Hackaday Links: November 29, 2020



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While concerns about COVID-19 likely kept many rooms empty this Thanksgiving, things were a little different aboard the International Space Station. The four-seater SpaceX Crew Dragon is capable of carrying one more occupant to the orbiting outpost than the Russian Soyuz, which has led to a somewhat inconvenient sleeping: there are currently seven people aboard a station which has only six crew cabins. To remedy the situation, Commander Michael Hopkins decided to sleep inside the Crew Dragon himself, technically giving itself the most spacious personal accommodation in the Station. It might sound a bit hokey, but it’s actually not unprecedented; when the shuttle docked with the ISS, the captain usually slept in the cockpit to be prepared for any potential emergency.

Speaking of out-of-the-world tours, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft is almost home after six years in space. It won’t stay long however, the deep space probe is only in the neighborhood to drop a sample of material collected from the asteroid Ryugu. If all goes according to plan, the small capsule carrying the samples will rent the atmosphere and land in the South Australian desert on December 6, while Hayabusa2 will return in the dark for an extended mission that would allow it to hunt for new asteroids. in the 2030s.

Let’s move on to a story that does not have Coming from space, a crew from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources recently discovered a strange metallic monolith hidden in the desert. While authorities were careful not to disclose the object’s exact coordinates, it didn’t take long for detectors on the Internet to determine its location, in part thanks to radar data that allowed them to plot the course. flight of a government helicopter. Close inspections that have surfaced on social media revealed that the object appeared hollow, was held in place by rivets, and was likely aluminum. It is almost certainly a guerrilla work of art, although there are also theories that it could have been a film or television prop (several productions are known to have filmed nearby) or even some sort. IR / radar military target. We may never know for sure, as the object disappeared shortly thereafter.

Even if you’re not an Apple fan, it’s hard not to be interested in the company’s new M1 chip. Hackers have been clamoring for more ARM laptops and desktops for years, and with such a major player stepping into the game, it’s only a matter of time before you start to see less. luxurious brands take the idea seriously. After the recent discovery that the ARM version of Ubuntu can run on newer Mac M1s with a simple layer of virtualization, it looks like we won’t have to wait too long before people start munching on the Walled Garden.

In the market for a three-phase servo controller? A reader who is working on a robotics project worth as much as a nice house recently wrote to tell us about an imported pilot that costs just $ 35. Technically it is designed to drive stepper motors, but it can also (somewhat inefficiently) run servos. Our informant tells us that you would pay at least $ 2,000 for a similar servo motor from Allen-Bradley, so the price difference certainly seems to make up for the performance success.

Finally, some bittersweet news as we recently learned that Universal Radio was shutting down. After nearly 40 years, owners Fred and Barbara Osterman decided it was time to start calming things down. The physical store in Worthington, Ohio, will close on Monday, but the online site will remain in operation for a period of time to sell the remaining stock. The Ostermans have generously supported many clubs and radio organizations over the years, and they will certainly be missed. Still, it’s a well-deserved retirement and the community wishes them the best.



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