Hackney Hacking

Hacker of Hardware and Maker of Things. The electrical fire was already there when I arrived.

[Jon Bruner @JonBruner]

Perhaps you've wondered what Doritos would look like in a CT scan. We did, so here's a clump of Cool Ranch Doritos, scanned through the bag. But there's more...🧵

[kepano @kepano]

File over app

File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read. Use tools that give you this freedom.

File over app is an appeal to tool makers: accept that all software is ephemeral, and give people ownership over their data.

In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools you use to create them. Apps are ephemeral, but your files have a chance to last.

The pyramids of Egypt contain hieroglyphs that were chiseled in stone thousands of years ago. The ideas hieroglyphs convey are more important than the type of chisel that was used to carve them.

The world is filled with ideas from generations past, transmitted through many mediums, from clay tablets to manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and tapestries. These artifacts are objects that you can touch, hold, own, store, preserve, and look at. To read something written on paper all you need is eyeballs.

Today, we are creating innumerable digital artifacts, but most of these artifacts are out of our control. They are stored on servers, in databases, gated behind an internet connection, and login to a cloud service. Even the files on your hard drive use proprietary formats that make them incompatible with older systems.

Paraphrasing something I wrote recently:

> If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it’s important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s.

You should want the files you create to be durable, not only for posterity, but also for your future self. You never know when you might want to go back to something you created years or decades ago. Don’t lock your data into a format you can’t retrieve.

These days I write using an app I help make called Obsidian (@obsdmd), but it’s a delusion to think it will last forever. The app will eventually become obsolete. It’s the plain text files I create that are designed to last. Who knows if anyone will want to read them besides me, but future me is enough of an audience to make it worthwhile.

[atc1441 @atc1441]

Did i broke the toothbrush already?🤯
https://t.co/FQkoOyjMi3

[LaTeX.org @TeXgallery]

@nixcraft LaTeX.

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

Very cool!

[natalie @natalie_thenerd]

Earlier this year I reverse engineered the GBA and I still don't know why... But I have the full schematics and a working GBA with my name on it.

HASL is trash, never get HASL for these things (I just wanted to check it worked)

[Tube Time on 🟦☁ @TubeTimeUS]

what do you mean this circuit board is ESD sensitive? ma che stai dicendo? 🤌🤌🤌

[Daniel Lemire @lemire]

Actual email exchange I just had.

[Nathan 🔎 @NathanpmYoung]

god is dead and the most efficient way to pack 17 squares into a square killed him

[Yarden Shafir @yarden_shafir]

This is what defeat looks like

[Andrew McCarthy @AJamesMcCarthy]

Last night I captured an incredibly difficult shot: ISS transiting the moon, while gently kissing Tycho crater as it flies by at 5 miles per second. That crater is 53 miles wide, so while the station almost looks like it's orbiting the moon it's actually 1000x closer to us.

[Xyla Foxlin⚡ @XylaFoxlin]

Got in trouble with property management for fixing my own dryer instead of waiting weeks for their technician to come do an estimate then more weeks for a fix. Stopped doing it myself, dryer was deemed unrepairable so they replaced it (finally).

Me, Day 1 of new dryer:

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

😢

[NASA InSight @NASAInSight]

My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.

[Tessa Lau @tessalau]

As winter approaches, here's a story about why hardware is hard. ❄️🥶

About a year ago, we started getting reports from the field about undesirable behavior when our robots were turned on. They would behave unpredictably.

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

And thank you to @0xricksanchez and the Firmware Village team for the fun and interesting challenges. So much new knowledge acquired!

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

Had a blast at @hardwear_io and took first place in the #Firmware #Village CTF. Thank you for the amazing talks, awesome events, and overall fantastic organisation. It was great attending an in-person conference after so long!

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

Guilty as charged.

[Tabatha @tabdido]

whats wrong babe you've hardly touched any of the domains you bought

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

Has science gone too far?

[Hackney Hacking @hackneyhacking]

BRB, expensing some new kit.

[Stammy @Stammy]

In case you’ve ever wondered how advanced MicroSD card data recovery works (likely dead controller) 🤯