hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0216.txt

Episode: 216
Title: HPR0216: What's in your toolkit part 1
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0216/hpr0216.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 14:04:05

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Hi, this is 330 and you're listening to Hacker Public Radio.
A couple of probably several episodes ago, Dave Yates was talking about the kind of stuff he carries around with him all the time.
And he got me thinking that I tend to carry quite a bit of stuff myself.
I've got me a nice 30 backpack that I bought from Walmart.
It's probably made with a Chinese slave labor, but it's a fairly nice bag.
I carry constantly my Nokia N800, which I'm recording on right now, walking home from work.
My ASUS TRIPLE EPC 900 that I have running Ubuntu EEE, which is very nice.
The chargers for both of those devices, my Sprint Palm Centro and a data cable for that because I can charge it off the EEE.
Quite regularly, I have my 13-inch Compag V2000, which is running Go Ubuntu.
I've got a little wallet full of memory cards.
And to go with that, I've got several adapters that take like a mini SD and make it a full SD and a micro SD that makes it a mini and a micro SD that makes it a full SD.
Really, I can convert many different tiny card formats into several other tiny card formats.
A plethora of USB cables.
Let me look here.
I usually have a stick of deodorant with me because I'm a fat and sweaty dude.
I kind of like to keep myself nice and clean, at least smelling.
I guess I can't fix the cleanliness thing while I'm out and about.
I have a small pair of battery-powered speakers that plug into a headphone jack.
Let's see here.
Going through the pocket here.
Today I have the regular charger for my cell phone, the AC plug one.
I have a USB cable, the kind that you'd use for like a printer.
So you never know when you might need one of those.
Let's see here.
My Chinese knockoff of the iPod Nano before it went fat.
It's nice.
I have a Plantronics adapter that takes a regular analog headset and makes it a USB headset.
Never know when that might come in handy.
The charger for my Plantronics Bluetooth headset.
The adapter that removes the ground plug from a typical standard American AC plug.
Just in case I need to charge something in an extremely old building.
A Logitech travel mouse that has the little USB dongle that attaches to the bottom side of it.
The dongle which has popped out.
A 4-port USB hub.
And the last thing is a USB extension cable.
I do have one more thing in here.
It's a broken charger.
One of my dogs chewed the cable to it.
It has a green indicator light to know that it's working.
This thing comes in handy all the time.
You always want to know if the reason why your whatever device it is isn't charging.
It's because the device is somehow borked or is the plug dead.
It's a lot easier to just go ahead and check the plug.
You're not going to be desoddering pieces just out of restaurant or something.
Unless you're really super hardcore.
But this is also good for just kind of without drawing too much attention checking to see if
like the outside plugs on a building are hot or not.
Because you know, computing in the vast urban environments of the earth can be quite fun sometimes.
Yeah, that's just the thing that's about all I've got in my bag,
except I still have my pass from OLF 2008 just because I forgot to take it out of there.
While I was OLF, I had everything that I've discussed here.
Plus about 11 t-shirts, various other swag, about 30 or 40 stickers in there,
and just that kind of stuff.
Dave, you're not the only one I carry a lot of crap too.
This has been Hacker Public Radio and I am 330.
Thank you for listening to Hacker Public Radio.
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Thank you very much.