It's Like the News, But for Hackers

By Elliot Williams

I'll come clean. I read more Hackaday than the average person. And it's not just because I have to; even before I worked for Hackaday I read nearly every article. Sure, some of that was because I worked a job where I had more than my fair share of discretionary surfing time, but it was also because I was spending much of my non-work time at our hackerspace, and keeping abreast of what's going on in the hacker world was important. You'd show up any night of the week and folks would be talking excitedly about this hack or that. For the past 15 years, Hackaday has been an important part of my idea-bank. And still, I learn something or somethings every week.

For instance, this deep-dive into Qi inductive charging really blew me away. I had no idea that they were using an RFID-like messaging with the charged devices to regulate the rate of charge, as well as to prevent heating up random hunks of metal accidentally put onto the charging surface. If you're like me, and you don't really understand anything until you've read the code that implements the protocol, but you also appreciate the bird's-eye overview, this post is for you.

Or take this week's banner article on 5G versus weather satellites. The gist is that emissions from the ground might swamp the signals coming from water in the atmosphere that they listen to and we rely on for accurate weather and storm predictions.

And that's just for example. So if I've been reading Hackaday for roughly 15 years now, and learned probably a handful of new things every week, that's 3,900 new ideas, plus or minus. And you folks just keep coming up with more. There is really no other single resource like this. Hat tip, Hackaday!

Flex PCBs and KiCon

If you haven't yet, get your entry in for the Flexible PCB Contest! Why? With only a design idea, you can win three copies of two square inches of flex PCB for nothing! If you've wanted to play with flex PCB design, now's your chance to do it for free. And here are some cool designs already in the running for inspiration. With 60 prizes and only 25 submissions so far, your chances look pretty good. (Although everyone else might also be procrastinating just like you are...)

What do you design your PCBs in? If the answer is KiCad, and you're anywhere near Chicago, you should head over to KiCon next week. [Anool Mahidharia] and [Kerry Scharfglass] will be giving presentations, editor [Mike Szczys] will be in the house, and there will be hardware nerdery and parties to boot. Don't miss the open house at PS:1!