hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4308.txt

Episode: 4308
Title: HPR4308: What tech Kevie would spend £2000 on
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4308/hpr4308.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 22:46:26

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4308 for Wednesday the 5th of February 2025.
Today's show is entitled, what tech kevy would spend pound 2000 on.
It is hosted by kevy and is about 12 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, kevy discusses what tech related things he would spend pound 2000 on.
Hello, hello, this is kevy from the TuxJuan podcast and you're listening to another
episode of HPR.
Now before I even start going into the actual episode, I have to confess that this episode
took inspiration from episode 134 of the Linux Lads podcast that was released in December
2024.
And that show they were each asked if they had 2000 euro, what would they spend it on
and had to be tech related.
So this got me thinking this actually would be a great spin-off series if this would catch
on for HPR.
Why?
Because it might actually talk about some things people don't know.
People might not know about some, especially some quite niche products which I'm certainly
going to look at.
And also I'm going to discuss some different donations that I would give as well.
So again, it might actually get people thinking about donating to certain areas that maybe
they hadn't even thought of before.
So for mine, now I converted this to pounds.
I know it's not ideal, but euros pounds aren't too dissimilar.
However, you know, this will maybe be a series just for consistency sake.
Maybe it might be that you either want to change it so it's 2000 euro or 2000 pound and
then converted into your own local currency.
But anyway, I would leave that up to you, but I wouldn't encourage you to actually think
about recording a show for this because I do think I find this very interesting myself.
So what would I look at?
So the first thing that I would take, and this is actually going to take a fair chunk
of my three products, take a fair chunk of the two grand, to be honest.
So I'm going to look at three things.
So the first thing is the pillet.
This is against links to all these things will be in the show notes.
So pillet is a Raspberry Pi 5 powered modular computer.
Now you can get one, which is an all in one, however, that I think that's a pillet 5.
The pillet 7 is actually the one that I like the look of.
It's got a considerably bigger screen, but as it says, it's modular.
So you can get this look, the bottom part of it can turn into a keyboard with a trackpad.
So that's for your daily computing almost.
However, if you want to make into a gaming device, it also includes an option to have,
it makes into a gamepad.
So they say there's more to come.
Right now it's at the Kickstarter stage.
So I can't wholeheartedly say, yes, you should run out and buy one.
But the doosles seem to be available at time of recording.
But as with anything with Kickstarter, just be wary purely because some of these projects
do come to nothing, although these guys have been developing its slow leaks before it came.
They actually teased it on, mastered it on, I think almost a year ago.
But they said that they wouldn't be releasing it until everything was done and they had
ironed out most things before it was going to go to manufacture.
So that is the pillet and the computer itself is £295.
The reason I'm saying £295 is it's a wee bit to see, even if you go onto that website,
it will say £200.
However, then you read that doesn't include the battery.
And it doesn't include the NVMe storage device.
So I've actually added their own ones in.
The other thing though, it doesn't include is a Pi 5.
So with everything included, and I'm just going to go, this is fantasy land, so I'm going
to go the Pi 516 gig that comes to a grand total of £409.90, so quite considerable.
Now the other thing that I would do if I had this money is go for a Juno Tab 3.
I've used Juno computers before and I really do like their laptops, but I noticed they've
got a tablet.
This is a 12 inch tablet, so a bit bigger than the majority of tablets I've used before.
However, unlike the other ones which always used Android, this one actually runs the
mobile desktop environment, which is obviously mobile and is debut and mobile edition.
However, this is not arm-based, this is actually Intel-based, so one of the things is that
you actually are getting almost a pure replica of your Linux desktop on a phone.
Now, you cannot say it's on the website, you can actually install whatever disk through
you want on it, anything that runs will theoretically run on this.
There's a big problem with that though, some things certainly know and especially I would
say Ubuntu are kind of set out so they're designed for touch screens.
However, Linux Mint is my daily driver and just looking at this, there is not a chance
I would like this squashed under 12 inch screen and use it with any level of accuracy.
Of course, you've got the other issue there as well in that you're going to probably have
to modify quite a bit, although Mobian probably does this for you, in that you think about
all your top menus and things.
Those are designed for most clicks, not finger presses, so that's something to think about,
but it's something I would love to try out, so £631.75 at time, that's from junocomputers.com,
as I said, links will be in the show notes.
So now, for the ballast indulgence to myself, I would love to get a fair phone, so the
current one is a fair phone 5 and this is available from fairphone.com and they actually do an
offering which has the e-operating system, which is one that they're describing as a custom
one that they've done for their own security and a sorry to ensure security and it's totally
dig-uggled, there is no Google services or apps on that all, so that one actually found
very interesting.
Now, if you don't know about the fair phone, it's something that I would love to, but the
problem is, my phones don't tend to last long, I work in a metal work room as my day-to-day
life, and nine times out of ten, my phones get hit against something, they fall on my pocket,
they hit against a metal floor, I hit them against the side of the centre, leth, and anvil,
something of that, so nine times out of ten, my phones don't actually go loose support,
instead, they actually are smashed, so I never buy anything much more than like the Moto e-phones,
it's just purely because I won't spend any more than £150, why are you asking?
Because I really have a phone more than six months, that's why, so at £500.99, this
okay if you're used to a Samsung Spine and a Samsung phone, that's cheap, however, not
for me, that would be the equivalent of a £1200 a year if I were to switch to the
fear phone, but it'd be one of those things that in an ideal world, I would love to get one.
Now this leads me on the last section I've got is donations, so I've worked this out, now I've
got four donations that I'm going to mention, so according to what I've got left with a calculator,
that is £89.83 each, I'm just going to split them evenly. Now the first one on my list would be
the master on instance that I'm using, master.me.uk, however, that is not going to be what I would
recommend, I would have definitely do, but I would say please consider supporting your master on
instance if you use it and if you're a regular user of it, because of course all these things need
money to run and very often they are a labour of love, so even if you're not expecting people to
be making millions of them, but you just at least want the person who's running the instance,
to actually be breaking even at the very least, if they make some money great, but if you happen,
I mean okay, this is obviously fake money I'm using here, but I would encourage everybody just
to go to that instance and just do something like putting a pound a month, I mean what is a
pound a month, you cannot get a cup of tea or coffee for a pound a month, not in the UK anyway,
you couldn't even get one for a pound, so I would highly recommend just doing that and even
just these micro payments, if more people did them and we encourage more people to do them,
people would be able to run these things without any loss, so that's great.
Now the next one on my list is the open rights group, now you have been aware of them for
quite a while, I haven't actually spoken to anybody actively knowing it from the open rights group,
until I actually got a chance to speak to them, I don't camp, and so that's they're a great
group in the UK, are we, but like the EFF in the US, these guys are UK based, they're lobbying
more for things to be open and encouraging, I think shouldn't be hidden behind the
the guys of proprietary and copyrighted software, so yeah I think they do good work.
Next one I'm going to go on to is archive.org, so yes they do require donations and they
are just now obviously at a bit of a low point because the pop-ups I would say, they're on the
site at the top of the site, I'm getting more regular, actually my bad ones from my browser
blog or pop-ups, but you can certainly even see them on that on the top of the website,
so they are obviously struggling and it's something that I use a lot, purely because
with Tuxjam, every one of our podcasts are on there, you're listening to HPR, HPR hosts and stuff
on a source of files on archive.org, so it's something that's well worth supporting.
And last but certainly not least, HPR hosting, the HPR is, the hosting is provided by an honest host,
however that is there, I'll link for you to click on on the donate area where it goes to
an honest host.com and it's actually specifically for the HPR hosting costs, so can I please
actively encourage everybody to actually go and support this. Now there, so that's my 2000,
that's me, spainted to the penny, but what would you spend your 2000 on?
So if you think that this is something that you could talk about, please do make a show and
also be in the scene to actually hear, especially for me, I'd be in the scene to hear what things
other people would support and we have donations, so I had what did I have there, three products and
four causes that I would donate to. Now remember, this isn't kind of, this is exclusively
technical to kind of keep adventures to hackers. I'm not saying this is what I would definitely go
and spend my last two grand on, no, of course not, but if I was given 2000 pound that had to be
specifically technical, this is what I would do. So this is Keri signing off and tune into model for
another episode of hacker public radio. You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio
at hackerpublicradio.org. Today's show was contributed by a HBR listener like yourself.
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and our sings.net. On the Sadois status, today's show is released under Creative Commons,
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