Obsolete Nerd
@obsolete.eurosky.social
Making, hacking, breaking, and (sometimes) fixing. Replaced by newer, better, faster nerds.
Pinned
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
The daily global average sea surface temperature has reached its highest level on record. On 22 August 2026, data from the #CopernicusClimate showed 21.1°C, exceeding the previous record set in March 2024.
🔗Read the press release: climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-d...
@ecmwf.int
⬇️
🔗Read the press release: climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-d...
@ecmwf.int
⬇️
August 24, 2026 at 10:39 AM
The daily global average sea surface temperature has reached its highest level on record. On 22 August 2026, data from the #CopernicusClimate showed 21.1°C, exceeding the previous record set in March 2024.
🔗Read the press release: climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-d...
@ecmwf.int
⬇️
🔗Read the press release: climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-d...
@ecmwf.int
⬇️
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
Ballarat Hackerspace is hosting a monthly #IndieWeb Meetup starting this Wednesday the 26th August, and happening on the 3rd Wednesday of every month going forward.
Come play with HTML, learn to host your own website, manage your own domain name, etc:
ballarathackerspace.org.au/calendar/
Come play with HTML, learn to host your own website, manage your own domain name, etc:
ballarathackerspace.org.au/calendar/
Ballarat Hackerspace - Non-profit self-led community workshop in Ballarat, Australia.
ballarathackerspace.org.au
August 21, 2026 at 12:31 PM
Ballarat Hackerspace is hosting a monthly #IndieWeb Meetup starting this Wednesday the 26th August, and happening on the 3rd Wednesday of every month going forward.
Come play with HTML, learn to host your own website, manage your own domain name, etc:
ballarathackerspace.org.au/calendar/
Come play with HTML, learn to host your own website, manage your own domain name, etc:
ballarathackerspace.org.au/calendar/
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
Harvard astrobiologist Steven Benner reanalyzed the raw Viking data for his new book Meet the Neighbors and argues the original positive result was right — and that the counter-theories used to dismiss it were wrong, steering decades of timid Mars
Viking lander's 1976 Mars soil test may have found life after all
In 1976, NASA's Viking 1 lander found strong "life affirmation" results in a Martian soil sample. Robert Jastrow, then director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said, "Short of…
boingboing.net
August 10, 2026 at 9:26 PM
Harvard astrobiologist Steven Benner reanalyzed the raw Viking data for his new book Meet the Neighbors and argues the original positive result was right — and that the counter-theories used to dismiss it were wrong, steering decades of timid Mars
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
Testing my new (40 year old) macro lens... a winter bee sticking its tongue out for a photo.
June 19, 2026 at 2:10 AM
Testing my new (40 year old) macro lens... a winter bee sticking its tongue out for a photo.
Without a doubt the hardest piece of furniture I've ever made. Welded steel frame, top made from very old Tasmanian hardwood from a barn. Getting the angled legs right and just the amount of sanding/filing required to make it look all smooth took more hours than I can count.
#woodwork #metalwork
#woodwork #metalwork
June 4, 2026 at 8:38 AM
Without a doubt the hardest piece of furniture I've ever made. Welded steel frame, top made from very old Tasmanian hardwood from a barn. Getting the angled legs right and just the amount of sanding/filing required to make it look all smooth took more hours than I can count.
#woodwork #metalwork
#woodwork #metalwork
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
We were commissioned to build an interactive art installation for the Ballarat Heritage festival. You can go see it in the Mining Exchange on Lydiard St.
This has been a truly massive undertaking and we're very proud of it. You can dial a year and hear real facts/stories from Ballarat's history.
This has been a truly massive undertaking and we're very proud of it. You can dial a year and hear real facts/stories from Ballarat's history.
May 21, 2026 at 12:31 AM
We were commissioned to build an interactive art installation for the Ballarat Heritage festival. You can go see it in the Mining Exchange on Lydiard St.
This has been a truly massive undertaking and we're very proud of it. You can dial a year and hear real facts/stories from Ballarat's history.
This has been a truly massive undertaking and we're very proud of it. You can dial a year and hear real facts/stories from Ballarat's history.
New daily driver until I can find someone to fix my jammed Olympus OM-1.
Canon AE-1 with a vintage Japanese analog light meter on top (internal light meter doesn’t work). The light meter is complete superfluous hipsterness considering I have meter apps on my phone but I like the process it creates.
Canon AE-1 with a vintage Japanese analog light meter on top (internal light meter doesn’t work). The light meter is complete superfluous hipsterness considering I have meter apps on my phone but I like the process it creates.
May 20, 2026 at 11:31 AM
New daily driver until I can find someone to fix my jammed Olympus OM-1.
Canon AE-1 with a vintage Japanese analog light meter on top (internal light meter doesn’t work). The light meter is complete superfluous hipsterness considering I have meter apps on my phone but I like the process it creates.
Canon AE-1 with a vintage Japanese analog light meter on top (internal light meter doesn’t work). The light meter is complete superfluous hipsterness considering I have meter apps on my phone but I like the process it creates.
The fact that I can impulsively get something printed out of stainless steel will never stop blowing my mind. AMAZE!
Grace figurine from Project Hail Mary, 3D printed in stainless steel.
Grace figurine from Project Hail Mary, 3D printed in stainless steel.
May 7, 2026 at 8:22 AM
The fact that I can impulsively get something printed out of stainless steel will never stop blowing my mind. AMAZE!
Grace figurine from Project Hail Mary, 3D printed in stainless steel.
Grace figurine from Project Hail Mary, 3D printed in stainless steel.
Final night in Tassie for our holiday last night, lying in bed at midnight about to sleep for our morning flight home, when my brother messages me and says “You still awake? Go outside”… and this is what we were met with…
Aurora Australis.
Aurora Australis.
January 21, 2026 at 7:09 AM
Final night in Tassie for our holiday last night, lying in bed at midnight about to sleep for our morning flight home, when my brother messages me and says “You still awake? Go outside”… and this is what we were met with…
Aurora Australis.
Aurora Australis.
This sticker is the bomb.
December 3, 2025 at 4:31 AM
This sticker is the bomb.
Finally finished my micropython-powered pedestrian crossing lights. Currently has "timer mode" for kids to use as a trampoline timer and "manual mode" for me to toggle red/green as a workshop safety indicator when I'm welding/grinding and it's not safe to come in.
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
November 13, 2025 at 5:01 AM
Finally finished my micropython-powered pedestrian crossing lights. Currently has "timer mode" for kids to use as a trampoline timer and "manual mode" for me to toggle red/green as a workshop safety indicator when I'm welding/grinding and it's not safe to come in.
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
obsoletenerd.com/making-old-p...
People keep competing for smaller and smaller mechanical keyboards. Here is my contribution... a Raspberry Pi Pico powered binary-chording 8-key keyboard where you play piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table. This message may have taken an hour to type, but it works!
November 2, 2025 at 7:15 AM
People keep competing for smaller and smaller mechanical keyboards. Here is my contribution... a Raspberry Pi Pico powered binary-chording 8-key keyboard where you play piano-style chords of binary values representing the ASCII table. This message may have taken an hour to type, but it works!
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
Teaser for a big LED project in the works for Ballarat Springfest, where we have a stall this year showing off some of our creations. This one is 2.2m high and almost 3m wide and will certainly grab some attention.
October 24, 2025 at 4:30 AM
Teaser for a big LED project in the works for Ballarat Springfest, where we have a stall this year showing off some of our creations. This one is 2.2m high and almost 3m wide and will certainly grab some attention.
Hydroponic strawberries are flowering and have their first berries forming. Still manually controlling nutrient percentages but next step is to add automation there.
October 22, 2025 at 11:40 AM
Hydroponic strawberries are flowering and have their first berries forming. Still manually controlling nutrient percentages but next step is to add automation there.
I've now had 3 of these Mirabella Genio "smart plugs" fail in a very dangerous and scary way, over the last year or 2. Both have been in use in our home for a few years now, neither have been "abused" just used to schedule fish tank timers/lamps/etc.
Details in thread.
Details in thread.
September 22, 2025 at 2:26 AM
I've now had 3 of these Mirabella Genio "smart plugs" fail in a very dangerous and scary way, over the last year or 2. Both have been in use in our home for a few years now, neither have been "abused" just used to schedule fish tank timers/lamps/etc.
Details in thread.
Details in thread.
Spent the last few weekends fabricating this steel bracket that connects to the factory CRT points in the Sega OutRun cabinet to mount modern monitors. The 3D printed VESA adapter lets you put any modern monitor in, and keeping the area behind empty of stands leaves plenty of space for the PC.
August 11, 2025 at 3:56 AM
Spent the last few weekends fabricating this steel bracket that connects to the factory CRT points in the Sega OutRun cabinet to mount modern monitors. The 3D printed VESA adapter lets you put any modern monitor in, and keeping the area behind empty of stands leaves plenty of space for the PC.
Tiny (<35mm to each side!) binary clock desk toy, using an ESP32-S3 and a GlowBit 4x4 RGB matrix. It checks the time using NTP then displays it in HH:MM columns, with the rows being binary values of 1/2/4/8 top to bottom.
July 19, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Tiny (<35mm to each side!) binary clock desk toy, using an ESP32-S3 and a GlowBit 4x4 RGB matrix. It checks the time using NTP then displays it in HH:MM columns, with the rows being binary values of 1/2/4/8 top to bottom.
Made a little grip-training thing that clips onto my home gym and lets me do climbing/grip training. Scrap metal plate with a welded loop on top, then designed mirrored holds in Blender and 3d printed them. It can be used in a few different ways to focus different muscles and grip types.
July 3, 2025 at 2:45 AM
Made a little grip-training thing that clips onto my home gym and lets me do climbing/grip training. Scrap metal plate with a welded loop on top, then designed mirrored holds in Blender and 3d printed them. It can be used in a few different ways to focus different muscles and grip types.
I found this old 8088-based PC at an e-waste place and can't find *any* information of its existence online.
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
May 27, 2025 at 4:47 AM
I found this old 8088-based PC at an e-waste place and can't find *any* information of its existence online.
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
The only branding anywhere on the whole thing is on the keyboard, saying "Nan Tan Computer Co" and "NTC CO" but no reference of them building PCs, just keyboards.
#retropc #retrocomputing
The world's smallest Canon DSLR remote shutter?
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
May 7, 2025 at 4:29 AM
The world's smallest Canon DSLR remote shutter?
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
Was mostly just curious how the pins work on the proprietary connector, with the ultimate plan of making an ESP32 remote-shutter for input-based triggering.
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
Over the last few days we converted the original high/low single-switch toggle shifter to a 2-switch sequential shifter so it works in modern racing games. Getting the mechanism working was a much bigger job than expected, but we finally got the right springs and switch-angles and everything sorted.
March 28, 2025 at 4:29 AM
Over the last few days we converted the original high/low single-switch toggle shifter to a 2-switch sequential shifter so it works in modern racing games. Getting the mechanism working was a much bigger job than expected, but we finally got the right springs and switch-angles and everything sorted.
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
Still a lot to do, but it "works" and we drove our first laps today. Assetto Corsa running in a 1986 Sega Outrun arcade cabinet. Original steering and pedals are now working and calibrated in Steam via an Arduino Pro Micro. Next we'll modify the shifter to work as a sequential gearbox.
March 14, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Still a lot to do, but it "works" and we drove our first laps today. Assetto Corsa running in a 1986 Sega Outrun arcade cabinet. Original steering and pedals are now working and calibrated in Steam via an Arduino Pro Micro. Next we'll modify the shifter to work as a sequential gearbox.
Reposted by Obsolete Nerd
JUST IN - Our Twitter (X) account has been locked.
They claim we published "people's private information without their express authorization and permission."
We published names and email addresses of people working for the government. We will not be intimidated.
They claim we published "people's private information without their express authorization and permission."
We published names and email addresses of people working for the government. We will not be intimidated.
March 9, 2025 at 2:29 AM
JUST IN - Our Twitter (X) account has been locked.
They claim we published "people's private information without their express authorization and permission."
We published names and email addresses of people working for the government. We will not be intimidated.
They claim we published "people's private information without their express authorization and permission."
We published names and email addresses of people working for the government. We will not be intimidated.
Latest project I’ve been working on at @ballarathackerspace.org.au
Arduino Pro Micro + a bunch of custom wiring looms convert the old wiring to JST. Goal is to use all the original hardware as inputs for modern sim racing games and use mods in Assetto Corsa to make a new version of Outrun.
Arduino Pro Micro + a bunch of custom wiring looms convert the old wiring to JST. Goal is to use all the original hardware as inputs for modern sim racing games and use mods in Assetto Corsa to make a new version of Outrun.
Steam and Assetto Corsa on an original Outrun arcade cabinet, using the original cabinet inputs? Don’t mind if I do…
Still lots to fix and tidy up but we officially have the gaming PC installed inside the cabinet and all the original pedals/steering inputs working in Steam.
Still lots to fix and tidy up but we officially have the gaming PC installed inside the cabinet and all the original pedals/steering inputs working in Steam.
February 23, 2025 at 6:00 AM
Latest project I’ve been working on at @ballarathackerspace.org.au
Arduino Pro Micro + a bunch of custom wiring looms convert the old wiring to JST. Goal is to use all the original hardware as inputs for modern sim racing games and use mods in Assetto Corsa to make a new version of Outrun.
Arduino Pro Micro + a bunch of custom wiring looms convert the old wiring to JST. Goal is to use all the original hardware as inputs for modern sim racing games and use mods in Assetto Corsa to make a new version of Outrun.