Hackaday Newsletter 0x8C

Who is your audience? [HACKADAY]() Ask Hackaday: Could Rating Airlines Stop Flights From Spreading Diseases? [Read Article Now»]( Degrees of Freedom, But for Whom? By [Elliot Williams]( Opening up [this week’s podcast](, I told Kristina about my saga repairing our German toilet valve. I’m American, and although I’ve lived here over a decade, it’s still surprising how things can be subtly different from how they worked back home. But what was amazing about this device was that it had a provision for fine adjustment, and to some extent relied on this adjustment to function. Short version: a lever mechanism provides mechanical advantage to push a stopper against the end of a pipe to block the water flow, and getting the throw of this mechanism properly adjusted so that the floater put maximum pressure against the pipe required fine-tuning with a screw. But it also required understanding the entire mechanism to adjust it. Which makes me wonder how many plumbers out there actually take the time to get that right. Are there explicit instructions in the manual? Does every German plumber learn this in school? I was entirely happy to have found the adjustment screw after I spent 15 minutes trying to understand the mechanism, because it did just the trick. But is this everyone’s experience? I often think about this when writing code, or making projects that other people are likely to use. Who is the audience? Is it people who are willing to take the time to understand the system? Then you can offer them a screw to turn, and they’ll appreciate it. But if it’s an audience that just doesn’t want to be bothered, the extra complexity is just as likely to cause confusion and frustration. From the Blog --------------------------------------------------------------- [Artemis’ Next Giant Leap: Orbital Refueling]( By [Tom Nardi]( How many rockets full of fuel does it take to get to the moon? Nobody knows! [Read more »]( [Italy Proposes Minimalist Lunar Outpost for Artemis]( By [Tom Nardi]( Sometimes simple is simpler. [Read more »]( [Mining and Refining: Titanium, Our Youngest Industrial Metal]( By [Dan Maloney]( Titanium is fantastic, but incredibly energy intensive. [Read more »]( [Hackaday Podcast]( [Hackaday Podcast Ep 247: Cameras From Gingerbread or Hardboard, and the Insecurity of Bluetooth]( By [Hackaday Editors]() What happened last week on Hackaday? The Podcast will get you up to speed. [Read more »]( If You Missed It --------------------------------------------------------------- [Tiny POV Turns Right Round for Volumetric Fun]( [This Laser-Cut One-Piece Wedge Tenon Locks Wood Joints Tight]( [Stereoscopic Macro Lens Shows Two is Better than One]( [When Nearly Flat Isn’t Really Flat]( [A Fully-Transparent Air Bubble Display]( [Hacking The Xiaomi Mi Band 8 With Custom Firmware]( [Hackaday]() NEVER MISS A HACK [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 preferences]( Hackaday.com · 61 S Fair Oaks Ave Ste 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105-2270 · USA