Hackaday links: December 18, 2022
By now, everyone has probably seen the devastation wrought by the structural failure of what was once the world's largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium. The scale of the tank, which until around 5:50 a.m. Berlin time on Friday adorned the lobby of the Raddison Blu Hotel, was incredible – 16 meters high, 12 meters in diameter, containing a million liters of salt water and some 1,500 tropical fish. The tank sat on top of a bar in the hotel lobby and was so large there was even an elevator that ran through the middle.
But for some reason the tank failed catastrophically, emptying its contents into the hotel lobby and spilling the hapless fish onto the freezing streets of Berlin. No humans were killed by the flood, which is miraculous considering the forces that were unleashed here. Given the level of destruction, hotel guests displaced and the fact that a 13 million euro structure just went up and failed, we're pretty sure there will be a thorough analysis of the situation. 'incident. We're very interested in why structures fail, so we can't wait to find out the story here.
We've spent a lot of virtual ink here exposing the rise of "abandonware" products, where startups with a seemingly deadly idea suddenly go bankrupt and end up tinkering with their fancy connected devices. Users who have bought into the ecosystem are inevitably the losers in these situations, often having invested considerable time and effort in the product or service, perhaps integrating it into their daily lives and creating a workflow around it. of the offer, only to have the rug removed from them.
We've seen this a ton of times over the years - looking at you, Google - but we tend to see it as just an inconvenience for abandoned users, and nothing more. But in a long article, Cory Doctorow argues that it's often more than an inconvenience, especially when you start talking about orphan medical devices. The article cites several real-world examples, like implantable retinal implants that were bricked up when the manufacturer went bankrupt, but it clearly has its eyes on still-experimental neurological implants like Neuralink. There's also a lot of talk about the failure modes of startups in general, and what that means for users when a defunct operation's most valuable asset, which is usually the data it collected, enters the secondary market. It's sobering stuff, and honestly a bit terrifying.
Say what you want about the US Army - or pretty much any army in the world, for that matter - but they're really good at teaching complex subjects to complete beginners so quickly and efficiently as possible. Boot camp turns a civilian into a soldier in six to eight weeks, for example, and that's no small feat. But the military is also good at teaching more than walking, including electronics, a fact someone on r/amateurradio noticed and helpfully posted a link to the US Navy's electric and electronic train series . NEETS has trained many totally clueless young sailors to become electronics technicians capable of supporting some of the most advanced weapon systems in the world. We're not sure we fully agree with the OP's outright dismissal of the quality of education EE students receive, but we think a self-paced NEETS journey is likely to have a lot of value for anyone looking to improve their skills.
We got a great tip this week on Manhattan-style SMD breakout adapters. We love "ugly" prototyping, but the methods generally favor through-hole components and DIP ICs. The adapters in this project buck the trend, allowing SOIC and MSOP packages to be quickly added to projects and connected with a few loose leads. It's a great way to avoid the parasitic capacitance of solderless breadboards while still getting all those SMD components working.
And finally, editor Elliot Williams sent in a fascinating visualization of the human immune system in action. The short clip shows a neutrophil, one of the white blood cells that make up most of the innate immune system, chasing down and engulfing an unfortunate Staphylococcus aureus
By now, everyone has probably seen the devastation wrought by the structural failure of what was once the world's largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium. The scale of the tank, which until around 5:50 a.m. Berlin time on Friday adorned the lobby of the Raddison Blu Hotel, was incredible – 16 meters high, 12 meters in diameter, containing a million liters of salt water and some 1,500 tropical fish. The tank sat on top of a bar in the hotel lobby and was so large there was even an elevator that ran through the middle.
But for some reason the tank failed catastrophically, emptying its contents into the hotel lobby and spilling the hapless fish onto the freezing streets of Berlin. No humans were killed by the flood, which is miraculous considering the forces that were unleashed here. Given the level of destruction, hotel guests displaced and the fact that a 13 million euro structure just went up and failed, we're pretty sure there will be a thorough analysis of the situation. 'incident. We're very interested in why structures fail, so we can't wait to find out the story here.
We've spent a lot of virtual ink here exposing the rise of "abandonware" products, where startups with a seemingly deadly idea suddenly go bankrupt and end up tinkering with their fancy connected devices. Users who have bought into the ecosystem are inevitably the losers in these situations, often having invested considerable time and effort in the product or service, perhaps integrating it into their daily lives and creating a workflow around it. of the offer, only to have the rug removed from them.
We've seen this a ton of times over the years - looking at you, Google - but we tend to see it as just an inconvenience for abandoned users, and nothing more. But in a long article, Cory Doctorow argues that it's often more than an inconvenience, especially when you start talking about orphan medical devices. The article cites several real-world examples, like implantable retinal implants that were bricked up when the manufacturer went bankrupt, but it clearly has its eyes on still-experimental neurological implants like Neuralink. There's also a lot of talk about the failure modes of startups in general, and what that means for users when a defunct operation's most valuable asset, which is usually the data it collected, enters the secondary market. It's sobering stuff, and honestly a bit terrifying.
Say what you want about the US Army - or pretty much any army in the world, for that matter - but they're really good at teaching complex subjects to complete beginners so quickly and efficiently as possible. Boot camp turns a civilian into a soldier in six to eight weeks, for example, and that's no small feat. But the military is also good at teaching more than walking, including electronics, a fact someone on r/amateurradio noticed and helpfully posted a link to the US Navy's electric and electronic train series . NEETS has trained many totally clueless young sailors to become electronics technicians capable of supporting some of the most advanced weapon systems in the world. We're not sure we fully agree with the OP's outright dismissal of the quality of education EE students receive, but we think a self-paced NEETS journey is likely to have a lot of value for anyone looking to improve their skills.
We got a great tip this week on Manhattan-style SMD breakout adapters. We love "ugly" prototyping, but the methods generally favor through-hole components and DIP ICs. The adapters in this project buck the trend, allowing SOIC and MSOP packages to be quickly added to projects and connected with a few loose leads. It's a great way to avoid the parasitic capacitance of solderless breadboards while still getting all those SMD components working.
And finally, editor Elliot Williams sent in a fascinating visualization of the human immune system in action. The short clip shows a neutrophil, one of the white blood cells that make up most of the innate immune system, chasing down and engulfing an unfortunate Staphylococcus aureus
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