Samwise Makers' News
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
IOCCC 2025: The Most Gloriously Unreadable C Code on Earth
The 2025 International Obfuscated C Code Contest results are in, showcasing the most creatively convoluted C code the programming world has to offer. Highlights include Yusuke Endoh's “Most Likely to Shock” — a program that renders Lichtenberg figures (branching lightning patterns) in ASCII art — and Nick Craig-Wood's “Best Real Emulator,” a fully functional Game Boy emulator crammed into a few kilobytes. All entries must fit within 4,993 bytes of source code with binary output under 2,503 bytes, using the C11 standard. The IOCCC celebrates the kind of programming wizardry that makes compilers weep and humans marvel.
Sources: Hackaday
Hidden 176-Bit Mystery Field in Every GPS Broadcast Finally Under the Microscope
For nearly two decades, a mysterious 176-bit field buried inside every GPS broadcast has gone unexplained — until now. UCL researcher Steven Murdoch analyzed 12 million GPS packets spanning 2007–2026 and identified “Subframe 4, Page 17,” officially marked only as “special messages” in the GPS specification. Murdoch's best hypothesis: the field is used for cryptographic rekeying of military receivers. Intriguingly, the field changed format in 2023. Full packet analysis code is available on Zenodo for researchers to explore further. It's the kind of deep RF archaeology that reminds us the airwaves hide more than meets the eye.
Sources: Hackaday
YouTuber Berm Peak Jailbreaks the Reevo Hubless E-Bike — Protocols Reversed, Files on GitHub
The Reevo is a hubless e-bike that suffered from poor build quality and software lock-in — YouTuber Berm Peak took it on for a full overhaul. After opening the controller and finding well-labeled PCBs, Berm Peak reverse-engineered the communication protocols and bypassed the touchscreen display, which relied on an unavailable app. Physical shrouds, fasteners, and fastener holes all needed complete replacement. All the work has been published to GitHub, making this a compelling right-to-repair example: a commercial product brought back to life through persistent documentation, creative reverse engineering, and elbow grease.
Sources: Hackaday
“Lathe” Prompts LLMs to Teach Instead of Build — A Smarter Use for AI Coding Assistants
Developer Deven Jarvis built “Lathe,” an open-source project on GitHub (devenjarvis/lathe) that flips AI-assisted coding on its head. Instead of asking an LLM to write production code, Lathe prompts the model to generate learning tutorials — step-by-step explanations for topics that lack good existing documentation. Jarvis' example use case is slicer software design, a domain where tutorials are sparse and learning by reverse-engineering source code is painful. By separating the “make me a thing” use case from “teach me how to make a thing,” Lathe offers a more honest framing for AI's current capabilities — solid at explaining, still sketchy when it has to get something right.
Sources: Hackaday
Ken Shirriff Powers Up a 1948 IBM 604 Thyratron Module — History Lives Again
Ken Shirriff has done it again — this time taking a deep dive into a pluggable thyratron module from the 1948 IBM 604 Electronic Calculator, the accounting machine that bridged electromechanical tabulators and the dawn of fully digital computers. The IBM 604 used around 1,250 vacuum tubes, all housed in easily swappable plug-in modules — a design philosophy that would show up across computing history, from early personal computers to modern expansion cards. Shirriff not only documented the module's circuit but powered it up, switching a lamp on and off with the thyratron. Full write-up at righto.com.
Sources: Hackaday
Revisiting AI Coding Assistants: Are You Holding It Wrong, or Is It Just Wrong?
Following spirited feedback on her earlier piece about AI coding assistants, Maya Posch returns with a deeper look — this time exploring whether the “you're using it wrong” criticism holds water. She surveys multiple frontends and models, investigates prompt engineering best practices, and examines the popular framing of LLMs as “junior developers.” The conclusion is measured: while AI assistants automate away tedium and can help junior developers grow faster, they still confabulate regularly, can't ask for clarification, and require substantial human oversight to catch errors. For makers who write embedded firmware and one-off scripts, understanding these limits is essential before trusting generated code in hardware.
Sources: Hackaday
Armbian Imager 2.0 Supports 338+ SBC Boards with Custom Profiles and Dark Mode
Armbian, the popular Debian/Ubuntu distribution for single-board computers, has released Armbian Imager 2.0 — a full rewrite of its GUI flashing tool. The new version supports over 338 boards from 64 SBC vendors, covering a wide range of boards across the Armbian-supported ecosystem. The revamped interface includes dark mode, 18 auto-detected languages, and a custom user profile system for pre-configuring Wi-Fi credentials, SSH keys, usernames, timezones, and locale — making headless first boots considerably smoother. Builds are available for Linux (x64/arm64), Windows (x64/arm64), and macOS (x64 and Apple Silicon). A welcome upgrade for anyone running an SBC-heavy lab.
Sources: CNX Software
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency