For some reason, we never tire of stories highlighting critical infrastructure that’s running outdated software, and all the better if it’s running on outdated hardware. So when we learned that part of the San Francisco transit system still runs on 5-1/4″ floppies, we sat up and took notice. The article is a bit stingy with the technical details, but the gist is that the Automatic Train Control System was installed in the Market Street subway station in 1998 and uses three floppy drives to load DOS and the associated custom software. If memory serves, MS-DOS as a standalone OS was pretty much done by about 1995 — Windows 95, right? — so the system was either obsolete before it was even installed, or the 1998 instance was an upgrade of an earlier system. Either way, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) says that the 1998 system due to be replaced originally had a 25-year lifespan, so they’re more or less on schedule. Replacement won’t be cheap, though; Hitachi Rail, the same outfit that builds systems that control things like the bullet train in Japan, is doing the job for the low, low price of $212 million.

We don’t know who needs to here this, but we got a tip from Clem Mayer about upcoming changes to EU regulations that might affect the maker community. It concerns the General Product Safety Regulations, or GPSR, which appears to be an extension of current rules that will impose additional compliance burdens on anyone selling products to the EU market on online marketplaces. We won’t pretend to know the intricacies of GPSR, or even the basics, but Smander.com has a brief summary of the rules and how best to comply, which seems to amount to retaining the services of a company to take care of the compliance paperwork. We also took a look at the official EU information page for GPSR, which is pretty thin on information but at least it’s a primary source. If you’re selling kits or other products into the EU market, chances are good that you’re going to need to figure this out, and soon — seems like the rules go into effect December 13th.

You’ve got to feel for the authors of open-source software. As if developing, maintaining, and supporting the software that keeps the Internet running wasn’t a thankless enough job, you can actually get doxxed by your own creation. A case in point is Daniel Stenberg, the original author and lead developer on curl and libcurl. His name and email address are often found in the documentation for products using his software, so frustrated users who find his contact information tend to reach out to him after being ignored by the product’s support team. It seems annoying, and we sympathize with Daniel and others like him, but then again, it’s a measure of your impact that your contact information is literally everywhere.

If you’re in the market for a unique gift for the geek in your life and have an extra $230 to spread around, check out this custom Lego kit of the ASML TWINSCAN EXE:500 extreme UV lithography machine. Actually, strike that; now that we look at the specs, this kit is tiny. It’s only 851 pieces and 13.9″ (35 cm) wide when assembled, and isn’t exactly a richly detailed piece. Sure, Lego kits are fun, but there seem to be much better choices out there; we had a blast putting together the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle kit a few years back, and that was only about $70.

And finally, Festo fans will want to check out this literal air guitar from the automation company’s “Experience Center” in Lupfig, Switzerland. Festo engineers bedazzled an acoustic guitar with pneumatic cylinders and control valves and programmed the system to pluck out the intro riff from AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” It’s actually pretty good, and we especially appreciate the pneumatic party whistle that chips in from time to time. There’s a missed opportunity here, though; we really expected a pneumatic cylinder to do the characteristic double rap on the body of the guitar when you get to the “Thun-der!” part. Too bad — maybe for version two.