Paul Hansel

Author: paul

  • The slaughterbots are here.

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    In Dune, a fiction novel released nearly sixty years ago, the brutally exploitative tech-enabled Harkonnen use remotely-piloted kamikaze drones, “Hunter-Seekers,” to conduct assassinations of their political enemies. More than a decade ago, the advent of ArduPilot brought quadcopters and drones in general from the cutting edge of technology to the hands of hobbyists and consumers.…

  • Four positives of California

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    If the images don’t display properly, try turning up your screen brightness.

  • Follow-up on Clear Skies, Clear Minds @ UChicago Library (Feb 13, 2025)

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    This is a summary of my notes from the Clear Skies, Clear Minds geoengineering talk at UChicago this past Thursday (February 13, 2025). This was an event open to the public. I covered my own travel and accommodations to attend. The event page is here: https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/conferences/clear-skies-clear-minds-harnessing-open-research-to-find-climate-solutions/. There were three 1-hour sections during the event. Professor…

  • In praise of open source hardware

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    This year, I plan to spend more time documenting the work I do that is accelerated by the use of open-source resources. To kick off that effort, I’ll describe a small project I finished this week. 3D-printing and open source hardware is eating the world. I don’t know who Sleighbells64 is, and given that their…

  • Beating the heat with an electric heart

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    Back in the days before computerization, cars used to use thermal oscillators to make their lights flash. This Ideal Heavy Duty Flasher 537 (12V) is one such oscillator. Although it might be called a flasher relay, it differs from its cousin, the electromagnetic relay. They come in a metal can and hardly weigh anything –…

  • Are good things still happening?

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    Some excitement, past and future. From UNSW, new research: quantifying the urban heat island effect in cities like Sydney and Kolkata. Community Earth System Model 3: Incoming update to the CESM series of open-source planetary physics simulators, targeted for this summer. Potentially featuring better clouds. Upcoming NASA science missions: Including Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1…