This Tiny Steam Engine Takes a Watchmaker’s Skill to Build

When your steam engine build requires multiple microscopes, including those of the scanning electron variety, you know you’re building something really, really tiny. All of the usual tiny superlatives and …read more Continue reading This Tiny Steam Engine Takes a Watchmaker’s Skill to Build

Mechanical Timekeeping Hack Chat with Clickspring

Join us on Wednesday, February 3 at noon Pacific for the Mechanical Timekeeping Hack Chat with Clickspring!

The reckoning of the passage of time has been of vital importance to humans pretty much for all our history, but for most …read more

Continue reading Mechanical Timekeeping Hack Chat with Clickspring

For Your Holiday Relaxation: the Clickspring Sundial Build Megacut

The fortunate among us may very well have a bit of time off from work coming up, and while most of that time will likely be filled with family obligations and festivities, there’s probably going to be some downtime. And if you should happen to find yourself with a half …read more

Continue reading For Your Holiday Relaxation: the Clickspring Sundial Build Megacut

Hacker’s Discovery Changes Understanding of the Antikythera Mechanism

With all the trained academics who have pored over the Antikythera mechanism in the 120 years since it was pulled from the Mediterranean Sea, you’d think all of the features of the ancient analog computer would have been discovered by now. But the mechanism still holds secrets, some of which …read more

Continue reading Hacker’s Discovery Changes Understanding of the Antikythera Mechanism

The Story of A Secret Underground Parisian Society

Deep in the heart of Paris, a series of underground tunnels snakes across the city. They cross into unkept public spaces from centuries ago that have since vanished from collective memory – abandoned basements, catacombs, and subways hundreds of miles apart.

Only a few groups still traverse these subterranean streets. …read more

Continue reading The Story of A Secret Underground Parisian Society

All Things Enigma Hack Chat

Join us Wednesday at noon Pacific time for the All Things Enigma Hack Chat!

This week’s Hack Chat is a bit of a departure for us because our host, Simon Jansen, has tackled so many interesting projects that it’s hard to settle on one topic. Simon is a multidisciplinary hacker …read more

Continue reading All Things Enigma Hack Chat

An Arduino Wrapped In An OLED Wrapped Inside An Enigma Pocket Watch

A pocket watch, tucked into a waistcoat pocket and trailing a long chain, is a retro-hip accessory. A pocket watch gutted of its mechanical innards and updated as a smart appliance might be a horological abomination, but would still be a cool hack. A pocket watch converted to a digital Enigma machine is in a class all by itself.

[Simon] admits that he has a thing for pocket timepieces, having a sizable collection of old and not-so-old watches, some that even serve for everyday carry. Trouble is, they eventually break, and qualified watchmakers are getting hard to come by. So …read more

Continue reading An Arduino Wrapped In An OLED Wrapped Inside An Enigma Pocket Watch