[BillPg] has been designing a fantasy 1980s-era home computer. As part of the exercise, he’s reevaluating all the assumptions that have grown organically over time in the small computer landscape. …read more

Nobody wants to breathe solder fumes; that’s a given. For most of us, an industrial-looking fan-and-filter made in China and picked up cheap feels like more than enough to keep …read more

People in hotter parts of the world may permit themselves a grin at this, but Europeans have recently been suffering under an unseasonal June heatwave. Most of us have been …read more

Happy belated July 4th to all the readers from the United States — hopefully you aren’t reading this from a hospital bed after losing a hand or burning off your …read more

Unlike almost every other kind of microscope, atomic-force microscopes (AFMs) don’t use any kind of optical beam to image their subjects. Instead, they physically detect the subject’s surface with a …read more

Generally, LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries are quite safe and stable, but it’s still possible for something to go wrong, even something catastrophic, like the battery management system (BMS) developing a direct …read more

When light reflects off a surface, not all of it reflects off at the same wavelength; some photons impart a portion of their energy to raising the vibrational energy of …read more