Episode: 3416
Title: HPR3416: HPR Community News for August 2021
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3416/hpr3416.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 23:05:33

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3416 for Monday, the 6th of September 2021.
Today's show is entitled, HPR Community News, for August 2021 and is part of the series HPR
Community News. It is the 180th show of HPR Volunteers and is about 96 minutes long and carries
an explicit flag. The summary is, can's not available, so MRX joins Dave to talk about the show's
and comments in August. This episode of HPR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash donate.
Hello everybody. Welcome to Hacker Public Radio. This is the Community News
for August 2021. Now you're not hearing Ken's voice introducing this time because he's unavailable
today so we're managing without him and I'm very lucky to have a co-host who's joined me to
help out with this and it's MrX. I'm MrX. Hello everybody. This is a bit strange.
I hope my voice isn't too gruff because I'm recovering a bit of a snotty cold bit there.
I should be fine. Sounds fine for where I am. That's good. It's really nice of you to join in
MrX because this thing works best as a dialogue I think. I think it's good to hear you and Ken
chatting back and forward. That adds something to it so it's really nice to have a co-host as I
said. Fantastic. I'm glad to help out and I haven't been able to contribute many shows so it's
nice to be back. Absolutely. We'll just do things the way we normally do it which is we're going
to just go through the shows. We're going to look at the comments on them as we go and we look at
any comments which are made to older shows after that. We look at the mailing list and there's a
few other business things. That's pretty much. Excellent. That's the agenda.
Yeah. Hopefully I can amend something about some of the shows. I haven't listened to them honestly.
I know. I know a month's a long time. It's so long time. It's easy to forget I do. That's why I keep
notes because I'm too grateful. I'm too forgetful. That's why I have to write things down.
So the first show of this block was 3391 which was the last community news and there's not
usually much to say in this as comments and there are no comments on this one. We'll hop straight
on to the next one. 3392 was from to turtle who did a show on structured error reporting.
Oh yes. Part of the series on Haskell. I don't know anything about Haskell. I must have met
but it does look fast I think I must have met. It's quite scary looking I find. I see where he's
going with this. He's sort of organizing his error reports in a sort of more controlled way
which is great. There's definitely a message that programmers should be taking to heart. I'm
sure they do of course. Yeah but the details of this really pass me by. I don't really see myself
being much of a Haskell person in the future. Yeah. I mean great notes as well. There's a lot of
information here so I imagine anyone that's even more interested in hassles and got a lot from this
I would have thought. Yeah. Oh yeah. There's some great detail here if you're wanting to get
into Haskell I would think. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. I wonder how many shows he's going to do.
How many have he's gotten in the paper line? I don't know. He was he was producing them at a
fair or rate at one time but during the Covid like most people he sees. Yeah. There were no
comments on that one so we'll move on to the next one which is from Clare 2 who is talking about
XML. We need to talk about XML he says an extensive markup language. This is too good to be true.
So he's he's talking about what XML is and about what it looks like. There's an example in the notes
and he's quite enthusiastic I would say. So it's it's always very good at explaining things that I
find and although I've not dealt deeply into XML I've had the tweak the audio EXML file. I think
one I remember the most is as I think XBMC it was not XBMC now what's it called now you know
that the Xbox media player thing it uses XML files and whatnot so I had to tweak some of those
and you're doing it by hand so anyway you can automate it it's obviously very good.
Yes. It's a fun thing to work with that when you think of what the alternatives are.
Though it's quite unforgiving so you need to be pretty careful with the way that you work with it.
I've used a moderate amount in my job when I had a job back in the day but I don't really use it
much. How far does XML go back then? I believe it was sort of the early 90s that it that it came
out. I remember getting excited about it and going to buy a book in the local book shop and yeah
it was in it sort of introduction to one of the O'Reilly things. Oh yeah they're very good
though as well. It was good but I just yeah I wasn't quite sure what it was for to be honest.
Well I think it can be used for all sorts of things sometimes I'm sure sometimes not the ideal
solution for that for everything but it's probably used for all sorts of things you know.
Well I think it's partly it's for what you want to use it for. It's the answer to my question.
Yeah and and I was expecting it to say oh well here's what you can do with XML but it was more
a case of here's what XML is and how structured and things you need to know about you can't put
this like the other in it and it's same as HTML you can't put ampersands in it.
Right right. It's a special meaning and there are sorts of things. Yeah yeah good sure
though it's good to get explanation of what XML was. I didn't try to master that yeah.
So there were two comments on this one the first one I'll just do it. If you okay if we ping pong
I'll start with with the first one you would you do the second one? Yeah can you see him okay yeah
yeah yeah okay. So first comment was from Trey who said thank you. Someone who only occasionally
uses XML and other languages like Jason your episodes on both topics were very helpful.
It's also encouraging to know that there's someone else out there who despises markdown
as much as I do. Keep up the great episodes. So yes good good.
Yeah excellent. Kick in in the teeth of markdown along the way. That's good.
And the second comment was from Kevin O'Brien. I love this I love the show. Great show
Glad to and my previous career as a project manager working with big data systems. XML was
important for data transfer. For example in the automotive industry the major manufacturers
would insist that suppliers use XML to send data such as invoice is important
exclamation mark. And in health care it is useful for sending health data. Also you mentioned
Docbook and I seem to recall seeing you give a presentation on that and I think it was
Indiana Linux Fest but if not probably Ohio Linux Fest all good stuff. So yeah yeah I mean
I think there's a colleague at work had a big complicated XML filter person and he was
he was kind of raving about I think he used some sort of Python tool but yeah yeah certainly useful
indeed very useful. Yeah yeah yeah. My work I used data from the student record system
which is an independent thing run by the by the administrative computing people.
And they would send me the data laterally in XML form. So that was you know like
20,000 student detail things that I needed to make accounts from all in a huge XML file.
So it was quite entertaining to learn how to parse that and get the individual things out.
Without pausing your program to blow up because it was so vast. Yes yes. Yeah I could imagine that.
I've not I've only dealt slightly into XML and only only hand edited things and of course
you know that's the other thing that I think with the Xbox if you got it wrong the thing
would sometimes feel taboo so you can get yourself into a light mesh. That's not fun.
No no no. Okay moving on then well the next show was from Clartoon. Guess what it was about?
It was about XML. So it's a VNXML style with XML style it. Pars XML from the terminal.
It shows entitled. So yeah this is looking at XML style it which is a program which let's
you do some quite fancy things with the XML file. So yeah it's quite cool. Yeah again excellent show
notes you can see what you do not glance at. I don't think I look at the show notes enough
I tend to just enjoy listening to the podcast. I guess you just get the time I guess but you
can see you had a problem to solve and this strategy is actually fixed sort of things so it's
really good for you when you get a solution like that. But it was also I remember the show was
very good yeah. Yeah the notes I wrote to myself was XML style it is cool. I wish I'd known
about this one I was trying to use XML. Well the reason I didn't know about it was I don't think
it existed in the early 90s or whenever it was I was doing this. But yeah now I do it is brilliant.
Yeah because the time there's nothing like that with grepoor or something like that you can get
all the way to the patch. Definitely a thing you don't want to do. You need something that knows
the structure of the mark. Indeed yeah yeah excellent so I'll need to remember that if I'm ever
playing around with XML that's the goal to go for or it's tired yeah yeah it's it's not too
scary to use either it's not too bad. No I can see that from the notes yeah very good. So we had
at one comment on this from Norris my one cool XML style it trick he says. I had to install an
XML config file on a bunch of servers. The XML was the same for every server except the host name
had to be added to a specific field. My first thought was to use said anyone who's tried
parsing XML with redgex knows just how far I got. So it should be something like said that
understood XML tags led me to XML style it. Here's the one they used to add the host name of the
server to the XML path and it was the path was info slash host if an ID and he won't read it out
but he gives an example of how to how to do this. So yeah sort of iterative thing going through
files and replacing stuff. Yeah it's just ideal for this sort of thing I mean it's so much
more robust than trying to use something like said or whatever you know yeah it needs you need to
have something that understands the structure. Yeah that's the same same adjacent you know they're both
very quite complex structures and you need things that understand it in order to be able to do
anything clever with it I think. Yeah said no a wonderful but they're not really up for that sort of
stuff. Yeah yeah excellent excellent stuff yeah. Okay the next day was a show from operator hacking
stories with reacted part one. He's talking about pen testing from. Oh yes yes I remember that one
yeah. So he yeah I thought did I make another one? Yeah just some anecdotes from his days working as
a penetration tester. It sounds like quite scary stuff. Yeah yeah no I don't think a good either.
You need to stay very calm and be able to blag your way through these sort of things. I'm terrible at
sort of things. Yeah I know I would be panicking you know. Yeah no I would be very good at that type of
thing. No no no no you just have to set a mindset and just stay cool and sort of and just
absolutely could not do that. Yeah yeah I admire that operator has that mindset and can do it.
Yeah do you want to do the do the Norrisd comment? Or write comments here. Let's read comments so
the Norrisd comment first comment from Norrisd. Please do more. It was a lot of fun to listen to
how you worked your way through the different exploits. I am looking forward to two more so yeah
I absolutely couldn't agree more you know I was fascinating. Absolutely Kevin O'Brien says I love
this story. I always love hearing people's war stories from security. If you have more please send
them in. So there you go yeah so it sounds like everyone's really enjoying it so I went and
then of course there's a third comment so just just show you this is by BZ and the social engineering
access he's as a title. Hi operator I really enjoyed this show. I was particularly interested in
your reference to gaining physical access to sites using social engineering in England 40 years ago
we used the term blagging all that's of course blagging yeah and my late father was an expert
at it. He was an electrical engineering business and would almost routinely attend conferences
and other events for which he had not paid the required fee. His secret was as he put it to look like
you have everything you have every right to be there here and if you can carry that off everything
else drops into place yeah well I'll be hopeless at that. Being in mind that in those days tickets
were paper rather an electronic so a name missed from the official list could not be easily verified
organizers would often apologise for their apparent shortcoming and make sure he got a good seat
freebies and even a free ticket to a forthcoming event. I'm so dedicated to this often overlooked
and rare skill could be particularly popular as long as listeners don't get too inspired
and wind up behind bars just to have any good. Yeah yeah that's fantastic that's a great comment.
Yeah absolutely yeah fantastic. So next was Clare 2 again who stepped into the breach for HBIRZ.
This month yes he's we were getting very very low on shows around this time.
Yes he came in with several. Oh there's another three or four yet to come to.
He's talking about Magic the Gathering. He's talking about card rolls in this game and there are
over 25,000 cards in Magic the Gathering you only need 60 to fly.
So yeah 20,000 right you that's that's complicated. Yeah he's got some fantastic looking
show notes here actually. Yeah it's yeah do I carry on? No I just want to say I got a bit
stunned by the complexities of this. Yes yes. But it was impressed that Clare 2 had sort of worked
out the strategy which got him where he wanted to be without needing to to buy lots and lots
of these these presumably expensive cards and stuff. Yeah all that's right and I'm saying that
yeah without having I'm not actually I don't know what funny enough we were we were
I was in a hole there recently we played some card games and it's clear that I'm rubbish card games
and I think maybe it's a skill you pick up at a certain age or whatever or maybe people are
naturally able to do it but because I haven't played a lot of card games I must admit that I found
and that's maybe played these sort of games. I'll very be tricky to follow what was going on but
but I'm sure if you if you if you if you played these games you'd find this fascinating sort of thing
you know yeah yeah but we used to play family card games when I was a kid and I was never
all that good at them but we did used to play them quite often you know and but they they
was they weren't particularly childish games so they weren't really full-blown adult games and
that sort of stuff. No no of course we were playing it it was obvious that all the other people
had all these strategies that they were there which passed like passed me so yeah I'm sure you
can really cut up and all all all this sort of thing but yeah as I say if you're at all into
into a card role games I finish fast I think and I've seen a couple a couple a couple of colleagues
at my work before everything got closed down and whatnot actually playing you know these sort of
games out on a fancy border fancy sided dice and all that but I've never never tried it but you
know you know when clatty was doing doing the shows where they actually ran through scenarios
and stuff that was fantastic it was like listen to a radio show you know I was I was
riveted to that but whether actually playing it yourself I really enjoyed that I must admit but
yes yes yeah yeah it's quite impressive isn't it hearing people who are who are a bit more
up to speed with this stuff you might be and hearing them hearing them play is fascinating
I do have a conversation with my daughter about that she's quite into D&D stuff and she's
she's she's she's making she's making pieces for a D&D game that she plays every Sunday with some
friends over the internet so yeah yeah yeah so I don't see me doing it though I just feel that
is me yeah I'm kind of the same it's like a it's like a blend of of all the new together isn't it
because you're you're rolling dice and moving pieces and stuff I presume but like playing good
or something like that but then you're doing it over the internet it's my just suppose you can
play chess over the internet as well as I suppose yeah it's kind of stuff clever stuff oh yeah so
anyway it's it's clatty's expertise in this area it's really absolutely absolutely great to hear
about it's clearly you really really enjoys it you know it's really it's right into it's good
to listen to so next we had Daniel Pereson talking about pine time what is a pine time he says in
this podcast I told a little bit about the pine time and it's a it's a watch from from pine 64
people and yeah yeah it sounds amazing sounds really interesting but effectively as I understood
you're a developer if you get on board just now and so you need to put a lot of work seem to me
anyway you needed to put a bit of work into being that sort of developer yeah that's it because
you said it wasn't really ready for the for you know a complete product but it was for something
like you say that's a developer but you know if you've got those tendencies I guess it's
limited by your imagination and that that's the guess of you too but really you know yeah you feel
that it could be quite entertaining if you know if you've got the time and the expertise could be great
yeah indeed yeah so I just say I do remember saying I've some limitations on some of the things but
but as I say it's a fact with these other with mostly sort of things you're you're
you're given a set of things and set them out of apps and you can do nothing to it rather than just
what the developers set up for you to do I guess there's no flexibility yeah I guess that's
a bit of it really this seems to be much more open than a lot of yeah yeah it just can't be
anything but very good but I don't have the end product rather than be be one of the makers yes
my skills and I have to yeah yeah yeah I've never had one of these smart watches at all
I've never even gone down that avenue must have them no my son just bought one actually I forget
what it was he just passed by earlier than the week with it we never had a chance to really look
at it in detail but it's I think it's an apple convertible thing or a product or something
Right, but yeah, yeah, a lot of people have them a lot of people have them. Yeah. Yeah, I'd not think I would particularly want to get into to be honest
Yeah, I think I've gone backwards along with my my Nokia old Nokia phone
I've found in a drawer that belonged to my grandfather, well my grandfather's shop actually when it closed
I've got a pocket watch
I'm sometimes carrying this pocket watch about to be minus a chain at my ass
Yeah, I used to have a pocket watch and I was a student that was a great way of
So I always seem to be breaking wristwatches by I don't know flailing my arms around or something and knocking into things
The pocket watch worked quite well. I used to you know have a chain attached to my belt
And that yeah, it was just a cheap old thing. It's just pretty satisfying. Yeah, I mean it's the same. It's cheap as well
Yeah, there's something rather nice about that
Yeah, and the whole process of winding them up
That's the best bit of all in the end of the year
Yeah, it's fun
Anyway, moving on. Good stuff good stuff moving on. Yeah, Anacron 3398
Show about Anacron from Clare 2 put down that cron tab and get started with Anacron, he says
So he goes into quite a lot of detail about
How you would make Anacron work and setting it up on that type of thing
Yeah, I think I remember way back in the day when I was looking at a cron tab and an Anacron and
I did did look at Anacron but
I'm not sure if I
Because there are some limits obviously there's a Clare 2 points out the limitations of a cron job
You know, it expects a server to be on all the time and it's not that it's missed, you know
So crack, you know, it's a for certain jobs. It's not not ideal
and
I definitely look at Anacron
But whether it was I think maybe I looked at it and
It could very well have been the case that
You setting up or just too much hassle, but of course with these show notes are so clear
But doodle now so that's that's ideal so I need to keep getting to know that. Yeah, no, I went hunting
For Anacron on my sister my fan it was already installed and running various things, you know, the
Ah
This is on a Debian testing system. So I found it was actually doing stuff presumably
There are things like
There are tasks that need to be run regardless of when you turn your machine on and stuff like that
So that's right and not time constrained. They just need to run because they haven't run yet type of thing
Which you know, this is pretty good. So using that would be quite a quite a good thing to be able to do. Yeah
Yeah, there would definitely be applications for that and in my
So yeah, glad to have that brought to my attention. Yeah, something else
Can you be with me?
Would any comments that one? No, no comments that one. Okay, next one then
next was
Linux in-laws
Series one episode 36 open source licenses
And the in-laws are talking about that subject and as usually I have some amazing links to all sorts of
Yes, what do you think? Wow
They do have some they go to a lot of trouble to
Prepare these which is fantastic
So yeah
MI6 OSI definition of free and open source software
VMware gpl lawsuits
Copy a live
My mistake that goes on on this. There's quite a lot of other than why there's too many probably
Yeah, there's I thought it was pretty good actually. I enjoyed the show there
I have slightly difficulty hearing it sometimes because the volume level goes up and down quite a lot
Yeah, that does it does it but I find that as well
It's but but and when you turn it up then suddenly it goes loud again and
Blast it is
It's difficult to sort that something out, but yeah, yeah, I find that as well
Yeah, was it excellent show covered loads and loads of stuff in this one as you can see
Yeah, yeah
Was it all right?
Yeah, so um Kevin O'Brien sent in a comment
He said another good show
There's anyone who's listened to my shows knows I take licensing very seriously
My own view is that your objectives to expand the free software ecosystem
Use the gpl
If your objective is to promote propriety software use one of the unrestrictive licenses like mo tmit or bsd
So yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I think I'm I tend to be
Uh, these is it remember it's a part of an age thing as well more pragmatic and uh, but this is a stuff's very important
Obviously, absolutely, so yeah
cool
next was
The man himself
Kevin O'Brien a hookah talking about gimp um normal layer modes normal dissolve color arrays
Um under that uh that heading so
Pretty pretty impressive actually what you can do with gimp
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've only scratched the surface with uh gimp literally um, I remember uh at work
The I was supposed to so there was that there was that just briefly there was a supposed to we're supposed to get a
There was some something there was something to do with there was some license available for Adobe products
And we're supposed to if you've got any products you want order it so I ask you know, yeah
We're gonna get to I think what a colleague got to whatever the doby
photoshop whatever is called and
When I went when the software is actually went ahead to end up without photoshop it I ended up with um
The doby writer package. So I thought oh well in that case. I'll just I'll just get gimp
so any of that
Get hold of gimp and so I used gimp well all my other colleagues used um a doby um photoshop whatever it was
So yeah, I've used gimp. It's just very good. It's very good. It's so powerful
Yeah, I've got to use it much of done things like added
Legends to uh to pictures and let that type of stuff. Yeah, but uh nothing
Really up the range of things that it's capable of no mean mean either
So they saw really good if you ever want to learn this is a great great
So you step thing that that that is done, you know, it's uh very useful
Yeah, yeah, these are great resource and you can always go back and have a have a look if you suddenly realize
Oh, yeah, there was a show on lay a mode just what I need and and find it
So yeah, and on the doubt with your with a wonderful tags that have been produced
We could find these things quickly usually hopefully hopefully yeah, yeah
Um, certainly Kevin to put some some good tags in there
Yeah, yeah, so I see you don't have no problem knowing it was about laying out and blending and stuff. No
No, excellent, excellent
So we have a two comments two comments. Yeah, I don't know whose turn it is. No, shall I do this one? Yeah
BJB says thanks. Thanks to your series on gimp. I've always found it hard to use
I think this is going to clear up some of my issues in this episode
I'm thankful to learn that layers have modes. I didn't know that
I think that's my main problem with gimp has functionality
I don't know about and sometimes I end up in these other modes and all the commands do unexpected to me things in these modes
So now I know to watch out for these layer modes. I'll have to try it out
Okay, and the next one uh Kevin O'Brien
Come to you are most welcome. I'm glad you are finding this helpful
I can recall a time when I was totally confused about gimp and we'd look
Uh for some other program to use then I decided to dig in and figure it out
And now I wonder why more people don't use gimp since it is so powerful
But like all powerful tools it does take time to learn absolutely true. Yeah, this is it. Yeah
You've got to kind of dedicate a bit of time to it to get the best out of it. This is it. This is it
So yeah
I've got enough hands to hold the push to talk button and I've got to
Alt Alt GR you know the Alt GR key uh put it and I can scrub them down and close tabs and stuff and it's I think it's still transmits
I don't get to that what that works for me anyway
Yeah, I um
I'm using the key on the numpad on the right but I'm also right-handed and use the mouse of my right hand
So
So yeah, maybe not the best of
My eventual plan is to have an external
Little mini keyboard with a few buttons on it that I can use as
Push to talk to anyone
I'm left-handed so I got the button down with my right and the mouse on the left so that's
Anyway, the next show three four oh one mana
Hacks from club two and he's talking about mana ramping which sounds very strange in magic the gathering
Yeah, yeah, I remember I'm hearing this one and uh obviously uh since there's a very strange uh
currency
mana, but yeah, yeah
So the same I guess if you know anything about these card playing games
We're fascinating, you know, but yeah, it's some yeah, it's one of these things. It's uh
I as I see but
So it's obviously time to work out all the sort of them
Uh, what's the one I'm looking for?
uh
Canning employees to
Oh, there's lots of strategies here
That's a strategy. I was a watch strategy
I think you need to be
A little bit more knowledgeable about the game itself to to get the best out of it and I'm certainly not that person
No, there are loads and loads of people who are so yeah, yeah, it's going to be fantastic for them
So yeah, and again, thanks to clad to
I'm coming in and uh stepping in and helping out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very good
Absolutely
So the next one is
from Kleke
Who is reading
A document reading a manifesto
Declaration of digital autonomy and this is
A uh
A document written by Molly de Blanc
and
Karen Sandler
Tech autonomy.org
I think we saw something of this
Earlier on um, I don't remember the precise history of this but uh some some of it
Wrang bells with me but I just I must admit I didn't go looking for the further information about it
Yeah
But it it sounds like a really uh really amazing
um
Thing to to try and
Break away from
The business of being locked in by proprietary software and all that sort of stuff. So it's a
Digital autonomy is is the is the term um, yeah, yeah, I mean it does seem like in every way everything's
You know, it's getting more everything's going more and more that way
And it seems more and more
It's for all of us to start it off
It was abnormal to
To pay for software right back at the beginning, you know, and it seemed like it's absurd to pay for it
And uh and for it not to be open and available and the code to be available and whatnot
Uh, and now it's gone completely the other way where they think what you want to see the code fine
I think you want to see the code, you know, it's like well fine
Not you know it's uh because if it was that case wasn't the the
Was not a woman who had a pacemaker fitted and she wanted to see the code to ensure that
That was carrots and they're actually that right. Yeah. Yeah. I thought wow that's have
I can see it's a valid point. Yeah, yeah
What you know, don't know what's in that code and yeah, I thought that was very thought provoking that but yeah fast meeting
Yes, so this is well worth
following
Yeah, the development of this I think it's in a still in a draft state
I remember great and there's more work needed as there's one of the points that Clack Makes that
It's not quite finished yet, but it sounds sounds like it's going to be amazing
Yeah, that's right. It's it's it was nearly nearly there. They just did a few a few references or something
Thank you see from what I recall
Yeah, I just made some brief notes about it
Yeah, that's right. That's about all
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that was it was some some some some references of needing some some good
Reference to some other places to to to was it something to do with Wikipedia as well. I can't quite remember
Remember I don't know. Yeah, but it was yeah, really good though. Very good. It's it's great that Clack is doing this
It's a it's a subject that we need to be
To have brought to our attention indeed indeed very much so
The other thing relating to this is that
This document is released under the creative commons attribution share like four point zero
International license
Whereas HBR uses the version three three point zero license
And I think that's that's because to move from one lessons to other is non-trivial
but
There's some discussion on this on the mailing list
And it seems that the sensible thing to do would be to to move forward
But once we want to go to gender consensus on the subject
But to click here raise this issue, which is which is also very helpful
Yeah, I mean, it's something is very important. I guess I'm a bit lazy in that respect and and pragmatic
But I really appreciate the people do really care about this and it's very important, you know, because
Without it, you know, who knows where we'll end up?
But you've got to fight against the the weird things I hate and I'm absolutely, you know, I couldn't agree more
Yeah, yeah, it's important stuff
So next day was episode three four oh three
Fourth on microcontrollers from Brian in Ohio
And he's talking about fourth and also a little bit about his his his life and times in this regard
So yeah, fourth is a very strange language if you used to
know the the more conventional style of things
See or Pascal or right
I don't know anything about fourth at all. I must admit so
Can you explain at all for the you know, I can't really remember literature
It's it's a language which is very
Spass in terms of its
Elements
It but you with it you can build pretty much anything you want. I think it came from
No, I'm not sure that he doesn't actually talk about the history in his previous show and I've forgotten it
But I know that it turned out to be very very popular in the astronomy
Community where they use it to control
Telescopes and stuff. Right. Right. I
Go on to I was just a bit of a sparse you've got great flexibility
But also you're you can tie it down very tightly. I'm guessing you
Should you define things and whatnot. Yep. I think you can effectively define your own languages
Or components or interpreters or whatever you need. So it's a sort of assembly language style of
Propeach. I mean, it's nothing like the simple language. Yeah, in terms of its its level within
Because definitely something yes. I
I was intrigued by it back in the
80s or something. I had a BBC micro and there was a ROM
That was available from
Anusha a corn which which had a had a fourth version on it
Right
And I also had a
An add-on for my beat micro which is a synthesizer
And you could write music
For it using a language that they call ampore
It's different something I can't remember what it's been for but it was fourth-based. It was it was wow
So I wrote things and
You had
It had multiple
channels in it not very many, but
You could get it to play different
Signatures of notes on the different channels and you could code it in this ampore language
So you could say you know thread one do this thread two do this right
Right, so it would play you know chords and that type of thing
It was actually yeah, it was wow
So it's I've got a little bit, but I think Brian Harrow is a lot more nodule about this
We're going to hearing more about his
Absolutely, his experiences
Yeah, good stuff good stuff all interesting to hackers. That's for sure
Yeah, oh, I made a note that
Uh, he's also a fan of this he says says much here and this has got some similarities in terms of its
Fundamental nature, I guess
Right, right you build things on on top of
Other things before you can do do anything much
And he uh, he
It doesn't like Python, which I found just intriguing
I like Python
Yes, probably because it's a bit it's a bit
Some part to to get going with it maybe more newbie-friendly suppose
Well, yeah, yeah, maybe
He didn't actually say why doesn't like it
I'm not a fan of Python, because I hate the the positional
business
That just seems to me to be wrong, you know
If I stand over here, I'm a I'm a dustman and if I stand over there, I'm a I'm a doctor or something
Is why would position be relevant?
Yeah, and
Species now
No, but understand yeah, yeah, you can tell me this for that
I've been in that position before actually so
No, it's just me. Yeah, I'm probably just stuck in my ways that it bothers me slightly
So I'm trying to fight, but I haven't managed it yet
So next is from JWP
Who's been contributing to HBL from many many many years
Been doing some of the going backwards in time. I'm doing some of the older shows to upload them to
the internet archive
And occasionally his his name pops up some of the the oldest were older ones
Yeah, good, but he was doing a survey of
Susa the operating system version 15.3, which presumably has the name leap
So that's quite cool. Yeah, I don't think I've ever installed Susa on anything
I don't have tried that I must have met so yeah, it's a just what I haven't tried
No, me neither there was a department at
University, I worked out that was the very much believed in Susa and had it on all of their
Linux machines those you know windows as well, but to
This only used it quite a lot over there
Yeah, you never never quite understood what it was about it that made it popular, but
Yeah, yeah, so next we have part two from operator
Of his hacking stories with reacted
Yeah, which is an addendum
Two and a half minute addendum to his earlier story on this one. So yeah, very good. Very good
Yeah, yeah, I vaguely remember
Stetter might maybe you know it's say, but I do remember
And during the second part, but I can't remember anything about it
No, it's a whisper other quickly
Yeah, it was it was good to have
Absolutely, yeah
Next we have another one from clartus study of cards in games he says
What function cards have in games?
So he talks on the subject of currency deterrent coercion clutter and rules
Which seems much faster stuff
It's
It was quite detailed you went into a lot of detail
And he was out for a walk, but I think most of his things is he records as he's walking so
Yeah, I'll queued us to him for being able to
Yeah, and I see his thoughts so
Oh, yeah, yeah, I'd get run over or or or something like that. I was excited something like that, you know
Well, in my case it'd be 50% ums and hers, I think
Well, that as well, yeah, so yeah, he's he's very he's just really eloquent talking. I must admit
I'll listen to the clartus shores are very good. Yeah, he's he's definitely a one and a million
So Ken Fallon was next and he
brought forward the podcast recommendation
And his recommendation was the software freedom podcast he gave a
gave us a sample of that particular podcast
So I think it's only reached about episode 12 or 13 or something and this is episode one but he
But we heard but it was a fantastic show it's 56 minutes nearly 57 minutes long
It was an interview with choreo doctoro
Oh, yes, the guy's right. Yeah, it's a fe and choreo doctor is just
Always someone I want to listen to yeah me too me too very very clear minded person who who seems to to have all the right sort of ideas and thoughts about
Any such you can't yeah
There's really interesting really interesting points you brought up off which none I can remember
And I remember thinking about some of the points you brought up about then what to do with DMR
DMR
Would you call it?
DRM that's right and I think well quite I wouldn't have thought of that you know that's that's
It sort of consequences that I wouldn't have thought of it was it was a fascinating episode that that's for sure. Yeah
Yeah, it's great. I
I subscribe to this on the strength of that
Show and and I've been listening to to feel them
Not got too far down that and the rodent maybe episode four, but they're they're really good
Yeah, I recommend
That's just a point. I'll probably do the same actually because I haven't but they I did really enjoy that so I may well indeed
Put that on my podcast
Catch it as well and start listening to two so that's yeah excellent. Yeah, mm-hmm
You can mentioned in this this show preamble. I guess
But we have a sister site called three culture podcasts where we're trying to keep a record of
the various
podcast which
Which are likely to be of interest to
The hacketypes such as ourselves
So that had been I think we're told it's mentioned in the email stuff later, but
uh, we've
uh, Ken's manager managed to resurrect the site which was
Stuck due to alert to a certificate problem and
We've uh, I've been working on making sure we've got things up to date, so
Mm-hmm. This this podcast will be there once it's been fully updated
Excellent excellent. Uh, it's good. It's good. And uh, I see there's like a comment on this one as well
So
Well, I'll take this one on or do you want to take it? Oh, yeah, I don't know where we are with them, but if you don't mind
No, I don't mind either. So comment one by some guy on the internet great show
Uh, great show. I like the humble humble bundle for my books because I can use them on any device
Freedom seems to be hard work these days. I was right there. We have to invest time researching ever
Every ever purchase every purchase because of greedy companies. Well, yeah, that's that's what companies do
That's why they're set up as a was isn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Yes, and
Yeah, to the devil with the consequences. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely
So next we have
Rowan
That the spelling of his name that throws me every time
His hand or I should say um, but uh, yeah, and he's talking about composting and he was inspired by episode three one five seven
And is talking about um
Making compost. So he um Rowan's been actually been great help with the tag
Tag tagging and whatever of shows. So uh, so happy to see him contributing a show as well as fantastic
And yeah, yeah, it's it's an interesting subject um if you like that sort of thing and uh, but it is it's quite an important thing to be able to do
To be able to to uh to make compost out of the uh stuff that that comes out the garden and stuff if you
If you have the space to do it and the the resources etc. It's a great thing to do. Yeah, I mean, I think uh
I wonder if it sounded like some of the
uh, Kelly had was a quite quick look sounded quite clever, you know quite um
I could have put it out but more spacious than I was wondering if some of these items would be available saying in the UK
um, but um
Yeah, it's it's well worth doing we we had a composting bin
uh, but uh, we didn't place it in the right in the right position. Of course
Uh, and it didn't get enough sunlight so it didn't compose properly. So uh
But uh, yeah, definitely worth what they're doing. It's a it's a good thing to do. Yeah, I um, I've done a bit of this stuff
Um, my
Dad who he had to had a big garden used to compost and he'd made this sort of compost being that of all bits wooden stuff
You know, just sort of a thing with the back and two sides and then you chucked all your stuff in there and
Went and stored it up every so often and that that that worked really well
It was when it came to planting time
He'd always go there and dig dig down a bit and get out some lovely compost to put on the potatoes or tomatoes or whatever and uh
Yeah, it was
But yeah, as you say these these are a bit more
market devices
Though you have to be really careful with the compost because
If you just put plant waste and weeds and stuff on then you're probably okay
But if you're putting kitchen waste on there might be food
material in there that things are going to go
Right, dig about it and you know the rats and that of course he said that he mentioned that that's right
Yeah, good point good point. Yeah, I suppose I have had one bin and I think we we kept it one season and
Didn't do terribly well as yet. I don't think he got enough sunlight. That was half the trouble
And you know being a Scotland don't get much sunlight anyways
No true, no I
the local council
Used to
Would sell one to you have a sort of a dialectish thing sort of
Quite a little bit on the top that's when we had still have it
But it's and it's not being very very productive. I have to say yeah
a lot of stuff went in it
Yeah, and I also bought a worm bin thing which is it looks like an ordinary dust bin, but it's got a
It's got more stuff on the inside and it's got a tap at the bottom and you you put
Uh, they call tiger worms, I think
those small small earthworm
Um
That eat all the stuff that you put in there. I think there's a separator
So they don't fall to the little because the liquid drains out into the bottom
Then you you take that out and
Put it in your watering can and dilute it and put it on your on your
Granted, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it is it's funny, you know
I would have been tempted to see
I think I'm going to have a discussion with a colleague about this
Oh, you know Scotland where there's rubber she you don't get enough sunlight blah blah blah blah
It's like it's sunlight. It's isn't and I'm just a few miles up the road from you know
I think it's got four or five of the other things all of those gaps in it
I think just you know, it's it's up as a technique like I look like a lot of things sort of thing, you know
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it might might depend on where you you are. I mean
the
There's a
My
House
It's surrounded quite closely by other houses, so you know, you don't get a lot of sun into the garden. Yes
You do get some quite strong sun in the morning
But you're in shade to some some degree
Yeah, so you know things things like that
But the worm bin actually did work quite quite well for a while
But keeping the worms alive proved to be look more difficult than I thought it would be right right they tended to
You're giving me this stuff
You're on strike
Anyway nice show very nice idea yeah, I did enjoy the
The Ambrant Sandy was obviously recording outside and there's sort of cicada noise in there in the background
Oh that site after I've forgotten that. Yes. Yes, and did remember that. Yeah, very good
So there were no comments on there next one was another the next in laws episode 37
And it was an interview with Ken Fallon
Hey
And yeah, it was
Well, Ken obviously did a great great job as you you would you would expect and certainly
Soul HBR project which it obviously is yeah
You know, so it's a
Because I think I think that there has been
Shows in the past where about the history of that of each bar has been there
But
Every time it's as mentioned you come with different different angles and you hear different things and different bits
There was bits that I hadn't heard before
Um and and then also to recall things I had forgotten such and such you know
So and so I say I got I got a lot out of this it was it was a good good to show in a good interview as well
Yeah, yeah, it was an hour and a half long or a bit more um
I didn't have the time just with straight by you know, yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh, yeah, and I did a great job interviewing Ken I thought yeah, I thought so too
They're quite skilled interviews
Yeah, they make nice nice lead backs sort of nice nice sort of style, you know
Friendly sort of way of
But interviewing was there any comments to that one? No, there were none there were none
That's that's surprising as I thought there would have been you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was really good. It's hard to know
what
What things get comments on what what don't yeah, that's it's anyway, um the next one was
From a hooker and he's talking about operating systems
What an operating system is how they developed historically
This this was fascinating. I really enjoyed that and the pre I think he did one previously about about just started to talk about Dawson
What not and
He was talking about you know
How you do configuration fails and high memory low memory and all this stuff that I said oh I remember all of that and dealing with with CD
Rome drivers and all this all the circumstances, but then it this one was all about the history
And that this was fascinating all all the things it went on to you know, we just take it all for granted now, you know
Yes indeed he's he's very good at doing this kind of thing is Kevin and he's
It's got that sort of teacherly style. Yeah, which is really good really good most most interesting and lots of great links
I noticed as well. Yeah, yeah, always always
So we had um five comments on this one. Wow. Oh, I'll start. Should I trade? Yeah, it says
Love this history. Thank you for sharing this info
It's so much fun learning the history and challenges we take for granted behind today's technology
It reminds me of
Three-part documentary triumph of the nerds keep up the awesome work trade
Yeah, so excellent really really good really good ours. I enjoyed it too
um, so
um, so there's a comment to from
Kevin Brian
You are most welcome ultimately ultimately clatu is a person who got this going
This material was on my website for over 20 years. Clicky
When he asked to use it for
OpenSource.com
That got me to ask him if he thought H.P. I would like it
But I guess it shows the value of having your own websites and controlling your own content
So yeah, yeah very very good. So it just you have something like that
And you think ask them to find us interesting and uh
Yeah, I think the more time goes by the more unique and interesting it becomes. I think yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good
It's good stuff to the history is is always fascinating
Um, so the next comment is from Jen
Uh, who says observations many thanks for this really informative show smiley face the MP3 he seems to be somewhat broken
So yeah, don't show about that
Yeah, well, I think
I could be wrong, but I think is and I think it's maybe an historic thing
I mean, I could perfectly well download um
Oh, oh feeder whatever, but I think I do download the MP3s because always have done
I need to listen to an MP3 player or whatever
And I'm sure listen to it and it was seemed okay to me, but yeah, who knows?
Give a whole minute of things I guess really so I don't know any problems with that must have met with MP3
No, no, so Kevin answered this one. Do you want to do want to do that?
Yeah, yeah, Kevin says uh, so uh
Kevin said uh audio quality
I don't know what problems you found with MP3 file, but it was not on the original
I uploaded a flak file to hpr which is then converted into other formats for downloading
I subscribe to the aug feed and just listen to the show on that feed
And there was no problem
So either there was a glitch in the conversion to MP3 or you had some issue with with the download
Um, so yeah, I'm sure it was MP3 that I I listened to on my uh player uh, you know mock and uh
It seemed okay from what I don't remember anyway. Yeah. Yeah
Well, I listened just to see if I could find out what was wrong. I listened to MP3 having heard the
Previously and it's fine. It's fine. So Ken Fallon um comments. Can you define broken?
Hi, Jan. I checked all the files and I can't find anything odd
And he points to the show itself
I'm sure that is 3401.png. Can you give me more information please? Thanks. Oh, it's a picture
I just clicked at myself here as a picture of all all all all all all the files and audacity
Uh, good so yeah, yeah, he's been very thorough of course
I didn't want to click on it because I'd it would mess up my tabs if it did so
I forgot to do so before
So okay, thank you for that. Yeah, so yeah, I don't see anything right
I also checked the archive to all versions
They were fine. So yeah, it's just one of these things. I mean you you make face
I'm glitching one on a player that you're using that you don't do anything else. It's just one of these things I guess
It's a local issue. I think yeah, yeah, yeah, if it's if it's anything worse than we'll definitely look into yeah
Yeah, yeah, so the next show was from
Klaatu
Dominion card game talking about that particular game and other tabletop gaming
episode and
Thank you. Yeah, it makes it feel we should try the game. He's
I think yeah, it's definitely because I feel we're missing out here
Yeah, yeah, it's all this card stuff going by and we're not partaking that's uh, yeah
This one sounded interesting. I must admit um, I haven't dug more deeply into it but uh, it's um
He was talking about some of the stuff
Yeah, was this the one where he first thought it was it was rubbish and then when he
Re-discovered it got back that again. He found out it was actually a really good game or something
I think it was I think that's what I remember of it as well. Yeah, and uh, yeah, it
He sounded quite enthusiastic
second visiting so
I'm going to follow his link to
To the game itself and see what it's about
Yeah, you know, as I said before if people are talking about tabletop gaming and stuff and it tried to put it into words
What's what's exciting and fascinating about
Tabletop gaming and all that it's impossible to portray
Uh, until as I say they did they um, you know, they did one live on show with with with guests
I mean, it was just terrific. I just I was glued to it and I couldn't wait for the next episode when they were gonna do
Another one you know what's gonna happen when you open this door is this monster gonna go and beat them up or something
But uh, I know yeah, it maybe takes an awful lot of effort to I'm sure it does take an awful lot of effort to
Arrange all that, you know, but uh, and I think I had as you remember clarity had turned effects and all sorts of things
It was really it was like it was like listening to uh, I thought it was like listening to like a radio show
Broadcast, you know, it was just just just terrific. You just wonder what was gonna happen next. So yeah, it gives you some idea
What do you like if you played it yourself? You know, as you see, I think we're missing something
Just feel a bit like it, yeah
So yeah, moving on to the the last one of the month three four one two is click it again reading a license
Creative Commons attribution share like 3.0 unborted
Which as I said earlier is the license we use by default
On my HP. Yeah, but we've never published it per se
Oh, click it, you know, it's it's not part of
The the edge of our website, which, you know, on reflections maybe
Yeah, maybe not so good. Yeah, maybe maybe although I suppose
If you've got a link to it then it's always going to be up to date sort of thing is I
I just dreamed that's a link to the actual license on the site somewhere for you. Yes
If you the the creative commons link itself will take you to the to the text thing so uh, yeah
So because if you were to take the the the texting places and where it might go out of the day or so
When would you have if it's that version it shouldn't you don't support that at all? No, no
Well, one of the things that I did notice was that
We were not paying
As much attention as we maybe should have done
To the version number because when you look look to see what the license is on
On HP are it's just
CC by essay and the 3.0 is not obvious
So I think we should we should definitely think some of the other licenses do say
A version number again. I may be wrong. So so Ken will put me right if I am
But I just felt that we ought to highlight the fact that we're talking about the 3.0 and yes
Yes, that would be because
It's a bit of an important difference between the two. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, good point. Yeah
So um, but yeah
But it's um, it's a great thing to do and I think claica was well
Motivated to yeah, this happens very very important. Yeah
The only downside with this and this is something that claica himself brought up today actually
Was that the the the length of the show notes is is
prodigious when you
When you put the entirety of the license text in it and
There are two factors that might be be influenced by by that length
So we used to try and restrict the length of the the show notes to I think 4,000 characters
Whatever a character was we've we've not made a fuss about it in recent years, but um
The notes are actually part of the rss feed
So if you if you view the rss feed, which I I do in
Whatever it is. What's it called tiny wiki tittley wiki. I can't remember what I'm but um
The I think there might be issues with some viewers
Dealing with extremely long notes
Can you see who made that suggestion the other factor is
The notes go into archive dog
Where they are they up the field description in the item that you see on on
On the page of the show and I suspect there might be a limit there
But I don't know that for a fact. Yeah, yeah, we we actually
Can actually chop this show and put left left the the bit that comes out of the database
um
shorter and put the remainder into a file on the
um on the web server which you can get to by clicking on a link at the end
So right right. Yes, we probably need to bring this issue up
Just so that we don't go and fall down this this whole
Whatever holds there are I'm not sure what they're exactly, but yeah
Definitely balance. Yeah, yeah, they've got balance
But yeah, so it was um
It's useful to uh to be able to to do this um
Yeah, yeah, it was something that there's I do I think this uh, let's know while you're there
While doing the dishes or whatever you know sort of yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I listen to it
But um, I think some of it sort of passed me by
I didn't you didn't get my full attention, but uh, no still still it's good to have
Okay, so that's all of the shows
Okay, I said okay, I forgot to push the button. Okay
Um now we go through comments to older
Past shows and there are nine of these on five previous shows, and you can just just bring you in me you can see them in the
3416
Notes
Yeah, is this the first one starts three three two three is that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and
What I do is I show the entire comment text in these notes just for the
for the cohosts to
Be able to read easier that having to go in find things else right, so yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good
We can just just with through these I think yeah
Shall I start um by all means by all means yeah, so the first one is a response to
Clatter show the alternate internet you never knew existed and it's from bjb
Who was a contributor war back and has
Been a bit quiet. It was now back again, so that's good to see
Good good. Well, uh, the comment was this was super interesting
I have to admit I had one of Ken Fallon's thoughts which she expressed in the community news covering April
What happens if someone hosting a DNS server in the open knit group
Returns authoritative results for a name that I can should be responsible for
As an example, imagine someone else returns authoritative results for your banks or doctors URL
So answer that's a good point. Don't know the answer
But no good answer either good good good good question. Yeah, I mean, I remember the show it's uh, it's uh
It's I think for what
Clatter you said in the show is I don't know that people think that the the
Worldwide web is internet, but it's only a tiny bit of it so there's so much more
Beneath this the surface sort of thing the people are in a way of so yeah, that's quite interesting
So you're okay to do the next one. Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah, so the next one is for
Hpr 331 a 3331 I should say
And it was audio for podcasting episode one the microphone by Taj Sarah
So comment two from bjb on
Questions about mic positioning
Thanks for a great episode needless to say the audio is great
It was her
Also the topic is interesting and useful. I'm just coming back to the podcast and listening to some older shows
re-avoiding
Sibilant and popping sounds and angling the mic
Do we move the mic 20 degrees off to the side or vertically?
Do we move the mic position in 3d space or do we just keep it in the same position
Bangladesh direction
The 20 degrees vertically horizontally question mark
It thanks for the episode much appreciated
Yeah, I mean there's so much to this is it's like a scientist isn't it really? Yeah, it is absolutely absolutely
Those shows are great. They were really good
I hope there's more of those coming by the way. I'm sure there are absolutely yeah
I was wondering that myself
I've tended to use
Just sort of use trial and error
My microphone currently is sort of directly in line with my head
slightly above the level of my my face
Because it's over the top of my monitors and I'm sitting there looking at monitors talking in the microphone
But that's because it's um
It's the sort of microphone that picks up sand from every blooming where is that a dynamic one? I can't know I get I get a mixed up
Yeah, whenever there's a choice between two alternatives. I always get the wrong one
Yeah, you need to listen to this your game
Yeah, yeah, but uh
So that seems to work okay for me
But
With a different sort of microphone it probably it might not you need to do
Yeah, yeah, I mean as I said before I use our
Gaming headset microphone with a boom mic and I just keep it I think for that sort of thing you need to make sure you keep it
Either below or above that to be the below my mouth. She don't get the popping noises
But the beauty I think about I find about that is that
It's the distance stays consistent. So you know
Getting louder and quieter and you know it keeps me from one place
Relative to your mouth. So if you move your head or whatever the volume stays the same
So that I think for for me anyway, I find these kind of gaming headsets
Hey, what well, you know, yeah, I've used them in the past but
The boom microphone thought would be a better better choice. Yes, yes, it's quite good. Yeah
Yeah, yeah
So
I'll do the next one, but
The show after that is you and me. So
We we need to take our own role, I suspect it anyway. Yeah
Yeah, three three seven seven chrome books are brought in more by Zenflo to two
Guardian comments
Lazy sound quality abuses audience
Sorry, but running the water while recording is a real F you to your audience
I hope we will never be subjected to another HBO episode that does that one was way too many in my opinion
It's a funny people people
Okay, vastly different opinions
And I remember I thought it was quite quirky and unusual. Yeah, yeah, almost like funny
Different hearing people sensitive to certain sound ranges or something. I don't know
And maybe the I mean
We'll put you actually off your noisy chain with the earbuds in or something, you know, I don't know. Yes. Yes. Yes
That's true. That's a good point. Yeah, you know
Actually, I'm constantly struggling with these
Things because my my wife Mrs X has has exquisite hearing and I have a tinnitus
so
And do you always like the sound to be very quiet and
And to the point where we've been playing music or I haven't seen the kitchen or whatever you can't hear a damn thing
And there's nothing to me more annoying having music playing that you can't even hear you can't work out what the song is
You know just kind of damn thing off if you can't do that like they've done it off, you know
And also sometimes it's quite nice to have a bit of a bit of life just so you can really enjoy the music
It's not a occasion I do that, but in no way does she like that so so yeah, I think I have to do it when she's not around
My good pleasure live music
It's yeah, I know it's it's understandable
I also have tinnitus and I can't find I can't detect which direction sounds come from yes
I'm listening exactly the same I was outside the other day and my kids were around and I said what is that noise coming from
They said this next door vacuuming like kitchen or something and no way to I sounded like some sort of a
low-flying drone or something that I could not tell where it was coming from or what it was or anything
What's all with it but there's a colleague of mine whose name was still I won't mention but he he has
Like myself to get problems with it with years and and and and he was always very keen at answering phones
Because he had to answer the four after so many rings, you know
Because you're just
Man I helped this go wherever and it could be that I said the room and
So the phone would ring and he'd jump off his seat and shoot off in the wrong direction. We said
Gemini know it so what in that direction? All right, okay
All right, what's going to wrong direction? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's grim. That's not
Plumbing hearing and it goes wrong
I know indeed indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so next one is on
It's your show how I fix a bottle of my car for free thanks to YouTube and I commented on it
Saying I hadn't quite appreciated what was happening. I mistracked excuse the ignorance
But I hadn't appreciated a what the heat shield is and b. What problem was being solved
So I found out that a heat shield protects parts of the underside of a car from the heat and the exhaust pipe or pipes
It's a formed sheet the metal that is bolted the underside of the car
The problem was that the matter holds the metal sheet had corroded and become larger than the bolts and the washers holding it on
Meaning to nasty rattling the metal tin lids with hole through it in them act as giant washers holding the shield on again and preventing rattling
Exformation mark. I realized that this was a great hack now. I understand it
Yeah, very good and I might reply to that comment too was oops
Hi Dave oops. I think I have a habit of doing this sort of thing
I can only apologize to yourself and to any potential listener
I'm glad you managed to solve the mystery in the end and to explain it so eloquently
If only I had said something similar in my episode
Must remember a future to engage the brain before engaging the mouth all the best mr x
So yeah, yeah, it's I'm so bad for doing that and you know, I get annoyed in my mother because she's starting the middle
I sentence or something and I was like what are we talking about you know
How do we get from that to this you know
So I think I do the same things
Oh, it's so easily done yeah
It's see I have not really been fiddling with with cars for a very long time
Was the time back in the
60 70s where I used to work
For my uncle had a garage
So I know a fair bit about the cars of our Europe
So back then they didn't have heat. I suppose because you've got a cat that can register for us that would be the thing
I think that's that's part of it
I'm not really it investigated it, but yeah, I had an interesting
Search through youtube to find out what we're what what we're doing in these cases, and it makes perfect sense once you realize, you know
I think my thinking was well
Probably was that well if you know something about cars you don't you you'll know what this is about
But then if you if you aren't and you just go to mechanic and you wouldn't do something this yourself anyway
So but I really I should have explained what nothing was talking about
So I guess terrible
So there is a comment from short fat ball guy appreciation for episode he says
Simple and elegant use what you have I always love listening to your episodes
I use stainless whole hose clamps on my 2005 Tacoma
Candlestick converter heat shield as I was not so fortunate to have a bolted on one so far
They've lasted five years in case your leads meet and untimely demise
Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea
It's um and I should reply to that when I was food book I just say yeah, that's a great great comment and I've built that in mind
But I missed that comment to I'm quite bad for that, you know, it's I should check comments more often really
I see him because I process them so yeah, so I have a head start
And did do thank you for that that's that's excellent. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for
And I'm pretty enjoyed the enjoyed the show and the enjoyable previous shows. So that's that's that's all I can ask for that's excellent. So
Who's turns it? Oh, it's you want to do the next one? Is it my turn? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so track lane
So so so so as I so the next one is on hpr 3388
Linux and laws season one episode 35 the fee software foundation Europe by monochrome
So comment two is by
Drag style
Regarding our ms
The number of signatures signatories of the open letter is not five or six figures as mentioned in episode
It is three thousand and four
So three thousand yeah three thousand and four by contrast a little support in which I'm just storming
As I was a URL here gained six thousand eight hundred signatures
If the fsfe thinks the matter of right or wrong simply depends on how many people are made uncomfortable
It should withdraw its statement with unsubstantiated claims as there are more people made uncomfortable by the lunch mob than by
It just storming see also and there's another URL. Um, so um
Yeah, another URLs are for a comprehensive account and context of the drama. Yeah, so there we go. Mm. Yes. Yes. Okay
So Bob says clarification
So I'm subject in the interest of fairness and balance the rms open letter gained three thousand and four
Signatories and stopped accepting more after just eight days the rms support letter
Has only garnered six thousand eight hundred signatures while still accepting signatories over four and a half months later
You also forgot to mention the sixty one organizations that are party to the rms open letter
Yeah, yeah, and then a comment for from a drag drag stale on a re-classification
Uh in the interest of fairness and balance the rms support letter started one day after rms open letter on
2021 0401 when rms open letter stopped accepting more signatures
rms support letter had five thousand and fifty one signatures
Uh, there's a
What you call a reference to that
Compared to three thousand and five signatures on rms open letter and reference two to that to two URLs below reference nose
So yeah, it's a thoroughly topic
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was not really aware of a
A lot of this stuff have to do
Okay, yeah, we'll call it hold there. That's that's us dealt with all of the comments
So we normally go through the mailing list at some level uh, it's the next thing
Okay, okay
I've been keeping up with the mailing last uh
Compositions I must admit no, I uh, I've got tab open here in the in the browser
Looking at what's on the mailing list archive
Which is what's linked in the notes
So there's there's a there's the headings mailing list discussions
So the first link is called mailing list. Is that one year you're referring to or hold on
I have a phone that could share my screen with you
I know. I know. Yeah, it says mailing list discussions the threaded discussions this month can be found
And then there's a URL that all right. Yeah, yeah, 21 always right
Yeah, and it's it's the threaded view. I don't I know Kendall use that, but that's what I normally use
Okay, okay, I've got that open now. I can see the threaded view yeah, huh?
So there were a bunch of
Discussions I don't think that there's quite a number of messages here 43 and I don't really think we should spend
Uh the the the time that it would warrant um
Going through these in any huge amount. Yeah
I you can't really tell sometimes what they're they're talking about just by looking at threads sort of things. No, no
They'll need to really figure out. Yeah, yeah, the um the reason I put the link in the notes is that
You can go and read the thread. Yeah, yeah yourself, but I'll just mention the major
Discussion points
So there were there were a number of of points first one was
Ken raising this business of the CC by CC by essay whatever the license the see these can create a license
The 4.0. 4.0. Yeah, I see that. Should we be
moving to that
Instead of the 3.0. So there's there's been there's not been a huge lot of comment on that a couple of people have commented
Yeah, we're I think inclusion pretty much was yeah, let's just move
Yeah, yeah, but it may be easier said than done I suppose, you know
Well, I think we'd have to make sure that nothing in the past got shifted
Right, but from from now on the the default room some point on with the
The default would be the 4.0. All right. Okay. So you just have a cut off point and move to 4 like that makes sense
Then there was a continuation of a discussion about 3.0. I think we'd said something to the fact of
Go to aug class plan it on 3.0. And of course 3.0 is
To all intents and purposes dead at least dead to us
Right because because he's been taken over by hostile
A hostile party if you like to put it that way all right, right? So so
There's an alternative which was discussed here
Okay, okay, but I'm not sure that I see is that heavily used but
There's there's probably some work needs to be done to get that all rationalized
Right, right. It's a lot of us have been in IRC. So I've doubled the tiny bit, but not much
Yeah, I had a lot more time ago. I've not I'm not being I used to pop into all class planning every sort of right not not done so for years
Then there was a comment from
Rowan about the site
Reculturepodcast.org which has been down for a while because
the
ISP that was that was providing it or the hosting site that was providing it
Had problems with the certificate or something, right? Okay, and this is the list. I mentioned earlier on of
podcast which
Which are marked as creative commons or whatever
Which relate to
Hacking type subjects on that
We've sorted now, so that's fine
Needs a bit more work to get it filled out a bit more, but maybe restructured a teeny bit
Okay, it's is there
Uh, there's a suspicious activity on the comments feed
In which was just a hiccup it was it looked like somebody had
Broken into the comments or something but it was just right the log which showed the stuff was not
Up to date
Right good good
Then we had a long thread about
Uh, from a from a correspondent calling themselves e8h
4f's
Yeah, I see that one
More shows per day was the request wow and then there was a lot of comments on that
I can imagine yes
And I think the conclusion was
Well, uh from the community at large
That's not really very practical
Um and no, you know we
We
We plot along pretty well with the odd
Well fairly frequent to be honest
Instance where we we look like we're gonna we're gonna fall off a cliff and then we don't
People throw it the same thing
Absolutely
About two cents of five or six in a row or something
Yeah, yeah, yeah
but
To try and do more doesn't really seem to be a sense of way
Practical yeah, no, I think it would be yeah, not only would it involve the community in
Another considerable effort to to produce more shows, but also involve the the janitors
essentially Ken and myself
in
Managing at all, so I don't think that's that's gonna happen
No, no
Fun laugh. I was I'm sure
I had a conversation with
My wife about this and what should she bunched about about the numbers?
What every day why do you have to have one every day?
This is going to the other direction, you know
But yeah, and I obviously Ken had an argument with that that if you don't have it every day then there's no consistency with
and people
It's a the rely on coming to the show and expect to show it every day, so I think so yeah
There's an argument for that as well, but yeah, yeah, I think that's could be very difficult to do in more sure that your peridice or yeah
Yeah, I feel so I think we've reached the conclusion, but
We need to need to just check that review. Yeah
Who could camera Brian sent in the thing where he said he'd seen a sign in a
Window of a restaurant saying podcast as welcome, which he says is this the sign of the times
Interesting
And then we had conversation about
Other podcasts sources of other podcasts for for the guy who is asking for more more than one a day
And it's a quite helpful comment to the effect that there's lots of cuts of podcasts out there
You can look back at old HPR stuff
You can look forward to seeing the stuff that's going to come up
Yeah, and um, you know, there's there's tons of stuff out there
Yeah, yeah, not shorter. Yeah, as you say
So yeah, some interesting comments there about
Availability or podcast and there's a lot. It's a it's a popular area these days, so
It's seen as desirable to businesses whatever to create podcasts, so
Oh, yeah, it shouldn't be a shortage
No, no
I've had I think I've been touched on before but I think it's going more and more means
Team and
And more and more sadly more more walled gardens which I'm not seeking on but
That's true, but so it's going yeah
So I think
without
Going any deeper into the the mail that there's some interesting stuff there if you've missed it
Then recommend you go and have a look if you haven't kept record yourself you can see it in the mail man archive
By following the link in the
Community news show notes. Yeah, yeah
Uh, we've been looking at the events calendar, but not really much. I've kept the items still on the notes
the right, right
The the notes um the calendar
mostly
Meetings which are virtual
Oh, yeah, it's clicking link here. Yeah, there's some interesting stuff there
There was more interesting stuff when they before the the covid
Yeah, of course, of course, the um, I did look at a few of the things coming from
Deb comp in the past week or so. There was some interesting stuff there
Uh, and they're all available if you look at look up Deb comp
I mean it's not and they've got nothing to do with this particular calendar, but uh
Would have been there
Okay, it's the previous month
So yeah, there's these things out there that can be gone can be visited to to look for
For info and stuff. So yeah, yeah, right. We'll just call a call a halt at that point
But there's one other thing that's the any business and I like to report
Progress on the very the two main projects the one is uploading the old race
Shows to archive dog while I did 10 in the past months
Previous month I did about a hundred
Oh, thank you. I got stalled by the fact that um, if I want to go backwards any further
There a lot of the shows didn't have tags and I don't want to upload them without tags
That script is written so it says there's no tag on the show. I refuse to do it
You can say we'll do it anyway, but uh, but then you've got to go and put them add them in later on which I don't really want to do
so right so
We've been working on
doing
What what show have you what show are you out just know did you know I think I did
560 show 560
Uh, 269
I did right in the past month. So I'd actually call the tags the tags and summaries on them
Yes, interesting stuff
Working on the tags stuff. I've been saying that
That in fact arches 72 particularly has been
putting up information on mastodon saying
Just process show xyz and uh, it's about such and such and it's been really interesting
I think it's quite a nice thing to do to raise the awareness to people
Yeah, yeah, so I don't know when I
You know that I can't I don't think I listen to the video but getting in like I'm not sure
Uh, so I remember we should review my notes and yeah, but it's it's finding a tight match. I think of course. Yeah. Yeah, I know I have
I have enough trouble keeping up with the the podcasts I have on the HPR shows etc
I did indeed. Yes. Yeah, so so so I'm a bit a bit a bit of people adding tags and stuff obviously
Really really useful to do and much appreciated, you know, well, we've managed to add
Uh, to get a hundred and eight shows to the point where they don't need any further work
This one and that's we've had arches 72
Ron can fall in on myself working on this so now there's only a hundred and fourteen shows left that need work
So all right, we're the goal is to get the whole lot done by the end of the year
And I think we're gonna
Yeah, so it's still contributing as rapidly as they have been then we're gonna we're gonna get there
Probably before the end of the year. Yeah, you'll get you'll get to the end of it. Oh, I know. No, what did you know?
Yes, right. Yes, I was loving that project. It's been such fun
Oh
Yeah, probably probably is the way of these things
Yeah, yeah, cuz you're first we're gonna start you think oh, how can we do this good so much to do?
No, I know, but we've we've plugged away and we've had some really helpful
You know
The
Was it was it was it your idea that came up with the tags in the first place was it or can you remember I think I know can
Quite like the idea. I think we probably came up with the thing on our community news or something
I was a you know, I don't honestly remember where the where it came from
Yeah, it started off with summaries. We decided that sometimes when you look to show the
Title was so
obscure but having a summary
To sit alongside it which gave a little bit more information would be fun and then we
I don't remember how we came to
Tags, but it was several years ago that we did it. Yeah, I think I had I think there's a
There's a company that profited the
It's for keeping track of you off
uh
bookmarks and whatnot
And it was a cloud of tags sort of thing and I thought how far funny feel I'm actually took over and I think they can erect it
I stopped using it not not because it was not because they took it over but because
The the way it worked the formatting the it wasn't as good anymore. It was just not as useful as it was in the past
And that that's the first time I really sort of started playing with tags and whatnot and find them
How useless is to find think fine stuff, you know
Yes, it's really powerful. Yes, we did toy with
Making something like a tag cloud, but the problem is that we
Made the decision way back that we didn't want to use JavaScript on the
All right, all right, so but that there is a tag page that you can go to
Yeah, I'm at that link from the head as so you know things you can yeah, you can actually um you can't
You can't do searches as well as you'd like to I guess but you could go to the page
And do control eff and find find stuff um and it's also split up by you know alphabetical order
And if you know a tag exists
Then you can
Use the URL of the page where the tags live and put hash
Um the name of the tag on the end of it. Yeah
You know, I'm just looking at that. I'm just looking at that. I have looked it before
But it's not it wasn't the fact that there's a cloud of tags
It's a fact as you say you've got one big unified last you could do a control eff
Look for look for a word bang your straight there. So it's it's ideal. Yeah, yeah, it's um
Yeah, well Ken says he uses it quite a lot. I'd go to it
From time to time, but certainly if you have a show in front of you and you think oh
And if there's anything more on this subject you can go and uh and use the the tag
Thingie to find anything else relating to it and you could be a little bit um
Less precise in your search if you use the control eff type of thing um right and and and and find you know
There's a lot of shows that use the word markdown for example just looking at this here
So it's there's also there's also to be fair number to contain the word coffee
But it's one here making good coffee 80 is it also indexed under coffee? I don't know I have to go and check that one. I
You can see you can go down for this it was a good man. I know I know that across the first
I find it fascinating. I enjoy
Just browsing through this from time to time, but that's just me
Uh
Anyway, yeah, it's very good. Yeah, yeah, it's been a fun project
So hopefully it will be worthwhile there in product
Mm-hmm. I thought all of the airs all of the airs. Yeah
So well that's us then uh
We know one hour 14 minutes according to the
The recording clock
I'll be able to trim that down a little bit um. Yeah, but stuff. Yeah, I think we've we've done the thing
And it's been been fun. Thank you very much for joining in and and helping out there
Mistricks
Yes, and thank you David. It was it was a pleasure and it was nice to get a chance to to
Contribute again to to HPR because I've been out the loop for a while and hopefully I got a chance to get
More involved, but it's it's tricky and more things are like everyone else is finding it hard
So hopefully things will get better going forward. So good stuff good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Don't well
That's been great. Okay, then we'll say goodbye to everybody
We'll not do it. Do you want to do the hack a public radio thing that we normally do with again? Yeah
Okay, okay, so yes come back and listen to the next show on
Hacker public radio
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