#Russia #SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) has just published a statement[^1] that looks like taken literally from the pages of “The Lord of the Rings” and everyone is wondering if this a late punishment for Naryshkin for his stuttering on 21 February 2022[^2] 😂

The Press Office of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation reports that, according to information received by the SVR, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who divided Orthodox Ukraine, continues his schismatic activities in the Orthodox church space. Now he has set his evil sights on the Baltic states. This ‘devil incarnate’ is obsessed with the idea of ousting Russian Orthodoxy from the Baltic states and replacing it with church structures that are completely controlled by the Phanar.

In this, he is supported in every way by the British special services, which actively fuel Russophobic sentiments in European countries. With their help, Bartholomew, mired in the mortal sin of schism, has found common ground with the authorities of the Baltic states in their desire to bring turmoil to the Russian Orthodox world. Relying on ideological allies in the form of local nationalists and neo-Nazis, he is trying to tear the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian Orthodox Churches away from the Moscow Patriarchate by luring their priests and flocks into puppet religious structures artificially created by Constantinople.

The aggressive appetites of the ‘Constantinople Antichrist’ are not limited to Ukraine and the Baltic states; with his cunning, he is gradually covering the lands of Eastern Europe. In order to strike a blow against the ‘particularly stubborn’ Serbian Orthodox Church, he intends to grant autocephaly to the unrecognised ‘Montenegrin Orthodox Church’. Church circles note that Bartholomew is literally tearing apart the living Body of the Church. In doing so, he resembles the false prophets mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. … By their fruits you will know them.’

Press Office of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, 12.01.2026

[^1]: svr.gov.ru/smi/2026/01/konstan… ( in Russian)

[^2]: video.echelon.pl/w/sgdr8RDt25U…

DIY, Full-Stack Farm Automation

Recently, [Vinnie] aka [vinthewrench] moved from Oregon to Arkansas to start a farmstead. This is a style of farming that focuses not just on a profitable farm where produce is sold at market, but also on a homestead where much of one’s own food is grown on the farm as well. Like any farm, though, it’s extremely hard work that takes a tremendous amount of time. Automation and other technology can make a huge impact in these situations, and [Vinnie] is rolling out his own software stack to help with this on his farm.

He calls his project the Pi Internet of Things, or PioT, and as its name suggests is based around the Raspberry Pi. Since this will all be outdoors and exposed to the extremes of Arkansas weather, everything built under the auspices of this project prioritizes ruggedness, stability, and long-term support, all while avoiding any cloud service. The system also focuses on being able to ride through power outages. The server side, called piotserver, uses a REST API to give the user access to the automation systems through a web interface

[Vinnie] also goes into detail about why existing systems like Home Assistant and Open Sprinkler wouldn’t work in his situation, and why a ground-up solution like this is more appropriate for his farm. This post is largely an overview of his system, but some of his other posts go into more detail about things like integrating temperature sensors, rainfall monitoring, controlling irrigation systems, and plenty of other farm automation tasks that are useful for any farmer or gardener.

We’ve also seen some other projects of his here like this project which converts a common AC sprinkler system to an easier-to-use DC system, and a DIY weather station that operates in the 915 MHz band. He’s been a great resource for anyone looking to have technology help them out with their farm or garden, but if you’re just getting started on your green thumb be sure to take a look at this starter guide as well.

hackaday.com/2026/01/16/diy-fu…

How Accurate is a 125 Year Old Resistance Standard?

Internals of the 1900 Evershed & Vignoles Ltd 1 ohm resistance standard. (Credit: Three-phase, YouTube)
Resistance standards are incredibly useful, but like so many precision references they require regular calibration, maintenance and certification to ensure that they stay within their datasheet tolerances. This raises the question of how well a resistance standard from the year 1900 performs after 125 years, without the benefits of modern modern engineering and standards. Cue the [Three-phase] YouTube channel testing a genuine Evershed & Vignoles Ltd one ohm resistance standard from 1900.

With mahogany construction and brass contacts it sure looks stylish, though the unit was missing the shorting pin that goes in between the two sides. This was a common feature of e.g. resistance decade boxes of the era, where you inserted pins to connect resistors until you hit the desired total. Inside the one ohm standard is a platinoid resistor, which is an alloy of copper, nickel, tungsten, and zinc. Based on the broad arrow mark on the bottom this unit was apparently owned by the UK’s Ordnance Board, which was part of what was then called the War Office.

After a quick gander at the internals, the standard was hooked up to a Keithley DMM7510 digital bench meter. The resistance standard’s ‘datasheet’ is listed on top of the unit on the brass plaques, including the effect of temperature on its accuracy. Adjusting for this, the measured ~1.016 Ω was within 1.6% tolerance, with as sidenote that this was with the unit not having been cleaned or otherwise having had maintenance performed on it since it was last used in service. Definitely not a bad feat.

youtube.com/embed/gRksE0-k8U8?…

hackaday.com/2026/01/16/how-ac…

Testing a Continuous Printing Mod for the Bambu Lab A1 Mini

There are a few types of continuous 3D printing with FDM printers, with a conveyer belt and automatic build plate swapping the most common types. The advantage of build plate swapping is that it automates the bit where normally a human would have to come in to remove finished parts from the build plate. A recent entry here is the Chitu PlateCycler C1M which the [Aurora Tech] YouTube channel had over for a review. This kit bolts onto the Bambu Lab A1 Mini FDM printer and comes with four extra PEI build plates for a not unreasonable $79 (€69).

As also noted in the review video, this is effectively a clone of the original swapmod A1m kit, but a big difference is that the Chitu kit comes with all of the parts and doesn’t require you to print anything yourself.

The different plates are prepared using a special tool that inserts G-code between the plate changes. Moving the bed in a specific way triggers the switch that lifts the finished plate off the magnetic bed by the plastic grip on the plate and loads a fresh plate from the stack. Here it was found that a small tolerance issue prevented the last plate from being used, but some sandpaper fixed this. Other than that it was a fairly painless experience, and for e.g. multi-color prints with separated colors – as demonstrated – it would seem to be a great way to churn out the entire model without manual intervention or a lot of wasted filament.

Perhaps the main issue that is central to all of these build plate swap mods is where the plates go after they’re pulled off the magnetic bed: the padded box is a great idea for the first one or two plates, but after that you get your PEI build plates with parts on them crashing on top of each other.

This is where perhaps something like a passive roller conveyer system could provide a nice gentle off-ramp, though this too would increase the footprint of the system. Regardless, the overall system seems to work well enough, allowing one to stack fresh plates in the chute and if you turn on build plate detection in the A1 you can even prevent the printer from trying to print on the magnetic bed.

youtube.com/embed/5Ev57r4ikBg?…

hackaday.com/2026/01/16/testin…

Yusuf, il ragazzo di diciannove anni di origini egiziane accoltellato a scuola da un coetaneo, a La Spezia, è morto.
È assurdo che nelle nostre scuole accadano fatti del genere, è inaccettabile che in un luogo come la scuola, tra ragazzi di questa età, tra gli insegnanti, possano succedere fatti di tale imponenza criminale da lasciare tutti noi attoniti, impotenti, basiti.
E increduli.
Non si può morire a diciotto anni. Non si deve uccidere a diciotto anni. E non solo perché si è troppo giovani per morire e troppo giovani per uccidere; non si può perché non è umano, nel nostro contesto civile, condannare a morte con un messaggio sullo smartphone il proprio compagno di scuola il giorno prima, e il giorno successivo ucciderlo senza che ci sia stato nessuno in grado di intercettare delle intenzioni così gravi; senza che neppure uno, tra gli insegnanti, sia stato capace di accorgersi della lite tra i due ragazzi, e prevenire la disgrazia che invece c'è stata.
Non è possibile, ed è insostenibile qualunque giustificazione, qualsiasi scusa, qualunque movente, qualsiasi assurda ragione che si possa o si voglia dare per sentirsi a posto con la coscienza, che avvengano fatti del genere. Addirittura in una scuola. Fatti in cui l'umanità viene completamente dichiarata persa, declassata a mera bestialità, annientata dalla brutalità disumana del sangue innocente che scorre tra i banchi.
Ed è una grave sirena di allarme che tutto ciò sia successo nelle nostre scuole e tra la nostra gente. In un posto dove nell'irresponsabilità generale — e nell'attuale classe politica — si tende volentieri a spacciare un omicidio per legittima difesa, dove un sinti dovrebbe aver meno valore di un italiano, dove si esaltano gli atteggiamenti divisivi e di discriminazione verso maranza e rom, e dove si credono risolti tutti i problemi con un inutile sgombero e qualche maldestro tentativo di espulsione.
Un giovane è morto. I nostri giovani muoiono, vittime di una società inadeguata al loro cammino futuro e priva di leggi efficaci che riescano a impedire le disgrazie che accadono. E per questo abbiamo tutti fallito.
Abbiamo perso.
Ci resta la profonda tristezza per questa giovane vita strappata alla vita. E il dolore per i suoi genitori in preda a chissà quanta disperazione, così come per il ragazzo che lo ha ucciso. Proprio per quest'ultimo, ormai, c'è da pregare; affinché la sua anima non si perda dopo un gesto così efferato e irresponsabile, affinché non prevalga l'odio.
Perché di odio potrebbe morire anche lui.
Perché potremmo perdere anche lui, fallendo un'altra volta.
Non sappiamo più cos'è la vita. Né sappiamo più quello che vale, il prezzo che costa perderla, e il grande dono che è. Non abbiamo più piena coscienza del grande progetto di Dio che tutti quanti siamo.
Né sappiamo più cos'è la pietà, cosa siano la carità e la misericordia.
E non sappiamo insegnarlo ai giovani, soprattutto.
Questo, è.

#scuola #immigrazione #società #cronaca

Jam like It’s the 1980s With A Mini-IBM PC

A lot of retrocomputer enthusiasts have a favourite system, to the point of keeping up 40 year old flame wars over which system was “best”. In spite of the serious, boring nature of the PC/AT and its descendants, those early IBMs have a certain style that Compaq and the Clones never quite matched. Somehow, we live in a world where there are people nostalgic for Big Blue. That’s why [AnneBarela] built a miniature IBM PC using an Adafruit Fruit Jam board.

If you haven’t seen it before, the Fruit Jam board is an RP2350 dev board created specifically to make minicomputers, with its two USB host sockets, DVI-out and 3.5mm jack. [Anne] loaded a PC emulator by [Daft-Freak] called PACE-32 than can emulate an IBM compatible PC with an 80386 and up-to 8 MB of RAM on this particular board. The video is VGA, 640×480 — as god intended– piped to a 5″ LCD [Anne] picked up from AliExpress.

That display is mounted inside a replica monitor designed by [giobbino], and is sitting on top of a replica case. Both are available on Thingiverse, though some modification was required to provide proper mounting for the Fruit Jam board. [giobbino] designed it to house a FabGL ESP32 module– which has us wondering, if an RP2350 can be a 386, what level of PC might the ESP32-P4 be capable of? We’ve seen it pretend to be a Quadra, so a 486 should be possible. It wasn’t that long ago that mini builds of this nature required a Raspberry Pi, after all.

Speculation aside, this diminutive IBM build leaves us but with but one question: if you played Links386 on it, would it count as miniature golf?

hackaday.com/2026/01/16/jam-li…

Battle Born LFP Battery Melts With New Problem

Following up on user-reported cases of Battle Born LiFePO4 batteries displaying very hot positive terminals, [Will Prowse] decided to buy a brand new one of these LFP batteries for some controlled cycle testing.

Starting with 30 cycles with a charging current of 49 A and a discharge current of 99 A, this put it well within the 100 A continuous rating for the battery. There is also a surge current rating of 200 A for thirty seconds, but that was not tested here.

What’s interesting about the results here is that instead of the positive terminal getting visibly discolored as with the previous cases that we reported on, [Will] saw severe thermal effects on the side of the negative terminal to the point where the plastic enclosure was deforming due to severe internal heating.

During testing, the first two charge-discharge cycles showed full capacity, but after that the measured capacity became extremely erratic until the battery kept disconnecting randomly. After letting the battery cool down and trying again with 80 A discharge current the negative terminal side of the enclosure began to melt, which was a good hint to stop testing. After this the battery also couldn’t be charged any more by [Will]’s equipment, probably due to the sketchy contact inside the battery.

It’s clear that the plastic spacer inside the terminal bus bar was once again the primary cause, starting a cascade which resulted in not only the enclosure beginning to char and melt, but with heat damage visible throughout the battery. Considering that the battery was used as specified, without pushing its limits, it seems clear that nobody should be using these batteries for anything until Battle Born fixes what appears to be the sketchiest terminal and bus bar design ever seen in a high-current battery.

youtube.com/embed/2m7DSCKO-Bo?…

hackaday.com/2026/01/16/battle…