Hackaday Links: May 1, 2022

We begin this week with information from Mars, as a result of, let’s face it, the information from this planet isn’t all that a lot enjoyable currently. However a few milestones had been reached on the Purple Planet, the primary being the arrival of Perseverance at the ancient river delta it was sent there to explore. The rover definitely took the scenic path to get there, having lined 10.6 km during the last 424 sols to maneuver to a place solely about 3.5 km straight-line distance from the place it landed. Granted, numerous that further driving was in assist of the unexpectedly profitable Ingenuity demonstration, plus taking time for lots of pit stops alongside the way in which at attention-grabbing options. However the rover is now in place to look at sedimentary rocks most certainly to harbor the fossil stays of historic aquatic life — versus the primarily igneous rocks it has studied alongside the crater ground thus far. We’re wanting ahead to seeing what occurs.

Talking of Ingenuity, the plucky helicopter simply retains on performing. It just lately accomplished its twenty seventh flight — of 5 deliberate flights, thoughts you — and spotted the crashed remains of the aeroshell and parachute from its spectacular arrival final February. They appear fairly the more severe for the wear and tear, however that’s to be anticipated. The stunningly high-resolution photos Ingenuity despatched again will little doubt be pored over by engineers for no matter clues it holds about how the construction stood as much as descent and touchdown situations. We’re unsure, however this can be the primary time a touchdown or crash web site has been revisited since Allan Bean completely nailed the Apollo 12 touchdown to inside strolling distance of Surveyor 3 in 1969.

“And the Emmy goes to… Comedian Sans?” No, probably not, and apologies to anybody triggered by the point out of The Font That Shall Not Be Used. However this week the 2021 Technology & Engineering Emmy award went to the World Huge Internet Consortium (W3C) Internet fonts Working Group and MPEG collectively for “standardizing font know-how for customized downloadable fonts and typography for net and TV units.” To be clear, the award will not be for any explicit font, however fairly the technical achievement of downloadable fonts. Nonetheless, it’s simple to poke enjoyable at typography, particularly when font snobs go on in regards to the deserves of this serif or that descender. However these delicate variations that the majority of us assume are meaningless really play an enormous function within the “really feel” of internet sites. Internet fonts have so much to do with how polished {and professional} most websites look nowadays, in comparison with a number of the atrocities of the Internet 1.0 days.

A few weeks again, we had a PCB Thermal Design Hack Chat over on Hackaday.io with Mike Jouppi. It was a fantastic dialogue and spawned an attention-grabbing sidebar with attendee Sven about thermal vias. It seems to be like Sven’s utility had loads for Mike to sink his enamel into, as a result of he made an in-depth video on the thermal design of this PCB, together with a dialogue of what went into growing IPC-2152, the usual for PCB hint current-carrying capability design. Due to Mark Hughes of Superior Meeting for the heads up on this, and for suggesting Mike come on the Hack Chat within the first place.

And eventually, it seems to be like Lichtenberg patterns are getting widespread sufficient that it’s essential to warn those that taking part in with electrical energy will be harmful. Lichtenberg patterns, that are fractal channels burned into wooden or different supplies by the (hopefully) even handed utility of excessive voltage, are definitely one thing we’ve seen and featured before. Nevertheless, the American Affiliation of Woodturners — due to course there’s such a bunch — now condemns the practice, which apparently has caught on within the woodturning neighborhood. The AAW actually doesn’t need anybody doing Lichtenbergs — they banned the apply in any respect their occasions and of their publications, enlisted the help of a health care provider to inform everybody that electrical energy can cease your coronary heart, and urged anybody who has fractal woodburning gear to throw it out now earlier than it assaults. We perceive and wholeheartedly agree that working with excessive voltage will be harmful, and we’re not saying that woodturners shouldn’t take the possibly lethal penalties of Lichtenbergs severely. However this warning appears a bit wealthy coming from a corporation that encourages its members to face in entrance of a machine that may throw razor-sharp tools at you, fling heavy chunks of wood at your head, or instantly relieve you of your clothes — or worse. Be secure on the market, everybody.

Source link