC mill.

Owning tools is dangerous. Once you start, there’s really no way to stop. This is clearly seen with Goran’s CNC machine. At first happiness for him was a small high speed rotary tool. He used it to drill holes in PCBs.

In a predictable turn of events, he discovered drilling tiny holes in PCBs by hand is tedious and ultimately boring. So he purchased the drill press accessory for his rotary tool.

Life was good for a while. He had all the tools he needed, but… wouldn’t it be better if he could position the holes more quickly. He presumably leafed through a now battered and earmarked Proxxon catalog and ordered the XY table.

A realization struck. Pulling a lever and turning knobs! Why! This is work for a robot, not a man! So he pestered his colleague for help and they soon had the contraption under CNC control.

We’d like to say that was the end of it, and that [Goran] was finally happy, but he recently converted his frankenmill to a 3D printer. We’ve seen this before. It won’t be long before he’s cleaning out his garage to begin the restoration and ultimate CNC conversion of an old knee mill. Videos after the break.

Filed under: cnc hacks, tool hacks

The Tiny Radio Telescope

Radio telescopes are one of the more high-profile pieces of scientific apparatus. There is an excitement to stories of radio astronomers of old probing the mysteries of the Universe on winter nights in frigid cabins atop massive parabolas, even if nowadays their somewhat more fortunate successors do the same work from the comfort of their labs using telescopes that may be on the other side of the world.

You might think if you look at the Arecibo Observatory, Lovell Telescope, or other famous pieces of apparatus, that this is Big Science, out of reach for mere mortals such as yourself without billion-dollar research programs. Maybe [Paul Scott] and [Allen Versfeld]’s Tiny Radio Telescope project will change that view.

The NRAO published a radio telescope design a few years ago for use mainly as an educational tool, the Itty Bitty Telescope. It used a satellite TV dish and LNB feeding a signal meter as a simple telescope to detect the Sun, and black body radiation from the surrounding objects. It’s a simple design for kids to get their heads around, and [Scott] and [Allen] have set out to turn it into something more useful with an RTL-SDR instead of a signal meter and a motorised mount for automated observations.

This is one of those projects on Hackaday.io that moves slowly but you know will eventually deliver on its promise. With a 1m dish and a consumer LNB it’s never going to make a discovery that will rock the world, but that’s not the point. It may be science that the astrophysicists moved on from decades ago, but it’s still quite an achievement that the radio sky can be imaged using such mundane equipment.

We’ve featured backyard radio astronomy before a few times, from this UHF school science project to another satellite TV based telescope. Keep them coming!

A thank you to Southgate ARC for the prod.

Filed under: radio hacks

This Week in Making: Water Bikes, Paper Chess, and Flying Cars

This past week we contemplated riding our bikes on water, marveled at a paper quilled chess set, and got amped thinking about flying cars.

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The post This Week in Making: Water Bikes, Paper Chess, and Flying Cars appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

There are limits to 2FA and it can be near-crippling to your digital life

A video demonstration of the vulnerability here, using a temporary password. (credit: Kapil Haresh)

This piece first appeared on Medium and is republished here with the permission of the author. It reveals a limitation in the way Apple approaches 2FA, which is most likely a deliberate decision. Apple engineers probably recognize that someone who loses their phone won’t be able to wipe data if 2FA is enforced, and this story is a good reminder of the pitfalls.

As a graduate student studying cryptography, security and privacy (CrySP), software engineering and human-computer interaction, I've learned a thing or two about security. Yet a couple of days back, I watched my entire digital life get violated and nearly wiped off the face of the Earth. That sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, but honestly it pretty much felt like that.

Here’s the timeline of a cyber-attack I recently faced on Sunday, July 23, 2016 (all times are in Eastern Standard):

That’s a pretty incidence matrix (credit: Kapil Haresh)

3:36pm—I was scribbling out an incidence matrix for a perfect hash family table on the whiteboard, explaining how the incidence matrix should be built to my friends. Ironically, this was a cryptography assignment for multicast encryption. Everything seemed fine until a rather odd sound started playing on my iPhone. I was pretty sure it was on silent, but I was quite surprised to see that it said “Find My iPhone Alert” on the lock screen. That was odd.

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The basics of the thorny relationship between science and philosophy

A lot of things that try to pass themselves off as science, like homeopathy, clearly aren't scientific. But it might surprise you to know that there's no simple checklist or flow chart that lets you separate the scientific from the nice-try-but-not-quites. It's not for lack of trying; for decades, philosophers worked to figure out how a decidedly human activity could produce such reliable information, but all the big-name thinkers in the field have come up short.

Understanding why they failed is the subject of multiple graduate-level seminar classes. But if you're just interested in a brief overview, Tim Lewens can help you out.

Dr. Lewens is a philosopher of science at Cambridge University (and a Ford driver, as we discover) who's written a book called The Meaning of Science. It's meant for a general audience, yet it tackles hairy issues in the philosophy of science and throws in ruminations on the nature of humanity for free. The Meaning of Science is an odd mix that doesn't quite hang together as a coherent whole, but it's not a bad read for anyone interested in a quick-and-painless introduction to the mystery of why science works.

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Taking the Converted PC PSU Bench Supply a Step Further

A quality bench power supply is essential for electronics work. Nobody wants to go through the trouble of digging through their electronics bin just to find a wall wart with the right output. And, even if you were so inclined, it would be folly to assume that its output would actually be clean.

You could, of course, purchase a purpose-built bench power supply. But, this is Hackaday, and I’m sure many of you would rather build one yourself from an inexpensive PC power supply. Normally, you’d do this by separating out the different voltage lines into useful groups, such as 12V, 5V, and 3.3V. [Supercap2f] wanted to take this a step further, both to get a more useful unit and to practice his PCB-making.

His design uses a custom circuit design to fuse the circuits, and to provide some basic logic. Using the LCD display, you can see which lines are powered on. There is even a simple 3D printed cover to keep everything neat and tidy. [Supercap2f] has posted all of the design files, so you can build one of these yourself. We’ve seen similar builds in the past, but this is another nice one that anyone with the ability to etch PCBs can build.

Filed under: tool hacks

Vending Coins for Your Vending Machine

Anyone who has worked in an office with a vending machine knows this problem well: someone wants a snack or a drink from the vending machine, but doesn’t have any small change. So, they proceed to walk around the office trying to find someone to make some change for them. It’s a hassle, and a surprisingly common one. Sure, a lot of vending machines now accept credit cards, but they’re still in the minority.

This was the problem facing Beligum-based automation company November Five. As automation and IoT specialists, their first thought was to hack the vending machine itself. But, unfortunately, they didn’t own it; as many of you know, vending machines are generally owned by the distributor. So, they needed a solution that allowed their employees access to the vending machine, without actually modifying the vending machine itself.

The solution they came up with was to attach an RFID-activated coin dispenser to the vending machine. Everyone at the company already has an RFID badge for opening doors and such, so the system wouldn’t add any burden to the employees. And keeping track of how many coins each employee used was a simple task of logging requests.

It’s a clever solution to a reality of the modern world: that most people don’t carry cash, and don’t want to. Of course, another solution could be to build your own vending machine. But, as it turns out, this isn’t quite as simple as one might think. Though it sure explains why vending machines so often fail to vend.

Filed under: misc hacks

Parent To The Power Wheels Rescue

If the [realjohnnybravo] is the one from the show, it appears he finally managed to get a girlfriend, marry her, and produce at least one son. As the old schoolyard rhyme goes, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes filling the whole *!$&# backyard with brightly colored plastic garbage. One of these items, a Power Wheels quad bike,  suffered a blow from planned obsolescence leaving behind a traumatized child. [realjohnnybravo] decided to fix it.

He made frequent mention of how one could go to a store and purchase replacement gears for the toy. Perhaps it’s a German thing. Regardless, he shows experience with internet comments by justifying his adventure in gear manufacturing with, paraphrased, “I’m having fun and learning so back off you pedantic jerks.”

Resin casting is great, and is often overlooked vs 3D printing. He purchased some hardware store RTV silicone and some slow-cure resin. The faster cure resin would get too hot with this much volume and potentially burn.

Materials procured he took apart both gearboxes from the machine. He first made a silicone mold of the broken parts (from the good copies out of the working gearbox) and removed the master. Without a vacuum or pressure casting chamber, the molds came out a little rough and bubbly, but it’s nothing some work with a carpet knife can’t fix. For big gears like this it hardly matters. Next he poured the two part resin into the molds and waited.

After some finishing with regular woodworking tools the parts fit right into the voids in the defective gearbox. His son can once again happily whir around the lawn, until the batteries die anyway.

Filed under: car hacks, toy hacks

Hackaday Prize Entry: You Have No Free Will

The concept of free will is the perfect example of human arrogance ever conceived. If a gas molecule collides with another gas molecule, simple physics can determine the momentum of the first gas molecule, the kinetic energy imparted to the second gas molecule, and the resulting trajectories of both molecule. Chemical reactions are likewise easy to calculate. Scale a system up to something the size of a human brain, and you have a perfectly predictable system. It’s complex, yes, but predetermined since the beginning of time. You are without moral agency, or any independent thought of your own. You are merely a passive observer in a vast, cold, uncaring universe. You are cursed with the awareness of this fact.

For his Hackaday Prize project, [Patrick Glover] is proving we don’t have free will. Will he win the Hackaday Prize? That’s up for the cold machinations of fate to decide.

In the 1980s, psychologist [Benjamin Libet] performed an experiment. He connected an EEG to a subject’s arm and head, and asked them to flex their wrist whenever they felt like it. It turns out, an area of your brain generates an EEG potential a significant time before the subject is aware of deciding to flex their wrist. This is a foundational study in the physiology of consciousness, and direct evidence an IRB is okay with giving subjects an existential crisis.

[Patrick] is in the process of replicating the [Libet] study. Unlike the 1980s experiment, [Patrick] has access to handy Arduino shields and MATLAB, making the experimental setup very easy. The results, of course, will be the subject of philosophical debates continuing until the heat death of the universe, but we already knew that, didn’t we?

Check out the comments below for objectors predictably saying they do, in fact, have free will.

Filed under: The Hackaday Prize

NFL to Experiment with Chipped Balls

NFL preseason starts in just a few weeks. This year, it will come with a bit of a technological upgrade. The league plans to experiment with custom microchip-equipped footballs. Unfortunately, this move has nothing to do with policing under-inflation — the idea is to verify through hard data that a narrower set of goal posts would mean fewer successful kicking plays.

Why? Kicking plays across the league have been more accurate than ever in the last couple of seasons, and the NFL would like things to be a bit more competitive. Just last year, extra point kicks were moved back from the 20 to the 33-yard line. Kickers already use brand-new balls that are harder and more slippery than the field balls, so narrowing the goal from the standard 18’6″ width is the natural next step. A corresponding pair of sensors in the uprights will reveal exactly how close the ball is when it passes between them.

The chips will only be in K-balls, and only in those kicked during the 2016 preseason. If all goes well, the league may continue their use in Thursday night games this season. We couldn’t find any detail on these custom-made chips, but assume that it’s some kind of transmitter/receiver pair. Let the speculation begin.

Main image: Field goal attempt during the Fog Bowl via Sports Illustrated

[via Gizmodo]

Filed under: misc hacks

Arduino Absentmindedly Blows Bubbles

If you ever wanted to make an occasion festive with bubbles, [Sandeep_UNO] may have the project for you. As you can see in the video below (and, yes, it should have the phone rotated and it doesn’t), his Arduino uses a servo motor to dip a bubble wand into soap solution and then pulls it in front of a fan. The entire operation repeats over and over again.

There’s not a lot of detail and no code that we could find, but honestly, if you know how to drive a servo motor from an Arduino, the rest is pretty easy to figure out. Look closely at the motion of the robot. What is often accomplished with a spinning wheel of bubble wands and a constant fan becomes much more interesting when applied intermittently. The lazy cadence is what you expect to see from human operation and that adds something to the effect.

We’ve seen faster bubble blowers, but they were not so simple. We’ve even looked at other bubble-blowing robots. If you want to find out more about servo motors in general, our own [Richard Bauguley] has what you need to know.

Filed under: Android Hacks

Modest Motor Has Revolutionary Applications

Satellites make many of our everyday activities possible, and the technology continues to improve by leaps and bounds. A prototype, recently completed by [Arda Tüysüz]’s team at ETH Zürich’s Power Electronics Systems Lab in collaboration with its Celeroton spinoff, aims to improve satellite attitude positioning with a high speed, magnetically levitated motor.

Beginning as a doctoral thesis work led by [Tüysüz], the motor builds on existing technologies, but has been arranged into a new application — with great effect. Currently, the maneuvering motors on board satellites are operated at a low rpm to reduce wear, must be sealed in a low-nitrogen environment to prevent rusting of the components, and the microvibrations induced by the ball-bearings in the motors reduces the positioning accuracy. With one felling swoop, this new prototype motor overcomes all of those problems.

The primary draw is its frictionless motor — made possible by a magnetic field that keeps the rotor afloat. This allows the motor to operate at a staggering 150,000 RPM — twenty times faster than those in current use —  and in a vacuum, since there is no wearing of the parts to account for. This also eliminates those pesky microvibrations — improving satellite attitude accuracy. All these benefits are enclosed in a small package that has potential applications in satellites as small as shoeboxes. Is the motor scale-able for use in commercial and research satellites? Considering the interest shown by the European Space Agency in this project, we think so.

Now, this isn’t a traditional ‘hack’, but ingenuity that can improve quality of life is in keeping with the hacker spirit, while also offering the potential for advanced capacity for CubeSats and similar space-faring operations.

Filed under: hardware, news

DNC Breach extended to systems used by Clinton campaign

Hacklet 118 – Infrared and Universal Remote Controls

The first remote control for a TV was the Zenith Space Command back in the 1950’s. Space Command used ultrasonic to control the set. It wasn’t until the 1980’s and the Viewstar cable box that infrared entered the picture. Remote controls spread like wildfire. It wasn’t long before every piece of consumer electronics had one. Coffee tables were littered with the devices. It didn’t take long for universal remotes to hit the scene. [Woz] himself worked on the CL9 Core device, back in 1987. Even in today’s world of smart TV’s and the internet of things, universal remotes are still a big item. Hackers, makers, and engineers are always trying to build a device that works better for them. This week’s Hacklet is about some of the best universal and IR remote projects on Hackaday.io!

We start with [Harikrishna] and zmote. Zmote is an open source WiFi enabled, infrared,  360° remote control. That’s a mouthful. It might be easier to say it’s an ESP8266 and some IR LEDs. An ESP-01 module connects the device to WiFi and provides the 32-bit processor which runs the show. Learning functionality comes courtesy of a TSOP1738 modulated infrared receiver. The beauty of the Zmote is in the software. REST and MQTT connectivity are available. Everything is MIT licensed, and all the code is available on Github.

 

Next up is [Benjamin Kenobi] with TV Remote Control, Limited. Not everyone can operate the tiny buttons on a modern remote. [Benjamin] built this device for Easton, a special kid with a disability that impairs his motor skills. The 3D printed case holds two buttons – one for power, and one to change the channel. An Arduino Nano running [Ken Shirriff’s] IR library is the brains of the operation. The IR signal timing is hard coded for simplicity. One problem [Ben] ran into was the Nano’s high current draw, even in sleep mode. Batteries wouldn’t last a week. A simple diode circuit with a reed relay keeps the Nano shut down until Easton presses a button.

 

Next we have [Nevyn] with OpenIR – Infrared Remote Control. A dead DSLR remote shutter release was all the motivation [Nevyn] needed to start work on his own universal remote control. OpenIR can be connected to (and controlled by) just about anything with a UART – a PC via an FTDI cable, a Bluetooth module, even an ESP8266. The module can be programmed by entering pulse length data through a custom Windows application. The Windows app even allows the user to view the pulses graphically, like a scope. The data is stored on an EEPROM on OpenIR’s PCB. Once programmed, the OpenIR board is ready to control the world.

Finally, we have [facelessloser] with One button TV remote. This project may be the simplest open source remote control this side of TV-B-GONE. He wanted to build a simple remote control for his young daughter to scan between the various kids channels. A simple toggle switch turns the device on, and one button performs the rest of the magic. [Facelessloser] wanted to “move up” from an Arduino to an ATtiny85. This project became part of his ATtiny education. A custom PCB from OSH Park ties things together. A simple black project box keeps the electronics safe from tiny fingers – at least until she’s old enough to use a screwdriver.

If you want to see more IR and universal remote projects, check out our new infrared and universal remote projects list. See a project I might have missed? Don’t be shy, just drop me a message on Hackaday.io. That’s it for this week’s Hacklet, As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io!

Filed under: Hackaday Columns

This science fiction novel is a perfect antidote to the U.S. election season

Sometimes you need to escape from the news by plunging into a fictionalized version of it. Malka Older's second novel Infomocracy is a sci-fi thriller about the third election cycle in the world's first global government, a data-driven "microdemocracy." The first in a trilogy, Infomocracy manages to be incredibly action packed while also exploring plausible political futures you may never have imagined.

Election integrity in the world of Infomocracy is guaranteed by a techno-political organization called "The Information" (think Google merged with Facebook). Committed to non-partisan transparency, The Information is supposed to give citizens the data they need to vote wisely. Its real mission, of course, is more ambiguous. The action reaches a fever pitch and stays there, as our protagonists race to find out who is behind a series of bombings aimed at shutting down the election.

Life in a global democracy

From page one, Older plunges us into a bewildering global election season with only two semi-trustworthy guides to the madness. Ken is an idealistic campaigner for the progressive Policy1st party, which is devoted to openness and free exchange. Mishima is an operative for The Information with ninja powers and a mysterious "narrative disorder" that helps her find patterns in vast quantities of data. After hooking up randomly at a drunken party in Tokyo, the two discover they are the only people who seem to care that Liberty, a political party that's one of the top contenders for the next Supermajority, is quietly spreading propaganda about the need to start a war.

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Unusual 72-Bulb Display Mechanism Found in Vintage Clock

It’s hard to beat a vintage clock for something that you can hack, and that your significant other might actually let you display in your home. It’s practical and it’s art all at the same time! But, finding that perfect vintage clock for restoration can be a bit tricky. A crowd favorite is to choose something with intricate mechanisms and gears — the motion of a mechanical display is just so fascinating.

[Gavin] managed to find a clock that is every bit as interesting without any moving parts. The clock uses a unique system of bulbs and screen masks to project each digit of the time onto glass, which creates a pretty cool look you’re not likely to see on other devices. As cheap as LCD and 7-segment displays are these days, it’s hard to imagine a time when an intricate solution like this — using 72 light bulbs — was considered practical.

Of course, what isn’t practical is replacing 72 incandescent bulbs, just to have them start the process of burning out all over again. [Gavin’s] solution to this problem was to replace the incandescent bulbs with LEDs. After getting the color temperature right (to replicate the vintage warm glow), he was able to use a jig system to get the LEDs positioned correctly to project the digits properly.

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen a unique clock design, but there is something intriguing about seeing a design like this that never quite caught on. It’s a little bit of technological history that even your significant other will think is cool.

Filed under: clock hacks

White dwarf bombards its companion with relativistic electrons

Weekend Watch: B2Builds Dives into Electronics and Woodworking

Woodworking and electronics, automatons and camera sliders. Ben Brandt's YouTube channel offers lots of cool projects.

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The post Weekend Watch: B2Builds Dives into Electronics and Woodworking appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

Scythe, the most-hyped board game of 2016, delivers

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage right here—and let us know what you think.

If you don’t pay attention to the world of modern board games, you’ve almost certainly never heard of Scythe. If you’re a diehard cardboard fan, though, it’s all you’ve been hearing about for months.

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