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Interviews: Ask Andrew "bunnie" Huang About Hardware and Hacking

Posted by samzenpus on from the go-ahead-and-ask dept.

samzenpus (5) writes Andrew "bunnie" Huang holds a Ph.D in electrical engineering from MIT and is one of the most famous hardware and software hackers in the world. He is a contributing writer for MAKE magazine, and has worked on a number of projects ranging from autonomous robotic submarines to peel-and-stick electronics. We recently covered one of his latest projects, an open source hardware laptop called Novena which features entirely NDA-free components. Bunnie has agreed to take a break from his work and hack away at any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

6 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. I've never heard of you by larry+bagina · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No disrespect intended, but let's say we stop some random people on the street and ask them to name a famous hardware hacker. I bet that question isn't showing up on Family Feud anytime soon!

    What can we do to increase the public awareness (and create more hardware hackers)? I was thinking perhaps high schools could have shop classes for nerds -- instead of working on engines, wood working, etc, it would be hardware and software.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:I've never heard of you by flappinbooger · · Score: 2

      A random person in the street can name you multiple Kardashians but won't be able to name you the vice president.

      So no, a random person on the street won't know who Linus Torvalds is.

      --
      Flappinbooger isn't my real name
  2. How do you become a professional hardware hacker by werepants · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This sounds like multiple questions but it is really just clarification on one:

    What advice would you give to a person who wanted to make a living in the "Maker" tradition - being able to spend your days designing, engineering, and building on technically interesting and creative maker projects? I'm most interested in the career aspect, assuming that you've already obtained a preliminary education: would you look for a job with a similarly minded engineering firm, launch a kickstarter, start a hackerspace, hack together some things and try to sell them through a webstore, work as a freelance engineer, or something else entirely?

  3. Re:Why "bunnie"? by LoRdTAW · · Score: 2

    What's in a name?

    Seriously, why would the name turn you off to his work? I know bunnie is a cutesy-wootsy name but it has no bearing on who he is or what he does. Maybe he likes rabbits. Maybe its what his mother calls him. Maybe it was a nickname he earned on the mean streets of Boston during his time at MIT. Either way, who really cares?

  4. How was it growing up? by haneefmubarak · · Score: 2

    How avid of a hacker were you when you were in high school and how supportive do you feel your friends and family were of your hobby?

  5. How do you go about discovering hacks? by timrod · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I haven't read your book (I will when I get off work) but I'm curious as to how exactly people discover these hacks. I mean, there's some really weird ones out there that make me question how people even thought to do them, such as hacking a PSP battery into service mode in order to load custom firmware or manually opening a PS2's disc tray to bypass the copy protection that only activated when the button to open or close the DVD drive was pressed. I know with the Xbox, there was a software hack (I don't know if it's the same one you found) with save files from certain games, but only specific versions of those games.

    So my question is, how do you go about looking for exploits?