Hackaday Newsletter 0xCB

Open Source is Not Just Cool, It's Essential [Hackaday] The Barcode Revolution: Our Automated World [Read article now »]( Closed-Source Software is Filling Landfills By [Elliot Williams]( Why do we need open-source software? Security, flexibility, and the ability to learn from playing around in other people's codebases. Every piece of shared code pushes forward the state of the art in a way that closed-source just doesn't. But we also need open-source because it helps keep our landfills slightly less full. As devices get smarter and smarter, more of their functionality depends on firmware, servers pushing out services, and software ecosystems in general. Of course I'm thinking of Internet-of-Things things, but also phones, cameras, and basically everything electronic. Embedded brains have become so ubiquitous that marketers don't even call things "smart" anymore. Everything is smart. There used to be a time when Apple was lambasted for putting non-replaceable batteries in their cellphones. Batteries have finite lives, making the phones in question essentially ticking time bombs. But oddly enough, those non-replaceable batteries have lasted longer than software support, even though replacing the bits in the phone's OS is just a matter of swapping out some bits. If the source were open, bugs could be fixed, and the physical devices wouldn't end up in the trash. Don't get me started on [Sonos]( or [John Deere tractors](. As it stands, physical things are being binned because of bitrot, and this means that open source software isn't just about software. It's also about keeping our hardware running, and thus about saving the environment. Who knew? Hackaday Belgrade 2020 Mark your calendars: May 9th, Belgrade, Serbia. Hackaday Belgrade is a full day, from early in the morning until early in the next morning, of hacking, talks, workshops, and hanging out in the Hackaday universe. Bring something to show, bring something to work on, or just bring your thinking cap. Ticket sales aren't open yet, but the [call for proposals]( is. What's the best way to make sure you get in? Submit a talk -- everyone who submits a serious talk proposal jumps to the front of the ticket line and every accepted speaker gets in free. Whether you're planning to be up on the stage in front of the geekiest, most interested audience in the world, or whether you'll be a part of that audience, we can't wait to see you there. Come a day early and explore Belgrade with us. More details to come. From The Blog [BeOS: The Alternate Universe’s Mac OS X]( By [Erin Pinheiro]( If Steve Jobs weren't hired back to Apple, MacOS might have been BeOs, and the world would be a different place. [Read more »]( [The Oldest Nuclear Reactor? Nature’s 2 Billion Year Old Experiment]( By [Al Williams]( Billions of years ago, the conditions were just right for spontaneous nuclear fission to take place in the Earth's crust. Some amazing geology! [Read more »]( [Commercial Circuit Simulator Goes Free]( By [Al Williams]( Spectrum Software built a circuit simulator so good that they were selling it for $4,500. Now the owner is retiring and giving it away for free. [Read more »]( [Hackaday Podcast EP049]( By [Hackaday Editors]( Hackaday Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams talk about all the articles on Hackaday that you missed, and make our New Year's predictions. [Read more »]( If You Missed It [Possible Spyware on Samsung Phones]( [How Low Can An ESP32 Go?]( [3D-Printed Tools Turn Bench Vise into Expedient Press Brake]( [DMCA-Locked Tractors Make Decades-Old Machines the New Hotness]( [3D Pens Can Make Ugly Drone Parts That Almost Work]( [Arduino Wristwatch Has LED Hands]( [Hackaday]( NEVER MISS A HACK [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Terms of Use]( [Privacy Policy]( [Hackaday.io]( [Hackaday.com]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( SupplyFrame, Inc · 61 South Fair Oaks Avenue · Suite 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105 · USA